May 27, 1999

canorous \kuh-NOR-us; KAN-or-uhs\, adjective:
Richly melodious; pleasant sounding; musical.

I felt a deep contentment listening to the meadowlark's complex melody as he sat on his bragging post calling for a mate, and the soft canorous whistle of the bobwhite as he whistled his name with intermittent lulls.
-- Donna R. La Plante, "Remember When: The prairie after a spring rain", Kansas City Star, March 16, 2003

But birds that are canorous and whose notes we most commend, are of little throats, and short necks, as Nightingales, Finches, Linnets, Canary birds and Larks.
-- Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica

Canorous comes from the Latin canor, "melody," from canere, "to sing." It is related to chant, from French chanter, "to sing," ultimately from Latin canere.

repast \rih-PAST\, noun:
Something taken as food; a meal.

This repast could scarcely have been digested before a "tea" of fresh bread, butter, cheese, cold meat, and cake was served at half past six.
-- Joan Druett, Hen Frigates

On June 1, 1563, in Basel, Thomas sat down to a meal, probably the evening repast.
-- Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Beggar and the Professor (translated by Arthur Goldhammer)

When staying with friends in American in 1949, the philosopher demanded bread and cheese at all meals. Every time the dull repast was laid before him, he would exclaim, as if for the first time, "Hot diggetty!", a phrase he had picked up from the movies.
-- Bee Wilson, "Stomach tracts", New Statesman, January 8, 1999

Repast comes from Old French repaistre, "to feed," from Latin re- + pascere, "to feed." It is related to pasture, "the grass grown for the feeding of grazing animals, or the land used for grazing."

tenebrous \TEN-uh-bruhs\, adjective:
Dark; gloomy.

He found the Earl, who is eight feet tall and has the family trait of a Cyclops eye, standing stock still, dressed from head to foot in deepest black, in one of the most tenebrous groves in all his haunted domains.
-- Peter Simple, "At Mountwarlock", Daily Telegraph, March 20, 1998

We are so used to the tenebrous atmosphere that can be created in indoor theatres that it's a shock to realise that this murkiest of tragedies first saw the literal light of day at the Globe theatre.
-- Paul Taylor, "Cool, calm, disconnected", Independent, June 7, 2001

And lurking behind our every move is the knowledge of our own mortality. It gives life its edgy disquiet, its tenebrous underside.
-- Douglas Kennedy, "Sudden death", Independent, June 3, 1999

Tenebrous derives from Latin tenebrosus, from tenebrae, "darkness."

nescience \NESH-uhn(t)s; NESH-ee-uhn(t)s\, noun:
Lack of knowledge or awareness; ignorance.

The ancients understood that too much knowledge could actually impede human functioning -- this at a time when the encroachments on global nescience were comparatively few.
-- Cullen Murphy, "DNA Fatigue", The Atlantic, November 1997

He fought on our behalf in the war that finally matters: against nescience, against inadvertence, against the supposition that anything is anything else.
-- Hugh Kenner, "On the Centenary of James Joyce", New York Times, January 31, 1982

The notion has taken hold that every barometric fluctuation must demonstrate climate change. This anecdotal case for global warming is mostly nonsense, driven by nescience of a basic point, from statistics and probability, that the weather is always weird somewhere.
-- Gregg Easterbrook, "Warming Up", The New Republic, November 8, 1999

Nescience is from Latin nescire, "not to know," from ne-, "not" + scire, "to know." It is related to science. Nescient is the adjective form.

gewgaw \G(Y)OO-gaw\, noun:
A showy trifle; a trinket; a bauble.

Bidders paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for worthless gewgaws--fake pearls, ashtrays, golf clubs--merely, one supposes, because they were touched by the hand of this celebrity of celebrities.
-- Lawrence M. Friedman, The Horizontal Society

At least, you're tempted until you discover that the price of this gewgaw is $175.
-- Walter Shapiro, "Earn exciting prizes from the Republicans!", USA Today, March 27, 2002

Walk into almost any department store, and there it is -- along with mounds of other gimmicky gadgets and garish gewgaws that (no offense, Vanna) the world can live without.
-- James A. Russell, "What the World Needs Now . . . Is Not Another Gimmicky Gadget or Worthless Doohickey", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 9, 1995

The origin of gewgaw is uncertain.

effulgence \i-FUL-juhn(t)s\, noun:
The state of being bright and radiant; splendor; brilliance.

The purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues.
-- "Congressman Henry Lee's Eulogy for George Washington" , December 4, 1908

The setting sun as usual shed a melancholy effulgence on the ruddy towers of the Alhambra.
-- Washington Irving, The Alhambra

Nice gave him a different light from Paris -- a high, constant effulgence with little gray in it, flooding broadly across sea, city and hills, producing luminous shadows and clear tonal structures.
-- Robert Hughes, "Inventing A Sensory Utopia: The paintings Matisse did in Nice include some of his best", Time, November 17, 1986

From Latin ex, "out of, from" + fulgere, "to shine." The adjective form of the word is effulgent.

exiguity \ek-suh-GYOO-uht-ee\, noun:
Scantiness; smallness; thinness;the quality of being meager.
--EXIGUOUS, adjective

An exiguity of cloth that would only allow of miniature capes
-- George Eliot

The soldiers' pay is in the highest degree exiguous; not above three half-pence a day.
-- Carlyle

Exiguity derives from the Latin exiguitas, itself from exiguus, meaning "strictly weighed," which came to signify "too strictly weighed"; hence, "meager." Related to exact ("precisely weighed or determined").

seriatim \sir-ee-AY-tim; -AT-im\, adverb:
In a series; one after another.

Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs thanked every lady and gentleman, seriatim, for the favour of their company.
-- Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickelby

Two days from the opening of the impeachment debate, gangs of television crews moved through mostly deserted corridors, doling out their 15 minutes of fame seriatim as individual lawmakers stepped up to batteries of microphones.
-- New York Times, December 16, 1998

In his company one found oneself supposing, on hearing Walters handle German and Spanish, French and Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Russian, that his mind traveled from any one language to any other seriatim, because his mind worked that way, taking it all in.
-- William F. Buckley Jr., "Dick Walters R.I.P.", National Review, February 15, 2002

Seriatim derives from the Latin series, meaning "row, chain," and is formed on the same model as verbatim ("word for word") and literatim ("letter for letter").

tmesis \TMEE-sis\, noun:
In grammar and rhetoric, the separation of the parts of a compound word, now generally done for humorous effect; for example, "what place soever" instead of "whatsoever place," or "abso-bloody-lutely."

If on the first, how heinous e'er it be,
To win thy after-love I pardon thee.
-- Shakespeare, Richard II

His income-tax return, he remarked, was the "most rigged-up marole" he'd ever seen.
-- Frederic Packard

In two words, im possible.
-- Samuel Goldwyn

Tmesis is from Greek tmesis, "a cutting," from temnein, "to cut."

chthonic \THONE-ik\, adjective:
Dwelling in or under the earth; also, pertaining to the underworld

"Driven by dæmonic, chthonic Powers."
-- T.S. Eliot

"The chthonic divinity was essentially a god of the regions under the earth; at first of the dark home of the seed, later on of the still darker home of the dead."
-- C. F. Keary

"The chthonic imagery of Norine's apartment, which..was black as a coalhole and heated by the furnace of the hostess' unslaked desires."
-- M. McCarthy

"Two great and contrasted forms of ritual: the Olympian and the Chthonic, the one a ritual of cheerful character, the other a ritual of gloom, and fostering superstition."

Chthonic comes from khthón, the Greek word for earth.

emolument \ih-MOL-yuh-muhnt\, noun:
The wages or perquisites arising from office, employment, or labor; gain; compensation.

The record indicates that few grandees who pleaded poverty to avoid service were left without substantial maintenance grants and emoluments and that the Crown gladly financed their luxurious military lifestyles.
-- Fernando Gonzales de Leon, "Aristocratic draft-dodgers in 17th-century Spain", History Today, 7/1

Although not very rich, he is easy in his circumstances and would not with a view to emolument alone wish for employment.
-- Henry Dundas, quoted in The Elgin Affair, by Theodore Vrettos

And they are not obliged to follow those occupations, if they prefer leisure to emolument.
-- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Emolument derives from Latin emolumentum, originally a sum paid to a miller for grinding out one's wheat, from molere, "to grind." It is related to molar, the "grinding" tooth.

deprecate \DEP-rih-kayt\, transitive verb:
1. [Archaic] To pray against, as an evil; to seek to avert by prayer.
2. To disapprove of strongly.
3. To belittle; to depreciate.

Although Stalin at times deprecated his cult, he also tolerated and perhaps covertly encouraged it.
-- Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism

Copland humorously deprecated his looks, finding in his gaunt physique, narrow face, prominent nose, and buckteeth a comic resemblance to a giraffe.
-- Howard Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man

We experience such augmentations as pleasure, which may be why aesthetic values have always been deprecated by social moralists, from Plato through our current campus Puritans.
-- Harold Bloom, How to Read and Why

Deprecate comes from the past participle of Latin deprecari, "to avert by prayer, to deprecate," from de-, "from" + precari, "to pray."

bivouac \BIV-wak, BIV-uh-wak\, noun:
1. An encampment for the night, usually under little or no shelter.

intransitive verb:
1. To encamp for the night, usually under little or no shelter.

Rob had made his emergency bivouac just below the South Summit.
-- David Breashears, "Death on the mountain", The Observer, March 30, 2003

They were stopped by savage winds and forced to bivouac 153 m below the day's goal.
-- Erik Weihenmayer, "Men of the Mountain", Time Pacific, February 4, 2002

Bivouac comes from French bivouac, from German Beiwache, "a watching or guarding," from bei, "by, near" + wachen, "to watch."

dapple \DAP-uhl\, noun:
1. A small contrasting spot or blotch.
2. A mottled appearance, especially of the coat of an animal (as a horse).

transitive verb:
1. To mark with patches of a color or shade; to spot.

intransitive verb:
1. To become dappled.

adjective:
1. Marked with contrasting patches or spots; dappled.

Look at . . . his cows with their comic camouflage dapples . . . .
-- Arthur C. Danto, "Sometimes Red", ArtForum, January 2002

70 diamond- and hexagonal-shaped holes, 35 between the North End ramp and the northbound lanes, and 35 between the northbound and southbound lanes, allow light to filter through and dapple the river below.
-- Raphael Lewis, "A walk into the future", Boston Globe, May 9, 2002

Gentle shafts of sunlight . . . dapple the grass.
-- Gail Sheehy, Hillary's Choice

Dapple derives from Old Norse depill, "a spot."

capitulate \kuh-PICH-uh-layt\, intransitive verb:
To surrender under agreed conditions.

Just before peace talks on Kosovo are due to resume, the United States and its allies are sending contradictory signals to Belgrade, making it less likely that President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia will capitulate on American terms.
-- Steven Erlanger, "West's Bosnia Move May Hurt Kosovo Bid", New York Times, March 7, 1999

I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

We say "capitulate" because the terms (of surrender) were drawn up in capitula, which is Latin for "chapters." Chapter itself is related to capitulate.

susurrus \su-SUHR-uhs\, noun:
A whispering or rustling sound; a murmur.

Still, the breeze is soothing, as is the susurrus of the branches.
-- Michael Finkel, "Tree Surfing and Other Lofty Pleasures", The Atlantic, March 1998

And there came, like the dry susurrus of wind before thunder peals and lightning, a great rustle of excitement.
-- Richard Whittington-Egan, "The Edwardian literary afternoon: part one", Contemporary Review, April 2000

He heard the susurrus of curtains luffed by the breeze.
-- Erik Larson, Isaac's Storm

Susurrus comes from the Latin susurrus, "a murmuring, a whispering, a humming."

thaumaturgy \THAW-muh-tuhr-jee\, noun:
The performance of miracles or magic.

Of course, none of these improbable meetings ever took place in reality. But within the realm of showbiz thaumaturgy, they're perfectly acceptable examples of latter-day digital compositing, wherein it's possible to have anything share a frame of film or video with practically anything else.
-- John Voland, "Prez presses tech buttons", Variety, July 21, 1997

There was ever a cautious hesitancy on the part of the clergy to recognize evidence of thaumaturgy, and the superstitious use of relics.
-- John Mcgurk, "Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland", Contemporary Review, September 1998

Thaumaturgy comes from the Greek words for "wonder" (thauma) and "work" (ergon). A practitioner of thaumaturgy is a thaumaturgist or thaumaturge.

glower \GLAU-uhr\, intransitive verb:
1. To look or stare angrily or with a scowl.

noun:
1. An angry or scowling look or stare.

At one point, the head of the institute started chatting with colleagues sitting at a table behind Yeltsin, prompting the Russian President to interrupt his reading and glower at them.
-- Bruce W. Nelan, "The Last Hurrah?", Time, April 26, 1993

A baby wearing a disposable nappy has been placed on a tree trunk in dark woodland: he seems to glower at us disapprovingly, like a troll, or a mini-Churchill.
-- Margaret Walters, "The secret life of babies", New Statesman, September 13, 1996

A boyish-looking man who frowned and glowered, trying to look more authoritative than his twenty-nine years, Andrei said his job was to focus on the convolutions in Russian property law.
-- Eleanor Randolph, Waking the Tempest

Floyd approached me with a glower, cheeks reddened, indignant.
-- William Peter Blatty, Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing

Glower is from Middle English gloren, perhaps ultimately of Scandinavian origin.

irenic \eye-REN-ik; -REE-nik\, adjective:
Tending to promote peace; conciliatory.

With an irenic spirit they join the debate, at times ugly and vicious, about the historicity of the Bible (by which they mean the Hebrew Scriptures, also known as the Old Testament).
-- Phyllis Trible, "God's Ghostwriters", New York Times, February 4, 2001

Indeed, for Cozzi -- as for several scholars -- the Interdict controversy of 1606-7 became the emblematic struggle that defined the Venetian Republic as tolerant and open, free from the tyranny of the Counter Reformation Church, animated by an aristocracy steeped in the values of civic humanism and evangelism, and committed to commerce and an irenic diplomacy.
-- John Martin (Editor) and Dennis Romano (Editor), Venice Reconsidered

Taylor was always irenic by temperament and desire, and his sensitivity to others enabled him to bring together and work with people of very diverse views.
-- "The Right Rev John Taylor", Times (London), February 1, 2001

Irenic comes from Greek eirenikos, from eirene, "peace."

inkhorn \INK-horn\, adjective:
1. Affectedly or ostentatiously learned; pedantic.

noun:
1. A small bottle of horn or other material formerly used for holding ink.

. . .the widespread use of what were called (dismissively, by truly learned folk) "inkhorn terms."
-- Simon Winchester, "Word Imperfect", The Atlantic Monthly, May 2001

In prison he wrote the De Consolatione Philosophiae, his most celebrated work and one of the most translated works in history; it was translated . . . by Elizabeth I into florid, inkhorn language.
-- The Oxford Companion to English Literature, s.v. "Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus (c. 475 - 525)."

Inkhorn derives from the name for the container formerly used (beginning in the 14th century) for holding ink, originally made from a real horn. Hence it came to refer to words that were being used by learned writers and scholars but which were unknown or rare in ordinary speech.

Argus-eyed \AR-guhs-ide\, adjective:
Extremely observant; watchful; sharp-sighted.

Yet other eyes were on me, and Kat, my Argus-eyed defender, never failed to notice them.
-- Rosalind Miles, I, Elizabeth: A Novel

Even the foliage at the Stork is apt to conceal a celebrity, as Argus-eyed star-gazers discovered the other night when they peeked behind three carefully combed fronds and found writer Ernest Hemingway, actor Monty Woolley and sculptor Jo Davidson.
-- Ralph Blumenthal, Stork Club

This flag was immediately spotted by the Argus-eyed Intelligence Service and the Admiralty found time to send a frogman, at high tide, to haul it down again.
-- Nancy Mitford, Don't Tell Alfred

One who is Argus-eyed is as observant as Argus, a hundred-eyed monster from Greek mythology.

machination \mack-uh-NAY-shuhn; mash-\, noun:
1. The act of plotting.
2. A crafty scheme; a cunning design or plot intended to accomplish some usually evil end.

He was telling me how he could have married the royal princess as a reward for his bravery in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he was an infantryman in the Kaiserliche und Konigliche Austro-Hungarian army, but for the machinations of the evil Archduke somebody-or-other.
-- George Lang, Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen

Alongside the various representations of sincere tears, then, are a series of representations of insincerity and emotional machination.
-- Tom Lutz, Crying

To keep away from them and steer clear of their inveigling schemes and grasping machinations . . . has been my constant life-long effort.
-- Jeff Stryker, "They Couldn't Resist: Oh One Last Thing", New York Times, May 21, 2000

He declared that the tale he could tell would not be of generals or kings, for the political machinations of the great, he said, he was and had been in no position to observe.
-- Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire

Machination derives from Latin machinatio, "a contrivance, a cunning device, a machination," from machinari, "to contrive, to devise, especially to plot evil." It is related to machine, from Latin machina, "any artificial contrivance for performing work." To machinate is to devise a plot, or engage in plotting. One who machinates is a machinator.

bootless \BOOT-lis\, adjective:
Unavailing; useless; without advantage or benefit.

I have seen a swan
With bootless labour swim against the tide.
-- Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III

A noble intention, a decent attempt to bust bigger heads than their own with their best weapons, but bootless and, ultimately, senseless, too.
-- Gordon Monson, "Ute Defense Headlines Bland Game", Salt Lake Tribune, September 1, 2002

A crew of divers was scheduled to start cleaning the seaweed off the net in preparation for winter, although now it seemed like a bootless task, given that Keiko might never come back.
-- Susan Orlean, "Where's Willy?", The New Yorker, September 16, 2002

Late in the nineteenth century there had been a bootless competition between Munich and Berlin as to which was more modern, more civilized.
-- Peter Gay, My German Question

Bootless is from Old English bot, "advantage, profit" + -less, from Old English from leas, "without."

ambuscade \AM-buh-skayd; am-buh-SKAYD\, noun:
1. An ambush.

transitive verb:
1. To attack by surprise from a concealed place; to ambush.

But so great were his fears for the army, lest in those wild woods it should fall into some Indian snare, that the moment his fever left him, he got placed on his horse, and pursued, and overtook them the very evening before they fell into that ambuscade which he had all along dreaded.
-- Mason Locke Weems, The Life of Washington

The storm is distant, just the lights behind
The eyes are left of lightning's ambuscade.
-- Peter Porter, "The Last Wave Before the Breakwater"

No more ambuscades, no more shooting from behind trees.
-- William Murchison, "What the voters chose", Human Life Review, January 1, 1995

Ambuscade comes from Middle French embuscade, from Old Italian imboscata, from past participle of imboscare, "to ambush," from in, (from Latin) + bosco, "forest," of Germanic origin.

coruscate \KOR-uh-skayt\, intransitive verb:
1. To give off or reflect bright beams or flashes of light; to sparkle.
2. To exhibit brilliant, sparkling technique or style.

They pulled up at the farthest end of a loop path that looked out over the great basin of the Rio Grande under brilliant, coruscating stars.
-- Bill Roorbach, "Big Bend", The Atlantic, March 2001

Beneath you lie two miles of ocean -- a bottomlessness, for all practical purposes, an infinity of blue. . . . A thousand coruscating shafts of sunlight probe it, illuminating nothing.
-- Kenneth Brower, "The Destruction of Dolphins", The Atlantic, July 1989

What coruscating flights of language in his prose, what waterfalls of self-displaying energy!
-- Joyce Carol Oates, review of A Theft, by Saul Bellow, New York Times, March 5, 1989

Whether we know or like it or not, those of us who turn our hands to this task are scribbling in a line of succession which, however uncertainly and intermittently, reaches back to the young Macaulay, who first made his public reputation as a coruscating writer in the 1820s.
-- David Cannadine, "On Reviewing and Being Reviewed", History Today, March 1, 1999

Coruscate comes from Latin coruscatus, past participle of coruscare, "to move quickly, to tremble, to flutter, to twinkle or flash." The noun form is coruscation. Also from coruscare is the adjective coruscant, "glittering in flashes; flashing."

riposte \rih-POST\, noun:
1. A quick thrust given after parrying an opponent's lunge in fencing.
2. A quick and effective reply by word or act.

intransitive verb:
1. To make a riposte.

She had an agile, teasing sense of humor that included a sure grasp of the absurd and an instinct for punchy ripostes.
-- Sally Bedell Smith, Diana in Search of Herself

It was an inelegant riposte, especially for one so quick-witted as Neumann.
-- Peter Gay, My German Question

When she told him how much she hated being called an old trout, he'd riposte: "The trout is the most beautiful of fish."
-- Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg

Riposte derives from Italian risposta, "an answer," from rispondere, "to answer," from Latin respondere, "to promise in return, to answer," from re- + spondere, "to promise."

confabulation \kon-FAB-yuh-lay-shuhn\, noun:
1. Familiar talk; easy, unrestrained, unceremonious conversation.
2. (Psychology) A plausible but imagined memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered.

Their sentiments were reflected neither in the elegant exchanges between the Viceroy and Secretary of State, nor in the unlovely confabulations between the Congress and the League managers.
-- Mushirul Hasan, "Partition: The Human Cost", History Today, September 1997

Sigmund Freud, a stubborn, bullying interrogator of hysterical women, harangued his patients into building fantasies and traumas that fit into his grand narrative scheme, eliciting confabulations rather than actual memories.
-- Jennifer Howard, "Neurosis 1990s-Style", Civilization, April/May 1997

Confabulation comes from Late Latin confabulatio, from the past participle of Latin confabulari, "to talk together," from con-, "together, with" + fabulari, "to talk." It is related to fable, "a fiction, a tale," and to fabulous, "so incredible or astonishing as to resemble or suggest a fable."

matutinal \muh-TOOT-n-uhl\, adjective:
Relating to or occurring in the morning; early.

Get up early and wash your face in the matutinal May Day dew; it will make your skin beautiful and your heart pure.
-- Ray Murphy, "Hurray, Hurray, the Month of May", Boston Globe, April 28, 1988

We had to rehearse at an hour at which no actor or actress has been out of bed within the memory of man; and we sardonically congratulated one another every morning on our rosy matutinal looks and the improvement wrought by our early rising in our health and characters.
-- George Bernard Shaw, "The Author's Apology", Mrs. Warren's Profession

Harry Truman, was -- like Winston Churchill -- known to take a matutinal shot of whisky. He did it after his regular very vigorous early-morning walk.
-- R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., "Plainly presidential", The Washington Times, January 18, 2002

Matutinal is from Late Latin matutinalis, from Latin matutinus, "early in the morning; pertaining to the morning."

acclimate \uh-KLY-mit; AK-luh-mayt\, transitive and intransitive verb:
To accustom or become accustomed to a new climate, environment, or situation.

Getting acclimated to being in the suburbs, Sally? Mrs. Westin asked.
-- Julia Slavin, The Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club and Other Stories

The Korbels did not have much time to pull their lives together and acclimate themselves to English culture.
-- Ann Blackman, Seasons of Her Life

Acclimate is from French acclimater, from a-, "to" (from Latin ad-) + climat, "climate," from Late Latin clima, climat-, from Greek klima, "inclination; the supposed slope of the earth toward the pole; region; clime," from klinein, "to lean."

rejoinder \rih-JOIN-dur\, noun:
An answer to a reply; or, in general, an answer or reply.

I kept looking for exceptions to his pronouncements, flaws in his reasoning, my constant rejoinders to his critical remarks being "Yes, but . . ."
-- Richard Elman, Namedropping: Mostly Literary Memoirs

The comment immediately drew a sharp rejoinder from a friend.
-- Howard W. French, "Tokyo Displays Mixed Feelings at Premiere of 'Pearl Harbor'", New York Times, June 21, 2001

Chance on an unbelieving clod, and the ultimate rejoinder is ready at hand: "Listen, dummy, it actually happened!"
-- Benjamin Cheever, "Like Watching Tennis", New York Times, August 17, 1997

Rejoinder derives from Old French rejoindre, "to answer, rejoin," from re- + joindre, "to join," from Latin iungere, "to join."

eructation \ih-ruhk-TAY-shuhn\, noun:
The act of belching; a belch.

Ignatius belched, the gassy eructations echoing between the walls of the alley.
-- John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

The explosion, at this distance, sounds like a faint, feeble eructation.
-- Peter Conrad, "Bangs to whimpers", The Observer, March 7, 2004

Eructation comes from Latin eructatio, from eructare, from e-, "out" + ructare, "to belch."

contravene \kon-truh-VEEN\, transitive verb:
1. To act or be counter to; to violate.
2. To oppose in argument; to contradict.

In 1620 most people considered the likelihood of reversing the seasons inside a building impossible, and many deemed it sacrilege, an attempt to contravene the natural order, to twist the configuration of the world established by God.
-- Tom Shachtman, Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold

Anorexics, for example, clearly contravene our evolutionary dictate to eat.
-- Jerry A. Coyne, "Of Vice and Men", The New Republic, April 3, 2000

Contravene comes from Late Latin contravenire, "to oppose," from Latin contra-, "against" + venire, "to come."

quiescent \kwy-ES-uhnt; kwee-\, adjective:
Being in a state of repose; at rest; still; inactive.

The solution, Dr. Wilmut discovered, was to, in effect, put the DNA from the adult cell to sleep, making it quiescent by depriving the adult cell of nutrients.
-- Gina Kolata, "Scientist Reports First Cloning Ever of Adult Mammal", New York Times, February 23, 1997

A vicious but localized Sino-Japanese war raged around the Shanghai region through much of 1932. The conflict then settled into a quiescent phase for several years.
-- David M. Kennedy, "The Horror", The Atlantic, April 1998

Have we had our day and are we . . . just carrying on after the manner of the aged, quiescent, devitalized, uncreative, desiring peace and sleep above all else?
-- Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India

Quiescent derives from the present participle of Latin quiescere, to rest, from quies, rest.

quiescent \kwy-ES-uhnt; kwee-\, adjective:
Being in a state of repose; at rest; still; inactive.

The solution, Dr. Wilmut discovered, was to, in effect, put the DNA from the adult cell to sleep, making it quiescent by depriving the adult cell of nutrients.
-- Gina Kolata, "Scientist Reports First Cloning Ever of Adult Mammal", New York Times, February 23, 1997

A vicious but localized Sino-Japanese war raged around the Shanghai region through much of 1932. The conflict then settled into a quiescent phase for several years.
-- David M. Kennedy, "The Horror", The Atlantic, April 1998

Have we had our day and are we . . . just carrying on after the manner of the aged, quiescent, devitalized, uncreative, desiring peace and sleep above all else?
-- Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India

Quiescent derives from the present participle of Latin quiescere, to rest, from quies, rest.

quiescent \kwy-ES-uhnt; kwee-\, adjective:
Being in a state of repose; at rest; still; inactive.

The solution, Dr. Wilmut discovered, was to, in effect, put the DNA from the adult cell to sleep, making it quiescent by depriving the adult cell of nutrients.
-- Gina Kolata, "Scientist Reports First Cloning Ever of Adult Mammal", New York Times, February 23, 1997

A vicious but localized Sino-Japanese war raged around the Shanghai region through much of 1932. The conflict then settled into a quiescent phase for several years.
-- David M. Kennedy, "The Horror", The Atlantic, April 1998

Have we had our day and are we . . . just carrying on after the manner of the aged, quiescent, devitalized, uncreative, desiring peace and sleep above all else?
-- Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India

Quiescent derives from the present participle of Latin quiescere, to rest, from quies, rest.

idee fixe \ee-day-FEEKS\, noun:
An idea that dominates the mind; a fixed idea; an obsession.

The reality of obsession -- its incessant return to the same few themes, scenarios and questions; its meticulous examination and re-examination of banal minutiae for hidden meanings that simply aren't there; the cancerous way an idee fixe usurps other, more interesting thoughts -- is that it is confining, not rebellious, and not fascinating but maddeningly dull.
-- Laura Miller, "The Streetwalkers of San Francisco", New York Times, August 20, 2000

It became an idee fixe that he stubbornly adhered to in spite of the plain evidence . . . that obviously contradicts it.
-- Edwin G. Pulleyblank, "Prosody or pharyngealization in old Chinese?", The Journal of the American Oriental Society, January 12, 1996

Getting back to the idee fixe, let me say that it's what produces strong men and madmen.
-- Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (translated by Gregory Rabassa)

Idee fixe is from the French idée, "idea" + fixe, "fixed."

distrait \dis-TRAY\, adjective:
Divided or withdrawn in attention, especially because of anxiety.

Yet when she stopped for a cup of coffee, finding herself too distrait to begin work, the picture was in the course of being removed from the window.
-- Anita Brookner, Falling Slowly

He had painfully written out a first draft, and he intoned it now like a poet delicate and distrait.
-- Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt

Virtually nobody noticed a more private and simultaneous cameo in a little bay in West Cork: of a delicate, somewhat distrait, gentleman of middle age being swept into the turbulent waters off Kilcrohane.
-- Kevin Myers, "An Irishman's Diary", Irish Times, July 21, 1999

Distrait is from Old French, from distraire, "to distract," from Latin distrahere, "to pull apart; to draw away; to distract," from dis- + trahere, "to draw, to pull." It is related to distraught and distracted, which have the same Latin source.

salient \SAY-lee-unt; SAYL-yunt\, adjective:
1. Shooting out or up; projecting.
2. Forcing itself on the attention; prominent; conspicuous; noticeable.
3. Leaping; springing; jumping.

noun:
1. An outwardly projecting part of a fortification, trench system, or line of defense.
2. A projecting angle or part.

What I had in mind was an autobiography in which, while treating my person with due reverence, I would present a firsthand account of recent events in Europe that put me in the running for both the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize (to acquaint you right away with one of my salient characteristics: megalomania).
-- Thomas Brussig, Heroes Like Us, Translated by John Brownjohn

He gave science an exciting, positive image when many Americans were skeptical of it, worried that its most salient effect was to disenchant the universe and undercut religion.
-- David A. Hollinger, "Star Power", New York Times, November 28, 1999

The strength of the hypothesis is that it simultaneously explains all these salient features, none of which had satisfactory independent explanations.
-- Paul F. Hoffman and Daniel P. Schrag, "Snowball Earth", Scientific American, January 2000

He was killed during an attack on German positions dug into Ploegsteert Wood on the Ypres salient.
-- Russell Jenkins and Stephen Farrell, "Search begins for family of Flanders fusilier", Times (London), January 10, 2000

Salient derives from the present participle of Latin salire, to leap. Other words deriving from salire are sally, to leap forth or rush out suddenly; and perhaps salmon, the "leaping" fish.

brackish \BRAK-ish\, adjective:
1. Somewhat salty.
2. Distasteful; unpalatable.

Just a few villages dot the dangerous beaches where the Sepik [River] meets the sea, a brackish zone where sharks and saltwater crocodiles lurk.
-- Dennis Lewon, "Learning to Receive", Islands

I gagged, and tasted something metallic and brackish in the back of my throat.
-- Lance Armstrong and Sally Jenkins, It's Not About the Bike

And yet his decision still leaves that brackish aftertaste.
-- Tom Block, review of The Sorrow and the Pity (1971), Culturevulture.net

Brackish derives from Dutch brak, "salty." It is especially used to describe a mixture of seawater and fresh water.

nonage \NON-ij; NOH-nij\, noun:
1. The time of life before a person becomes legally of age.
2. A period of youth or immaturity.

He was an adept in politics, even in his nonage, and an accomplished statesman before the laws regarded him as a man.
-- Anne Hamilton, The Epics of the Ton

In these journals of Thoreau's nonage, now restored to us in their full text for the first time, we walk among the young Thoreau's thoughts much more often than in the fields and woods surrounding Concord.
-- Leon Edel, "The Very Young Thoreau", New York Times, December 20, 1981

It occasionally puts children over men, and the conceits of nonage over wisdom and experience.
-- Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man

Nonage comes from non- (from Latin) + age, from Old French aage, eage, from Latin aetas, "age."

gallimaufry \gal-uh-MAW-free\, noun:
A medley; a hodgepodge.

Today bilingual programs are conducted in a gallimaufry of around 80 tongues, ranging from Spanish to Lithuanian to Micronesian Yapese.
-- Ezra Bowen, "For Learning or Ethnic Pride?", Time, July 8, 1985

Then the speech itself, and you have to feel sorry for TQMEM [The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty] having to read out this frightful drivel, this grim gallimaufry of cliches, jargon and outright lies.
-- Simon Hoggart, "Grand tradition: Maltravers, Rouge, Garter, Skinner", The Guardian, November 27, 2003

Maran reports the daily jostlings and thrivings in a public school with 3,200 students, 185 teachers, 45 languages, a principal and five vice principals, five safety monitors, 62 sports teams and a gallimaufry of alternative programs, clubs and cliques.
-- Colman McCarthy, "A Writer Goes Back to School", Washington Post, August 20, 2001

Gallimaufry, originally meaning "a hash of various kinds of meats," comes from French galimafrée, from Old French, from galer, "to rejoice, to make merry" (source of English gala) + mafrer, "to eat much," from Medieval Dutch maffelen, "to open one's mouth wide."

dolorous \DOH-luh-ruhs\, adjective:
Marked by, causing, or expressing grief or sorrow.

Climbing out on to a narrow ledge, we waving cheerily at the people passing by on the street below, until my mother was informed of our misdemeanour -- by a waitress wickedly known to great-aunt Mary, behind her table napkin, as Sourpuss for her perpetually dolorous expression -- and we were lured back inside.
-- Mary Varnham, "Voices of young and old are rarely heard", The Evening Post (Wellington, New Zealand), March 30, 1995

And at the centre of this intense display of devotion Carlo himself, bearing aloft the relic of the Holy Nail from the cathedral, shoeless and oblivious to his bleeding feet, walked amid a dolorous procession of penitents.
-- Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life

Dolorous derives from Latin dolor, "pain, grief, sorrow," from dolere, "to suffer pain, to grieve."