Draconian

Exceedingly harsh; very severe: a draconian legal code; draconian budget cuts.

[From the name Draco, an Athenian politician who codified the laws of Athens (c. 621). Lauded for its impartiality, his code was unpopular for its severity.]

Jamais vu

The experience of being unfamiliar with a person or situation that is actually very familiar. Antonym: deja vu

Fait accompli

An accomplished, presumably irreversible deed or fact.

Grok

To understand profoundly through intuition or empathy.

Logy

Characterized by lethargy; sluggish.

Highfalutin

Pompous or pretentious: “highfalutin reasons for denying direct federal assistance to the unemployed”

Parabulia

Abnormality of volition or will, as when one impulse is checked and replaced by another.

Simulacrum

(1) An image or representation.
(2) An unreal or vague semblance.

Spoonerism

The transposition of usually initial sounds in a pair of words.

Some examples:
-- The Lord is a shoving leopard ["loving shepherd"].
-- It is kisstomary to cuss ["customary to kiss"] the bride.
-- Is the bean dizzy ["dean busy"]?
-- Let me sew you to your sheet ["show you to your seat"].

Osculate

(1) To kiss.
(2) Mathematics. To have three or more points coincident with.
(3) To come together; contact.

Complicit

Associated with or participating in a questionable act or a crime; having complicity: newspapers complicit with the propaganda arm of a dictatorship.

Miscegenation

(1) The interbreeding of different races or of persons of different racial backgrounds.
(2) Cohabitation, sexual relations, or marriage involving persons of different races.
(3) A mixture or hybridization: “There was musical miscegenation at a time when segregation was the common rule”

Chiaroscuro

(1) The technique of using light and shade in pictorial representation.
(2) The arrangement of light and dark elements in a pictorial work of art.
(3a) A woodcut technique in which several blocks are used to print different shades of a color.
(3b) A woodcut print made by this technique.

ad hominem

Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason: Debaters should avoid ad hominem arguments that question their opponents' motives.

Stultifying

(1) To render useless or ineffectual; cripple.
(2) To cause to appear stupid, inconsistent, or ridiculous.
(3) Law. To allege or prove insane and so not legally responsible.