Obscure Synonyms

Hermetics is a already synonym for alchemy and magic. While it's not an everyday word, anyone looking up "hermetic" in the dictionary will see the alternate definition.

Replace the word with the synonym consistently, and readers will accept it as a worldbuilding substitution that covers the same territory. Don't use the more familiar word ever, or the substitute word suddenly becomes a subset of a broader (unexplained) system.

Hermetic isn't an umbrella term like Magic. As a synonym, it has a narrower definition, in this case a specific culture and time related to Hermes Trismegistus. Most readers, even if they know the word, won't have such a specific definition, but will associate it with medieval Europe and alchemy – your magic system should be congruent with this narrower definition.

A thesaurus offers a list synonyms, each with a different slant.

Euphemisms and compound words

Another way to imply the thing without using the familiar term is to create a euphemism or compound word that suggests the concept through known words: hextongued, wishbound, transmutative science.

This can feel a little heavy-handed since it's a potential pile-up of loaded terms. A skinwalker evokes something more portentous and spiritual than an everyday shapeshifter. A mechanical man evokes a retro-age robot. These things aren't quite the same, and they can seem unnatural in dialog for being too on the nose in their description.

Real language has many words that came into use by combining adjective-noun, but are so familiar that we don't see it. Hedgehogs and a porcupines are both spikey pigs, but a critter named a "spikepig" is too obvious. Firedog is similar, except the dog refers to its shape (low, standing on legs). These words are so familiar we don't see their compound parts, but readers may not be able to unsee that you've stitched descriptive words together.

At the extreme, Star Trek Voyager had a reputation for obfuscating technobabble constructed from long compound words fired rapidly during a crisis. These terms were treated as disposable and were used because they sounded science-y, but had no actual meaning when combined (keyword: babble).

Portmanteau and near-words

Single words that sound close to the actual thing may work so well that people forget they are associated with a specific franchise. Star Trek's phasers are close enough to real world lasers to go unexplained. R2D2 is a droid but not an android (he's not human-shaped). These words are very close to the familiar, and used in such similar context we have no problem grasping their meaning the first time they are used – no explanation necessary.

In fact most fans do not realize the problem "droid" solves by lumping androids like C3PO and all the rollerbots together under 1 umbrella.

Vague (mysterious) words

A vague word can avoid preconceptions, making the thing mysterious and unique to your universe. Where the mundane word is too familiar, a seemingly unrelated word can wipe the slate.

Stephen King's The Shining would not have the same unsettling effect if it was called The E.S.P. or Drinking with Ghosts. These substitutions are too on-the-nose for something that is meant to be unexplainable. The 5yr old protagonist has never met anyone else who can do what he does, and it's disturbing and strange within the story, so when he meets another person who can do it, the older man gives him an explanation intended to put his ability in a happy context:

"You shine on boy, harder than anyone I ever met in my life. […]. You got a knack. […] Me I've always called it shining. That's what my grandmother called it, too. She had it. We used to sit in the kitchen when I was a boy and have long talks without even opening our mouths"

This "exposition" however is not the whole story. This is a description provided by a character, and it doesn't explain it so much as normalize it. He describes it as he understands, but this doesn't explain to the reader how it works. He basically tells the boy "thing exists and special people have it, so you are special." That's actually all the reader needs to understand. King isn't concerned that the reader knows how shining works because the more narrowly it is defined, the less mysterious it becomes.

But "shining" isn't a completely arbitrary word, it hints to the reader an association the characters don't realize yet: the boy is visible and fascinating to malevolent spirits. He "shines" more than anyone else. In this context shining is extremely on-the-nose, but the spirit's motives are so confusing this blatant meaning isn't telegraphed to the reader.

Leaving it unnamed

In the Katherine Bigalow film Near Dark, none of the characters know the word "vampire", even though it follows the usual vampire mythos, strengths and weaknesses. One character asks what they've become, and the answer is "We don't know". By refusing to label it, the story resets the possibilities on the too familiar.

It was an early "sympathetic vampire" story, so rather than carry all the baggage and tropes of all vampire stories ever, it told a smaller story about a few people adapting to strange circumstances and strange bedfellows. It gave an old idea a new slant.

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