A suggestion I loved -- and never mind whether it's apt -- was unencryptid, which came from Lydia Hurley, of Marblehead. She explained, "It's a portmanteau of unencrypted (decoded) and cryptid (something that has been claimed to exist but whose existence has not been proved)." The word cryptid was a new one on me, and it sent me straight to Wikipedia, where I read: "Cryptids are animals that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild.... Cryptozoologists focus on entities mentioned in the folklore record and rumor. Entities that may be considered cryptids by cryptozoologists include Bigfoot, Yeti, the chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Mokele-mbembe."

Eric Wages, of Wakefield, brought up another mythical animal, Schrödinger's cat. "Just as Schrödinger's cat in a box was simultaneously in two states (alive and dead)," he reasoned, "the searched-for object was also in two states (in the original spot and missing from the original spot)." Thus Eric proposed Schrödinger search.

Tim Hurley, of Marblehead, came up with Oughtosee. "Searching in frustration for an all-important missing item can certainly feel like Odysseus's 10-year journey. And the person looking for the missing item really ought to have seen it in the first place."

Rod Kessler, of Salem, wrote: "Found the lost item where you've already looked? That's déjà-viewed" -- a coinage also submitted by Ed Orzechowski, of Florence, Mass.

John Haneffant, of Boston, reported: "I have this problem frequently. It seems a blind spot eventually yields the searched item. I therefore suggest find spot." Michael Bohnen, of Newton, came up with findsight. And Tania Deary, of Lenox, offered finders jeepers -- a mashup of finders keepers and jeepers creepers, "as in 'Jeepers creepers, I've looked there already!'"

Mark Sheldon, of Burlington, explained how he makes lemonade out of the lemon of searching. "I live in a multilevel house with four flights of stairs," he wrote. "When I start going up and down the stairs looking for a lost item, I turn on the workout mode on my Apple Watch. If I were to name this workout, it would be findercise."

Lynn Rosenbaum, of Arlington, declared: "When you look round and round for a lost item and end up finding it back where you started, you have taken a ride on the merry-go-found!" Using much the same reasoning, Jean Whooley, of Dorchester, came up with merry-go-find.

James Sherley, of Boston, reported: "I often miscover articles that I read in the paper a couple of days earlier when I'm trying to share them with my wife." He added: "I expect many readers will suggest a derivative of snake-bit, from the common exclamation 'If it had been a snake, it would have bitten me!'"

Well, one reader did make such a suggestion. Callum Borchers, of Framingham, invoked that expression to explain why "the term for being unable to find an object hiding in plain sight should be snakeblind."

And John Michaels, of Peabody, for a similar reason ("You don't see the object until it bites you") submitted no-see-um. He also proposed overandoverlook.

All right -- that one does it for me. Super simple, super apt. I'm awarding John bragging rights for overandoverlook. Well done, John!

Now Marc L. Cooper, of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Westport, writes: "I recently met one of your frequent contributors, Harry Eisenberg, at a dinner party in Chestnut Hill, and he noted that we have a connection via your column. The following week at another dinner party, I learned that the son of the woman sitting next to me (whom I have known for a while) and my daughter were good friends in high school. What is a word for the serendipitous discovery that you have a previously unknown connection to someone?" (Which leads me to separately wonder: What would be a word for someone who gets invited to dinner parties every week?)

Send your ideas for Marc's word to me at [email protected] by noon on Friday, Jan. 10, and kindly tell me where you live. Responses may be edited. And please keep in mind that meanings in search of words are always welcome.