PragmaphiliaLabs

Apps

The Word Salad Surgery icon: letter tiles in a glass bowl, with a scalpel

On the App Store

Word Salad Surgery

Fresh nonsense words stitched together from donated parts, every so often.

by Pragmaphilia Labs, Slack Division · Free · iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Download on the App Store iPhone. The Mac version is coming soon.

Every so often (about once an hour, unless you say otherwise), Word Salad Surgery stitches together a fresh, pronounceable, completely made-up word from donated parts, and Apple Intelligence, working on your own device, writes it up as a dictionary entry:

Gingerwhomp (n.): the satisfying thud of a gingerbread house’s roof caving in.

No two days alike, no lasting harm done, and no anesthetic required.

What you get

  • Notifications: each word arrives quietly, with no sound, and old ones are tidied away.
  • Widgets on iPhone and iPad: the Word of the Hour on your Home Screen and Lock Screen.
  • The Mac’s menu bar: the latest word and its definition, a click away.
  • The app itself: Pragmaphilia’s Dictionary, with the latest word on top and the words so far below, to copy and share.
  • Tell a Story: a short story, written on your device, that uses your word just as it’s defined.
  • Settings for how often words come, a part of speech, and an optional theme (“a rainy Monday”), plus Pause Words for when you need to concentrate.

Coming in a future update: send the lab your favorite words and stories. Our staff will pick favorites, and the winners get free goodies from the lab.

  • The iPhone app's main screen: Pragmaphilia's Dictionary, with today's word, Crumblebarf, and its definition at the top, starred as a favorite, and a list of the day's earlier words below it.
  • The Word Salad Surgery widget on an iPhone Home Screen: a gear for the word Radlethrump, a noun, and its definition, a twisting, creaky muddle of gears, best murmured in dim corridors.
  • The Word Salad Surgery window on the Mac: the dictionary's title at the top, the latest word and its definition, a list of the words so far with stars on the favorites, and a toolbar at the top right.
  • The same window with a short story popped up over it, written around the word, with Copy, Share, Another Story, and Done buttons along the bottom.
  • The About box: the app's icon, its name and version, two lines about what it does, the credits, and a link to pragmaphilia.com.

What it runs on

  • iPhone and iPad with iOS or iPadOS 26 or later.
  • Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 26 or later.
  • Definitions need Apple Intelligence, on a device that supports it, turned on. Without it, the words still come, just without definitions.

Privacy

Collects no user information: words are created within your own device. See our privacy policy.

Support

Questions, or a word that misbehaved? See Support for answers and how to reach us.

Credits

by Pragmaphilia Labs, Slack Division

John Mifsud
Chief Pragmatist & Electron Choreographer
Tamamo
Designer
Miss Sakamoto
Lab Director