stigmergy
n.— «His hypothesis of “stigmergy” is that building behavior is at first uncoordinated…when the construction at any one point reaches a certain critical density it attracts other termites topochemically. These focuses of the building material determine where the new pellets of earth used in the building are to be deposited. The constructions built thus act as new determinant stimuli for further construction.» —“Urinary Metabolites in Congenital Hyperuricosuria” by M. Earl Balis, Irwin H. Krakoff, Peter H. Berman, Joseph Dancis Science May 26, 1967. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In Cockney rhyming slang, apples and pears is a synonym for “stairs,” and dustbin lids means kids. Plus, sniglets are clever coinages for things we don’t already have words for. Any guesses what incogsneeto means? It’s the...
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...