Augur

(1) One of a group of ancient Roman religious officials who foretold events by observing and interpreting signs and omens.
(2) A seer or prophet; a soothsayer.

Baluster

(1a) One of the upright, usually rounded or vase-shaped supports of a balustrade.
(1b) An upright support, such as a furniture leg, having a similar shape.
(2) One of the supporting posts of a handrail.

Lilliputian

n.
A very small person or being.


adj.
(1) Very small; diminutive.
(2) Trivial; petty.

Etymology: After Lilliput, a country in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, where everything was diminutive.

Satori

A spiritual awakening sought in Zen Buddhism, often coming suddenly.

Verdigris

(1) A blue or green powder consisting of basic cupric acetate used as a paint pigment and fungicide.
(2) A green patina or crust of copper sulfate or copper chloride formed on copper, brass, and bronze exposed to air or seawater for long periods of time.

Surreptitious

(1) Obtained, done, or made by clandestine or stealthy means.
(2) Acting with or marked by stealth.

Mephistopheles

The devil in the Faust legend to whom Faust sold his soul.

Tsuris

Trouble; aggravation.

Schadenfreude

Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

Mendacity

(1) The condition of being mendacious; untruthfulness.
(2) A lie; a falsehood.

Tergiversate

(1) To use evasions or ambiguities; equivocate.
(2) To change sides; apostatize.

Weltschmerz

Sadness over the evils of the world, especially as an expression of romantic pessimism.

Provenance

(1) Place of origin; derivation.
(2) Proof of authenticity or of past ownership. Used of art works and antiques.

Mendacious

(1) Lying; untruthful: a mendacious child.
(2) False; untrue: a mendacious statement. See Synonyms at dishonest.

Gerund

(1) In Latin, a noun derived from a verb and having all case forms except the nominative.
(2) In other languages, a verbal noun analogous to the Latin gerund, such as the English form ending in -ing when used as a noun, as in singing in We admired the choir's singing.

Imbroglio

(1a) A difficult or intricate situation; an entanglement.
(1b) A confused or complicated disagreement.
(2) A confused heap; a tangle.

Legerdemain

(1) Sleight of hand.
(2) A show of skill or deceitful cleverness.

Treacle

(1) Cloying speech or sentiment.
(2) A medicinal compound formerly used as an antidote for poison.

Sybarite

A person devoted to pleasure and luxury; a voluptuary.

Enucleate

(1) Medicine.To remove (a tumor or eye, for example) whole from an enveloping cover or sac.
(2) Biology. To remove the nucleus of.
(3) Archaic. To explain; elucidate.

Pervicacious

Refusing to change one's ideas, behavior, etc.; stubborn; obstinate.

Iniquity

(1) Gross immorality or injustice; wickedness.
(2) A grossly immoral act; a sin.

Popinjay

A vain and talkative person.

Engram

A physical alteration thought to occur in living neural tissue in response to stimuli, posited as an explanation for memory.

Perfidy

(1) Deliberate breach of faith; calculated violation of trust; treachery: “the fink, whose perfidy was equaled only by his gall”
(2) The act or an instance of treachery.

Pabulum

(1) A substance that gives nourishment; food.
(2) Insipid intellectual nourishment: “TV... gobbled up comedy material and spat it out as pabulum”

Pithy

(1) Precisely meaningful; forceful and brief: a pithy comment.
(2) Consisting of or resembling pith.

Coruscate

(1) To give forth flashes of light; sparkled and glitter.
(2) To exhibit sparkling virtuosity.

Prolix

(1) Tediously prolonged; wordy: editing a prolix manuscript.
(2) Tending to speak or write at excessive length. See Synonyms at wordy.

Milquetoast

One who has a meek, timid, unassertive nature.

Teopan

Mexican temple.

Useless knowledge: Teopans was Trey Wright's game-winning word at the 2004 National Scrabble Championship.

Penurious

(1) Unwilling to spend money; stingy.
(2) Yielding little; barren: a penurious land.
(3) Poverty-stricken; destitute.

Risible

(1) Relating to laughter or used in eliciting laughter.
(2) Eliciting laughter; ludicrous.
(3) Capable of laughing or inclined to laugh.

Parsimonious

Excessively sparing or frugal.

Privation

(1a) Lack of the basic necessities or comforts of life.
(1b) The condition resulting from such lack.
(2) An act, condition, or result of deprivation or loss.

Limn

limned, limn·ing,
(1) To describe.
(2) To depict by painting or drawing. See Synonyms at represent.

"Let a painter carelessly limn out a million of faces, and you shall find them all different."

Hoi Polloi

The common people; the masses.

Usage Note: Hoi polloi is a borrowing of the Greek phrase hoi polloi, consisting of hoi, meaning “the” and used before a plural, and polloi, the plural of polus, “many.” In Greek hoi polloi had a special sense, “the greater number, the people, the commonalty, the masses.” This phrase has generally expressed this meaning in English since its first recorded instance, in an 1837 work by James Fenimore Cooper. Hoi polloi is sometimes incorrectly used to mean “the elite,” possibly because it is reminiscent of high and mighty or because it sounds like hoity-toity.

Plenary

(1) Complete in all respects; unlimited or full: a diplomat with plenary powers.
(2) Fully attended by all qualified members: a plenary session of the council.

Moiety

(1) A half.
(2) A part, portion, or share.
(3) Anthropology. Either of two kinship groups based on unilateral descent that together make up a tribe or society.

Terpsichorean

adj. Of or relating to dancing.

n. A dancer.

Mephitic

Of, relating to, or resembling mephitis; poisonous or foul-smelling.

Donnybrook

(1) An uproar; a free-for-all. See Synonyms at brawl.

Peccadillos

A small sin or fault. also: peccadilloes.

Platitude

(1) A trite or banal remark or statement, especially one expressed as if it were original or significant. See Synonyms at cliché.
(2) Lack of originality; triteness.

Meretricious

(1a) Attracting attention in a vulgar manner: meretricious ornamentation.
(1b) Plausible but false or insincere; specious: a meretricious argument.
(2) Of or relating to prostitutes or prostitution: meretricious relationships.

Longueur

A tedious passage in a work of literature or performing art: “longueurs and passages of meretricious vulgarity."

Epistolary

(1) Of or associated with letters or the writing of letters.
(2) Being in the form of a letter: epistolary exchanges.
(3) Carried on by or composed of letters: an epistolary friendship.

Pillory

(1) A wooden framework on a post, with holes for the head and hands, in which offenders were formerly locked to be exposed to public scorn as punishment.
(2a) To expose to public ridicule and abuse.
(2b) To put in a pillory as punishment.

Clochard

A tramp; a vagrant.

Slatternly

(1) Characteristic of or befitting a slattern (An untidy, dirty woman).
(2) Slovenly; untidy.

Prosaic

(1a) Consisting or characteristic of prose.
(1b) Matter-of-fact; straightforward.
(2) Lacking in imagination and spirit; dull.

Epicene

(1) Belonging to or having the characteristics of both the male and the female: an epicene statue.
(2) Effeminate; unmanly.
(3) Sexless; neuter.
(4) Linguistics. Having only one form of the noun for both the male and the female.

Scintilla

(1) A minute amount; an iota or trace.
(2) A spark; a flash.

Interlocutor

(1) Someone who takes part in a conversation, often formally or officially.
(2) The performer in a minstrel show who is placed midway between the end men and engages in banter with them.

Elision

(1a) Omission of a final or initial sound in pronunciation.
(1b) Omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable, as in scanning a verse.
(2) The act or an instance of omitting something.

Epigone

A second-rate imitator or follower, especially of an artist or a philosopher.

Palaver

(1) Idle chatter.
(2) Talk intended to charm or beguile.
(3) Obsolete. A parley between European explorers and representatives of local populations, especially in Africa.

Ribald

Characterized by or indulging in vulgar, lewd humor.