Expergefactor. It sounds like a combination of a televised talent show and the Doctor Who version of The Weakest Link where the losers get purged from the game by a deadly laser beam.

By the way… we would totally watch that show.

It would also be an awesome name for a super villain: a sinister being of immense power! Don’t get on his bad side, or he will cause you to vomit uncontrollably, thus purging you of any willpower to stop him!

Sadly, expergefactors are not nearly as entertaining. If you aren’t a morning person, however, they may be even more terrifying.

What is an Expergefactor?

An expergefactor is anything that wakes you up. It may be as mundane as you bedside alarm clock or as elaborate as a weaver’s larum. It can also be one you don’t plan — such as the neighbor kid who insists on driving to school with the bass cranked up on his car stereo. It may be something you look forward to, such as coffee, or it could be something more nefarious, such as a cat that demands immediate feeding.

Expergefaction comes from the Latin expergisci, meaning “to become awake.” For those of us who equate waking up with cruel and unusual punishment, it is the daily reminder that blissful unconsciousness is over. That groggy struggle to leave your bed? Yep, that’s it. If you’re woken up from a delightful dream or before the crack of noon, it’s even worse.

Interestingly, the word doesn’t just apply to physical waking. It can also mean an epiphany or a grand “aha!” moment. Think of religious revivals or scientific breakthroughs—they can all be described by using the same word.

If the alarm clock are the villain in your story, you can blame it for the word’s first appearance. Mechanic’s Magazine, in 1823 claimed that honor when it extolled the virtues of “the newly invented Hydraulic Expergefactor [that] rings a bell at the time when a person wishes to rise.”

We probably would have changed that to say that it rings a bell at the time when a person “is forced against all common decency” to rise, but that’s just us.

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