debonair

suave, elegant, gracious

( Legendary actor Roger Moore stars as debonair playboy Simon Templar in the series that made him an international star.)

poultice

moist medical dressing

(A poultice made from the boiled or roasted fruit will remove burn marks from the skin.)

polydipsia

excessive or abnormal thirst

piffling

trivial, of little worth or importance

from piffle - to talk or act in a trivial, inept, or ineffective way

(This was, as it turned out, mostly propaganda piffle.)

imperturbable

cool; unable to be disconcerted, disturbed or excited; impassive

(He was known as a man of simplicity of manners and an almost imperturbable cheerfulness of temper)

watershed

a crucial turning point affecting action, opinion, etc.

(Then came a real watershed for European civilization: the First World War.)

precipitancy

rashness, suddenness, great haste

(Though we cannot wonder at this relinquishing of a long-cherished scheme when we consider the character of the Indians, yet it would be impossible to account for the appearance of precipitancy, and even terror, with which their retreat was accompanied, did we not perceive it to be the first of a series of similar artifices, designed to draw on their enemies to their own destruction.)

anathema

something hated; vehement denunciation

(For language mavens language change is generally anathema, which is ironic since many of their favorite English authors spoke and wrote in Englishes that were very different from those that they speak and write in.)

orbiculate

circular, spherical

(Pericarp woody, dehiscent at the tip by 2-4 valves; contains 1-4 seeds, slightly orbiculate, coriaceous.)

hector

a bully; to bully; to intimidate or dominate in a blustering way

(Readers may scold, hector, admonish or taunt Ted by e-mailing him.)

scabrous

covered with scales or projections and rough to the touch; difficult to handle; knotty; dealing with scandalous or salicious material

(Perhaps Paris 'oddest endorsement came from scabrous, authority-defying comic Lenny Bruce.)

doyenne

a woman who is the eldest or senior member of a group

(Body language could tell you at a glance who was dominant between any two warlords or any two doyenne, except that those positions could change at any time through design or simple misfortune.)

lambent

flickering lightly over or on a surface; having a gentle glow; effortlessly light or brilliant; luminous

(So the light of righteousness, as well as the lambent flame of love, burn together on that central fire of the universe.)

patois

regional dialect, nonstandard speech

(We were friends in a trice, for my patois was almost identical with his own, and he could not believe his own ears that he was talking with an Englishman La Petite Vitesse" bore out its name admirably, if it were meant to indicate exceeding slowness.)

amort

lifeless,depressed, utterly cast down; usually with "all"

(Flank immovable, all amort to pleasure.)

lank

long and lean, slim

(Among the newcomers was a lank, angular-featured frontiersman who answered to the name of Sam Houston.)

zeitgeist

spirit of the age; trend of thought and feeling in the period

( When I did my MBA back in the 1980's the zeitgeist was all about "maximizing profits".)

iconoclast

one who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas and institutions; one who opposes and destroys sacred religious images

(For all his big talk and bluster about being an iconoclast, his food has been rated consistently boring and decidedly conformist.)

parsimonious

frugal, stingy

(Posterity will say, and it cannot be denied, that our first naval hero was rewarded with too parsimonious a hand.)

venery

the act or sport of hunting, the chase; the indulgence in or pursuit of a sexual activity

(He said that the latter would have been against the laws of venery, and might have brought him into trouble, but as for disposing of his stud, it would give him little difficulty. )

stopgap

improvised substitute for something lacking; temporary expedient

(Creative accounting is only a stopgap, a way to postpone costs to future budgets, not a permanent solution.)

disputatious

argumentative

(I believe one great source of our concord is that neither he nor I are disputatious, which is not the case with any of them.)

volition

the will

(Therefore no imperatives hold for the Divine will, or in general for a holy will; ought is here out of place, because the volition is already of itself necessarily in unison with the law.)

bruit

rumor, din, clamor; to spread news of, repeat

(This bruit was spread through all the town, and was daily strengthened after the rate of false rumours, which are full of tragical events.)

ambilevous

unable to use either hand with facility

prorogue

to discontinue the meetings of a legislative body without dissolving it; to postpone

(The governor shall have power to convene, prorogue, and dissolve the general assembly when, in his opinion, it shall be expedient.)

compunction

a strong uneasiness caused by a sense of guilt

(I had the thoughtlessness and presumption of youth, and, now that she is gone, my compunction is awakened by a thousand recollections of my treatment of her.)

concupiscence

strong desire, lust

(For he was so immoderately prone to love, that it was doubtful whether the heat of his tyranny or of his concupiscence was the greater.)

bombinate

to buzz, to hum

of, relating to, marked by, or skilled in methodical and logical reasoning

argosy

a large merchant ship, or fleet of ships