sui generis

sui generis \soo-eye-JEN-ur-us; soo-ee-\, adjective:

Being the only example of its kind; constituting a class of its own; unique.

This man, in fact, was sui generis, a true original.
-- Ruth Lord, Henry F. du Pont and Winterthur

They're a special case, a category of their own, sui generis.
-- Eric Kraft, Leaving Small's Hotel

William Randolph Hearst did not speak often of his father. He preferred to think of himself as sui generis and self-created, which in many ways he was.
-- David Nasaw, The Chief

Sui generis is from Latin, literally meaning "of its own kind": sui, "of its own" + generis, genitive form of genus, "kind."

aplomb

aplomb \uh-PLOM\, noun:

Assurance of manner or of action; self-possession; confidence; coolness.

Then, unexpectedly, she picked up a microphone and began to sing. She sang several songs, handling herself with the aplomb of a professional entertainer.
-- "Rediscovering Japanese Life at a Bike's Pace", New York Times, April 24, 1988

In the jostling hubbub of Tim Hammack's kitchen at the Bay Area Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter in an eddy of urban need, it is about taking life as it comes. It means embracing the unexpected arrival of 200 flats of donated organic strawberries, say, or 600 pounds of bologna with equal culinary aplomb.
-- Patricia Leigh Brown, "Finding Purpose in Serving the Needy, Not Just Haute Cuisine", New York Times, June 13, 2009

His initial broadcasting success was due at least as much to his considerable professional aplomb as it was to his father's broadcasting connections.
-- John A. Jackson, American Bandstand: Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock 'n' Roll Empire

Aplomb is from the French word meaning "perpendicularity, equilibrium, steadiness, assurance," from the Old French phrase a plomb, from a, "according to" (from Latin ad) + plomb, "lead weight" (from Latin plumbum, "lead").

apocryphal

apocryphal \uh-POK-ruh-fuhl\, adjective:

1. (Bible) Pertaining to the Apocrypha.
2. Not canonical. Hence: Of doubtful authority or authenticity; equivocal; fictitious; spurious; false.

Apocryphal or not, the anecdote contains at least a grain of truth.
-- Caroline Fraser, God's Perfect Child

In 1959 he told Walter Gutman that he first started writing when he was three years old, but that his sister threw away all his childhood writings one day when she cleaned out the attic. This sounds apocryphal as it is unlikely that he could read or write at that tender age, and if he could he would certainly have told us.
-- Barry Miles, Jack Kerouac King of the Beats

He always told romanticised apocryphal stories of his ancestry, sometimes a bastard grandfather, brought up on the parish, sometimes "a weaver, half poet and half madman."
-- Kathleen Jones, A Passionate Sisterhood

Apocryphal ultimately derives from Greek apokruphos, "hidden (hence, spurious)," from apokruptein, "to hide away," from apo-, "away, from" + kruptein, "to hide."

sapid

sapid \SAP-id\, adjective:

1. Having taste or flavor, especially having a strong pleasant flavor.
2. Agreeable to the mind; to one's liking.

Chemistry can concentrate the sapid and odorous elements of the peach and the bitter almond into a transparent fluid
-- David William Cheever, "Tobacco", The Atlantic, August 1860

I've raved about the elegant and earthy lobster-and-truffle sausage, the sapid sea bass with coarse salt poached in lobster oil, and the indescribably complex and delectable ballottine of lamb stuffed with ground veal, sweet-breads and truffles.
-- James Villas, "Why Taillevent thrives", Town & Country, March 1, 1998

Sapid comes from Latin sapidus, "savory," from sapere, "to taste."

caveat

caveat \KAY-vee-at; KAV-ee-; KAH-vee-aht\, noun:

1. (Law) A notice given by an interested party to some officer not to do a certain act until the opposition has a hearing.
2. A warning or caution; also, a cautionary qualification or explanation to prevent misunderstanding.

Example Quotes:

Two young Harvard M.B.A.'s worked up some highly optimistic projections -- with the caveat that these were speculative and should of course be tested.
-- Roy Blount Jr., "Able Were They Ere They Saw Cable", New York Times, March 9, 1986

At Disney, Eisner says, adding an important caveat, "Failing is good, as long as it doesn't become a habit."
-- Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman, Organizing Genius

Example Sentences:

He gave his daughter some hyacinth bulbs with the caveat that she plant them in the shade.
-- Brought to you by the 3rd Generation Prius

Caveat comes from the Latin caveat, "let him beware," from cavere, "to beware."

protean

protean \PRO-tee-un; pro-TEE-un\, adjective:

1. Displaying considerable variety or diversity.
2. Readily assuming different shapes or forms.

The [Broadway] musical was ceaselessly protean in these years, usually conventional but always developing convention, twisting it, replacing it.
-- Ethan Mordden, Coming Up Roses

Roosevelt's performance in the civil rights meeting illustrated one of the central operating principles of his protean executive style, a style that transformed the presidency, and the nation: a willingness to delay decisions, change his mind, keep his options open, avoid commitments, or even deceive people in the relentless pursuit of noble objectives.
-- William Doyle, Inside the Oval Office

He was a protean character who constantly adapted to his environment.
-- David Maraniss, The Clinton Enigma

Protean is derived from Proteus, an ancient Greek god who had the ability to change his shape at will.

ineluctable

ineluctable \in-ih-LUCK-tuh-buhl\, adjective:

Impossible to avoid or evade; inevitable.

. . .ineluctable as gravity.
-- Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam

California's vision of itself as a car culture grew out of the impracticality of mass transit in reaching most of its scenic wonders, the innate restlessness of its inhabitants and the ineluctable attraction of an open road.
-- "From the Land of Private Freeways Comes Car Culture Shock", New York Times, October 16, 1997

Linnaeus' classification scheme became popular not because it captured some ineluctable truth about nature. Rather, by the botanist's own admission, the system divided species based more on intuition than science, much as an art historian might group paintings into schools.
-- "Cultivating a New Tree", Los Angeles Times, September 25, 1999

Ineluctable is from Latin ineluctabilis, from in-, "not" + eluctari, "to struggle out of, to get free from," from ex-, e-, "out of" + luctari, "to struggle."

peripatetic

peripatetic \pair-uh-puh-TET-ik\, adjective:

1. Of or pertaining to walking about or traveling from place to place; itinerant.
2. Of or pertaining to the philosophy taught by Aristotle (who gave his instructions while walking in the Lyceum at Athens), or to his followers.
3. One who walks about; a pedestrian; an itinerant.
4. A follower of Aristotle; an Aristotelian.

Nevertheless, the attachment which in later life he developed towards Charleston suggests that his peripatetic childhood had left unsatisfied his need for a permanent home.
-- Frances Spalding, Duncan Grant: A Biography

I was born in Italy, my sister on the west coast of Canada, because my father was pursuing a peripatetic career as an artist.
-- Anna Shapiro, USA Today, July 13, 2000

He would have a long way to go before he would match his peripatetic father. Nick had now moved five times and lived in four states from Kentucky to California.
-- Allen Barra, Inventing Wyatt Earp

Peripatetic derives from Greek peripatetikos, from peripatein, "to walk about," from peri-, "around, about" + patein, "to walk."

skulk

skulk \SKUHLK\, intransitive verb:

1. To hide, or get out of the way, in a sneaking manner; to lurk.
2. To move about in a stealthy way.
3. To avoid responsibilities and duties.
4. One who skulks.
5. A group of foxes.

When not rummaging under bushes, Mr. Sculley can often be seen skulking in the woods or prowling along the shore.
-- Tom Gilling, The Sooterkin

He was forced to creep and skulk into every place for fear of being taken and hanged.
-- Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxoniensus

He skulked back from the shop with his purchase, hugging the walls, looking at no one, all the more panicky because he knew no other way home.
-- Patrick Chamoiseau, School Days (translated by Linda Coverdale)

Skulk is from Middle English skulken, ultimately of Scandinavian origin.

glabrous

glabrous \GLAY-bruhs\, adjective:

Smooth; having a surface without hairs, projections, or any unevenness.

This species has a bluish-tinged body completely covered in white flecking in the typical species, though completely glabrous green variants are also seen without any of the body flecking.
-- Kevin G. Belmonte, "The woolly Astrophytums", The Philippine Star, June 6, 2009

We offered to the rebarbative Senator Patrick Leahy's demands on us amused resistance and the promise to buy the glabrous old boy a proper hairpiece.
-- R Emmett Tyrrell Jr., "Jumpin' Jim Jehoshaphat!", The American Spectator, July 1, 2001

Glabrous is from Latin glaber, "smooth, bald."

sedulous

sedulous \SEJ-uh-luhs\, adjective:

1. Diligent in application or pursuit; steadily industrious.
2. Characterized by or accomplished with care and perseverance.

He did not attain this distinction by accident but by sedulous study from the cradle forward.
-- Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Al Gore: A User's Manual

This writing is clearly the product of sedulous art, but it has the flame of spontaneity and the grit of independence both as to mode and spirit.
-- "The Wonder and Wackiness of Man", New York Times, January 17, 1954

And so he reminded the legion that, even though his veneration of his country's flag may not have inhibited sedulous avoidance of the inconveniences of serving under it, he is a patriot so wholehearted that he signed the Arkansas law that forbids flag-burning.
-- Murray Kempton, "Signs of Defeat In the Wind", Newsday, August 30, 1992

Sedulous is from Latin sedulus, "busy, diligent," from se-, "apart, without" + dolus, "guile, trickery."

imbue

imbue \im-BYOO\, transitive verb:

1. To tinge or dye deeply; to cause to absorb thoroughly; as, "clothes thoroughly imbued with black."
2. To instill profoundly; to cause to become impressed or penetrated.

Beauty is equal parts flesh and imagination: we imbue it with our dreams, saturate it with our longings.
-- Nancy Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest

Along with the rest of us he would certainly applaud attempts to imbue the young with the spirit of fair play.
-- John Bryant, "Football should heed the Corinthian spirit", Times (London), February 17, 2000

He wanted to remake American cinema into a positive force for good, to imbue it with a transcendent sense of virtue and order.
-- Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood

Imbue comes from Latin imbuere, "to wet, to steep, to saturate."

pastiche

pastiche \pas-TEESH; pahs-\, noun:

1. A work of art that imitates the style of some previous work.
2. A musical, literary, or artistic composition consisting of selections from various works.
3. A hodgepodge; an incongruous combination of different styles and ingredients.

The figure was a pastiche, assembled from fragments: a Greek head, a Roman imperial cuirass, and halo, limbs, weapons, and crocodile fashioned by a Venetian craftsman.
-- Patricia Fortini Brown, Venice and Antiquity

Whoever said the unexamined life is not worth living apparently never intended to go into book publishing, where there is almost no research and where much of the conventional wisdom is a pastiche of folklore, myth and wishful thinking.
-- Edwin McDowell, "Publishing: And They All Said It Wouldn't Sell", New York Times, February 6, 1989

Rather, the aim is to create a composite reflection of how New York got this way, how its bridges and subways were built, how its power structure and political culture evolved, how its pastiche of unique neighborhoods developed, collapsed and rose again, and how some of its citizens survive on the bottom rung and others succeed or fail on the top.
-- Sam Roberts, "The 10 Best Books About New York", New York Times, February 5, 1995

Pastiche comes from Italian pasticcio, "a paste," hence "a hodgepodge, literary or musical," ultimately from Latin pasta, "paste."

adumbrate

adumbrate \AD-uhm-brayt; uh-DUHM-\, transitive verb:

1. To produce a faint image or resemblance of; to outline or sketch.
2. To prefigure indistinctly; foreshadow.
3. To suggest, indicate, or disclose partially.
4. To cast a shadow over; to shade; to obscure.

The next day, when the year that had passed had been fully gone over and the hope for the year to come had been cautiously adumbrated, the delicate moment arrived when Ben Attar had to decide how to apportion the year's profit among the three partners.
-- Abraham B. Yehoshua, A Journey to the End of the Millennium

The letter even fixes the meeting as having taken place on October 23, which fits the chronology adumbrated by Professor Bald.
-- Jeremy Bernstein, "Heaven's Net: The Meeting of John Donne and Johannes Kepler", American Scholar, Spring 1997

The symbolical paintings, as they have come to be called, adumbrate a dark dream world where what seem dimly recollected circumstances, caught in their own nocturnal inertia, remain cryptic and mystifying.
-- Robert Berlind, "Edwin Dickinson: waking visions", Art in America, February 2003

Adumbrate derives from Latin adumbrare, "to sketch" (literally, "to shade towards," hence "to foreshadow or prefigure"), from ad-, "towards" + umbrare, "to shade," from umbra, "shadow."

leitmotif

leitmotif \LYT-moh-teef\, noun:

1. In music drama, a marked melodic phrase or short passage which always accompanies the reappearance of a certain person, situation, abstract idea, or allusion in the course of the play; a sort of musical label.
2. A dominant and recurring theme.

Each actor to appear on stage is accompanied by a musical phrase on the drum -- a sort of leitmotif to characterize an emotion, much like a Wagnerian drama.
-- Eleanor Blau, "Connecticut's Shakespeare", New York Times, July 9, 1982

One theme had recurred so frequently in these conversations that it had become the leitmotif of the trip.
-- Jack F. Matlock Jr., Autopsy on an Empire

As is so often the case in a crazy household . . . guilt becomes a leitmotif.
-- Frederick Busch, "My Brother, Myself", New York Times, February 9, 1997

Leitmotif (also spelled leitmotiv) is from German Leitmotiv, "leading motif," from leiten, "to lead" (from Old High German leitan) + Motiv, "motif," from the French. It is especially associated with the operas of German composer Richard Wagner.

dulcet

dulcet \DUHL-sit\, adjective:

1. Pleasing to the ear; melodious; harmonious.
2. Generally pleasing, soothing, or agreeable.
3. (Archaic) Sweet to the taste.

If you want to catch up with our most famous songster, the nightingale, just visit Minsmere at the end of April, or early May, and stand on the edge of the car park. You'll soon hear the dulcet tones of the poets' favourite bird.
-- Stephen Moss, "Birdwatch", The Guardian, October 23, 2000

Amanda . . . rages at her young 'uns in a voice that may have been full of dulcet notes when she turned the heads of her gentleman callers in her youth, but has now grown hard-edged and ringing, like a cracked bell.
-- Hal Hinson, Washington Post, November 11, 1987

Just as my eyelids started to get heavy and my brain began to relax its hold on wakefulness -- bam! -- the less than dulcet tones of Britain's top breakfast DJ started to emanate from my radio alarm.
-- "Secs in the City", The Guardian, July 30, 2001

Dulcet comes from Old French doucet, diminutive of dous, "sweet," from Latin dulcis, "sweet."

bestow

bestow \bih-STOH\, transitive verb:

1. To present as a gift or an honor; confer.
2. To apply; use.

Example Quotes:

He bestowed on him a pension of a hundred crowns a year.
-- John Richard Green, Short History of the English People

In 1933...a hurricane bestowed a bonanza on Ocean City by cutting Fenwick, the island on which its sits, in two, offering new, easy access to oceangoing boats
-- "Shifting Sands", Washington Post, July 11, 1999

Example Sentences:

Nature has bestowed many gifts on the earth that need to be treated with respect.
-- Brought to you by the 3rd Generation Prius

Bestow comes down to us from the Middle English bistowen, from bi-, be- + stowen, to place, to stow.

louche

louche \LOOSH\, adjective:

Of questionable taste or morality; disreputable or indecent; dubious; shady.

You've got to keep yourself free of any suggestion of louche behavior.
-- Anthony West

A man in a bar, utterly average, though there is something louche about him, something sly.
-- Andrew Holleran, In September, the Light Changes

Danny would be sipping a mai tai or a whiskey sour in some louche West End club.
-- Will Self, Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys

Louche is from French louche, "shady, suspicious," from Old French losche, "squint-eyed," from Latin luscus, "one-eyed."

sartorial

sartorial \sar-TOR-ee-uhl\, adjective:

1. Of or relating to a tailor or to tailoring.
2. Of or relating to clothing, or style or manner of dress.
3. [Anatomy] Of or relating to the sartorius muscle.

His sartorial style runs toward jeans, Hawaiian shirts and cowboy boots, and he favors the grizzled, haven't-shaven-in-days look.
-- Gary Rivlin, "AOL's Rough Riders", Industry Standard, October 23, 2000

She probably sensed that he had married her for her beautiful dark eyes and sartorial splendor -- and she may now have regretted the plumed hats and luxurious fur collars she had worn seductively in her youth.
-- Thomas A. Underwood, Allen Tate: Orphan of the South

The Puritan leadership was especially distressed by the sartorial ostentation of the lower classes, who were supposed to content themselves with "raiment suitable to the order in which God's providence has placed them."
-- Patricia O'Toole, Money & Morals in America

Sartorial derives from Latin sartor, "a patcher, tailor," from sartus, past participle of sarcire, "to patch, to mend."

ineffable

ineffable \in-EF-uh-buhl\, adjective:

1. Incapable of being expressed in words; unspeakable; unutterable; indescribable.
2. Not to be uttered; taboo.

. . .the tension inherent in human language when it attempts to relate the ineffable, see the invisible, understand the incomprehensible.
-- Jeffrey Burton Russell, A History of Heaven

Pope John Paul II notes that people are drawn to religion to answer the really big questions--for example, "What is the ultimate ineffable mystery which is the origin and destiny of our existence?"
-- William A. Sherden, The Fortune Sellers

One cannot blame them very much; explaining the ineffable is difficult.
-- Edward O. Wilson, "The Biological Basis of Morality", The Atlantic, April 1998

Ineffable is from Latin ineffabilis, from in-, "not" + effabilis, "utterable," from effari, "to utter," from ex-, "out" + fari, "to speak."

gauche

gauche \GOHSH\, adjective:

Lacking social polish; tactless; awkward; clumsy.

He was largely exempted from the formal socializing he said he found so hard to manage, flustered and gauche in polite company as he had always been.
-- John Sturrock, "Well on the Way to Paranoia", New York Times, July 28, 1991

He was by nature intellectual, shy, even gauche and he always believed he lacked the common touch.
-- "Editor whose legacy was diversity", Irish Times, October 9, 1999

The audience's performance was altogether more gauche, with scores of people in the stalls constantly turning round to gawp at Mick Jagger seated ten rows back.
-- Noreen Taylor, "How was it for him?", Times (London), August 3, 2000

Gauche is from the French for left, awkward.

bravura

bravura \bruh-VYUR-uh; brah-; -VUR-\, noun:

1. A florid, brilliant style of music that emphasizes the technical force and skill of a performer; virtuoso music.
2. A showy or brilliant display.

But it was not just the bravura of his self-expression that gave him such a hold on his contemporaries.
-- Peter Ackroyd, "Oscar Wilde: Comedy as Tragedy,", New York Times, November 1, 1987

The straightforward narrative account is set down with old-fashioned punctilio in prose of classic distinction, singularly free of bravura, and marked by the hard clarity of outline that is one of Waugh's several manners.
-- Charles A. Brady, "Figure of Grace", New York Times, January 24, 1960

With his customary display of dramatic bravura, Sir Alan Ayckbourn is giving us twin comedies about a village fete and staging them simultaneously in each of the National's big, adjacent auditoriums.
-- Benedict Nightingale, "Witches of Updike Flying to London", New York Times, March 12, 2000

Bravura comes from the Italian, from bravo, "brave, excellent."

fervid

fervid \FUR-vid\, adjective:

1. Heated or vehement in spirit, enthusiasm, etc.
2. Burning; glowing; intensely hot.

Over the last week, the Cubs opened their home season at Wrigley Field, and the city's Lyric Opera was presenting Richard Wagner's four-opera "Ring des Nibelungen," which meant that two of the world's most fervid fan bases were simultaneously encamped on opposite sides of the Chicago River.
-- Bruce Weber, "Take Me Out to the Opera: In Chicago, a Fan Is a Fan", New York Times, April 16, 2009

The words of fire that from his pen
Were flung upon the fervid page,
Still move, still shake the hearts of men,
Amid a cold and coward age.
-- William Cullen Bryant

Fervid comes from Latin fervidus "glowing, burning, vehement," from fervere "to boil, glow." The figurative sense of "impassioned" is from 1656.

apogee

apogee \AP-uh-jee\, noun:

1. The point in the orbit of the moon or of an artificial satellite that is at the greatest distance from the center of the earth.
2. The farthest or highest point; culmination.

Example Quotes:

But in retrospect, this period would prove to be the apogee of O'Sullivan's career, although he always felt bigger and better things were on his way.
-- Edward L. Widmer, Young America

Aurangzeb ended the family tradition of building architectural masterpieces that had reached its apogee when his father, Shah Jahan, built the world's most beautiful tomb, the Taj Mahal.
-- Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Proudest Day

Example Sentences:

When the moon is at its farthest point from earth, its orbit has reached its apogee.
-- Brought to you by the 3rd Generation Prius

Apogee is derived from Greek apogaion, from apogaios, "situated (far) away from the earth," from apo-, "away from" + gaia, "earth."

shibboleth

shibboleth \SHIB-uh-lith; -leth\, noun:

1. A peculiarity of pronunciation, behavior, mode of dress, etc., that distinguishes a particular group of persons.
2. A slogan; a catchword.
3. A common saying or belief with little current meaning or truth.

Accustomed to the veneer of noise, to the shibboleths of promotion, public relations, and market research, society is suspicious of those who value silence.
-- John Lahr

The fish oil shibboleth is only the latest to be overturned in recent years. Vitamin supplements and fibre have also been found to provide no benefits.
-- Nigel Hawkes, "Nice idea, but where's the proof?", Times (London), March 24, 2009

Class size is another shibboleth: First, small class sizes do not increase learning, and, second, class sizes have become quite small anyway.
-- Jay Nordlinger, "The Anti-Excusers", National Review, October 27, 2003

Shibboleth is from Hebrew shibboleth, "stream, flood," from the use of this word in the Bible (Judges 12:4-6) as a test to distinguish Gileadites from Ephraimites, who could not say 'sh' but only 's' as in 'sibboleth'.

verdant

verdant \VUR-dnt\, adjective:

1. Green with vegetation; covered with green growth.
2. Green.
3. Lacking experience or sophistication; naive.

Drab in winter, then suddenly sodden with alpine runoff, the region turns dazzlingly verdant in spring.
-- Patricia Albers, Shadows, Fire, Snow

Dry as the region just outside the delta may be, it would still be covered with grasses, yellowish in the dry season, verdant in the wet.
-- Niles Eldredge, Life in the Balance

I was verdant enough to think her Agrippine very fine.
-- Henry James, "The Théâtre Français"

Verdant comes from French verdoyant, present participle of verdoyer, "to be verdant, to grow green," from Old French verdoier, verdeier, from verd, vert, "green," from Latin viridis, "green," from virere, "to be green."

affray

affray \uh-FRAY\, noun:

A tumultuous assault or quarrel; a brawl.

Mounted encounters by armored knights locked in desperate hand-to-hand combat, stabbing and wrestling in tavern brawls, deceits and brutalities in street affrays, balletic homicide on the dueling field--these were the martial arts of Renaissance Europe.
-- Sydney Anglo, The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe

An Irish soldier was stabbed with a boar spear by a German mercenary in 1544 during an affray that followed Henry VIII's capture of Boulogne.
-- James Williams, "Hunting, hawking and the early Tudor gentleman", History Today, August 2003

Affray comes from Old French esfrei, from esfreer, "to disquiet, to frighten."

rampart

rampart \ram-pahrt\, noun:

1. A fortification consisting of an embankment, often with a parapet built on top.
2. A means of protection or defense; a bulwark.
3. To defend with a rampart.

To stand upon ramparts and die for our principles is heroic, but to sally forth to battle and win for our principles is something more than heroic.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried.
-- Charles Wolfe, The Burial of Sir John Moore

There is no rampart that will hold out against malice.
-- Moliere

Rampart derives from Middle French remparer, equivalent to re + emparer "to take the possesion of."

doughty

doughty \DOW-tee\, adjective:

Marked by fearless resolution; valiant; brave.

He was obsessed with the Arctic, his imagination stoked by epic accounts of the doughty pioneers who had led wooden ships into uncharted waters and northern mists.
-- Sara Wheeler, "In Cold Blood?", New York Times, February 25, 2001

One day he stumbled, fell against the spinning saw and half severed his left arm. It was three days before a doctor came, but the doughty old Swede was still alive.
-- Quentin Reynolds, "The Bold Victory of a Man Alone", New York Times, September 13, 1953

Doughty comes from Old English dohtig, "brave, valiant, fit."

vagary

vagary \VAY-guh-ree; vuh-GER-ee\, noun:

An extravagant, erratic, or unpredictable notion, action, or occurrence.

Her words are a dreadful reminder that much of life's consequences are resultant of vagary and caprice, dictated by the tragedy of the ill-considered action, the irrevocable misstep, the irrevocable moment in which a terrible wrong can seem the only right.
-- Rosemary Mahoney, "Acts of Mercy?", New York Times, September 13, 1998

Weather is one of the vagaries of blue-water racing, ruling the sport like a malicious jester.
-- Martin Dugard, Knockdown

This thing called love was a total mystery to me, but the vagaries of passion and despair that accompanied each devotion kept my life in high drama.
-- Jane Alexander, Command Performance

Vagary comes from Latin vagari, "to stroll about, to wander," from vagus, "wandering."

penury

penury \PEN-yuh-ree\, noun:

1. Extreme poverty; destitution.
2. Absence of resources; insufficiency.

Charles regretted his departure, and the penury of his treasury, but trusted that God would favour him in his struggle against the king of France.
-- Henry Kamen, Philip of Spain

He was a cooper by trade, a native of Rio de Janeiro, where he would have died in penury and obscurity had he limited himself to the work of barrel-making.
-- Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas

That sovereign of insufferables, Oscar Wilde, has ensued with his opulence of twadle and his penury of sense.
-- Ambrose Bierce, Wasp, March 31, 1882

Penury is from Latin penuria, "lack, want."