winsome \WIN-suhm\, adjective:
1. Cheerful; merry; gay; light-hearted.
2. Causing joy or pleasure; agreeable; pleasant.
And, oh, it was a sweet smile, they said, none sweeter, so winsome and large it transformed her melancholy face.
-- Flavia Alaya, Under the Rose
The first time I met Diana, she was a winsome little girl full of energy and mischief.
-- Annabel Goldsmith, "I will miss her smile", Daily Telegraph, September 3, 1997
Every town has them, the youngsters who light up the headlines in the provincial papers, who smash under-age scoring records and throw you a winsome smile just to top it all.
-- "O'Shea junior's date with destiny", Irish Times, August 29, 1998
Willard R. Espy . . . had such a winsome way with words, such an elegant ear for rhyme and such a sure sense of the absurd that he once began a poem with the words 'I do not roister with an oyster'.
-- "Willard R. Espy, 88, Scholar and Practitioner of Wordplay", New York Times, February 25, 1999
Winsome is from Old English wynsum, from wynn, "joy" + -sum (equivalent to Modern English -some), "characterized by."
apposite \AP-uh-zit\, adjective:
Being of striking appropriateness and relevance; very applicable; apt.
As we survey Jewish history as a whole from the vantage point of the late twentieth century, Judah Halevi's phrase "prisoner of hope" seems entirely apposite. The prisoner of hope is sustained and encouraged by his hope, even as he is confined by it.
-- Jane S. Gerber (Editor), The Illustrated History of the Jewish People
Suppose, for example, that in a theoretical physics seminar we were to explain a very technical concept in quantum field theory by comparing it to the concept of aporia in Derridean literary theory. Our audience of physicists would wonder, quite reasonably, what is the goal of such a metaphor--whether or not it is apposite--apart from displaying our own erudition.
-- Alan D. Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science
Apposite comes from Latin appositus, past participle of apponere, "to set or put near," from ad-, "to, toward" + ponere, "to put, to place."
parvenu \PAR-vuh-noo; -nyoo\, noun:
1. One that has recently or suddenly risen to a higher social or economic class but has not gained social acceptance of others in that class; an upstart.
adjective:
1. Being a parvenu; also, like or having the characteristics of a parvenu.
But the favourite's power and influence provoke intense ill-feeling among other courtiers, who regard him as a sinister usurping parvenu with ideas above his station, or perhaps even a sorcerer.
-- Francis Wheen, "The whole truth about Peter's friends", The Guardian, January 31, 2001
However, the Creoles, French, Spanish, and Acadians who preceded the American parvenus were deeply entrenched and incredibly snobbish and clannish in relation to outsiders.
-- Laurence Bergreen, Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life
When John Stewart Parnell went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1865 he found that "the sons of moneyed parvenus from the North of England tried to liken themselves to country gentlemen and succeeded in looking like stable boys."
-- J. Mordaunt Crook, The Rise of the Nouveaux Riches
The Progressives were of the educated middle class, angry at the rule of parvenu financiers and industrialists.
-- Norman Birnbaum, After Progress
Parvenu is from the French, from the past participle of parvenir, from Latin pervenire, "to come through to, to arrive at, to reach, hence to succeed," from per, "through" + venire, "to come."
riparian \rih-PAIR-ee-uhn; ry-PAIR-ee-uhn\, adjective:
Of or pertaining to the bank of a river or stream.
Riparian areas are the green, vegetated areas on each side of streams and rivers. They serve many important functions, including purifying water by removing sediments and other contaminants; reducing the risk of flooding and associated damage; reducing stream channel and streambank erosion; increasing available water and stream flow duration by holding water in stream banks and aquifers; supporting a diversity of plant and wildlife species; maintaining a habitat for healthy fish populations; providing water, forage, and shade for wildlife and livestock; and creating opportunities for recreationists to fish, camp, picnic, and enjoy other activities.
-- Jeremy M. Brodie, "Ribbons of Green", Bureau of Land Management Environmental Education Home Page
Along its serpentine course, the Charles River widens and narrows, and its riparian sounds swell to crescendos in places or relax to the low purr of a river at peace.
-- Craig Lambert, Mind Over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing
[The vireo's] comeback may prove that habitat along streams in Southern California is recovering from the effects of pollution caused by decades of urban development. That is a critical indicator of environmental health in a state that has lost 97% of its riparian woodlands, more than any other state.
-- Gary Polakovic, "Songbird's Numbers Crescendo", Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1999
[What about your social circle?] "A steady stream of brilliant American intellectuals visiting me in the riparian solitude of a beautifully reflected sunset."
-- Vladimir Nabokov, "Nabokov on Nabokov and Things", New York Times, May 12, 1968
Riparian is from the Latin, ripari-us + -an, from Latin ripa, the bank of a river.
dilatory \DIL-uh-tor-ee\, adjective:
1. Tending to put off what ought to be done at once; given to procrastination.
2. Marked by procrastination or delay; intended to cause delay; -- said of actions or measures.
I am inclined to be dilatory, and if I had not enjoyed extraordinary luck in life and love I might have been living with my mother at that very moment, doing nothing.
-- Carroll O'Connor, I Think I'm Outta Here
And what is a slumlord? He is not a man who own expensive property in fashionable neighborhoods, but one who owns only rundown property in the slums, where the rents are lowest and the where the payment is most dilatory, erratic and undependable.
-- Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson
Dilatory is from Latin dilatorius, from dilator, "a dilatory person, a loiterer," from dilatus, past participle of differre, "to delay, to put off," from dis-, "apart, in different directions" + ferre, "to carry."
sedulous \SEJ-uh-luhs\, adjective:
1. Diligent in application or pursuit; steadily industrious.
2. Characterized by or accomplished with care and perseverance.
He did not attain this distinction by accident but by sedulous study from the cradle forward.
-- Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Al Gore: A User's Manual
This writing is clearly the product of sedulous art, but it has the flame of spontaneity and the grit of independence both as to mode and spirit.
-- "The Wonder and Wackiness of Man", New York Times, January 17, 1954
And so he reminded the legion that, even though his veneration of his country's flag may not have inhibited sedulous avoidance of the inconveniences of serving under it, he is a patriot so wholehearted that he signed the Arkansas law that forbids flag-burning.
-- Murray Kempton, "Signs of Defeat In the Wind", Newsday, August 30, 1992
Sedulous is from Latin sedulus, "busy, diligent," from se-, "apart, without" + dolus, "guile, trickery."
juju \JOO-joo\, noun:
1. An object superstitiously believed to embody magical powers.
2. The power associated with a juju.
[David] Robinson, sounding confident and sure, said that the time for juju and magic dust had passed. 'To be honest with you, I think it's beyond that', he said. 'It's very hard to come up with magic at the end'.
-- "Knicks Find There's No Place Like Home", New York Times, June 22, 1999
'You ever heard of juju?'
Skyler shook his head.
'Magic. You talk about this and it'll be the last talkin' you do. You'll just open your mouth and nothin' will come out'.
-- John Darnton, The Experiment
We are told, for example, of the Edo youngster, apparently both Christian and traditionally African in his beliefs, who was heard to mutter 'S.M.O.G.' over and over when he and his companions were threatened by 'bad juju'. When questioned he replied, ''Have you never heard of it? It stands for Save Me O God. When you are really in a hurry, it is quickest to use the initials'.
-- "The Spirits And The African Boy", New York Times, October 10, 1982
On any terminal she is using, a co-worker puts up a sign proclaiming, 'Bad karma go away, come again another day'. When she was pregnant, she said, she crashed her computer twice as often -- she attributes that to a double whammy of woo-woo juju.
-- "Can a Hard Drive Smell Fear?", New York Times, May 21, 1998
Juju is of West African origin, akin to Hausa djudju, fetish, evil spirit.
chagrin \shuh-GRIN\, noun:
1. Acute vexation, annoyance, or embarrassment, arising from disappointment or failure.
transitive verb:
1. To unsettle or vex by disappointment or humiliation; to mortify.
He ran away to the recruiting office at Ottumwa, a river port where Union soldiers were transported east--how he got to the town, a good half-day journey by wagon, isn't clear--and to his chagrin, he found his father waiting there.
-- Allen Barra, Inventing Wyatt Earp: His Life and Many Legends
He noted with chagrin how little hair clung to his head.
-- John Marks, The Wall
Rich Moroni was earning $20,000 a year as a cook and was chagrined to discover that he couldn't keep up with the style of life and spending of his preferred reference group -- the lawyers and executives who shared his passion for squash and belonged to the same health club.
-- Peter T. Kilborn, "Splurge", New York Times, June 21, 1998
Chagrined to find that her current boyfriend has become best pals with her ex-boyfriend Hank, she goes to her ex with the problem.
-- Stephen J. Dubner, "Boston Rockers", New York Times, July 26, 1998
Chagrin is from the French, from chagrin, "sad."
metier \met-YAY; MET-yay\, noun:
1. An occupation; a profession.
2. An area in which one excels; an occupation for which one is especially well suited.
The pairing of Maynard and Salinger -- the writer whose metier is autobiography and the writer who's so private he won't even publish -- was an unlikely one.
-- Larissa MacFarquhar, "The Cult of Joyce Maynard", New York Times Magazine, September 6, 1998
In Congress, I really found my metier. . . . I love to legislate.
-- Charles Schumer, quoted in "Upbeat Schumer Battles Poor Polls and Turnouts and His Own Image", New York Times, May 16, 1998
He is in the position of a good production engineer suddenly shunted into salesmanship. It is not his metier.
-- James R. Mursell, "The Reform of the Schools", The Atlantic, December 1939
Metier is from the French, ultimately from Latin ministerium, "service, ministry, employment," from minister, "a servant, a subordinate."
facile \FAS-uhl\, adjective:
1. Easily done or performed; not difficult.
2. Arrived at without due care or effort; lacking depth; as, "too facile a solution for so complex a problem."
3. Ready; quick; expert; as, "he is facile in expedients"; "he wields a facile pen."
The colt supplying that evidence was Rock of Gibraltar, who recorded yet another facile victory at Group One level.
-- J. A. McGrath, "Rock thriving on success", Daily Telegraph, June 18, 2002
Today, the nuclear projects in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea forbid the facile conclusion that the atomic weapons age is conclusively ended.
-- Abba Eban, Diplomacy for the Next Century
This is a very facile sort of speculation not supported by the facts or by common sense.
-- Roberto González EchevarrĂa, The Pride of Havana
Some years before he had earned small sums scribbling paragraphs for the front page of the Civil and Military Gazette, whilst admitting to his sister Jane that a dissertation on the uselessness of the Viceroy came readily to his facile pen.
-- Frances Spalding, Duncan Grant: A Biography
He had a fluent, facile style with the brush, but (much more significantly for Yeats) he painted the visions which rose up before him like emanations from some alternative reality.
-- Terence Brown, The Life of W. B. Yeats
Facile derives from Latin facilis, "easy."
perforce \pur-FORS\, adverb:
By necessity; by force of circumstance.
It will be an astonishing sight, should it come to pass, and even those of us who have followed every twist and turn of this process will perforce rub our eyes.
-- "Unionists sit tight as the poker game nears its climax", Irish Times, July 10, 1999
. . .the error of supposing that, because everything indeed is not right with the world, everything must accordingly be wrong with the world; the error of supposing that, because we are plainly not a race of angels, we must perforce be a race of beasts.
-- James Gardner, "Infinite Jest (book reviews)", National Review, June 17, 1996
Perforce comes from French par force, "by force."
evanescent \ev-uh-NES-unt\, adjective:
Liable to vanish or pass away like vapor; fleeting.
The Pen which gives. . . permanence to the evanescent thought of a moment.
-- Horace Smith, Tin Trumpet
Every tornado is a little different, and they are all capricious, evanescent and hard to get a fix on.
-- "Oklahoma Tornado Offers Hints of How a Killer Storm Is Born", New York Times, May 11, 1999
The accidentally famous. . . may write books, appear on talk shows, and, in so doing, attract even greater public attention. This type of celebrity status, of course, is brittle and evanescent.
-- Lawrence M. Friedman, The Horizontal Society
Evanescent is from Latin evanescere, "to vanish," from e-, "from, out of" + vanescere, "to disappear," from vanus, "empty."
munificent \myoo-NIF-i-suhnt\, adjective:
Very liberal in giving or bestowing; very generous; lavish.
Another munificent friend has given me the most splendid reclining chair conceivable.
-- George Eliot, Letters
The fleeting movement of air inside the black tunnel before and after the passage of a train made it a source of refreshment more munificent than a roaring window air conditioner.
-- Norma Field, From My Grandmother's Bedside: Sketches of Postwar Tokyo
John Sr.'s paycheck, while hardly munificent, was steady, and frugality did the rest.
-- Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind
Munificent is from Latin munificus, "generous, bountiful," from munus, "gift." The quality of being munificent is munificence.
fatuous \FACH-oo-uhs\, adjective:
1. Inanely foolish and unintelligent; stupid.
2. Illusory; delusive.
Publishers persist in the fatuous belief that a little hocus-pocus in the front flap blurb will so dazzle readers that they'll be too dazed to notice the quality of what's on the pages inside.
-- "A night in the city", Irish Times, October 7, 1997
No enquiry, however fatuous or ill informed, failed to receive his full attention, nor was any irrelevant personal information treated as less than engrossing.
-- Michael Palin, Hemingway's Chair
A British first amendment would support religious freedom by having nothing to do with Prince Charles's fatuous hope to be the 'defender of all the faiths', but by disestablishing the Church of England.
-- Nick Cohen, "Damn them all", The Observer, October 7, 2001
Fatuous comes from Latin fatuus, "foolish, idiotic, silly."
recondite \REK-uhn-dyt\, adjective:
1. Difficult to understand; abstruse.
2. Concerned with obscure subject matter.
And his fondness for stopping his readers short in their tracks with evidence of his recondite vocabulary is wonderfully irritating.
-- "Books of the Times", New York Times, February 23, 1951
Among his playmates he counts the Italian novelist and semiotics professor Umberto Eco, whom he befriended 15 years ago when they engaged in a fierce ottava rima competition that lasted for weeks. They still trade complicated riddles and recondite guessing games by mail.
-- "Roberto Benigni: The Funniest Italian You've Probably Never Heard Of", New York Times, October 11, 1998
He is a poet's poet, says another admirer, sometimes recondite and always deeply aware of the formal tradition of poetry.
-- "Crown prince of puns to give the past new life", Irish Times, May 22, 1999
Recondite is from Latin reconditus, past participle of recondere, "to store back," i.e., "out of the way," hence "to hide"; itself from re-, "back, again" + condere, "to put away, to store." Thus, recondite knowledge is "hidden" (because of obscurity or difficulty) from the understanding of the average person.
paroxysm \PAIR-uhk-siz-uhm\, noun:
1. (Medicine) A sudden attack, intensification, or recurrence of a disease.
2. Any sudden and violent emotion or action; an outburst; a fit.
But when he's on target -- and more often than not he is -- he can send you into paroxysms of laughter.
-- William Triplett, "Drawing Laughter From a Well of Family Pain", Washington Post, June 13, 2002
Dickens had a paroxysm of rage: 'Bounding up from his chair, and throwing his knife and fork on his plate (which he smashed to atoms), he exclaimed: "Dolby! your infernal caution will be your ruin one of these days!"'
-- Edmund Wilson, "Dickens: The Two Scrooges", The Atlantic, April/May 1940
Mrs. Bumble, seeing at a glance that the decisive moment had now arrived, and that a blow struck for mastership on one side or another, must necessarily be final and conclusive, dropped into a chair, and with a loud scream that Mr. Bumble was a hard-hearted brute, fell into a paroxysm of tears.
-- Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
Paroxysm is from Greek paroxusmos, from paroxunein, "to irritate, provoke or excite (literally to sharpen excessively)," from para-, "beyond" + oxunein, "to sharpen, to provoke."
