gubernatorial

gubernatorial \GOO-ber-nuh-TOR-ee-uhl\, adjective:

Of or pertaining to a governor.

In 1780 John Hancock was elected the first governor of Massachusetts under its new constitution and thereafter was easily reelected whenever he chose to run. His gubernatorial career was marked by his inability to prevent a fiscal and currency crisis in the mid-1780s.
-- "John Hancock", The Reader's Companion to American History

Jesse Ventura did not abandon his rough habits or smooth his swagger during the gubernatorial campaign, and a plurality of the audience evidently felt charmed rather than insulted.
-- Paul Gray, "Body Slam", Time, November 16, 1998

Prisoners, the vast majority of them lifers in a state where a life term means life, blamed their despair on tough parole laws and a dearth of gubernatorial pardons.
-- Jill Smolowe, "Bringing Decency Into Hell", Time, December 14, 1992

The popular voice, at the next gubernatorialelection, though loud as thunder, will be really but an echo of what these gentlemen shall speak, under their breath, at yourfriend's festive board.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables

Gubernatorial is from Latin gubernator, "governor," from gubernare, "to govern," which is also the source of govern.

fop

fop \FOP\, noun:

A man who is overly concerned with or vain about his dress and appearance; a dandy.

I wear ties because I don't have to, because in an increasingly dressed-down, homogenized world, they can set you apart. I wear ties because they nurture the inner fop. Also the outer one.
-- Abbott Combes, "Secrets and Ties", New York Times Magazine, November 14, 1999

He's swaddled in a heavy black wool overcoat and his shoes are silver-buckled with cap toes, the black leather well taken care of. He's a bit of a lounge lizard, a hip-hop fop.
-- Po Bronson, The Nudist on the Late Shift

Fop comes from Middle English fop, foppe, "a fool." The adjective form is foppish.

redress

redress \rih-DRES\, transitive verb:

1. To put in order again; to set right; to emend; to revise.
2. To set right, as a wrong; to repair, as an injury; to make amends for; to remedy; to relieve from.
3. To make amends or compensation to; to relieve of anything unjust or oppressive; to bestow relief upon.
4. The act of redressing; a making right; reformation; correction; amendment.
5. A setting right, as of wrong, injury, or oppression; as, the redress of grievances; hence, relief; remedy; reparation; indemnification.

Before adjourning in October 1774, the First Continental Congress called for the convening of another congress at Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, only if Britain had not redressed the Americans' grievances.
-- Pauline Maier, American Scripture :Making the Declaration of Independence

Many are convicts seeking redress; and with the rise of violent crime in the 1970s, powerful people sought to prevent their finding it.
-- William S. Mcfeely, Proximity to Death

Others, summarily replaced at the whim of a powerful artist or agent, are warned that their careers will be throttled if they seek legal or public redress.
-- Norman Lebrecht, Who Killed Classical Music? : Maestros, Managers, and Corporate Politics

Redress comes from French, redresser, to straighten, from re-, re- + dresser, to arrange.

chthonic

chthonic \THONE-ik\, adjective:

Dwelling in or under the earth; also, pertaining to the underworld

"Driven by dæmonic, chthonic Powers."
-- T.S. Eliot

"The chthonic divinity was essentially a god of the regions under the earth; at first of the dark home of the seed, later on of the still darker home of the dead."
-- C. F. Keary

"The chthonic imagery of Norine's apartment, which..was black as a coalhole and heated by the furnace of the hostess' unslaked desires."
-- M. McCarthy

"Two great and contrasted forms of ritual: the Olympian and the Chthonic, the one a ritual of cheerful character, the other a ritual of gloom, and fostering superstition."

Chthonic comes from khthón, the Greek word for earth.

Hobson's choice

Hobson's choice \HOB-suhnz-CHOIS\, noun:

A choice without an alternative; the thing offered or nothing.

Fagan's defense revolves around his insistence that he faced a Hobson's choice and had to act.
-- Laura Parker, "Discovery of daughters never followed by reunion", USA Today, May 11, 1999

They're faced with a Hobson's choice: Make the plunge . . . or face a terrifying alternative -- gradual extinction.
-- Heather Green, "The Great Yuletide Shakeout", Business Week, November 1, 1999

The origin of the term Hobson's choice is said to be in the name of one Thomas Hobson (ca. 1544-1631), at Cambridge, England, who kept a livery stable and required every customer to take either the horse nearest the stable door or none at all.

foment

foment \foh-MENT; FOH-ment\, transitive verb:

1. To nurse to life or activity; to incite; to abet; to instigate; -- often in a bad sense.
2. Fomentation; the act of fomenting.
3. State of excitation.

Cynical politicians may even foment conflicts among groups to advance their own power.
-- Martha Minow, Not Only for Myself

Here, over many cups of coffee and other brews, John Adams, James Otis, and Paul Revere met to foment rebellion, prompting Daniel Webster to call it "the headquarters of the Revolution."
-- Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds

Having burned to taste the foment of the sixties, I romanticized Diego's experience of it.
-- Katherine Russell Rich, The Red Devil

Foment is from Latin fomentum, "fomentation," from fovere, "to warm, to foster, to encourage."

naif

naif \nah-EEF; ny-\, adjective:

1. Naive.
2. A naive or inexperienced person.

It is only very naif critics who think that all one's influences must be contemporary.
-- John Fowles, Wormholes

Their money-grubbing game: they feign a tragic past and prey on the sympathies of unsuspecting naifs, fishing for bank account numbers or photocopies of passports.
-- Nathalie Atkinson, "Con heir", Toronto Life, September 1, 2003

Believing nothing, the skeptic is blind; believing everything, the naif is lame.
-- "We Are All Wayfarers On the Waves of Time", Hinduism Today, November 30, 1998

But underneath their differences, they're variations on a theme: one a naif, one worldly-wise who learns from the naif.
-- Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, "Torched Songs", Palm Beach Post, September 15, 2000

Naif comes from French, from Old French naif, "naive, natural, just born," from Latin nativus, "native, rustic," literally "born, inborn, natural," from Latin nativus, "inborn, produced by birth," from natus, past participle of nasci, "to be born."

peregrination

peregrination \pehr-uh-gruh-NAY-shun\, noun:

A traveling from place to place; a wandering.

He left Parma in the family camper-van, abandoning it in a Milan car-park to avoid its being identified at border controls before setting off on a peregrination through Switzerland, France, London, Canada, New York and eventually back to London.
-- Paddy Agnew, "Incident leads to crime that has baffled police", Irish Times, December 12, 1998

In 1890, Lafcadio Hearn settled in Japan after a lifetime of restless, melancholy peregrination.
-- Francine Prose, "Modern Geisha", New York Times, April 23, 2000

He ventures out in his pajamas and makes a dreamlike peregrination through the town's deserted streets.
-- Richard Eder, "Puck-ish Ramblings in Midsummer Dreams", New York Times, May 18, 2000

Peregrination comes from Latin peregrinatio, from peregrinari, "to stay or travel in foreign countries," from peregre, "in a foreign country, abroad," from per, "through" + ager, "land."

berate

berate \bih-RAYT\, transitive verb:

To scold severely or angrily.

She tells of Mr. Hauptmann's great joy when they had a baby son, and of the times she ran up the stairs to berate him for playing the mandolin after the baby was asleep and found him playing the Brahms Lullaby as the baby looked on approvingly.
-- "Mrs Hauptmann's Cause", New York Times, October 20, 1981

Mayer Amschel went on to berate Nathan for failing to calculate his profits net (as opposed to gross).
-- Niall Ferguson, The House of Rothschild

Monsieur couldn't bear to be touched, and if I stretched out my foot and accidentally brushed against him in my sleep he would wake me up and berate me for half an hour.
-- Christine Pevitt, Philippe, Duc D'Orleans

Berate is from be-, "thoroughly" + rate, "to scold, to chide," from Middle English raten.

comity

comity \KOM-uh-tee\, noun:

1. A state of mutual harmony, friendship, and respect, especially between or among nations or people; civility.
2. The courteous recognition by one nation of the laws and institutions of another.
3. The group of nations observing international comity.

In Athens last week, E.U. leaders offered a picture of comity as they formally signed accession treaties with 10 new members.
-- James Graff, "Can France Put a Cork In It?", Time Europe, April 28, 2003

Despite the image of civil-military comity during World War II, there were many differences between Franklin Roosevelt and his military advisers.
-- Mackubin Thomas Owens, "Sniping", National Review, April 2, 2003

Short-term initiatives in 1919 became longer-term strategies for bringing the two pariahs, Germany and Russia, into the comity of nations.
-- Kenneth O. Morgan, "Lloyd George and the Lost Peace: from Versailles to Hitler, 1919-1940", English Historical Review, June 2002

Everyone hopes that Saddam Hussein will honour his agreement with Kofi Annan and that Iraq will be received back into the comity of nations.
-- Marrack Goulding, "A wider role for the UN", New Statesman, March 13, 1998

Comity is from Latin comitas, from comis, "courteous."

aestival

aestival \ES-tuh-vuhl\, adjective:

Of or belonging to the summer; as, aestival diseases. [Spelled also estival.]

Far to the north and hemmed in against the Russian Bear, it is easy to overlook this land of lakes, forests, and aestival white nights.
-- [i.e. Finland]

You generally get true summer in August: this year it has been unusually æstival.
-- M. Collins

From the Latin æstas, summer. Also from æstas:

knell

knell \NEL\, verb:

1. The stoke of a bell tolled at a funeral or at the death of a person; a death signal; a passing bell; hence, figuratively, a warning of, or a sound indicating, the passing away of anything.
2. To sound as a knell; especially, to toll at a death or funeral; hence, to sound as a warning or evil omen.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
-- Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

The Bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a Knell, That summons thee to Heaven, or to Hell.
-- Shakespeare, Macbeth

All the morning the funeral knell has been tolling.
-- Besant & Rice, The Chaplain of the Fleet

Not worth a blessing nor a bell to knell for thee.
-- Fletcher, The Spanish Curate

From the Old English cnyll, cnell, "the sound of bells."

philter

philter \FIL-tur\, noun:

1. A potion or charm supposed to cause the person taking it to fall in love.
2. A potion or charm believed to have magic power.
3. To enchant or bewitch with or as if with a magic potion or charm.

Some things you can feel coming. You don't fall in love because you fall in love; you fall in love because of the need, desperate, to fall in love. When you feel that need, you have to watch your step; like having drunk a philter, the kind that makes you fall in love with the first thing you meet. It could be a duck-billed platypus.
-- Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

Philter is derived from Greek philtron, from philein, "to love," from philos, "dear, loving."

supernumerary

supernumerary \soo-puhr-NOO-muh-rair-ee; -NYOO-\, adjective:

1. Exceeding the stated, standard, or prescribed number.
2. Exceeding what is necessary or desired; superfluous.
3. A supernumerary person or thing.
4. An actor without a speaking part, as a walk-on or an extra in a crowd scene.

The Justice Department contractor, the Biogenics Corporation, of Houston, studied blood samples from thirty-six residents and concluded that eight of the people had a rare aberration it called "supernumerary acentric fragments," or extra pieces of genetic material.
-- Michael H. Brown, "A Toxic Ghost Town", The Atlantic, July 1989

Momart is where private collections are put out to pasture, where works that are too big, too precious, too fragile or simply supernumerary to their owners' homes are discreetly tended by expert staff.
-- Laura Cumming, "What the Sensationalists did next", The Observer, April 23, 2000

And yet, important as its role has been in the history of civilization, the bookshelf seldom even gets mentioned in the program; it is treated as a supernumerary, taken for granted, and ignored.
-- Henry Petroski, The Book on the Bookshelf

Sweetums, the Swiss chef and many others serve principally as supernumeraries in the picture's extravagant production numbers.
-- Rita Kempley, "Seeworthy Muppets", Washington Post, February 16, 1995

Supernumerary is from Latin supernumerarius, from super, "over" + numerus, "number."

blackguard

blackguard \BLAG-uhrd\, noun:

1. A rude or unscrupulous person; a scoundrel.
2. A person who uses foul or abusive language.
3. Scurrilous; abusive; low; worthless; vicious; as, "blackguard language."
4. To revile or abuse in scurrilous language.

Douglas was not a saint, though, so his behaviour and attitude were, as he wrote, 'neither better nor worse than my contemporaries -- that is to say, [I became] a finished young blackguard, ripe for any kind of wickedness'.
-- Douglas Murray, Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas

The years, as time went on, imparted to him that peculiar majesty that white-haired blackguards, successful (and unpunished) criminals, seem generally to possess.
-- Saul David, Prince of Pleasure

Monroe wondered, but did not ask, what could have driven a young lady of such fine bearing and aristocratic attraction to leave home at a tender age and follow the fortunes of a blackguard like Reynolds.
-- William Safire, Scandalmonger

When we want to talk friendly with him, he will not listen to us, and from beginning to end his talk is blackguard.
-- Tecumseh, quoted in Tecumseh: A Life, by John Sugden, Tecumseh: A Life, by John Sugden

Blackguard is from black + guard. The term originally referred to the lowest kitchen servants of a court or of a nobleman's household. They had charge of pots and pans and kitchen other utensils, and rode in wagons conveying these during journeys from one residence to another. Being dirtied by this task, they were jocularly called the "black guard."

lackadaisical

lackadaisical \lack-uh-DAY-zih-kuhl\, adjective:

Lacking spirit or liveliness; showing lack of interest; languid; listless.

Drowsy from the heat and from fatigue, he dozed to the steady lackadaisical clips of the mule's shoes.
-- Patricia Powell, The Pagoda

There was an oddly lackadaisical inflection to his speech. A sense of merely going though the motions.
-- Lesley Hazleton, Driving To Detroit

The very title, Hours of Idleness, which the young lord affixed to his maiden volume, sufficiently indicated the lackadaisical spirit in which he came before the public.
-- J. F. A. Pyre, "Byron in Our Day", The Atlantic, April 1907

The simple fact is, whether we admit it or not, there's never been an "intelligence" or "achievement" test on which the smart and industrious have not done better than the dumb and the lackadaisical.
-- Jonah Goldberg, "Stupid Aptitude Test", National Review, July 1, 2002

Lackadaisical comes from the expression lackadaisy, a variation of lackaday, itself a shortening of "alack the (or a) day!"

chichi

chichi \SHEE-shee\, adjective:

Affectedly trendy.

"Going in gangs to those chichi clubs at Maidenhead."
-- E. Taylor, Game of Hide-&-Seek

"Whether the chichi gender theorists like it or not, sexual duality is a law of nature among all highly evolved life forms."
-- Camille Paglia

"The sort of real delicious Italian country cooking that is a revelation after so much chichi Italian food dished up in London."
-- Daily Telegraph, January 22, 1969

"[Judith] Hope -- who lives in East Hampton, where the Clintons have a lot of chichi friends -- has been getting ink by the barrelful with her regular interviews quoting conversations with the first lady, on subjects ranging from Senate ambitions to summer and post-White House living arrangements."
-- Washington Post, June 4, 1999

From the French word that literally means "curl of false hair"; used figuratively in the phrases faire des chichis, "to have affected manners, to make a fuss"; and gens à chichis, "affected, snobbish people." Sometimes spelled "chi-chi."

vexillology

vexillology \vek-sil-AHL-uh-jee\, noun:

The study of flags.

This unknown specialist has demonstrated his great knowledge of heraldry and vexillology
-- Occasional Newsletter to Librarians, January 4, 1966

One of the most interesting phases of vexillology...is the important contribution to our heritage of flags by the Arab World.
-- Arab World, October 13, 1959

From Latin vexillum, "flag" + (Greek) -logy (from logos, " word, discourse").

enervate

enervate \EN-ur-vayt\, transitive verb:

1. To deprive of vigor, force, or strength; to render feeble; to weaken.
2. To reduce the moral or mental vigor of.

Beatriz de Ahumada soldiered on to produce nine more children, a tour of duty that left her enervated and worn.
-- Cathleen Medwick, Teresa of Avila: The Progress of a Soul

In countries like India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria and Ghana I have always felt enervated by the slightest physical or mental exertion, whereas in the UK, France, Germany or the US I have always felt reinforced and stimulated by the temperate climate, not only during long stays, but even during brief travels.
-- David S. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations

The tendency of abstract thought . . . to enervate the will is one of the real dangers of the highest education.
-- Mark Pattison, Suggestions on Academical Organisation

The conquerors were enervated by luxury.
-- Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Enervate is from the past participle of Latin enervare, "to remove the sinews from, to weaken," from e-, ex-, "out of, from" + nervus, "sinew."

exalt

exalt \ig-ZOLT\, verb:

1. To praise, glorify, or honor.
2. To heighten or intensify.
3. To raise in rank, character, or status; as, "exalted the humble shoemaker to the rank of King's adviser."

A show that was merely competent needed something special if it was to run--a couple of hit tunes, something astonishing in design or choreography... or a theatre-filling personality who can exalt ordinary material."
-- Ethan Mordden, Coming Up Roses: The Broadway Musical in the 1950s

They exalt the mysterious imperative of a pay phone ringing on a city street or on a lonely desert highway and eagerly anticipate the intersection of lives when someone feels compelled to pick up that receiver."
-- "If a Pay Phone Rings, Who Will Answer?", New York Times, May 14, 1998

Other cultures worship twins as a divine gift; for instance, the voodoo practitioners of West Africa and Haiti exalt twins as supernatural beings with a single soul, who are to be revered and feared.
-- Lawrence Wright, Twins: And What They Tell Us About Who We Are

Exalt comes from Latin exalto, exaltare, to raise high, from ex-, out of (but here simply used intensively; that is, to give emphasis) + altus, high.

provenance

provenance \PROV-uh-nuhn(t)s\, noun:

Origin; source.

In a world awash in information of dubious provenance, whom can you trust to tell you the truth?
-- Gerald Jonas, review of The Jazz, by Melissa Scott, New York Times, June 18, 2000

There may have been as many as one hundred antique statues of Roman provenance in the city at the time of the Fourth Crusade.
-- Patricia Fortini Brown, Venice & Antiquity

The provenance of his possessions traced back to dukes and duchesses, kings, queens, czars, emperors, and dictators.
-- John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Provenance comes from French, from provenant, present participle of provenir, "to originate," ultimately from Latin provenire, from pro-, "forth" + venire, "to come."

tittle-tattle

tittle-tattle \TIT-uhl TAT-uhl\, noun:

1. Idle, trifling talk; empty prattle.
2. An idle, trifling talker; a gossip.
3. to talk idly; to prate.

The literary tittle-tattle of the age.
-- Edinburgh Review, 1820

It is better even to have a useless hobby than to be a tittle-tattler and a busybody.
-- Samuel Smiles, Life and Labour

The stir aroused by this latest piece of tittle-tattle quickly faded away, as if congealed under the icy wind of endless nights.
-- Andrei Makine, Once Upon the River Love [Translated by Geoffrey Strachan]

Take care on your part, Friar Ange,' replied the philosopher, 'and as you're afraid of the devil, don't offend him too much and do not excite him against you by inconsiderate tittle-tattle.
-- Anatole France, The Romance of the Queen Pédauque

Tittle-tattle is a varied reduplication of tattle, which derives from Medieval Dutch tatelen, to babble.

asperity

asperity \as-PAIR-uh-tee\, noun:

1. Roughness of surface; unevenness.
2. Roughness or harshness of sound; a quality that grates upon the ear.
3. Roughness of manner; severity; harshness.

The separation wave probes all the rocks in its path, moving forward until it hits another asperity or fault bend, whereupon it abruptly stops.
-- Sandra Blakeslee, "Quake Theory Attacks Prevailing Wisdom OnHow Faults Slip and Slide", New York Times, April 14, 1992

Many years later, when I was sketching in Rome, a grim-looking Englishwoman came up to me and said with some asperity, "I see you are painting MY view."
-- Lord Berners, A Distant Prospect

She spoke with great authority, with an asperity that didn't allow for sentimental accountings or ideological projections.
-- Daphne Merkin, "A Passion for Order", New York Times, November 17, 1996

Asperity comes from Latin asperitas, from asper, "rough." It is related to exasperate, "to irritate in a high degree," from ex- (here used intensively) + asperatus, past participle of asperare, "to roughen," from asper.

spoony

spoony \SPOO-nee\, adjective:

1. Foolish; silly; excessively sentimental.
2. Foolishly or sentimentally in love.

Nevertheless, because we're spoony old things at heart, we like to believe that some showbiz marriages are different.
-- Julie Burchill, "Cut!", The Guardian, February 7, 2001

So when your fervor cools, you think that this suddenly familiar and lusterless partner couldn't possibly be the one you're destined to be with; otherwise you'd still be all spoony, lovey-dovey and bewitched.
-- John Dufresne, "What's So Hot About Passion?", Washington Post, February 9, 2003

We know they aren't doing it for love, otherwise it wouldn't take $50 million to sucker them into getting spoony for a construction worker.
-- "Say it isn't so 'Joe'", USA Today, December 30, 2002

Spoony is from the slang term spoon, meaning "a simpleton or a silly person."

vituperate

vituperate \vy-TOO-puh-rate, -TYOO-, vi-\, verb:

To find fault with; to scold; to overwhelm with wordy abuse; to censure severely or abusively; to rate.

There are moments in life when true invective is called for, when it becomes an absolute necessity, out of a deep sense of justice, to denounce, mock, vituperate, lash out, in the strongest possible language.
-- Charles Simic, quoted in "The argument culture", Irish Times, December 17, 1998

The incensed priests...continued to raise their voices, vituperating each other in bad Latin.
-- Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

Vituperate comes from Latin vitupero, vituperare, to scold, blame, censure.

obeisance

obeisance \oh-BEE-suhn(t)s; oh-BAY-suhn(t)s\, noun:

1. An expression of deference or respect, such as a bow or curtsy.
2. Deference, homage.

They made obeisance right to the floor, coiling like bright snakes from the arms of their astonished handlers.
-- Ann Wroe, Pontius Pilate

His presence was betrayed to Miloš, who ordered his execution and then sent his rival's head to the Sultan to demonstrate his obeisance.
-- Misha Glenny, The Balkans

In all, it had served to create a highly restrictive societywhere the arrogance of superiors was as ingrained as their subordinates'fawning obeisance.
-- Robert Whiting, Tokyo Underworld

Obeisance comes from Old French obeissance, from obeissant, present participle of obeir, to obey, from Latin oboedire, to listen to, from ob-, to + audire, to hear. The adjective form is obeisant.

brummagem

brummagem \BRUHM-uh-juhm\, adjective:

Cheap and showy, tawdry; also, spurious, counterfeit.

But demanding that publishers replace their brummagem wares with books which embody Kunin's "high standards of excellence" would be a promising -- and cost-free -- way to begin.
-- Betty McCollister, "A Conspiracy of Good Intentions: America's Textbook Fiasco", Humanist, November-December, 1993

The distortions they bring on damage society and fuel defiant behavior, encouraging everything from immigrations to the Cayman Islands, to active distortions of reality through brummagem corporate filings.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr., "Reforming the Rich", National Review, January 20, 2006

Brummagem is an alteration of Birmingham, England, from the counterfeit groats produced there in the 17th century.

sapient

sapient \SAY-pee-uhnt\, adjective:

Wise; sage; discerning.

By actual measurement they are the brainiest of birds, and on subjective evidence they seem more sapient than most other living creatures.
-- David Quammen, "Bird Brains", New York Times, August 1, 1999

He also gives much of the book over to the voice and point of view of Wyatt's bright, quirky Aunt Ellen, who functions as a sapient observer of the world of the novel.
-- Lorrie Moore, "God Does Not Love Aunt Ellen", New York Times, February 14, 1993

That he has on his side Lord Jenkins and Lady Williams . . . , that Ming Campbell is backing him, that the trusty and sapient counsellor of previous leaders, Lord Holme, is discreetly installed at his side, might seem to dispose of the notion that Kennedy is not a serious man.
-- "It isn't a one horse race", The Guardian, July 20, 1999

Sapient comes from Latin sapiens, sapient-, present participle of sapere, "to taste, to have sense, to know."

panoply

panoply \PAN-uh-plee\, noun:

1. A splendid or impressive array.
2. Ceremonial attire.
3. A full suit of armor; a complete defense or covering.

Every step taken to that end which appeases the obsolete hatreds and vanished oppressions, which makes easier the traffic and reciprocal services of Europe, which encourages nations to lay aside their precautionary panoply, is good in itself.
-- Winston Churchill, quoted in This Blessed Plot, by Hugo Young

The beige plastic bedpan that had come home from the hospital with him after his deviated-septum operation . . . now held ail his razors and combs and the panoply of gleaming instruments he employed to trim the hair that grew from the various features of his face.
-- Michael Chabon, Werewolves in Their Youth

To the east, out over the Ocean, the winter sky is a brilliant panoply of stars and comets, beckoning to adventurers, wise and foolish alike, who seek to divine its mysteries.
-- Ben Green, Before His Time

Labor was hard pressed to hold the line against erosion of its hard-won social wage: the panoply of government-paid benefits such as unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, Medicare, and Social Security.
-- Stanley Aronowitz, From the Ashes of the Old

Panoply is from Greek panoplia, "a full suit of armor," from pan, "all" + hoplia, "arms, armor," plural of hoplon, "implement, weapon."

egress

egress \EE-gress\, noun:

1. The act of going out or leaving, or the right or freedom to leave; departure.
2. A means of going out or leaving; an exit; an outlet.
3. To go out; to depart; to leave.

Today gates and walls, much more hard and fixed barriers than street patterns, control entrance and egress in suburban subdivisions and urban neighborhoods around the country.
-- Edward J. Blakely and Mary Gail Snyder, Fortress America

New York's superb natural harbor and its links westward via the Erie Canal and, later, several trunk railroads made it an ideal entry and egress point for goods and people.
-- Joshua B. Freeman, Working-Class New York

In order to keep the crowds moving through the exhibits in his traveling show . . . Mr. [P.T.] Barnum posted signs that read: "This Way to the Egress." Eager to view this presumably strange and exotic exhibit, the throngs would push through the door labeled "Egress" -- and find themselves in the street.
-- Laurie A. O'Neill, "Almanac Is Itself a Rare Occurrence", New York Times, December 27, 1981

Egress is from Latin egressus, from egredi, "to go out," from e-, "out" + gradi, "to step."

extol

extol \ik-STOHL\, transitive verb:

To praise highly; to glorify; to exalt.

The processes of nature, which most writers extol as symbols of renewal and eternal life, were always seen darkly by Kerouac.
-- Ellis Amburn, Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of Jack Kerouac

Let your deeds themselves praise you, for here I leave them in all their glory, lacking words to extol them.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha

Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?
-- Arthur Christopher Benson, Song from Pomp and Circumstance by Sir Edward Elgar

Extol derives from Latin extollere, "to lift up, praise," from ex-, "up from" + tollere, "to lift up, elevate."

pusillanimous

pusillanimous \pyoo-suh-LAN-uh-muhs\, adjective:

Lacking in courage and resolution; contemptibly fearful; cowardly.

Evil, unspeakable evil, rose in our midst, and we as a people were too weak, too indecisive, too pusillanimous to deal with it.
-- Kevin Myers, "An Irishman's Diary", Irish Times, October 20, 1999

Under the hypnosis of war hysteria, with a pusillanimous Congress rubber-stamping every whim of the White House, we passed the withholding tax.
-- Vivien Kellems, Toil, Taxes and Trouble

You are now anxious to form excuses to yourself for a conduct so pusillanimous.
-- Ann Radcliffe, The Italian

Pusillanimous comes from Late Latin pusillanimis, from Latin pusillus, "very small, tiny, puny" + animus, "soul, mind."