redoubtable \rih-DOW-tuh-buhl\, adjective:
1. Arousing fear or alarm; formidable.
2. Illustrious; eminent; worthy of respect or honor.

He had been particularly involved in and articulate over policy toward East Asia, stressing the threat from China after the Communists won power there in 1949, and had made dramatic impressions of competence and coolness on two occasions -- under the physical threat of a crowd in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1958, and in a dramatic kitchen debate in the Soviet Union in 1959 with the redoubtable Nikita Khrushchev.
-- William Bundy, A Tangled Web

The prospect was daunting, not least because Evelyn was still a redoubtable figure on campus whom I saw almost every day and to whom I went for advice almost as regularly.
-- Keith Stewart Thomson, The Common But Less Frequent Loon and Other Essays

At the head of the table, as committee chair, sat the redoubtable Howard Mumford Jones—a teacher famed even at Harvard for his fierce authority, his wide-ranging erudition, and his intolerant exacting preciseness.
-- Nicholas Delbanco, The Lost Suitcase

Redoubtable derives from Old French redouter, "to dread," from Medieval Latin redubitare, "to fear," literally "to doubt back at," from Latin re- + dubitare, "to doubt."

neoteric \nee-uh-TER-ik\, adjective:
Recent in origin; modern; new.

Electronic books, they say, are asking them to make a mental transition -- to veer from their ingrained appreciation for the printed books that fill our nation's more than 120,000 public, academic and special interest libraries -- to depend on a neoteric gizmo that disrupts the sacred union between man and book.
-- Charlotte Moore, "Bedtime for binderies?", Austin American Statesman, July 28, 2000

His new label specializes in alternative country or Americana -- music with a sense of tradition and a neoteric edge.
-- Christopher John Farley, "Back To Country's Roots", Time, June 11, 2001

Neoteric derives from Greek neoterikos, from neoteros, "younger," comparative of neos, "young, new."

bilious \BIL-yuhs\, adjective:
1. Of or pertaining to bile.
2. Marked by an excess secretion of bile.
3. Pertaining to, characterized by, or affected by gastric distress caused by a disorder of the liver.
4. Appearing as if affected by such a disorder.
5. Resembling bile, especially in color.
6. Of a peevish disposition; ill-tempered.

Most arresting of all, his normally gray elephant hide has changed to a bilious shade of green.
-- Ellen Handler Spitz, Inside Picture Books

Warm and diplomatic in manner, devoted to his wife and sons, Rich at 52 fits the stereotype of the bilious, bitter critic in only one particular: He didn't have a happy childhood.
-- Judith Newmark, "Theater Expert Fears 'The Bottom Will Drop Out' For Broadway", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 25, 2001

The field here on my right belongs to Knemon,
a human lacking in humanity,
bilious toward everyone, detesting crowds.
-- Menander, The Grouch (translated by Sheila D'Atri)

I know of friends and colleagues who have received death threats and bilious ventings from angry and sometimes deranged strangers.
-- Peter Wood, "You've Got (Hate) Mail", National Review, July 30, 2001

Bilious derives from Latin biliosus, from bilis, "bile."

gustatory \GUS-tuh-tor-ee\, adjective:
Of or pertaining to the sense of taste.

In a land of ice and chains and endemic suffering, caviar provided gustatory salvation from grief and black days, a sensual escape from temporal woes.
-- Jeffrey Tayler, "The Caviar Thugs", The Atlantic, June 2001

Why . . . would something that provides such gustatory pleasure turn out to be supposedly the worst thing you could ever eat?
-- Richard Turner, "The Trendy Diet That Sizzles", Newsweek, September 6, 1999

Instead I seemed to be drawn to countries with the worst food imaginable, places like Turkistan and Africa, where every day you woke up hoping you could avoid gustatory terror but knowing that before you slept again, horrible things would be going inside your mouth. The best strategy was simply to try to eat as little as possible. But I seemed cursed by an ever hopeful palate. "Termites? Termite larva? Could be interesting. I'll try a handful." This was never a good idea.
-- Stuart Stevens, Feeding Frenzy

Gustatory derives from Latin gustatus, "taste," from gustare, "to taste, to take a little of." Other words that have the same root include disgust and gusto ("vigorous and enthusiastic enjoyment").

concinnity \kuhn-SIN-uh-tee\, noun:
1. Internal harmony or fitness in the adaptation of parts to a whole or to each other.
2. Studied elegance of design or arrangement -- used chiefly of literary style.
3. An instance of concinnity.

He has what one character calls "the gifts of concinnity and concision," that deft swipe with a phrase that can be so devastating in children.
-- Elizabeth Ward

Denis Donoghue is a primary critic of our time, catholic in scope, unique in literary apprehension, crucially gratifying in the clear concinnity of his prose.
-- Ihab Hassan

Even so, rules are not merely there to be ignored; in fact, they constitute a democratic aristocracy based not on Debrett's Peerage or the Almanach de Gotha but on the user's respect for comprehensibility, consistency, concision and concinnity -- or, simply, elegance.
-- John Simon, "House Rules", New York Times, October 31, 1999

Concinnity comes from Latin concinnitas, "elegance; harmony of style," from concinnus, "well put together; pleasing, on account of harmony and proportion."