vacationship
n.— «A newly coined portmanteau for a relationship formed during, and usually ended immediately after, a vacation, e.g., “Paris was amazing. A harmless little frisson over a croissant turned into a full-blown vacationship.”» —“The Words on the Street” by Horacio Silva New York Times Dec. 7, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Old. Elderly. Senior. Why are we so uncomfortable when we talk about reaching a certain point in life? An 82-year-old seeks a more positive term to describe how she feels about her age. And: a linguist helps solve a famous kidnapping case, using the...
Understanding the varieties of conversational styles can mean the difference between feeling you’re understood and being insulted. “High-involvement” speakers interrupt or talk along with someone else to signal their enthusiasm...
I am so excited to find that “vacationship” has finally caught on! I actually made up this word several years ago when trying to explain to my friends how I always developed intimate relationships while traveling on vacation, which I thought was because I was so much more relaxed and more myself. I called them “vacationships” because they were prolonged and meaningful and typically followed by an effort to maintain after the vacation by both parties, but eventually failed due to long distance. This word was to distinguish from a fling or meaningless hookup. I have told many that I considered myself the “queen of vacationships” and then had to teach them my word.
I just made it up because of the similar sound between “relation” and “vacation”, two concepts which many young women like myself have probably intertwined at some time in their lives.