WORD ARCHIVE
ARGH
ARGH is an expression of frustration, exasperation, or mild despair
What ARGH does
ARGH is the sound of a plan going wrong — a word that captures the precise feeling of something avoidable that was not avoided. It is theatrical in the mouth.
ARGH as literary candidate
ARGH has sound-symbolic qualities that make it effective in print: the open vowel of the A, the rolling R, the guttural GH. As a literary word, it performs its meaning phonetically.