despoil - des-POYL - ransack, devastate, pillage, ravage

Example: "Reuters Press reported that the massive earthquake to hit Chile yesterday despoiled a huge swath of the Andean country, as cars lay mangled and upended on streets littered with telephone wires and power cables; a new 14-story apartment building fell, while an older, biochemical lab at the University of Concepción caught fire. The mayor said that at least 300 people had been killed."

gemuetlichkeit - ghem-OOT-lich-KITE - warmth, friendliness, a kind of coziness

Example: "Good news for guzzlers: Researchers at the U of California found that drinking beer in moderation not only produces feelings of gemuetlichkeit, but also builds strong bones & helps prevent osteoporosis."

cloture - cloh-chyur - a procedure for ending a debate & taking a vote

Example: "Columnist Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post called a filibuster intentionally frustrating, but wonderful if you are trying to block something from happening. Senate rules allow members to supposedly debate a matter (to filibuster) indefinitely unless at least 60 out of 100 senators vote to cut off the filibuster; in other words, to invoke cloture. She wonders if cloture can occur with the ongoing filibuster over the health bill which remains now in 'debate'."

sagacious - sah-GAY-shus - shrewd, keen, perceptive, discerning, sage

Example: "After watching 35-minutes of TV advertisements during an hour segment of the Olympics, an observer made a sagacious comment: 'No doubt about it; all ads lie.'"

bucolic - bew-CALL-ik - relating to or characteristic of country life, especially noted for its rustic aspects

Example: "Hendrik, a young German fellow who volunteered to spend a year with Little Brothers in Upper Michigan's Copper Country, found the bucolic nature of the area very much to his liking."

voracious - voh-RAY-shuss - insatiable, out-of-control, rabid

Example: "Jon Meacham, critic for Newsweek, voraciously attacks the government with hopes for a change, insisting that '...there is a renewed sense that Washington works only for itself, fighting for narrow partisan advantages while large national & international issues go unresolved.'"

sturm und drang - shtoorm-un'-drahm - literally 'storm & stress,' a state of great emotional stress

Example: "Although the national economy has begun to bounce back, governors at a meeting of the National Governors Association said Saturday that the worst was yet to come at the state level, where revenues are still falling short of projections; therefore, they agreed, the sturm und drang also still exists at their level."

brouhaha - BROO-ha-ha - a noisy, often heated uproar


"A brouhaha has erupted over the 'Family Guy' animated TV comedy, termed either irreverent or crass, depending on one's tolerance for unmannerly humor; it began with a Facebook posting from Sarah Palin as a personal 'kick in the gut' for its supposed depiction of a young woman with Down syndrome whose 'father is an accountant & mother used to be governor of Alaska.' The former governor (whose youngest child has Down syndrome) took it as an unacceptable personal insult."

increment - IN-krih-MENT - an increase in something - often a series of small, often regular or planned increases

Example: "Regarding the ongoing issue of nuclear weaponry, Barry Blechman of the NY Times felt that 'Eliminating nuclear weapons incrementally through arms control agreements hasn't worked - the thinking has to be more bold.'"

conjectural - kun-JEK-shur-ULL- debatable, contestable, moot

Example: "In a conjectural statement in Mark Yohs's book on sports, his claim about the greatest problem in amateur sports lies with the parents, not the contestants."

ethos - EE-THOS - the main character, sentiment, moral nature or guiding beliefs of a person, group or institution

Example: "'The Hurt Locker,' up for an Oscar as Best Picture, has been explained by critic Hendrik Hertzberg with, 'The underlying ethos is that war is hell, but it does not demonize the soldiers it portrays...'"

donnybrook - DON-nee-BROOK - fight, altercation, heated argument, uproar

Example: "Meteorologist Jeff Masters, in a donnybrook with other meteorologists, claimed in Time Magazine that the two major storms to hit Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington, D.C., suggest that while global warming may not make hurricanes more common, it could, in the future, intensify the storms that do occur & make them increasingly more destructive."

depilate - DEP-il-ATE - remove the hair from

Example: "The reviewer of WOLFMAN in People Magazine condemned the film as more-of-the-same, but admitted that when Benicio Del Toro in the title role was depilated, he wasn't too bad; it was his hairy, violent moments that ruined his role."

phoenix - FEE-NIX - mythical bird that would live for centuries, die in flames, then rise anew from the ashes.

Example: "Shoot off in either direction from 8 Mile Road in Detroit & you'll find, phoenix like, dozens of Michigan manufacturers that are discovering there is indeed life beyond the auto industry by converting their specialized auto-parts factories to build or design a hodgepodge of products - whether aircraft parts, solar cells, or batteries for electric cars."

enigmatic - puzzling, bewildering, baffling, mystifying

Jacob Weisberg's column in Newsweek raised an enigmatic thought with, 'The list of culprits in our administration may be large, but it neglects what may be the biggest culprit of all: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large'; anyone who says you can't have it both ways hasn't been checking opinion polls lately'."

outré - ooh-TRAY - far out, excessive, startling

Example: "In Dubai, where almost everything is a kind of visual spectacle intended to make you gawk, the newly constructed half-mile high Burj Khalifa is by far the most outré."

admonishing - ad-MON-ish-ING - fair warning, alerting, giving a word to the wise

Example: "With only days to go and unrelenting rain covering Vancouver's Olympic area, officials have turned to another dampening subject, admonishing contestants that 30 among them have already been eliminated by drug testing."

revile - ree-VILE - scold, upbraid, vilify, lambaste, curse

Example: "AndrewChristie, referring to Obama in Newsweek as creating an 'inspiration gap,' added that 'if he acted like the people's champion he was elected to be, he still would be as reviled by the right as FDR was, but the people would be with him'."

orgone - ORE-GOHN - a sexual energy or life force supposedly existing everywhere, that (according to Wilhelm Reich) can be gathered into an enclosed space for future therapeutic use

Example: "Strange information continues to follow the death of writer J.D.Salinger (Catcher in the Rye), including the fact that he was, admitted his granddaughter, 'an unpleasant recluse (a person who tends to prefer living alone) who drank his own urine, spoke in tongues, and sat for hours in an orgone box'."

omnivore - AHM-nih-VORE - someone or something that eats both plants & animals

Example: A critic of books on food says, 'I have come across nothing more intelligent, sensible and simple to follow than the 64 principles outlined in a slender, easy-to-digest new book called 'Food Rules: An Eater's Manual,' by Michael Pollan - who also wrote 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' which concerns the daily battle between what a person wants to eat as opposed to what she/he ought to eat."

misogynist - mis-AHJ-ih-NIST - a man who hates women

Example: "The overly masculine tone in the Super Bowl commercials is upsetting many people, particularly women, who are posting comments to blogs about the spots, decrying those spots as blatantly misogynistic."

august (no capital letter, as found in the month, August) - ah-GUST - awe-inspiring, worthy of respect

Example: "Toyota, a company that built its august reputation with meticulous attention to quality, is now facing a credibility crisis as many little-known problems are surfacing with many of its models."

preternatural - PREE-ter-NACH-ur-ull - beyond what is normal or natural, exceeding what is normal in nature

Example: "The record-breaking snow storm along the East coast has been labeled as preternatural, even apocryphal (too horrible to be believed), by newscasters witnessing it."

avante-garde - ground breaking, trail-blazing, being ahead of the times

Example: "After applying 'passé' and 'dernier cri' to Super Bowl partying, we look ahead to discover what avante-garde columnist Emily Fredrix predicts: more drinking, but of the cheaper stuff - likely, she feels, due to the economy."

dernier cri - dare-NYAIR CREE - the latest thing, up to date

Example: "The tradition of celebrating the entire Super Bowl day in Louisiana has become the dernier cri in various sports-minded cities in the upper Midwest."

passé - pass-A - old-fashioned, out of date, archaic

Example: "Though officials are trying to make tail-gate parties passé, football fans refuse to break what long has become a tradition, especially at Super Bowl games."

serendipity - sehr-en-DIP-ih-tee - luck, happenstance, kismet, chance

Example: "Though it's pure serendipity, ever since 1886 as many as 40,000 people gather on February 2 to see if a rodent, Punxutawney Phil, pops out of his hole in that Pennsylvania town; if he sees his shadow (as he did this morning), it heralds six more weeks of winter; if not, then an early spring is predicted.

ephemeral - ee-FEM-er-ULL - temporary, fleeting, brief, pro tempore

Example: "When Helen Thomas became the first woman of the White House Correspondents Association, she was predicted to be in an ephemeral position due to her constantly thorny quizzing of the administration; actually, she lasted over half a century, with time to write 5 books covering her non-partisan, scathing political perceptions."

incorrigible - in-KORR-ridj-ih-bull - not able to be corrected, improved or reformed; incurable; recidivous

Example: "J.D.Salinger, the author of 'Catcher in the Rye,' lived in in New England as an incorrigible hermit, in seclusion to his death on the 27th."

surfeit - SIR-FIT - excess, overload, superfluity, too much of a good thing

Example: "The Week magazine recently pointed out a surfeit of surveys of questionable importance, many funded by fed money, including the following: There's a large increase in demand for double-D bra cups, largely due to obesity, breast implants, and the idea that a snug bra with wider cups is more appealing."

excoriate - eks-KOHree-ATE - denounce, attack, censure, criticise

Example: "In a narrow vote the Senate gave Ben S. Bernanke a second four-year term as the head of the Federal Reserve on Thursday, after critics excoriated the central bank's conduct in the years leading up to the financial crisis."

ruminate - ROOM-ih-NATE - to think about something very deeply

Example: "USA Today ruminates on the fact that when federal income tax was first established in 1913 the tax code was 400 pages; now, it stated, it is 70,320 pages."

exorbitant - eks-OR-bih-tent - unreasonably high, excessive, unwarranted, disproportionate

Example: "The NY Times suggests that one of the possible reasons for a delay in the Nashville Tea Party next month is the exorbitant cost of Sarah Palin's reported speaking fee of $100,000 - yet to be confirmed, but if true it places her not that far off Tony Blair in the world list of unbelievably-overpaid-speakers."

acerbic - ah-SIR-bik - bitter, sharp (tongued), harsh

Example: "Simon Cowell, whose acerbic putdowns of American Idol contestants , is leaving after nine seasons to produce & judge an American version of The X Factor, a talent competition he developed for Brit TV."

narcissism - NAHR-sis-ISM - excessive or erotic interest in oneself & one's physical appearance

Example: "Commenting in the New Yorker magazine on modern autobiographies, Daniel Mendelsohn claims that 'it's the ostensible (obvious) narcissism that has irritated critics the most'."

impolitic - im-POL-ih-TIK - ill advised, stupid, injudicious, unwise

Example: "The U of California Wellness Letter states that while plain air-popped popcorn is a healthy snack with few calories, buying movie theatre popcorn, loaded with harmful ingredients, is totally impolitic in any amount."

exponential - EKS-poh-NEN-shul - becoming more & more rapid

Example: "Rough calculations based on a government's survey suggest that, while most foreign languages are vanishing from US classrooms, perhaps 1,600 American public and private schools are teaching Chinese, up from 300 or so a decade ago. And the numbers are growing exponentially, with China covering most of the expenses."

hubris - HEW-BRIS - arrogance, insolence, excessive pride

Example: "According to Lisa Miller, when Rabbi Kushner heard about TV evangelist Pat Robertson's comment about the Haitian earthquake, he exclaimed, 'I think that it's supreme hubris to think you can read God's mind.'"

indolent - IN-doh-LENT - idle, shiftless, slothful, loafing, inert, unindustrious

Example: "A new study on indolence, noted in The Week magazine, found that each additional hour spent plopped motionless in front of the TV every day increases the risk of dying by 11%."

excoriate - eks-KOH-ree-ATE - criticize severely, denounce, vilify

Example: "NPR sports commentator Frank Deford this morning excoriated universities for excesses in placing sports over education, calling education often just an adjunct (supplementary) to sports."

trope - TROPE - a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression

Example: "In commenting on 'The Book of Eli,' New Yorker's David Denby wondered if 'Filmmakers aren't using the world's end as a trope to license a neo-primitivist' manifestation."

orthogonal - or-THO-gon-ul - University of Michigan law professor Richard D. Friedman discovered when he answered a question from Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, then added that it was "entirely orthogonal" to the argument he was making. Friedman attempted to move on, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stopped him.

"I'm sorry," Roberts said. "Entirely what?" "Orthogonal," Friedman repeated, and then defined the word: "Right angle. Unrelated. Irrelevant."
"Oh," Roberts replied.

feckless - FEK-LESS - worthless, weak, ineffective, a waste of time

Example: "According to the Wall Street Journal, if you decide to watch the three hour football game on TV this weekend, you will see about 67 minutes of players standing around between plays, about 100 minutes of replays with the crowd shots and commercials, 3 seconds of the cheerleaders, 6 seconds of injured players and 11 minutes of actual playing time - a feckless way to spend an afternoon."

apocalypse - uh-POCK-uh-LIPS - an event involving destruction on a catastrophic or awesome scale

Example: "The earthquake in Haiti aptly has been described by the media as apocalyptic."

cacophony - kah-KOFF-oh-NEE - a harsh, unharmonious mixture of sounds

Example: "With people of Port-au-Prince living in the streets for fear that after shocks would bury them inside buildings, a cacophony of human sounds - babies crying, women screaming, and an accumulated rumble akin to crowds at a soccer match - fills the air, rising & falling in volume, endlessly.

raze - RAYZ - destroy to the ground

Example: "Yesterday's cataclysmic earthquake in Haiti's capitol city, Port-au-Prince, has razed half the buildings and left thousands homeless or buried under rubble."

perfidious - purr-FID-ee-YUSS - treacherous, two-faced, disloyal

Example:  "After initiating prominent campaigns against smoking, foods with harmful trans fats and other commercial products considered perfidious to human beings, New York City has a new target: the food industry's excessive use of salt."

boffo - BOFF-oh - highly successful

Example: "The vampire movie 'Daybreakers' has not pleased many critics, but thanks to teens it is guaranteed to be boffo at the box office."

divisive - dih-VIH-siv - causing disagreement or hostility within or between groups that is likely to create a split

Example: Columnist Gail Collins, writing about the issue in the locker room of the Washington Wizards (formerly called the Bullets), stated, 'Gun control may be seen as a divisive issue, but most can agree that the Wizards players should not have brandished, during an argument, five handguns in their locker room.'"

acrimonious - AK-rim-OHN-ynus - fiercely angry, bitter, caustic, vitriolic

Example: "The celebrated Nigerian 'panty-bomber' has brought condemnation to his entire country, resulting in immediate, acrimonious response from the people in that country who resent being painted with the same brush as a nation of potential terrorists."

ad nauseam - ODD-NAH-zee-AHM - a reference to something that has been repeated so often it has become tiresome

Example: "With the Tiger Woods news fading, the press now tackles endless details on the "underwear bomber" ad nauseam; it was only a matter of time before even the comics picked it up, with Jay Leno's description of the Nigerian as wearing "Fruit of the Lunatic" and Stephen Colbert calling the event the "crapification of the pants-scape."

comity - KOM-ih-TEE - courtesy & considerate behavior toward others

Example: "Senator Christopher Dodd followed another Democratic senator, Byron Dorgan, to decide not to run for re-election this year - voicing, among other reasons, the depressing fact that partisanship has created rigid political competition between the two parties and less honest cooperation, with comity no longer existing between them."

elegiac - EL-eh-JAI-ik - usually a writing or work of art having mournful qualities

Example: "In a film called "The Soloist," the character of the street musician with a serious mental problem was presented in an elegiac fashion, developed to touch immediately the viewer's sympathies for the hapless genius."

lieu - LEW - instead

Example: "A Napa Valley report states that, in lieu of stealing expensive wines from wineries, "panel thieves" now are running off with solar panels from the vineyards by the thousands."

teratoid - TAIR-uh-TOYD - the alteration or development of an abnormality

Example: "Among the adjectives describing the new 1/2-mile high building in Dubai are these synonyms: hideous, abnormal, freakish, colossal, stupendous, teratoid, other-wordly."

profusion - proh-FEW-zhun - an abundance or large quantity

Example: "The Week magazine added Frederick Mitterand to its list of public men caught in sex scandals, when the French culture minister was quoted as saying, 'The profusion of young, very attractive and immediately available Asian boys put me in a state of desire that I no longer needed to restrain or hide.'"

nirvana - NEAR-vah-nah - in Buddhism, the final goal, a transendent state in which a state of perfection is produced - resulting in a completely enjoyable experience.

Example: "Encouraging us not to delay pleasure, a Times science article says it can become a self-perpetuating process if one fixates on some imagined nirvana; the longer you wait to open that prize bottle of wine, for example, the more special the occasion has to be, and it may be delayed forever."

etymology - et-im-OL-oh-JEE - the study of words & the historical development of their meanings

Example: "A woman from San Diego, curious about some words listed here in a previous posting, checked on three similar words to come up with the following:

'Well, although I couldn't discover an exactly shared etymology, neither hoarfrost nor rime is from Latin. Hoar (or hoarfrost) is from Old High German via Middle English (ME), "hor" or "her" (pronounced "hair," I imagine); rime is from OHN (old high Norse?) hrim via ME . My little Collins Gem weather book describes three types of ice which are called frost:

hoarfrost: White, feathery deposits of interlocking crystals
rime: Opaque, granular ice on the windward side of objects
glaze: A transparent layer of ice

but I betcha, way back in the mists of time, the "hor" and "hrim" derive from a single Indo-European root.'"