August 1999, dictionary.com

triskaidekaphobia \tris-ky-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh\, noun:
A morbid fear of the number 13 or the date Friday the 13th.

Thirteen people, pledged to eliminate triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13, today tried to reassure American sufferers by renting a 13 ft plot of land in Brooklyn for 13 cents . . . a month.
-- Daily Telegraph, January 14, 1967

Past disasters linked to the number 13 hardly help triskaidekaphobics overcome their affliction. The most famous is the Apollo 13 mission, launched on April 11, 1970 (the sum of 4, 11 and 70 equals 85 - which when added together comes to 13), from Pad 39 (three times 13) at 13:13 local time, and struck by an explosion on April 13.
-- "It's just bad luck that the 13th is so often a Friday", Electronic Telegraph, September 8, 1996

Triskaidekaphobia is from Greek treiskaideka, triskaideka, thirteen (treis, three + kai, and + deka, ten) + phobos, fear.

In Christian countries the number 13 was considered unlucky because there were 13 persons at the Last Supper of Christ. Fridays are also unlucky, because the Crucifixion was on a Friday. Hence a Friday falling on the thirteenth day is regarded as especially unlucky.

encumbrance \en-KUHM-brun(t)s\, noun:
1. A burden, impediment, or hindrance.
2. A lien, mortgage, or other financial claim against a property.

As Prince of Wales, George V had himself taken his wife on several foreign or imperial tours, without the encumbrance of their young children.
-- Ben Pimlott, The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II

He . . . will have to overcome the encumbrance of space gloves to reattach electrical cables and install a hatch.
-- "Mir Cosmonaut's Heart Ills Cast Doubt on Repair Effort", New York Times, July 15, 1997

Liberated from the encumbrances of Washington, the editor and his creation were free to embark on the happiest period of their history.
-- Edward L. Widmer, Young America

But she knew that each family needed a son to inherit the property and encumbrances and to carry on the name for at least one more generation.
-- Annabel Davis-Goff, The Dower House

Encumbrance is from Old French encombrance, from encombrer, "to block up," from en-, "in" (here used intensively) + combre, "dam, weir, hence hindrance."

puerile \PYOO-uhr-uhl; PYOOR-uhl\, adjective:
Displaying or suggesting a lack of maturity; juvenile; childish.

And, in one of the most puerile episodes of his adult career, he punishes his old schoolmates for being rich and vulgar by breaking into their houses to soak the labels off their boasted wine collections.
-- Thomas R. Edwards, "Mordecai Richler Then and Now", New York Times, June 22, 1980

Political argument is becoming a puerile cartoon about the moral . . . doing battle with the immoral.
-- George F. Will, "The Costs of Moral Exhibitionism", Washington Post, April 15, 2001

Puerile comes from Latin puerilis, from puer, "child, boy."

eleemosynary \el-uh-MOS-uh-ner-ee\, adjective:
1. Of or for charity; charitable; as, "an eleemosynary institution."
2. Given in charity; having the nature of alms; as, "eleemosynary assistance."
3. Supported by or dependent on charity; as, "the eleemosynary poor."

We also need to revive the great eleemosynary institutions through which compassionate people serve those in need with both greater flexibility and discipline than government agencies are capable.
-- Clifford F. Thies, "Bring back the bridewell", The World & I, September 1, 1995

An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who keeps a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money.
-- Henry Fielding, Tom Jones

Like Hilda's "eleemosynary doves," these birds depend upon the Author's charity, require mothering, just as Hilda finds solace in the Virgin--"a child, lifting its tear-stained face to seek comfort from a Mother."
-- John Dolis, "Domesticating Hawthorne: Home Is for the Birds", Criticism, Winter 2001

The source of eleemosynary is Medieval Latin eleemosynarius, from Late Latin eleemosyna, "alms," from Greek eleemosyne, from eleemon, "pitiful," from eleos, "pity."

dour \DOO-uhr; DOW-uhr\, adjective:
1. Harsh; stern.
2. Unyielding; inflexible; obstinate.
3. Marked by ill humor; gloomy; sullen.

John James Ruskin's dinner table was far too lively for the dour John La Touche.
-- Tim Hilton, John Ruskin: The Later Years

Father Greeley, who had been studying Church leaders for years, said it was the first time he had ever seen the dour Cardinal Jean Villot, head of the Vatican bureaucracy, laugh.
-- Jonathan Kwitny, Man of the Century

We don't want people to come out with a dour face, he said. "It is going to be fun with a capital F."
-- Richard Moe and Carter Wilkie, Changing Places

Dour probably comes from Latin durus, "hard, stern, severe."

august 1999, dictionary.com

valetudinarian \val-uh-too-din-AIR-ee-un; -tyoo-\, noun:
1. A weak or sickly person, especially one morbidly concerned with his or her health.

adjective:
1. Sickly; weak; infirm.
2. Morbidly concerned with one's health.

He is the querulous bedridden valetudinarian complaining of his asthma or his hay fever, remarking with characteristic hyperbole that "every speck of dust suffocates me."
-- Oliver Conant, review of Marcel Proust, Selected Letters: Volume Two 1904-1909, edited by Philip Kolb, translated by Terrence Kilmartin, New York Times, December 17, 1989

All this from a wasted valetudinarian, who . . . once referred to "this long convalescence which is my life."
-- Michael Dirda, "Devil or Angel", Washington Post, March 31, 1996

Other than the Holy Scripture, he cared for no book as well as the book of decay, its truths written in the furrows scored on the brows of old men and women; in the sagging timbers of decrepit barns; in the lichenous masonry of derelict buildings; in the mangy fur of a valetudinarian lion.
-- Simon Schama, Rembrandt's Eyes

Valetudinarian derives from Latin valetudinarius, "sickly; an invalid," from valetudo, "state of health (good or ill)," from valere, "to be strong or well."

impecunious \im-pih-KYOO-nee-uhs\, adjective:
Not having money; habitually without money; poor.

Her father, Bronson, was a respected but impecunious New England transcendentalist who had 'no gift for money making', according to [Louisa May] Alcott's journal.'
-- "Blood and Thunder in Concord", New York Times, September 10, 1995

He had gotten to know Garibaldi during the impecunious soldier's last years and would send him woolen socks, underwear, and money.
-- Tag Gallagher, The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini

It may be urged that an impecunious defendant would be unable to bear the expense of an appeal and would have to let it go by default.
-- Charles C. Nott Jr., "Coddling the Criminal", The Atlantic, February 1911

Impecunious is derived from Latin im-, in-, "not" + pecuniosus, "rich," from pecunia, "property in cattle, hence money," from pecu, "livestock."

torpid \TOR-pid\, adjective:
1. Having lost motion or the power of exertion and feeling; numb; benumbed.
2. Dormant; hibernating or estivating.
3. Dull; sluggish; apathetic.

Canary Islanders are citizens of Spain, but geography asserts itself from time to time, as a reminder that this land will always be Africa's: the trade winds get interrupted by strong gusts from the east that bring hot dust and sometimes even torpid, wind-buffeted locusts.
-- Barbara Kingsolver, "Where the Map Stopped", New York Times, May 17, 1992

For more than twenty years--all my adult life--I have lived here: my great weight sunk, torpid in the heat, into this sagged chair on my rooftop patio.
-- Peggy Payne, Sister India

Some animals became torpid in winter, others were torpid in summer.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life

The debacle over signatures has roused the normally politically torpid Mayor, who dislikes pressing the flesh.
-- Jan Cienski, "Petition bungle robs Mayor of spot on ballot", National Post, July 30, 2002

It is a man's own fault . . . if his mind grows torpid in old age.
-- Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, Life of Samuel Johnson

Torpid comes from Latin torpidus, "numb, sluggish," from torpere, "to be sluggish, inert, or numb."

grok \GRAWK\, transitive verb slang:
To understand, especially in a profound and intimate way. Slang.

If you want to grok the language, get your mitts on the new Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang."
-- San Jose Mercury News, July 22, 1994

For those who don't quite grok the Web, it can be an intimidating challenge.
-- New York Times, June 1, 1997

The slang word grok was coined by Robert A. Heinlein in the science fiction novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", where it is a Martian word meaning literally "to drink" and metaphorically "to be one with". It was adopted into the vocabulary of 1960's youth and hackish jargon, whence it has become a part of net culture.

comestible \kuh-MES-tuh-buhl\, adjective:
1. Suitable to be eaten; edible.

noun:
1. Something suitable to be eaten; food.

I came to Adria's lab expecting subtle combinations and rare ingredients, the real outer limit of the comestible.
-- Adrian Searle, "Spray-on sauces, caviar for astronauts and aerosols of wine. . .", The Guardian, April 6, 2001

No matter how many flip-flops the nutrition gurus may make in deciding whether a particular comestible will kill or cure, most Americans seem to trust their instincts and eat what they please.
-- Richard Martin, "Dollars to doughnuts", Nation's Restaurant News, May 29, 2000

This rare comestible calls for specially designed platters, holders, and forks, but how well worth their acquisition!
-- Samuel Chamberlain, Clémentine in the Kitchen

Both men are descended from the fourth Earl of Sandwich, who is credited with inventing the namesake comestible in the mid-l8th century.
-- Amanda Mosle Friedman, "Noble heir to sandwich inventor starts namesake delivery outfit", Nation's Restaurant News, April 23, 2001

Comestible comes from Late Latin comestibilis, from comestus, from comesus, past participle of comedere, "to eat up, to consume," from com-, intensive prefix + edere, "to eat."

sobriquet \SO-brih-kay; -ket; so-brih-KAY; -KET\, noun:
A nickname; an assumed name; an epithet.

In addition to his notorious amours, he became distinguished for a turbulent naval career, particularly for the storms he weathered, thus bringing him the sobriquet "Foulweather Jack".
-- Phyllis Grosskurth, Byron: The Flawed Angel

At a small reception on the occasion of my twenty-fifth anniversary in this position, my good friend Izzy Landes raised a glass and dubbed me the Curator of the Curators, a sobriquet I have worn with pride ever since.
-- Alfred Alcorn, Murder in the Museum of Man

There was an omnivorous intellect that won him the family sobriquet of Walking Encyclopedia.
-- Eric Liu, The Accidental Asian

Sobriquet is from the French, from Old French soubriquet, "a chuck under the chin, hence, an affront, a nickname."

numismatics \noo-miz-MAT-iks; -mis-; nyoo-\, noun:
the collection and study of money (and coins in particular).

If [the modern counterfeiter] is satisfied with a so-so product, perhaps hoping to pass it in a crowded fast-food restaurant or in a saloon's dim light, he can download images of genuine bills from the Internet, simply by getting access to the Web site of a numismatics club, then run off his own bills.
-- "Officials Wary of Wave of Computer Counterfeiters", New York Times, March 12, 1998

Numismatics...is, in the main, an auxiliary to the knowledge of the trade and mutual intercourse of the ancients.
-- J. Leitch

Numismatics ultimately derives from the Greek nomos, a custom or convention, which has the derivative nomisma, anything sanctioned by custom, especially the current State coin. It can also refer to the study and collection of medals.

genial \JEEN-yuhl; JEE-nee-uhl\, adjective:
1. [Obsolete] Pertaining to generation or marriage.
2. Friendly, warm; kindly; sympathetically cheerful and cheering.
3. Mild, pleasant; comfortable; favorable to life or growth.

The day before the operation, despite his paralysis, he had been his usual genial self, laughing and joking.
-- Ruth Brandon, Surreal Lives

Though the tattoo is rather forbidding, belying Giambi's genial nature, his teammates are all in favor of it.
-- "Body Art Inspires Giambi in Art of Hitting", San Francisco Chronicle, July 27, 1999

With its soothing pace and genial feel, Donegal . . . always has served as a convenient respite and outdoor playground for the Republic and much of Europe.
-- "Tourists look past 'troubles'", Chicago Sun-Times, February 22, 1998

She, like he, like all beings in this happy valley with its genial clime, goes always naked, stark staring, as someone's said, wearing nothing daylong but the shells and beads braided into her black hair.
-- Robert Coover, Ghost Town

Genial comes from Latin genialis, "relating to enjoyment; joyful," from genius, "guardian spirit; spirit of enjoyment."

raucous \RAWK-uhs\, adjective:
1. Unpleasantly loud and harsh; strident.
2. Disturbing the public peace; loud and rough.

Where yon wedged line the Nestor leads, Steering north with raucous cry.
-- "Poems", Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our culture may be degraded by the instant availability in new media of the raucous, the vulgar and the sensationalist.
-- "The Prize and the Price: The Social, Political and Cultural Consequences of the Digital Age", The New Statesman Media Lecture, July 6, 1999

Bill Haley may have made the first massive rock hit, and people such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard may have had an equally important creative impact on this raucous new American art form. But it was Elvis who defined the style and gave it an indelible image.
-- "Presley Gave Rock Its Style", New York Times, August 17, 1977

Shaking hands on the street in Newport, population 6,500, he drew raucous laughter from one group of women. What had he said that was so funny? I told him he had a great tan," one of them said. "And he said, 'You do, too."'
-- "Gore's N.H. canoe trip becomes political misadventure", San Jose Mercury News, July 23, 1999

Raucous comes from the Latin raucus, meaning hoarse; harsh sounding.

insouciant \in-SOO-see-uhnt\, adjective:
Marked by lighthearted unconcern or indifference; carefree; nonchalant.

The insouciant gingerbread man skips through the pages with glee, until he meets his . . . demise at the end.
-- Judith Constantinides, "The Gingerbread Man", School Library Journal, April 2002

They don't seem to care whether they become stars or not, and their irony . . . has a scoffing, insouciant feel.
-- Thomas Frank, "Pop music in the shadow of irony", Harper's Magazine, March 1998

The British right is not so rich in ideas and projects that it can afford to be insouciant about a new one.
-- John Lloyd, "The Anglosphere Project", New Statesman, March 13, 2000

Insouciant is from the French, from in-, "not" + souciant, "caring," present participle of soucier, "to trouble," from Latin sollicitare, "to disturb," from sollicitus, "anxious." The noun form is insouciance.

salubrious \suh-LOO-bree-us\, adjective:
Favorable to health; promoting health; healthful.

A physician warned him his health was precarious, so Montague returned to the United States, shelved his legal ambitions and searched for a salubrious climate where he might try farming.
-- "Teeing Off Into the Past At Oakhurst", New York Times, May 2, 1999

For years, her mother has maintained that the sea air has a salubrious effect on both her spirits and her vocal cords.
-- Anita Shreve, Fortune's Rocks

Uptown, however, the tanners' less salubrious quarter is notorious for its stench.
-- "Byzantium", Toronto Star, February 7, 1999

Salubrious is from Latin salubris, "healthful," from salus, "health."

jovial \JOH-vee-uhl\, adjective:
Merry; joyous; jolly; characterized by mirth or jollity.

One pupil of the sixteen-year-old Custer remembered him as "socially inclined," jovial, and full of life.
-- Louise Barnett, Touched by Fire

The Puritans took a dim view of the jovial, amiable cleric who liked to have a pot of ale at one of Purleigh's pubs.
-- Willard Sterne Randall, George Washington: A Life

He smiled, joked and at times seemed downright jovial.
-- "Piazza Booed Again (Till He Homers)", New York Times, August 22, 1998

Jovial ultimately derives from the Latin jovialis, "of or pertaining to Jupiter." (The planet Jupiter was thought to make those born under it joyful or jovial.)

desideratum \dih-sid-uh-RAY-tum; -RAH-\, noun;
plural desiderata:
Something desired or considered necessary.

No one in Berkeley -- at least, no one I consorted with -- thought art was for sissies, or that a pensionable job was the highest desideratum.
-- John Banville, "Just a dream some of us had", Irish Times, August 24, 1998

Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the eye, or tempt the taste. Here, appetite, not food, is the great desideratum.
-- Frederick Douglass, My Bondage, My Freedom

A technical dictionary . . . is one of the desiderata in anatomy.
-- Alexander Monro, Essay on Comparative Anatomy

Desideratum is from Latin desideratum, "a thing desired," from desiderare, "to desire."

ersatz \AIR-sahts; UR-sats\, adjective:
Being a substitute or imitation, usually an inferior one.

Meanwhile, a poor copy was erected in the courtyard; many an unsuspecting traveler paid homage to that ersatz masterpiece.
-- Edith Pearlman, "Girl and Marble Boy", The Atlantic, December 29, 1999

All we can create in that way is an ersatz culture, the synthetic product of those factories we call variously universities, colleges or museums.
-- Sir Herbert Read, The Philosophy of Modern Art

Then there was the sheaf of hostile letters larded with ersatz sympathy, strained sarcasm or pure spite.
-- "Time for GAA to become a persuader", Irish Times, April 13, 1998

Ersatz derives from German Ersatz, "a substitute."

dictionary.com, july 2007

gnomic \NOH-mik\, adjective:
Uttering, containing, or characterized by maxims; wise and pithy.

A long pause, during which the group reflects on this gnomic pronouncement.
-- Ruth Shalit, "Send in the clowns", Salon, June 21, 2000

They consisted of strange, short, sometimes witty, sometimes gnomic, often semiautobiographical essays about architecture.
-- Geoff Nicholson, Female Ruins

But the young man's gnomic utterances -- that life is "a journey" and "a big circle" -- might reflect not Buddhist-tinged wisdom so much as the fact that he has been skating around in circles for years.
-- Gary Kamiya, "Flight of the wonder boy", Salon, February 14, 2002

Gnomic derives from Greek gnomikos, from gnome, "intelligence, hence an expressed example of intelligence," from gignoskein, "to know."

comity \KOM-uh-tee\, noun:
1. A state of mutual harmony, friendship, and respect, especially between or among nations or people; civility.
2. The courteous recognition by one nation of the laws and institutions of another.
3. The group of nations observing international comity.

In Athens last week, E.U. leaders offered a picture of comity as they formally signed accession treaties with 10 new members.
-- James Graff, "Can France Put a Cork In It?", Time Europe, April 28, 2003

Despite the image of civil-military comity during World War II, there were many differences between Franklin Roosevelt and his military advisers.
-- Mackubin Thomas Owens, "Sniping", National Review, April 2, 2003

Short-term initiatives in 1919 became longer-term strategies for bringing the two pariahs, Germany and Russia, into the comity of nations.
-- Kenneth O. Morgan, "Lloyd George and the Lost Peace: from Versailles to Hitler, 1919-1940", English Historical Review, June 2002

Everyone hopes that Saddam Hussein will honour his agreement with Kofi Annan and that Iraq will be received back into the comity of nations.
-- Marrack Goulding, "A wider role for the UN", New Statesman, March 13, 1998

Comity is from Latin comitas, from comis, "courteous."

tyro \TY-roh\, noun:
A beginner in learning; a novice.

It's difficult to imagine a tyro publishing a book on medical procedures or economic theory.
-- Philip Zaleski, "God Help the Spiritual Writer", New York Times, January 10, 1999

He was a sensitive, fine soul alert to the pleasures of being green, a tyro, an amateur, unwilling to close his mind before it had been tempted.
-- Paul West, Sporting With Amaryllis

And, though we were mere tyros, beginners, utterly insignificant, he was invariably as kind and considerate and thoughtful, and as lavish in the gift of his time, as though he had nothing else to do.
-- Leonard Warren, Joseph Leidy: The Last Man Who Knew Everything

Tyro is from Latin tiro, "a young soldier, a recruit," hence "a beginner, a learner."

eke \EEK\, transitive verb:
1. To gain or supplement with great effort or difficulty -- used with 'out'.
2. To increase or make last by being economical -- used with 'out'.

When the PRI unites around a candidate and the two opposition parties divide the rest of the vote, the ruling party can usually eke out a victory.
-- Mary Beth Sheridan, "PRI Wins Mexico State Governor's Race, but Loses Smaller Stronghold", Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1999

Inevitably, the prodigious footnotes get in the way of what is, basically, a simple parable. Like the wide margins the publishers use to eke out a skimpy text, they make the novel seem bigger than it is.
-- James MacBride, "What Did Myra Want?", New York Times, February 18, 1968

Although life was hard it was not unendurable, and the rugged and resourceful villagers eked out a living on the thin crust of the soil.
-- Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins, "Kahlil Gibran: Man and Poet"

But the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies managed to eke out a gain, rising 0.04 points, to 456.55.
-- Kenneth N. Gilpin, "Tuesday's Stocks: Selloff Leaves Stocks Slightly Lower", New York Times, July 7, 1999

Eke is from Old English ecan, "to increase."

tittle-tattle \TIT-uhl TAT-uhl\, noun:
1. Idle, trifling talk; empty prattle.
2. An idle, trifling talker; a gossip.

verb:
1. to talk idly; to prate.

The literary tittle-tattle of the age.
-- Edinburgh Review, 1820

It is better even to have a useless hobby than to be a tittle-tattler and a busybody.
-- Samuel Smiles, Life and Labour

The stir aroused by this latest piece of tittle-tattle quickly faded away, as if congealed under the icy wind of endless nights.
-- Andrei Makine, Once Upon the River Love [Translated by Geoffrey Strachan]

Take care on your part, Friar Ange,' replied the philosopher, 'and as you're afraid of the devil, don't offend him too much and do not excite him against you by inconsiderate tittle-tattle.
-- Anatole France, The Romance of the Queen Pédauque

Tittle-tattle is a varied reduplication of tattle, which derives from Medieval Dutch tatelen, to babble.

bellwether \BEL-weth-uhr\, noun:
A leader of a movement or activity; also, a leading indicator of future trends.

Raised to believe they were among their generation's best and brightest, my class can be seen as a bellwether for a generation caught without a compass on the cutting edge of uncharted territory.
-- Elizabeth Fishel, Reunion: The Girls We Used to Be, the Women We Became

Before that election, Maine's proud citizens had fancied their state to be a sort of bellwether, a notion embodied in the saying "As Maine goes, so goes the nation."
-- Robert Shogan, The Fate of the Union

Bellwether is a compound of bell and wether, "a male sheep, usually castrated"; from the practice of hanging a bell from the neck of the leader of the flock.

Dictionary.com, july 1999

sublunary \suhb-LOO-nuh-ree\, adjective:
Situated beneath the moon; hence, of or pertaining to this world; terrestrial; earthly.

In Shakespearean drama, both tragic and comic, the storms and calamities that shake the sublunary globe are reflections of turmoil in the hearts of men.
-- Pico Iyer, "The Philippines Midsummer Night's Dream", Time, July 21, 1986

It's hard to deny that finding oneself in an airless wooden box six feet underground, listening to the wriggling approach of what Poe called "Conqueror Worm," would be one of the worst possible ways to end one's existence in this sublunary sphere.
-- Gary Kamiya, "Buried alive!", Salon, March 7, 2001

May the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation.
-- Samuel Johnson, Preface to the Dictionary of the English Language

Sublunary is from the Latin sublunaris, from sub, "under" + luna, "the moon."

ebullient \ih-BUL-yuhnt\, adjective:
1. Overflowing with enthusiasm or excitement; high-spirited.
2. Boiling up or over.

The glasses he wore for astigmatism gave him a deceptively clerkish appearance, for he had an ebullient, gregarious personality, a hot temper, and an outsized imagination.
-- Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life

He was no longer an ebullient, energetic adolescent.
-- Linda Simon, Genuine Reality: A Life of William James

Sometimes he would come back from the Drenchery Club holding on to the walls till he got to my office, where he'd be jolly and ebullient. At other times, he'd return morose.
-- Harriet Wasserman, Handsome Is: Adventures with Saul Bellow

Ebullient comes from Latin ebullire, "to bubble up," from e-, "out of, from" + bullire, "to bubble, to boil."

Brobdingnagian \brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn\, adjective:
Of extraordinary size; gigantic; enormous.

The venture capital business has a size problem. A monstrous, staggering, stupefying one. Brobdingnagian even.
-- Russ Mitchell, "Too Much Ventured Nothing Gained", Fortune, November 11, 2002

Any savvy dealer . . . will try to talk you up to one of the latest behemoths, which have bloated to such Brobdingnagian dimensions as to have entered the realm of the absurd.
-- Jack Hitt, "The Hidden Life of SUVs", Mother Jones, July/August 1999

Brobdingnagian is from Brobdingnag, a country of giants in Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

verdant \VUR-dnt\, adjective:
1. Covered with growing plants or grass; green with vegetation.
2. Green.
3. Unripe in knowledge, judgment, or experience; unsophisticated; green.

Drab in winter, then suddenly sodden with alpine runoff, the region turns dazzlingly verdant in spring.
-- Patricia Albers, Shadows, Fire, Snow

Dry as the region just outside the delta may be, it would still be covered with grasses, yellowish in the dry season, verdant in the wet.
-- Niles Eldredge, Life in the Balance

I was verdant enough to think her Agrippine very fine.
-- Henry James, "The Théâtre Français"

Verdant comes from French verdoyant, present participle of verdoyer, "to be verdant, to grow green," from Old French verdoier, verdeier, from verd, vert, "green," from Latin viridis, "green," from virere, "to be green."

torrid \TOR-uhd\, adjective:
1. Violenty hot; drying or scorching with heat; burning; parching; as, "torrid heat."
2. Characterized by intense emotion; as, "a torrid love affair."
3. Emotionally charged and vigorously energetic; as, "a torrid dance."

Cyrene's torrid soil
-- Milton

Taniperla is a tumbledown coffee-farming outpost in torrid lowlands in Chiapas state.
-- "Mexico Sees Both Carrot and Stick Fail in Chiapas", New York Times, May 17, 1998

There are other treasures in this humorous phantasmagoria of song--the torrid pavement dancing of Fred Davis and Eddie Sledge, the bland gunman fooling of Harry Clark and Jack Diamond, the antic dancing masquerade that serves as first scene to 'The Taming of the Shrew' sequence.
-- "At the Theatre: 'Kiss Me, Kate'", New York Times, December 31, 1948

Still, the idea of a torrid affair between the teen-ager from Oak Park, Ill[inois], and the shapely auburn-haired nurse, fits the myth of Hemingway as an icon of male prowess -- hunter, drinker, fighter, writer and lover.
-- "A Hemingway Story, and Just as Fictional", New York Times, January 26, 1997

Fleisher has been going at a torrid pace as well, but he acknowledged after his second straight 67 that if he hadn't birdied two of his last three holes, O'Connor likely would have had a walkover today.
-- "O'Connor Turns Up Heat for Final Day: Irishman Is Seeking First Seniors Win", Washington Post, July 4, 1999

Stocks rose for a third consecutive session yesterday, pushed higher by money flowing into stocks of the biggest and most widely traded companies and torrid demand for companies that do business on the Internet.
-- "Stocks Rise Again, Buoyed by Technology and Internet Shares", New York Times, December 22, 1998

Torrid derives from Latin torridus, parched, burnt, dry, from torreo, torrere, to burn, parch, dry up with heat or thirst. The noun form of the word is torridness or torridity.

Dictionary.com, June 1999

aestival \ES-tuh-vuhl\, adjective:
Of or belonging to the summer; as, aestival diseases. [Spelled also estival.]

Far to the north and hemmed in against the Russian Bear, it is easy to overlook this land of lakes, forests, and aestival white nights.
-- [i.e. Finland]

You generally get true summer in August: this year it has been unusually æstival.
-- M. Collins

From the Latin æstas, summer. Also from æstas:

slugabed \SLUHG-uh-bed\, noun:
One who stays in bed until a late hour; a sluggard.

Nemecek's business is not for slugabeds. He opens for business every weekday at 4 a.m.
-- Drew Fetherston, "He Can Really Make Pigs Fly", Newsday, December 12, 1994

I found Oriana, as usual, up before me, for I always was a sad slugabed.
-- W. Hurton, Doomed Ship

All save Whit elected to sleep in that morning. Whit came back to report that he had spotted the tracks of a doe and a fawn made in the new snow directly beneath my unoccupied stand, and I regretted being a slugabed.
-- "Paying Tribute to Deer in Minnesota Woods", New York Times, December 6, 1998

Slugabed is from slug, "sluggard" + abed, "in bed."

desultory \DES-uhl-tor-ee\, adjective:
1. Jumping or passing from one thing or subject to another without order or rational connection; disconnected; aimless.
2. By the way; as a digression; not connected with the subject.
3. Coming disconnectedly or occurring haphazardly; random.
4. Disappointing in performance or progress.

The shadows on the perfect lawn were straight and angular; they were the shadows of an old man sitting in a deep wicker-chair near the low table on which the tea had been served, and of two younger men strolling to and fro, in desultory talk, in front of him.
-- Henry James Jr., "The Portrait of a Lady", The Atlantic Monthly, November 1880

In January 1905 Richard Watson Gilder approached the then-president of the Institute, the genteel poet and Wall Street broker Edmund Clarence Stedman, and urged him to hold a "formal discussion" on the question of women in both the Institute and the newly created Academy -- a formal discussion, he said, rather than the "desultory talk among members" that was all there had been so far.
-- Penelope Lively, The Five Thousand and One Nights

One way or the other, his once voluminous exchanges with Mrs. Swanson dwindled to almost nothing. For a year or two, they consisted of the odd, desultory postcard, then the store-bought Christmas greeting, and then, by 1976, they had stopped altogether.
-- Paul Auster, Timbuktu

But talks were desultory, and Gates held little hope the two companies would get together.
-- Paul Andrews, How The Web Was Won

Desultory comes from Latin desultorius, from desultor, "a leaper," from the past participle of desilire, "to leap down," from de-, "down from" + salire, "to leap."

scion \SY-uhn\, noun:
1. A detached shoot or twig of a plant used for grafting.
2. Hence, a descendant; an heir.

Convinced he was the scion of Louis Alexandre Lebris de Kerouac, a noble Breton, he was off to do genealogical research in the Paris libraries and then to locate his ancestor's hometown in Brittany.
-- Ellis Amburn, Subterranean Kerouac

Sassoon, scion of a famously wealthy Jewish banking family, had never needed to earn his living.
-- Philip Hoare, Oscar Wilde's Last Stand

Gates is the scion of an old, affluent Seattle family; Jobs is the adopted son of a machinist in Northern California.
-- "Steve Jobs, Hesitant Co-Founder, Makes New Commitment to Apple", New York Times, August 7, 1997

Scion derives from Old French cion, of Germanic origin.

bandog \BAN-dog\, noun:
A mastiff or other large and fierce dog, usually kept chained or tied up.

The keeper entered leading his bandog, a large bloodhound, tied in a leam, or band, from which he takes his name.
-- Sir W. Scott

As fierce as a bandog that has newly broke his chain.'
-- Sir George Etherege, The Comical Revenge; or, Love in a Tub

He was usually spoken of as the bandog of Burgundy, or the Alsatian mastiff.
-- Scott

From Middle English bandogge, from band + dogge (dog).

captious \KAP-shuhs\, adjective:
1. Marked by a disposition to find fault or raise objections.
2. Calculated to entrap or confuse, as in an argument.

The most common among those are captious individuals who can find nothing wrong with their own actions but everything wrong with the actions of everybody else.
-- "In-Closet Hypocrites", Atlanta Inquirer, August 15, 1998

Mr Bowman had, I think, been keeping Christmas Eve, and was a little inclined to be captious: at least, he was not on foot very early, and to judge from what I could hear, neither men nor maids could do anything to please him.
-- M. R. James, The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Stories

Most authors would prefer readers such as Roiphe over captious academic critics.
-- Steven Moore, "Old Flames", Washington Post, November 26, 2000

With the imperturbablest bland clearness, he, for five hours long, keeps answering the incessant volley of fiery captious questions.
-- Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

Captious is derived from Latin captiosus, "sophistical, captious, insidious," from captio, "a taking, a fallacy, sophism," from capere, "to take, to seize."

arbitrage \AR-buh-trahzh\, noun:
The nearly simultaneous purchase of a good or asset in one market where the price is low, and sale of the same good or asset in another market where the price is higher.

If the market exchange rate deviates from par, there is opportunity for arbitrage by exchanging the cheaper currency for gold, shipping the gold to the other country, converting the gold into the other currency, and converting the proceeds into the cheaper currency on the market.
-- Milton Friedman, Money Mischief

There are undoubtedly many arbitrage opportunities, where price transparency has failed to bring about price harmonisation.
-- Nunzio Quacquarelli, "Euro optimism", Guardian, May 28, 2002

Arbitrage comes from the French, from Latin arbitrari, "to pass judgment," from arbiter, "witness, arbitrator, judge." One who practices arbitrage is an arbitrageur.

redoubt \rih-DOWT\, noun:
1. A small and usually temporary defensive fortification.
2. A defended position or protective barrier.
3. A secure place of refuge or defense; a stronghold.

Evicting the intruders from their mountain redoubts with ground forces alone was beginning to look like a protracted and expensive task.
-- "Kashmir's violent spring", The Economist, May 29, 1999

First, Milosevic himself will be absent, apparently fearful of leaving his redoubt in Belgrade.
-- "Lessons of Balkans Applied to Kosovo", New York Times, February 1, 1999

Redoubt derives from French redoute, from Italian ridotto, from Latin reductus, "a refuge, a retreat," from reducere, "to lead or draw back," from re-, "back" + ducere, "to lead."

chichi \SHEE-shee\, adjective:
Affectedly trendy.

"Going in gangs to those chichi clubs at Maidenhead."
-- E. Taylor, Game of Hide-&-Seek

"Whether the chichi gender theorists like it or not, sexual duality is a law of nature among all highly evolved life forms."
-- Camille Paglia

"The sort of real delicious Italian country cooking that is a revelation after so much chichi Italian food dished up in London."
-- Daily Telegraph, January 22, 1969

"[Judith] Hope -- who lives in East Hampton, where the Clintons have a lot of chichi friends -- has been getting ink by the barrelful with her regular interviews quoting conversations with the first lady, on subjects ranging from Senate ambitions to summer and post-White House living arrangements."
-- Washington Post, June 4, 1999

From the French word that literally means "curl of false hair"; used figuratively in the phrases faire des chichis, "to have affected manners, to make a fuss"; and gens à chichis, "affected, snobbish people." Sometimes spelled "chi-chi."

taw \TO\, noun:
A large marble used for shooting in the game of marbles.

He is hiding or hoarding his Taws and Marbles.
-- Steele, Tatler No. 30, 1709

A still greater favourite is shooting a 'taw', which requires no small dexterity.
-- Grant

Of uncertain origin, but possibly from the letter T (in Greek tau) used as a mark. Names for other marbles: commoney, "a marble of a common sort"; ally or alley (a contraction of alabaster, of which it was originally made), a choice marble or taw; one of real marble or alabaster in contrast with those of terra cotta.

vexillology \vek-sil-AHL-uh-jee\, noun:
The study of flags.

This unknown specialist has demonstrated his great knowledge of heraldry and vexillology
-- Occasional Newsletter to Librarians, January 4, 1966

One of the most interesting phases of vexillology...is the important contribution to our heritage of flags by the Arab World.
-- Arab World, October 13, 1959

From Latin vexillum, "flag" + (Greek) -logy (from logos, " word, discourse").

quorum \KWOR-uhm\, noun:
1. Such a number of the officers or members of any body as is legally competent to transact business.
2. A select group.

The extraordinary powers of the Senate were vested in twenty-six men, fourteen of whom would constitute a quorum, of which eight would make up a majority.
-- Akhil Reed Amar, The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction

What other quorum in American history, save those who wrote our constitution, could claim as much impact on our day-to-day lives?
-- Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear

Quorum comes from the Latin quorum, "of whom," from qui, "who." The term arose from the wording of the commission once issued to justices of the peace in England, by which commission it was directed that no business of certain kinds should be done without the presence of one or more specially designated justices.

abscond \ab-SKOND\, intransitive verb:
To depart secretly; to steal away and hide oneself -- used especially of persons who withdraw to avoid arrest or prosecution.

The criminal is not concerned with influencing or affecting public opinion: he simply wants to abscond with his money or accomplish his mercenary task in the quickest and easiest way possible so that he may reap his reward and enjoy the fruits of his labours.
-- Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism

Pearl, now an orphan (her father having absconded shortly after her conception), has been taken to live with her great-aunt Margaret in the north of England.
-- Zoe Heller, Everything You Know

Abscond comes from Latin abscondere, "to conceal," from ab-, abs-, "away" + condere, "to put, to place."

virtu \vuhr-TOO; vir-\, noun:
1. love of or taste for fine objects of art.
2. Productions of art (especially fine antiques).
3. Artistic quality.

The Italian humanist Giovanni Pontano described these objects as "statues, pictures, tapestries, divans, chairs of ivory, cloth interwoven with gems, many-coloured boxes and coffers in the Arabian style, crystal vases and other things of this kind . . . [whose] sight . . . is pleasing and brings prestige to the owner of the house." They all spoke to the wealth, taste and virtu of their owner.
-- John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination

Divans, Persian rugs, easy chairs, books, statuary, articles of virtu and bric-a-brac are on every side, and the whole has the appearance of a place where one could dream his life away.
-- "Mark Twain's Summer Home", The New York Times, September 10, 1882

Virtu comes from Italian virtù "virtue, excellence," from Latin virtus, "excellence, worth, goodness, virtue."

gamut \GAM-uht\, noun:
1. A complete extent or range; as, "a face that expressed a gamut of emotions."
2. The entire scale of musical notes.

The...stocks were running...up and down the gamut from $1 to $700 a share.
-- Harper's Magazine, 1883

Spider' and its predecessor run the gamut from the angry I-want-my-body-back screed 'Pig' to 'Hundreds of Sparrows,' a charmingly haunted ode lifted from Luke 12:7
-- "Back in the Sparklehorse Saddle", Washington Post, June 8, 1999

Comments from those testifying at the standing-room-only hearing ran the gamut from polite pleas for an endorsement of a given set of books to condemnations of a review process some said was hasty and flawed.
-- "State to Hold Textbook Firms to New Standards", Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1999

From gamma, the lowest note of Guido d'Arezzo's "great scale" + ut.

From: worldwildwords.org, and dictionary.com

cro·ny /ˈkroʊni/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kroh-nee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun, plural -nies.

a close friend or companion; chum.

---

[Origin: 1655–65; alleged to be university slang; perh. <>chrónios for a long time, long-continued, deriv. of chrónos time; cf. chrono-]

—Synonyms pal, buddy.

syn·es·the·sia /ˌsɪnəsˈθiʒə, -ʒiə, -ziə/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[sin-uhs-thee-zhuh, -zhee-uh, -zee-uh] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color.

Also, synaesthesia.

---

[Origin: 1890–95; <>syn-, esthesia]

—Related forms

syn·es·thete /ˈsɪnəsˌθit/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[sin-uhs-theet] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation, noun

syn·es·thet·ic /ˌsɪnəsˈθɛtɪk/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[sin-uhs-thet-ik] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation, adjective

CHEAPSKATE

A miserly or stingy person.

It’s never nice to be called a cheapskate, especially if it’s true. The second part has nothing whatever to do with any of the more common senses of skate. A writer in the San Francisco Chronicle in September 2007 was way wide of the mark when he wondered if a cheapskate was avoiding paying his share by adroitly sliding past the transaction, as though on skates or a skateboard. And there’s nothing in the least fishy about the word.

Well, up to a point. The origin, as often with slangy words, isn’t easy to fathom. Skate began to appear in print in the US at the end of the nineteenth century, almost simultaneously meaning a worn-out horse, a mean or contemptible person, and a second-rate sportsman (later, in the Royal Navy, according to Eric Partridge, it became a slang term for a troublesome rating). Cheap was added early on to refer to a person’s tight-fisted nature rather than any of his other perceived inadequacies. An early example appeared in the Newark Daily Advocate of Ohio in 1896 in a story about

Cheapskate is probably from a Scots word

a motorman of a streetcar who was remonstrating with the driver of a coal wagon: “You’re a gol dinged, insignificant, pusillanimous, ragged, cheap skate of a tenth assistant barnyard corporal.”

The best suggestion we have is that skate was originally a Scots contemptuous word, still known in Australia and New Zealand, where it’s usually written as skite. We retain it in blatherskite for a person who talks at great length without making much sense. It appeared first in a slightly different form in a Scots song, Maggie Lauder, written by Francis Semphill about 1643 (“Jog on your gait, ye bletherskate / My name is Maggie Lauder!”). This was a camp song among American soldiers during the War of Independence and remained popular in the decades that followed. We guess that this may have helped skate or skite to be preserved among emigrant Scots and others in the US during the nineteenth century.

By the way, the fish sense of skate is from Old Norse skata; the word for ice skates and similar devices come to us from Dutch schaats, although its origin is the Old French escache, meaning a stilt; there’s also the South African sense of a disreputable or irresponsible young white man, which may be from Afrikaans skuit, excreta.

SPUTNIK

Thursday saw the 50th anniversary of the successful launch of Earth’s first artificial satellite by the USSR on 4 October 1957. It was a sensation — many people who were around at the time will remember the astonishment with which it was greeted.

It also immediately introduced a new term into the language. Within two days, newspapers everywhere were referring to Sputnik, which first reports said was Russian for satellite or moon (looking back, it's interesting to see how many contemporary reports referred to Sputnik as a moon,

British newspapers announce
the launch of Sputnik

a term that we reserve these days for a natural satellite). The Russian term actually meant a travelling companion, though some early reports translated it as “fellow-traveller”, probably with pejorative intent, since that phrase had a specific meaning of somebody who sympathised with the Communist movement without actually being a party member.

What Sputnik also did was introduce a lot of people to the -nik ending, which was reinforced later by the Russian and English term lunik for the rockets the USSR sent to the moon, which came from the Latin and Russian luna. One early result was a lot of short-lived and humorous formations. When the USSR sent up a second satellite on 3 November with the dog Laika on board, some American writers referred to it as Muttnik. The very public failure of the US Navy to launch a satellite on 6 December resulted in sarcastic terms like Kaputnik and Flopnik.

It also led to many figurative creations, mostly intended jokingly but a few of which have permanently entered the language. In 1958, the rise of the beat generation led to beatnik (folk enthusiasts briefly becoming folkniks) and to neatnik, a person excessively neat in his personal habits, the opposite of a scruffy beatnik. A robotnik was a person who blindly obeyed authority, the opposite of a refusenik, one sense of which in the 1980s was a person who refused to obey orders as a form of protest, although its main sense, from the 1970s onwards, was of a Jew in the Soviet Union who was refused permission to emigrate to Israel. A member of a pacifist movement was from the 1960s called a peacenik. In the late 1980s in the UK, noisenik came on the scene for a loud musician, especially one who played a form of rock music.

The -nik ending became so widely used that it is assumed by many people that Sputnik started it. But it’s a long-standing Slavic ending that implies an agent or a member of a class or group. As early as the end of the nineteenth century, a few Russian words ending in -nik became rather rare unnaturalised immigrants into English, such as chinovnik, a minor government functionary or a civil servant, and Narodnik, literally a member of the common people (Russian narod, people) but which in the late nineteenth century meant a member of a socialist political group among the Russian intelligentsia.

The ending is shared in particular with Yiddish and also appears in modern Hebrew, hence kibbutznik, a member of a kibbutz, a term that wasn’t much known in English at the time of Sputnik, though it had been recorded 10 years earlier. In American English, -nik has been an active word-forming agent from the early years of the twentieth century as a result of Yiddish influence. One result was alrightnik, an immigrant Jew who has raised himself from poverty to prosperity (though the main sense of the Yiddish olraytnik, borrowed from US English, was of an upstart, offensive boaster or parvenu who is philistine or smug). His opposite was the nogoodnik, recorded from 1936. Another still with us is nudnik, a nagging, pestering or irritating person, from Yiddish nudyen, to bore. The ending was kept in the public consciousness in the US through Al Capp’s frequent use of -nik words in his Li’l Abner cartoons.

So the entry of Sputnik into the language only reinforced a trend in American English, but one whose linguistic echoes are still with us and which we may celebrate along with the achievements of Soviet rocketry.

FLETCHERISE

To chew thoroughly.

The word commemorates The Great Masticator, a title that these days might lead to hearers getting the giggles. He was Horace Fletcher, a food faddist of the end of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth. He advised people to chew each bite of their food 32 times, to eat small amounts, and only to eat when hungry and free from stress or anxiety. Hence this rhyme of the time:

Eat somewhat less but eat it more
Would you be hearty beyond fourscore.
Eat not at all in worried mood
Or suffer harm from best of food.
Don’t gobble your food but “Fletcherize”
Each morsel you eat, if you’d be wise.
Don’t cause your blood pressure e’er to rise
By prizing your menu by its size.

The Great Masticator

The heyday of Fletcherism was the early 1900s. Time Magazine wrote a retrospective on the craze in 1928, “For a time wealthy mothers counted their children’s jaw beats at the table while ragged micks in the streets threatened to ‘Fletcherize’ their little enemies.” A good example appeared in 1908 in Food Remedies by Florence Daniel: “But whatever is taken must be ‘Fletcherised,’ that is, chewed and chewed and chewed until it is all reduced to liquid.” The word for a while became frequent in writings of all sorts. P G Wodehouse used the term in The Adventures of Sally in 1922 to illustrate the serious nature of a dog fight: “The raffish mongrel was apparently endeavouring to fletcherize a complete stranger of the Sealyham family.”

Fletcherism was taken seriously by many people and had some distinguished adherents; it lasted until the 1930s. Unfortunately, eating meals took much longer than usual and there were complaints that it severely restricted the conversation at dinner parties.

UNCONFERENCE

To hold an unconference sounds like a contradiction. In fact, it’s practical anarchy applied to a discussion meeting. A participant was quoted in the Guardian in September 2007 as saying that unconferences are “coffee breaks that last all day”. Putting it more formally, an unconference has an open-ended agenda in which the topics discussed are driven by the participants, who are all encouraged to contribute. As the writer of the Guardian article described it, “You join an informal group on a particular theme that interests you, listen, discuss and then, if you find something boring, move on to another group.” In Podcasting for Profit (2007), Allan Hunkin notes another feature: “What makes the unconference model different from a conference is that attendees don’t pay to register, speakers aren’t paid to speak, and expenses are covered by sponsors.” The term is originally from the US and goes back a long way. The first example I know of appeared, appropriately, in a list of anarchist summer events on Usenet in April 1993. It has remained a niche term until recently, but is becoming more common, especially in the computing and IT worlds.

So how does an unconference work? It’s designed to perpetuate the buzz arising during the traditional breaks for coffee, lunch and tea when people communicate informally.

[Guardian, 18 Sep. 2007]

There is no set program for BarCamp Orlando, which is billed as an “unconference” because of its loose structure. The agenda will be determined the day of the event by those who post on a sign-up board at the door, notes co-organizer Larry Diehl, 20, an information-systems student at UCF.

[Orlando Sentinel, 11 Sep. 2007]

PUSILLANIMOUS

Faint-hearted, cowardly.

If you are pusillanimous, you have a small soul or weak spirit, one with few reserves of strength with which to resist the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The implications are of utter spinelessness and a contemptible lack of courage. Its origin lies in the old ecclesiastical Latin pusillanimis

“Modern dictionaries are pusillanimous works”

(translating a Greek term), which was formed from pusillus, very small, and animus, the soul or mind.

It first appeared in the sixteenth century and is still very much with us, though it’s a writer’s word, hardly one you’re likely to hear in your local bar unless the patrons are literary types. Back in the 1970s US Vice President Spiro Agnew famously accused his opponents of “pusillanimous pussyfooting.” In 1936, the humorist A P Herbert wrote in What a Word that “Modern dictionaries are pusillanimous works, preferring feebly to record what has been done than to say what ought to be done.” (He wrote in the same book, “American slang is one part natural growth and nine parts a nervous disorder.” But then he wasn’t much in favour of American English of any kind.)

Pusillanimous is a fine word to disparage your enemies with, one that rolls extravagantly off the tongue. Its unusualness makes it all the more effective.

WHELMED

[Q] From Steve Simoneaux, Atlanta, GA: “I’ve been overwhelmed and I’ve been underwhelmed. Is it possible to ever just be whelmed?”

[A] You could once. But remember that underwhelmed started life as a joke based on overwhelmed and in language terms is relatively recent — it was first recorded in 1956, but became popular only a decade or so later. It’s common these days, because it fills a need for a single word to communicate the concept of failing to impress.

The verb whelm does exist, though you might search for some time before you find examples in modern prose. That’s excluding fantasy and historical fiction, of course — when S M Stirling wrote in On the Oceans of Eternity, “Whelm not our ships with Your anger, but give us swift voyaging and good winds, full nets and victory”, his choice of whelm was deliberately archaic, to help convey to his readers the sense of being in another time and place. On the other hand, to come across “It was a late-arriving crowd that saw the Hurricanes whelm the Philadelphia Flyers Saturday night”, which appeared in The News & Record of North Carolina back in 1998, is to be brought up short, wondering if the word’s a misprint.

But it was once common. It started as a medieval English sea term meaning to capsize — it’s related to the even older whelve, to overturn. Around 1513, Robert Fabyan used it in The Newe Cronycles of Englande and of

Whelmed

Fraunce: “By the mysgydynge of the sterysman, he was set vpon the pylys of the brydge, and the barge whelmyd” (in modern spelling “By the misguidance of the steersman, he was set upon the piles of the bridge, and the barge whelmed”). It could also mean to turn a hollow vessel upside down to cover something; in 1842 the Florist’s Journal wrote that “Pansies that were planted out in the autumn, should be protected by whelming a small pot over each plant.” It also came to mean, as an extension of the capsizing sense, being covered by water or drowning. Sir Charles Lyall used it that way in his Principles of Geology (1830): “Marsh land ... has at last been overflowed, and thousands of the inhabitants whelmed in the waves.” One might once have talked about the whelm of the tide, which covers the shore as it rises.

But a writer can’t use any of these senses any more, unless he’s deliberately using an archaism for effect, or is showing off his knowledge of language, or is perhaps archly trying to invent a new word, not knowing that whelm exists.

June 3rd, 1999

par·a·pher·na·lia /ˌpærəfərˈneɪlyə, -fəˈneɪl-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[par-uh-fer-neyl-yuh, -fuh-neyl-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

1.	(sometimes used with a singular verb) equipment, apparatus, or furnishing used in or necessary for a particular activity: a skier's paraphernalia.

2.	(used with a plural verb) personal belongings.

3.	(used with a singular verb) Law. the personal articles, apart from dower, reserved by law to a married woman.

---

[Origin: 1470–80; <>paraphernālia (bona) a bride's goods, beyond her dowry, equiv. to LL paraphern(a) a bride's property (<>parápherna, equiv. to para- para-¹ + phern() dowry, deriv. of phérein to bear¹ + -a neut. pl. n. suffix) + L -ālia, n. use of neut. pl. of -ālis -al¹]

—Related forms

par·a·pher·na·lian, par·a·pher·nal /ˌpærəˈfɜrnl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[par-uh-fur-nl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation, adjective

—Synonyms 1. appointments, appurtenances, accouterments, trappings. 2. effects.

objurgate \OB-juhr-gayt\, transitive verb:
To express strong disapproval of; to criticize severely.

I objurgate the centipede,
A bug we do not really need.
-- Ogden Nash, "The Centipede"

The act about to be objurgated here calls on the Food and Drug Administration to oversee a broad revision of food labeling.
-- Daniel Seligman, "Federal Food Follies", Fortune, July 1, 1991

Objurgate comes from the past participle of Latin from objurgare, "to scold, to blame," from ob-, "against" + jurgare, "to dispute, to quarrel, to sue at law," from jus, jur-, "law" + -igare (from agere, "to lead").

lissom \LISS-uhm\, adjective;
also lissome:
1. Limber; supple; flexible.
2. Light and quick in action; nimble; agile; active.

Raphaelle Boitel moves with the lissom, contortionist plastique of a snake-woman.
-- Nadine Meisner, "Clowns real and imagined", Independent, April 20, 2001

Her foot touches the plate and sets off the trap, but so swift and lissome is she that her ankles evade the clash of the serrated iron jaws as they spring together.
-- John Bayley, Iris and Her Friends

Lissom is an alteration of lithesome, which derives from Old English lithe, "flexible, mild, gentle."

badinage \bad-n-AHZH\, noun:
Light, playful talk; banter.

Ken was determined to put the cares of the world behind him and do what he loved best -- having a few celebrity friends round and enjoying an evening of anecdote and badinage over a bottle or two of vintage bubbly and some tasty cheese straws.
-- Bel Littlejohn, "My moustache man", The Guardian, March 24, 2000

The badinage was inconsequential, reduced to who knew whom and wasn't the weather glorious in St. Tropez, or the Bahamas, Hawaii, or Hong Kong?
-- Robert Ludlum, The Matarese Countdown

Badinage comes from French, from badiner, "to trifle, to joke," badin, "playful, jocular."

inclement \in-KLEM-uhnt\, adjective:
1. Rough, harsh; extreme, severe -- generally restricted to the elements or weather.
2. Severe, unrelenting; cruel.

To make his misery complete he was forced to travel back in the winter, in the most inclement weather.
-- Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Sleeping Beauty and other Fairy Tales

Molly also noticed that the window frames had grooves of soft lead, less than an inch wide and shaped like blunt hooks, into which the glass could be slotted at night or during inclement weather.
-- Annabel Davis-Goff, The Dower House

Rosina concluded that a resident or guest had gone out back, possibly to use the privy, but this was a bit odd and certainly not routine, given the inclement weather and the availability of chamber pots in every room.
-- Patricia Cline Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett

Inclement is from Latin in-, "not" + clemens, "gentle, merciful."

kobold \KOH-bold\, noun:
�In German folklore, a haunting spirit, gnome, or goblin.

Witch, kobold, sprite. . . and imp of every kind.
-- A. J. Symington

This world and the other, too, are always present to his mind, and there in the corner is the little black kobold of a doubt making mouths at him.
-- James Russell Lowell, Among My Books

The Kobolds were a species of gnomes, who haunted the dark and solitary places, and were often seen in the mines.
-- Sir Walter Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft

Cobalt, the metal, "the goblin of the mines," was named by those who had to work it after the kobold, since it caused them so much trouble, the ore being arsenical.