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.