confabulation

confabulation \kon-FAB-yuh-lay-shuhn\, noun:

1. Familiar talk; easy, unrestrained, unceremonious conversation.
2. (Psychology) A plausible but imagined memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered.

Their sentiments were reflected neither in the elegant exchanges between the Viceroy and Secretary of State, nor in the unlovely confabulations between the Congress and the League managers.
-- Mushirul Hasan, "Partition: The Human Cost", History Today, September 1997

Sigmund Freud, a stubborn, bullying interrogator of hysterical women, harangued his patients into building fantasies and traumas that fit into his grand narrative scheme, eliciting confabulations rather than actual memories.
-- Jennifer Howard, "Neurosis 1990s-Style", Civilization, April/May 1997

Once we had brokwn the back of the ascent, the road spanned pleasant but lonely pinewoods which scented the still air and led uf in mysterious hesitant fashion to the gates of the little town, the Porte Trapani, where Roberto got down for a long confabulation with a clerk from the Mairie while the rest of us set about digging into our luggage for pullovers.
-- Lawrence Durrell, Sicilian Carousel

Confabulation comes from Late Latin confabulatio, from the past participle of Latin confabulari, "to talk together," from con-, "together, with" + fabulari, "to talk." It is related to fable, "a fiction, a tale," and to fabulous, "so incredible or astonishing as to resemble or suggest a fable."

galumph

galumph \guh-LUHM(P)F\, intransitive verb:

To move in a clumsy manner or with a heavy tread.

Then he climbed up the little iron ladder that led to the wharf's cap, placed me once more upon his shoulders and galumphed off again.
-- Alistair MacLeod, Island: The Complete Stories

Lizards patrol the . . . landscape, and giant tortoises galumph on the beaches.
-- Peter M. Nichols, "Galápagos", New York Times, March 30, 2001

As their owners ride tandem bikes, fly kites or run on the beach the dogs galumph alongside their masters grinning, I love you even if you are incontinent.
-- Ken Foster, Dog Culture: Writers on the Character of Canines

Galumph is probably an alteration of gallop. It was coined by Lewis Carroll in the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky."

aesthete

aesthete \ES-theet\, noun:

One having or affecting great sensitivity to beauty, as in art or nature.

Beijing, with its stolid, square buildings and wide, straight roads, feels like the plan of a first-year engineering student, while Shanghai's decorative architecture and snaking, narrow roads feel like the plan of an aesthete.
-- "Sky's the Limit in Shanghai", Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1999

But he was also an aesthete with a connoisseur's eye for the wild modernist innovations with letterforms and layout of the 1920s.
-- Rick Poynor, "Herbert Spencer", The Guardian, March 15, 2002

Where the standard Oxford aesthete of the 1920s had been showily dissipated, full of wild talk about decadence and beauty, Auden was preaching a new gospel of icy austerity and self-control.
-- Ian Hamilton, Against Oblivion

Aesthete is from Greek aisthetes, "one who perceives," from aisthanesthai, "to perceive."

scuttlebutt

scuttlebutt \SKUHT-l-buht\, noun:

1. A drinking fountain on a ship.
2. A cask on a ship that contains the day's supply of drinking water.
3. Informal. Gossip; rumor.

What were they talking about? Sports? Neighborhood scuttlebutt? Off-color jokes? I didn't know; I knew only how exciting it was to see Dad in action.
-- Eric Liu, The Accidental Asian

It was written in the optimistic belief that open debate beats backroom scuttlebutt.
-- Jon Entine, Taboo

In snooping around, my mother overheard the pageant scuttlebutt, which was that Snow White was the big winner.
-- Delta Burke with Alexis Lipsitz, Delta Style

Scuttlebutt comes from scuttle, "a small opening" + butt, "a large cask" -- that is, a small hole cut into a cask or barrel to allow individual cups of water to be drawn out. The modern equivalent is the office water cooler, also a source of refreshment and gossip.

milieu

milieu \meel-YUH; meel-YOO\, noun;
plural milieus or milieux \-(z)\:

Environment; setting.

These were agricultural areas, populated with prosperous farming families and rural artisans -- a completely different milieu from the Monferrands', which was more closed, more cultured, but less affluent.
-- Antoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana, Truffaut

Half a century later, Zacarías still remembers . . . how they all played together without distinctions or hierarchy, and how easily Ernesto related to people from different social and cultural milieux.
-- Jorge G. Castaneda, Compañero

They write about their milieux, about where they live and work, and it can be fabulous.
-- Leslie Schenk, "Celebrating Mavis Gallant", World Literature Today, Winter 1998

Milieu is from French, from Old French, from mi, "middle" (from Latin medius) + lieu, "place" (from Latin locus).

fugacious

fugacious \fyoo-GAY-shuhs\, adjective:

Lasting but a short time; fleeting.

As the rain conspires with the wind to strip the fugacious glory of the cherry blossoms, it brings a spring delicacy to our dining table.
-- Sarah Mori, "A spring delicacy", Malaysian Star

The thick, palmately lobed lead is lapped around the bud, which swiftly outgrows its protector, loses its two fugacious sepals, and opens into a star-shaped flower, one to each stem, with several fleshy white petals and a mass of golden stamens in the center.
-- Alma R. Hutchens, A Handbook of Native American Herbs

When he proposed the tax in May, Altman thought it would follow the fugacious nature of some flowers: bloom quickly and die just as fast.
-- Will Rodgers, "Parks proposal falls on 3-2 vote", Tampa Tribune, June 27, 2001

Fugacious is derived from Latin fugax, fugac-, "ready to flee, flying; hence, fleeting, transitory," from fugere, "to flee, to take flight." Other words derived from the same root include fugitive, one who flees, especially from the law; refuge, a place to which to flee back (re-, "back"), and hence to safety; and fugue, literally a musical "flight."

turbid

turbid \TUR-bid\, adjective:

1. Muddy; thick with or as if with roiled sediment; not clear; -- used of liquids of any kind.
2. Thick; dense; dark; -- used of clouds, air, fog, smoke, etc.
3. Disturbed; confused; disordered.

Although both are found in the same waters, black crappies usually prefer clearer, quieter water, while white crappies flourish in warmer, siltier and more turbid water.
-- Tim Eisele, "Crappie Facts", Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), May 8, 1998

Rough or smooth, the Irish Sea at Blackpool is always turbid. Beneath the murk float unspeakable things.
-- David Walker, "Is Labour right to end its affair with Blackpool? YES says David", Independent, March 26, 1998

Wesley's mind seems at this time to have been in a turbid and restless state.
-- W. B. Stonehouse, The History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme

Turbid comes from Latin turbidus, "confused, disordered," from turba, "disturbance, commotion."