Insouciance: the state of being carefree or indifferent.

example: "It's all the same to me," she tittered, waving her hand dismissively over the scripts strewn across the dining table. "I've done it all. You choose, dear." Yet her darting eyes and flash-frozen smile belied her insouciance, and I hurriedly grasped the first, smallish packet I saw.

Sobriquet: nickname.

example: The apartment grounds hosted hundreds of the little speck-sized pests, so that poor Millie inevitably picked up new ones each time she went outside. Having to scratch constantly earned her the unfortunate, albeit affectionately given, sobriquet of flea-bag.

assiduity: diligence; persistent application of oneself

example: Really, the canine's assiduity was quite remarkable. No less than two hours had passed since little Bella had wandered off, leaving her sandwich crust upon her plate. Footsteps pattered by, doors opened and shut, laughter sounded from the other room, yet still he sat by the table, patient and alone, the constant grey shadow which haunted her every meal.

oneiric: related to or suggesting dreams

example: Now, walking down the hallway--past that porthole window, that door marked 103, 105, 107--she felt peculiarly oneiric...as if perhaps she had come down here before...or maybe dreamed? And suddenly the faded details of an old, old dream came back in startling similarity to the scene now before her. Her only comfort was that in her dream, that door's 7 had swung loose and hung upside down by its stem, so that it looked more like a subscript L. The door here was clearly marked 107. That is--she peered closer at the numbers.

No; it had come off, the 7 now represented only by the discolored smudge left by the missing numeral.

appurtenance: something that is subordinate, or added, to another more important thing

example: Some may have considered Nigel Witherington's appurtenance an impertinence, but he really felt his Critical Commentary on THE LAWS OF THE PLANETS elucidated that most renowned yet cryptic of astronomical tomes.

Peculate: to steal or embezzle.

example: This was no movie-smooth peculation; anyone who had the least suspicion might trace the accounting discrepancies back to him, but nevertheless it worked. Actual people are disinclined to suspect someone as readily as they do in film.

lachrymose: sorrowful or tearful.

example: "That was a stirring speech you gave in there, Mr. President."

"Mighty indeed; we can but do our duty to safeguard democracy, Mr. President"

"...protect the peace..."

"clean it up in no time..."

"Mr. President?"

"Mr. President?"

"Mr. President?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes of course," he roused himself; "peace. We must be strong in the months ahead. Yes...such is our duty..." He looked up and I was startled. His eyes were rimmed with shadow--haunted almost, as if every brave word he recited were treading some deep lachrymose well.


We shuffled uncomfortably out, and as I closed the door softly behind me, I saw him put his face in his hands and weep.

Immure: to enclose, imprison, or entomb

example: Like the rootbound basil on her windowsill which had ceased to grow, so she, immured within her sentimental recollections, had ceased to participate in the present.

Sesquipedalian: using long words; polysyllabic.

example: The student's sesquipedalian sentences clamored dissonantly out from the essay, and the professor ran her hand over her aching brow. A thesaurus in the hands of an undergraduate is deadly.

Dislimn: to dim or fade into indistinctness; vanish; obscure.

example: He shook his head and slapped his cheek vigorously but presently the scene dislimned into smudges of greying color and muffling sound. He closed his eyes and slept.

Celerity: swiftness.

example: His celeritous exit conveyed the embarrassment he felt over his faux pas.

Peroration: a formal speech often characterized by high, haughty language.

example: "Well now I think this here is none o' your business, I do, and another thing..." The man stuck his thumbs in his tattered lapels and commenced a grand peroration in which he proclaimed the evils of the judicial system, the savagery of the free market, the oppression of organized religion, and the general unpleasantness associated with having to wear shoes when he entered the station.
"...like two left feet, that's what, and I says to the bobby I says, here now what kind of a scam are you runnin'? It's a conspiracy...
"... and I can't 'elp it if...
"... I mean the popes and the cardinals and the senators are all in it together...
" ...she threw me out; literally tossed my bag ..."

Obviously his beer-bathed eloquence would get me nowhere. I turned the corner and hailed a cab.

Modicum: a small amount or tiny bit

Her eyes searched his for one modicum of recognition but found none. He stamped his ticket, placed it neatly within the pockets of his billfold, and thrust himself calmly into the jostling crowd with nothing but 8:01 Bedford on his mind.

Squinny: to squint.

example: She sat perched upon the fence, the wind spinning tendrils across her sun-squinnying face.

Nugatory: inconsequential, worthless, ineffectual.

example: It's never wise to force carrots and beans upon your child, she insisted, for why risk an evening-long stare down for such a nugatory nutritional gain?

Epicene: displaying both feminine and masculine characteristics; unsuitably feminine.

example: Yes, there's a reason we call him Princess Reg, for our epicene canine simply adores ribbon and furbelow, and whenever we walk by his crate we often spy pretty polyester tendrils trailing out his bedecked door.

Galvanic: producing an effect like that of electricity

example: It was hell in the later weeks as spirit-numbing weariness set in and men, who once commanded troops and fleets, now inwardly crumpled behind withered stares; more than once I saw a comrade fall and even their galvanic vituperations would fail to rouse him.

Defenestration: the act of throwing something or someone out the window.

example: The scrambled GPS once again commanded the driver to turn right where only left turns existed and her huffy "Recalculating" so nearly precipitated her defenestration that I felt compelled to intervene and shut her off.

Hebetude: lethargic, mentally dull.

example: Her midafternoon hebetude suddenly shattered as she splashed into the icy stream and at once she felt the tickle of the minnows against her ankle, the spongy springy moss beneath her toes, the glow of the spotty sun on her shoulder.

Adumbrate: to display a faint copy or outline; to obscure in part or to overshadow; to foreshadow.

example: The union of man and wife in matrimony adumbrates the union between God and Christ; each person is distinct in his or her role, his or her strengths, his or her purpose, yet both together make one and only one. The finite union helps one to consider the infinite union.