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."