anthropogenic

anthropogenic \an-thruh-puh-JEN-ik\, adjective:

Caused or produced by humans: anthropogenic air pollution.

We have already mentioned the fact that many anthropogenic myths made use of clay in the creation of man, and anyone moderately interested in the subject can find out more in know-it-all almanacs and knowitalmostall encyclopedias.
-- Jose Saramago, The Cave

Millie was listening to an argument about anthropogenic climate change at an international relief conference in Washington DC.
-- Steven Gould, Impulse

Anthropogenic was coined in the 1880s. It is a combination of the prefix anthro- meaning "human being" and -genic meaning "produced by or causing."

fastigiate

fastigiate \fa-STIJ-ee-it\, adjective:

1. Rising to a pointed top.
2. Zoology. Joined together in a tapering adhering group.
3. Botany. A. Erect and parallel, as branches. B. Having such branches.

As Rachel's neighbour was to be an Irish Water Spaniel's swamp cypress, likely to spread with time, they had opted for something deciduous and columnar, a fastigiate English oak.
-- Patrick Gale, Notes from an Exhibition

Taking Panfilo through the garden, she pointed up to a stained-glass window flanked on either side by two fastigiate poplars.
-- Mary Rhinehart, "The Song of Red Tower," The Stories of the Surge

Fastigiate comes from the Latin word fastīgi which meant "height."

antepenultimate

antepenultimate \an-tee-pi-NUHL-tuh-mit\, adjective:

1. Third from the end.
2. Of or pertaining to an antepenult.

noun:
1. An antepenult.

The vengeful eagles of the open sequence [and] the birds of augury watched outside the library and the emblematic kinsmen who shake 'the wings of their exultant and terrible youth' in the antepenultimate entry in Stephen's diary.
-- James Joyce, introduction by Hugh Kenner, Ulysses

But all day that is how it is, from the first tick to the last tack, or rather from the third to the antepenultimate, allowing for the time it needs, the tamtam within, to drum you back into the dream and drum you back out again.
-- Samuel Beckett, Mercier and Camier

This adjective is the product of three Latin roots: ante meaning "before," paen meaning "almost" and ultima meaning "last."

stridulous

stridulous \STRIJ-uh-luhs\, adjective:

1. Also, strid·u·lant. Making or having a harsh or grating sound.
2. Pathology. Pertaining to or characterized by stridor.

He was about to leave when a stridulous voice cut through the din.
-- Stephen Marlowe, The Death and Life of Miguel De Cervantes

But at this moment the long-drawn, slightly stridulous utterances of Mrs. Brimmer rose through the other greetings like a lazy east wind.
-- The Writings of Bret Harte, The Crusade of the Excelsior

Stridulous came from the Latin word stridulus meaning "giving a shrill sound, creaking" from stridere meaning "to utter an inarticulate sound, grate, creak."

avidity

avidity \uh-VID-i-tee\, noun:

1. Enthusiasm or dedication.
2. Eagerness; greediness.

One may speak about anything on earth with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but one only speaks about oneself with avidity.
-- Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, "A Correspondence," Essential Turgenev

Come, walk up, and purchase with avidity, Overcome your diffidence and natural timidity!
-- William S. Gilbert, Arthur Seymour Sullivan, Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride

Avidity appeared in English in the mid-1500s, originating from the French word avide, meaning "to crave, long for." The term adds a dimension of intensity to the "eagerness" with which it is often equated.

tidings

tidings \TAHY-dingz\, noun:

News, information, or intelligence: sad tidings.

There were voices which came from the mountains, with tidings from far away and sweet breathings of the spirit.
-- Arthur Edward Waite, Quest of the Golden Stairs

"How would my heart have leapt at that sound but yesterday!" thought she, remembering the anxiety with which she had long awaited tidings from her husband.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Wives of the Dead," The Oxford Book of American Short Stories

Tidings is most used in the phrase "glad tidings," but it was a word on its own before it entered Christmas lore. The word came from the Old Norse word tīthindi meaning "news." It is related to the common word "tide."

glissade

glissade \gli-SAHD\, verb:

1. To perform a glissade, a sliding or gliding step.

noun:
1. A skillful glide over snow or ice in descending a mountain, as on skis or a toboggan.
2. Dance. A sliding or gliding step.

And then I hear it, a high tenuous glissade of sound that I might almost have mistaken for a siren if I didn't know better, and I realize that this is what I've been waiting for all along: the coyote chorus.
-- Tom Coraghessan Boyle, The Tortilla Curtain

Bodies which seem to hover over the floor, sinking only to rise. Glissade brushing to releve en attitude.
-- Anthony Howell, In the Company of Others

Glissade entered into English in the 1830s as a version of the modern French verb glisser, meaning "to slip."

douce

douce \doos\, adjective:

Sedate; modest; quiet.

"So should I have been, in my interview with Sir Thomas— how shall I put it— more douce?"
-- Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

Port Glasgow is to the east of Greenock, Gourock to the west. The latter town combines a douce middle-class residential area and a Ken MacLeod.
-- Edited by Gardner Dozois, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection

Douce comes from the French word of the same spelling meaning "sweet." It became widely used in English after it was used in the Chanson of Roland, a epic poem written about Charlemagne.

decathect

decathect \dee-kuh-THEKT\, verb:

To withdraw one's feelings of attachment from (a person, idea, or object), as in anticipation of a future loss: He decathected from her in order to cope with her impending death.

Freud argued that grieving involved a process of remembering and reflecting upon all the memories associated with the deceased in order to sever an emotional connection, or "decathect," and make room for new bonds and relationships.
-- Maria Cizmic, Performing Pain

Jonathan was the name of the boy in the pagoda with Michael. "He will continue manipulating Jonathan. We must get Jonathan to decathect from Michael."
-- Chaim Potok, The Promise

Decathect originates from a combination of the Latin prefix de- implying an undoing or removal, and the Greek term kathek meaning "to keep, hold on to." It was originally used by Freud in the 1930s.

algid

algid \AL-jid\, adjective:

Cold; chilly.

The sun weakens and grows pale as though seen through algid water and the air is stale and still.
-- Bryce Courtenay, The Family Frying Pan

There was an algid texture to the air, causing everyone to shiver involuntarily.
-- Richard K. Patterson, The Kaleidoscope Project

A late Renaissance term, algid is derived from the Latin algidus, meaning "cold."

counterblast

counterblast \koun-ter-blast\, noun:

An unrestrained and vigorously powerful response to an attacking statement.

In my view it's really a matter of style. For getting me most effective counterblast, I mean. You don't want to counterblast them in their own style. They're to meeting such counterblasts, anyhow.
-- William Cooper, You're Not Alone

On 26 September 1920 Woolf wrote in her diary that she was 'making up a paper upon Women, as a counterblast to Mr Bennett's adverse views reported in the papers' and this turned into 'A Society'.
-- Virginia Woolf, introduction by David Bradshaw, "The Proper Stuff for Fiction," The Mark on the Wall

Counterblast, predictably, comes from the roots "counter" and "blast." It came into common English usage in the 1560s. The prefix counter- originates in the Latin word contrā which meant "against, to return." Blast, on the other hand, originates in Old English, from the word blǽst, which meant "to blow."

echolalia

echolalia \ek-oh-LEY-lee-uh\, noun:

1. The imitation by a baby of the vocal sounds produced by others, occurring as a natural phase of childhood development.
2. Psychiatry. The uncontrollable and immediate repetition of words spoken by another person.

At the time when speech is being learned, there begins a period of echolalia in which the child repeats with tireless continuation all the words or sentences it hears; either completely, or else their closing cadences.
-- Kurt Koffka, The Growth of the Mind: An Introduction to Child Psychology

These "terrestrial echoes" where the "swamp's echolalia," according to Kiwi, who liked to make geography as pretentious as possible.
-- Karen Russell, Swamplandia!

I had cultivated a mild sort of insanity, echolalia, I think it's called. All the tag ends of the night's proofreading danced on the tip of my tongue.
-- Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

Echolalia originates from two Greek roots: echo derived from the name of the mythic nymph Echo fabled to have pined herself away to nothing but her name, combined with lalia meaning "talk or prattle."

whinge

whinge \hwinj\, verb:

To complain; whine.

Sorry Tom. Canadian idiom. Whinge. Complain. Petition for redress. Assemble. March in those five-abreast demonstrating lines. Shake upraised fists in unison.
-- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

It was a tough life but you could never whinge because you knew you'd got to heaven and therefore, logically and rationally, you had to be happy. To whinge would have been an unforgivable sin.
-- Susan Howatch, The High Flyer

Whinge is a Northern variant of the Old English word hwinsian meaning, "to whine."

lagan

lagan \LAG-uhn\, noun:

Anything sunk in the sea, but attached to a buoy or the like so that it may be recovered.

But hear what your Grace does not know. In the sea there are three kinds of things: those at the bottom, lagan; those which float, flotsam; those which the sea throws up on the shore, jetsam.
-- Victor Hugo, The Man Who Laughs

"Wreck" shall include jetsam, flotsam, lagan, and derelict found in or on the shores of the sea or any tidal water.
-- Harry Newsom, The Law of Salvage, Towage, and Pilotage

Lagan is not as well known as its contextual brethren, flotsam and jetsam. The word comes from the Old Norse word lǫgn which meant "a net laid in the sea."

axial

axial \AK-see-uhl\, adjective:

1. Situated in or on the line about which a rotating body turns.
2. Of, pertaining to, characterized by, or forming an axis: an axial relationship.

"This planet has no axial tilt," he said as they passed under the portcullis. "And its orbit is circular. So no seasons."
-- Catherine Asaro, Skyfall

"Axial rotation" is not simply "rotation upon an axis" as nonchalantly defined in dictionaries, but is circular motion in the true physical sense. . .
-- Nikola Tesla, Very Truly Yours

Axial originates from the Latin axis meaning 'pivot.' The Middle English suffix -al, turns what was once a noun into an adjective by applying the meaning 'of' or 'pertaining to' an 'axis.'

buttress

buttress \BUH-tris\, verb:

1. To give encouragement or support to (a person, plan, etc.).
2. To support by a buttress; prop up.

noun:
1. Any external prop or support built to steady a structure by opposing its outward thrusts, especially a projecting support built into or against the outside of a masonry wall.
2. Any prop or support.
3. A thing shaped like a buttress, as a tree trunk with a widening base.
4. A bony or horny protuberance, especially on a horse's hoof.

But that our cause, our very life and future hopes and past pride, should have been thrown into that balance with men like that to buttress it—men with valor and strength but without pity of honor.
-- William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

It occurred to me that perhaps my brother gilder, Elegant, had with sly intent used these facts to buttress his false accusations.
-- Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

In its current form, buttress is a derivative of the Old French boteret, referring to 'support.'

apopemptic

apopemptic \ap-uh-PEMP-tik\, adjective:

1. Pertaining to leave-taking or departing; valedictory.

noun:
1. Obsolete. A farewell address; valedictory.

The others followed suit and, politely apopemptic, vanished into the night.
-- Sōseki Natsume, Aiko Ito, Graeme Wilson, I Am a Cat

Only to the fool who believes all truths debatable, who believes true virtue resides not in men but in eulogies, true sorrow not in partings but in apopemptic hymns…
-- John Gardner, Jason and Medeia

Rising to prominence in the middle 1700s, apopemptic derives from the Greek apopemptikós, pertaining to 'sending away.'

plication

plication \plahy-KEY-shuhn\, noun:

1. The act or procedure of folding.
2. The state or quality of being folded; a fold.
3. Surgery. A. The folding in and suturing of tucks, so as to tighten weakened or stretched tissue. B. The folding of an organ, as a section of the intestine, and the attaching of it to another organ or tissue.

The distribution of sediment by the polar currents, and the lines of plication and upheaval of the crust, as well as the distribution of successive floras, prove that the poles have remained since the Laurentian period where they now are.
-- W.C. and F.P. Church, The Galaxy

For the purpose of this text the term plication will be used in reference to grasping the SMAS [Superficial Muscular Aponeurotic System, in the face] and folding it over on itself by means of a suture.
-- Michael S. Kaminer, Kenneth A. Arndt, Jeffrey S. Dover, Atlas of Cosmetic Surgery

Plication is derived from the Medieval Latin stem plicātiō, relating to a 'fold' or 'pleat.'

adiaphorous

adiaphorous \ad-ee-AF-er-uhs\, adjective:

Doing neither good nor harm, as a medicine.

Sun and Mr. Allworthy are united, but with a difference: the sun, in all his majesty and splendor is, in the words of Boyle, "adiaphorous" unthinking matter, whereas Mr. Allworthy is a moral agent . . .
-- Jina Politi, The Novel and Its Presuppositions

. . .which participates of neither extreme, as for example, all those things which, as being neither good nor evil in themselves, we call adiaphorous, or indifferent.
-- William Watson Goodwin, Plutarch's Morals

Adiaphorous is derived from the Greek, adiaphoros, meaning 'indifferent.'

cruciverbalist

cruciverbalist \kroo-suh-VUR-buh-list\, noun:

A designer or aficionado of crossword puzzles.

"What kind of writer are you, then?" prods Middle. "A cruciverbalist," Claire says, regretting the word even as it leaves her lips.
-- Elise Juska, One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

In high school I was a closet cruciverbalist [because] working on crosswords seemed so uncool.
-- Kristin Tillotson, "The Life and Times of a Crossword Addict," Minneapolis Star Tribune

This young word was coined in the late 1970s and entered the vernacular in 1990. Cruciverablist is derived from two Latin roots crux meaning 'cross' and verbum, meaning 'word.'

moor

moor \moor\, verb:

1. To fix firmly; secure.
2. To secure (a ship, boat, dirigible, etc.) in a particular place, as by cables and anchors or by lines.
3. To moor a ship, small boat, etc.
4. To be made secure by cables or the like.

noun:
1. The act of mooring.

Being anxious to remove some of our goods before night, the boys ran off to fetch the sledge; while I, having no anchor, contrived to moor the boats by means of some of the heavy blocks of iron we had brought.
-- Johann David Wyss, The Swiss Family Robinson

Then the divers will moor it to the bottom — we drove the piles into the ocean floor 20 meters deep when we did the 63.
-- Eugene McCreary, Madame President

Though moor gained popularity in the 1490s, the term originates from the Old English more from the maerelsrāp rope used for securing or 'mooring' ships.

mulligrubs

mulligrubs \MUHL-i-gruhbz\, noun:

Ill temper; colic; grumpiness.

"That's a comfortable place to be." The barber chuckled. "You're a philosopher, sir, a philosopher." "I am, but I'm a blue one. I have the blue mulligrubs."
-- Brian Lynch, The Winter of Sorrow

Right Rosa Solis, as ever washed mulligrubs out of a moody brain!
-- Sir Walter Scott, The Waverley Novels

It is easy enough to say that a pessimist is a person afflicted with an incurable case of mulligrubs — one whom nothing in all earth or heaven or hades pleases; one who usually deserves nothing, yet grumbles if he gets it.
-- William Cowper Brann, "Beauty and the Beast," Brann: The Iconoclast

This fanciful formation was developed in 1599 as a synonym for 'a fit of the blues' and an alteration of megrims.

anopisthograph

anopisthograph \an-uh-PIS-thuh-graf\, noun:

Manuscript, parchment, or book having writing on only one side of the leaves.

But it never comes to this, the events always end up on the public side of the anopisthograph.
-- Kerry Shawn Keys, A Gathering of Smoke

If text was written on one side only, then the roll was known as an anopisthograph; if on both sides, then as an opisthograph.
-- Roy Stokes, edited by R. Stephen Almagno, Esdaile's Manual of Bibliography

Anopisthograph comes from three Greek roots. It first gained popularity in the 1870s, merging an-, meaning 'un-' or 'not,' with opistho for 'back' referring to writing on both sides of a leaf or page, and 'graph' from -graphos, meaning 'drawn' or 'written.'

howdah

howdah \HOU-duh\, noun:

(In the East Indies) a seat or platform for one or more persons, commonly with a railing and a canopy, placed on the back of an elephant.

Above the musket smoke and the gritty dust that was drifting over the battlefield, he saw the howdahs of some of Hemu's war elephants approaching.
-- Alex Rutherford, Ruler of the World

Now she made a picture of an elephant, with four lines for the howdah, in which was seated a princess wearing a crown.
-- Qurratulʻain Ḥaidar, "The Housing Society," The Sound of Falling Leaves

Howdah has both Hindi and Arabic origins, both referring to the load carried by an elephant or camel: haudah in Hindi, and haudaj in Arabic.

quench

quench \kwench\, verb:

1. To slake, satisfy, or allay (thirst, desires, passion, etc.).
2. To put out or extinguish (fire, flames, etc.).
3. To cool suddenly by plunging into a liquid, as in tempering steel by immersion in water.
4. To subdue or destroy; overcome; quell: to quench an uprising.
5. Electronics. To terminate (the flow of electrons in a vacuum tube) by application of a voltage.

Foul water will quench fire as well as fair.
-- John Heywood, Proverbs

Which was not the first day at all, not Eden morning at all because girls' weather and boys' luck is the sum of all the days: the cup, the bowl proffered once to the lips in youth and then no more; proffered to quench or sip or drain that lone one time and even that sometimes premature, too soon.
-- William Faulkner, The Town

Quench originates from the old English cwincan, meaning 'to go out, to be extinguished.'

erinaceous

erinaceous \er-uh-NEY-shuhs\, adjective:

Of the hedgehog kind or family.

At times even more ruthless, their erinaceous fingernails used as claws, as dangerous as any blade.
-- Richard W. Hoffman, The Bamboo American

[Thoreau was] the most erinaceous of American writers. Ideas stuck out from his writings like porcupine quills, guaranteed to prick the hide of even the most thick-skinned, reader.
-- Walter Harding, The Days of Henry Thoreau: A Biography

Erinaceous originates from the Latin ērināceus for hedgehog, followed by the suffix -ous referring to the possession of a quality.

pontificate

pontificate \pon-TIF-i-keyt\, verb:

1. To speak in a pompous or dogmatic manner.
2. To perform the office or duties of a pontiff.
3. To serve as a bishop, especially in a Pontifical Mass.

noun:
1. The office or term of office of a pontiff.

His image is to appear as the guardian of robust morality as opposed to the business world, and he is invited pretty regularly to pontificate on television.
-- Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The teacher's vanity and desire to pontificate had, he was vaguely aware, got the better of him.
-- Michael Antony, The Apocalypse Syndrome

Originating from the Latin pontificatus, meaning 'to speak in the manner of a pontiff,' pontificate fell into common usage in 1825.

effervescent

effervescent \ef-er-VES-uhnt\, adjective:

1. High-spirited; vivacious; lively.
2. Effervescing; bubbling.

One of them was a thickset young man who played doggedly without speaking, the other was an effervescent young man with white eyebrows and a nervous manner.
-- James Joyce, Stephen Hero

Bobbing up and down, for a few seconds, like an apple in a bowl of toddy, he, at length, finally disappeared amid the whirlpool of foam which, in the already effervescent liquor, his struggles easily succeeded in creating.
-- Edgar Allan Poe, King Pest

That night, when Jennifer and I go out to dinner, she is effervescent with plans for our future.
-- Isaac Asimov, Science Fiction Magazine, Volume 8, 1984

Effervescent originated as a French verb in the 1650s meaning, 'the action of boiling up' (as in water), though it did not assume its figurative meaning relating to personality until 1748.

alexipharmic

alexipharmic \uh-lek-suh-FAHR-mik\, adjective:

1. Warding off poisoning or infection; antidotal; prophylactic.
2. An alexipharmic agent, especially an internal antidote.

True, I had lately given some attention to botanical studies; but my new knowledge extended only to the trees of the forest, and none of these with which I was acquainted possessed alexipharmic virtues. I knew nothing of the herbaceous plants, the milk-worts, the aristolochias, that would have served me.
-- Captain Thomas Mayne Reid, The Quadroon

That it is a poison most true,/ The worse, the deadlier the drought,/ The greater honor will be due/ To your alexipharmic craft./ Now, Doctor, you must show your skill;/ Whip them off clean, and make your will.
-- John Hall-Stevenson, Fables for Grown Gentlemen

Alexipharmic rose to prominence in the early Baroque period, from the Greek alexein, 'to avert' and pharmakon, meaning 'drug.' Alexipharmic was the dominant adjectival form until 'antidotal' overtook it in the 1640s.

empurple

empurple \em-PUR-puhl\, verb:

1. To color or become purple or purplish.
2. To darken or redden; flush.

On one side are baby grapes whose petals yet fall; on another the clusters empurple towards full growth.
-- Homer, translated by T.E. Lawrence, The Odyssey

Magnificent weather, one of those sun risings that empurple landscapes, left the river all its limpid serenity.
-- Alexandre Dumas, The Man in the Iron Mask

Empurple originated in the late 1580s from the Greek prefix em- meaning 'to become' and the color 'purple,' a word of Tyrian descent for the shellfish from which purple dye was made.

trundle

trundle \TRUHN-dl\, verb:

To move or walk with a rolling gait.

They get her into a wheelbarrow and trundle her all over town.
-- Alice Munroe, Meneseteung

Fling leaflets down basements; expose them in stalls; trundle them along streets on barrows to be sold for a penny or given away.
-- Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own: Three Guineas

Trundle, first used in the 1500s, may originate from the Old English trendel, "ring or disk," which is also the root of the modern English trend.

biblioklept

biblioklept \BIB-lee-uh-klept\, noun:

A person who steals books.

I'd told Charlie weeks ago about my collision with the book thief, so the idea of a...what had Dennis called it?...a biblioklept ...wouldn't exactly be news to him.
-- Joanne Dobson, The Maltese Manuscript: A Professor Karen Pelletier Mystery

"Our Scrapbook of minutes was stolen by some biblioklept."
-- Christopher Morley, On belonging to clubs

Biblioklept forms from two Greek roots: biblio-, 'book," and klept, "thief."

svelte

svelte \SFELT\, adjective:

1. Slender, especially gracefully slender in figure.
2. Suave; blandly urbane.

In 1944 his mother had been a relatively svelte one hundred and eighty pounds.
-- Stephen King, It: A Novel

"When I walk under one of the pathway lamps and look down you can indeed see the silhouette of my body which doesn't look quite as svelte and hourglassy as I believe it did just an hour ago when I was admiring myself in the mirror.
-- Terry McMillan, How Stella Got Her Groove Back

Svelte enters English in 1800s from the French, and originally derives from the Latin verb exvellere, "to stretch out."

rime

rime \RAHYM\, noun:

A coating of tiny, white, granular ice particles, caused by the rapid freezing of water droplets.

The Chief's follow spot cast a light like a rime of ice into the murk, and mom swam inside this circle across the entire length of the lake.
-- Karen Russell, Swamplandia!

When it got real fierce, when your very speech would freeze as it emanated from your lips and blow back in stinging rime against the cheeks, we hung close to the tepees and ate the dried meat taken the summer before and stored in rawhide parfleches and pemmican, the greasier the better on account of a bellyful of melting fat will warm you sooner and stick longer than most anything I know.
-- Thomas Berger, Little Big Man

Rime, also known as hoarfrost, comes from the Old English hrim. Used mainly in Northern England and Scotland for centuries, it was revived in literature in the 19th century.

fainaigue

fainaigue \fuh-NEYG\, verb:

1. To shirk; evade work or responsibility.
2. To renege at cards.

I finally fainaigue a tin plate out of the mess department, for which I am required to give two lire.
-- Harry Partch, Thomas McGeary, Bitter Music: Collected Journals, Essays, Introductions, and Librettos

I've a two-year stretch up here, unless I quit or fainaigue a transfer.
-- "Astounding Science fiction, Volume 31, issue 21943"

Fainaigue stems from British dialect, but its exact origins are unclear. Whether or not it has a relationship to finagle is a source of debate.

amygdaliform

amygdaliform \uh-MIG-duh-luh-fawrm\, adjective:

Shaped like an almond.

She is naturally blonde, pale, with amygdaliform eyes and high cheekbones.
-- Gulnar Nazarkhan, The Secret World

The size and shape of the spores are quite distinctive (globose to subglobose, ovoid, elongate and often almond-shaped – amygdaliform) and with surface ornamentation which may be coarse or fine and individual ornamentation may be low or high and blunt and pointed.
-- Alec Wood, What Cortinarius Is That?

Amygdaliform derives from the Greek amygdale, "almond." -form is the common suffix denoting "in the shape of." A portion of the human brain is known as the amygdala, named for its resemblance to almonds.

potvaliancy

potvaliancy \POT-val-yuhn-see\, noun:

Brave only as a result of being drunk.

Obed looked over his shoulder, peering at me with his little short—sighted pig's eyes, into which, in my potvaliancy, I immediately chucked half a tumbler of very strong grog, and under cover of it attempted to bolt through the scuttle.
-- Michael Scott, Tom Cringle's Log

His bursts of potvaliancy (the male side of the maiden Panic within his bosom) are awful to his friends.
-- George Meredith, Beauchamp's Career, Volume 1

Potvaliancy combines the original sense of pot as "drinking cup" with valiancy, which derives from the verb valere, "to be strong."

balsamaceous

balsamaceous \bawl-suh-MEY-shuhs\, adjective:

Possessing healing or restorative qualities.

Minus the balsamaceous or incense resins and portrayed as Osiris, God of the Dead, he evidently did not lean toward the "spirit" side.
-- Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers, inc, Volume 52, Issue 3, 1940.

[Myrrh is] a brown aromatic gum resin with a bitter pungent taste derived from a balsamaceous shrub, Balsamea myrrha.
-- C. Raimer Smith, The Physician Examines the Bible

Balsamaceous derives from the Latin balsamum, "resin of the Balsam tree." This substance is historically celebrated for its aroma and healing properties.

agape

agape \ah-GAH-pey\, noun:

1. Unselfish love of one person for another without sexual implications.
2. The love of Christians for other persons, corresponding to the love of God for humankind.

In theological sermons we are used to hearing of a great distinction between fleshly and spiritual love, eros and agape.
-- Joseph Campbell, The Flight of the Wild Gander: Essays

Not even the shift that Auden himself saw in the poem, that from erotic love with its inevitable undertones of egotism and potential failure to a brotherly love embodied in agape, is completely evident.
-- Rainer Emig, W.H. Auden: Towards a Postmodern Poetics

Agape originates as the Greek agapen, "to greet with affection." The term was adopted by early Christians in connection with celebrations. The general sense of "love without sexual aspects" came into use in the 1800s.

giblets

giblets \JIB-lits\, noun:

The heart, liver, gizzard, and the like, of a fowl, often cooked separately.

She prods the chicken, flexes a wing, pokes a finger into the cavity, fishes out the giblets.
-- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Whatever you say to such people, they think you're talking about their problem, like the story of the cat, where the couple was arguing about a divorce but the cat thought they were disagreeing about the giblets for its lunch.
-- Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

Giblets most likely derives from the Old French gibelet, "a stew made from wild game."

fob

fob \FOB\, noun:

1. A short chain, usually with a medallion or similar ornament, worn hanging from a pocket.
2. A small pocket just below the waistline in trousers for a watch, keys, change, etc.

verb:
1. To cheat someone by substituting something spurious or inferior.
2. To put (someone) off by deception or trickery.

Out of the right fob hung a great silver chain, with a wonderful kind of engine at the bottom.
-- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

The father had bought the bridegroom a fob watch as a gift.
-- Sholem Aleichem, Aliza Shevrin, Tevye the Dairyman: And, Motl the Cantor's Son

Fob most likely derives from the Germanic fopke, "pocket."

ogle

ogle \OH-guhl\, verb:

1. To look at amorously, flirtatiously, or impertinently.
2. To eye; look or stare at.

He always pretended to be deeply exhausted from his various adventures, but he was never too exhausted to ogle— as she knew and as Flap knew too.
-- Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment: A Novel

Couples ogle cakes in windows.
-- Simon Louvish, The Days of Miracles and Wonders: An Epic of the New World Disorder

Ogle traces its origins from the Lower German oeglen, "to look at," but ultimately comes from a now extinct word for "eye," oog

terpsichorean

terpsichorean \turp-si-kuh-REE-uhn\, adjective:

1. Pertaining to dancing.

noun:
1. A dancer.

I even saw Major West that evening tapping his foot and picking up his feet in terpsichorean splendor with Mrs. West."
-- Jackson Bailey, My Love and I

They're agile, they're flexible, they're terpsichorean."
-- Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full

Terpsichorean comes from the name of the Greek muse of dancing, Terpischore. The word is a combination of the Greek terpein, "to delight," and -khoros, "chorus."

dog-ear

dog-ear \DAWG-eer\, verb:

1. To fold down the corner of a page in a book.

noun:
1. (In a book) a corner of a page folded over like a dog's ear, as by careless use, or to mark a place.
2. In architecture, another term for a crossette.

This was uncharacteristic of him, territorial as he was over books, always reminding me not to dog-ear pages.
-- Kaye Gibbons, Sights Unseen

I will dog-ear the pages, maybe even fill out the order form, but I won't get anything.
-- Elizabeth Berg, Until the Real Thing Comes Along

Dog-ear as a metaphor for the folded pages of a book first appears in the 1650s.

bird-dog

bird-dog \BURD-dawg\, verb:

1. To follow, watch carefully, or investigate.
2. In slang, to steal or attempt to steal another person's date.

noun:
1. One of various breeds of dogs trained to hunt or retrieve birds.
2. A person hired to locate special items or people, especially a talent scout who seeks out promising athletes.

"Connors thinks my department is so incompetent that he's sending someone to bird-dog my investigation?
-- Judith A. Jance, Partner in Crime

Smart organizations will assign an employee to bird-dog the consultant from the start and learn everything there is to know about a service or application.
-- Dan Tynan, Escaping Services Addiction, Infoworld, August, 2006.

Bird-dog derives from breeds of dogs used in hunting that are known for their tenacious sense for following birds. The sense "to attempt to steal someone else's date" originates in the 19th century.

dovetail

dovetail \DUHV-teyl\, verb:

1. To join or fit together compactly or harmoniously.
2. In carpentry, a joint formed of one or more such tenons fitting tightlywithin corresponding mortises.
3. To join or fit together by means of a carpentry dovetail or dovetails.

noun:
1. In carpentry, a tenon broader at its end than at its base; pin.

But in "Arcadia" the two periods don't dovetail until the last part of the play.
-- Tom Stoppard, Mel Gussow, Conversations With Stoppard

They seemed, after a fashion, to dovetail horribly with something which I had dreamed or read, but which I could no longer remember.
-- H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Out of Time

Dovetail originates in woodworking, with a joint that resembles the tail of a dove. The figurative sense derives from the tight fit made by such a joint.

pigeonhole

pigeonhole \PIJ-uhn-hohl\, verb:

1. To lay aside for use or reference at some later, indefinite time.

noun:
1. One of a series of small, open compartments, as in a desk,cabinet, or the like, used for filing or sorting papers, letters,etc.
2. In printing, white space created by setting words or lines too far apart.

"Mobility's hard in Spain; people pigeonhole you for life in the box where they think you belong."
-- Enrique Vila-Mata, Dublinesque

Even his staunchest supporters didn't know where to pigeonhole him politically.
-- Bruce Duffy, The World As I Found It

Pigeonhole begins with the sense of a literal nesting place for the bird, then finds figurative usage in printing. The first use as a verb is recorded in 1854.

disbosom

disbosom \dis-BOOZ-uhm\, verb:

To reveal; confess.

In the field of private space to relax, drink vodka and philosophize in the kitchen, to denounce officials, disbosom.
-- Sergey Gavrov, Modernization of the Empire

Desiring that some light refreshments, with wine and water, should be carried up into the library, she ran up thither instantly, thinking, it is true, very little about such matters, and eager only to disbosom herself to her father, as soon as possible, of her important tidings.
-- Henry William Herbert, Marmaduke Wyvil; or, The maid's revenge

Disbosom comes from the ancient word bosom, which possibly goes back to the roots of the Indo-European languages. Bosom can mean "breast; womb; surface; or ship's hold." The first recorded use of disbosom is in the 18th century.

troth

troth \TRAWTH\, noun:

1. Faithfulness, fidelity, or loyalty.
2. One's word or promise, especially in engaging oneself to marry.

I did therefore what an honest man should--restored the maiden her troth , and departed the country in the service of my king.
-- James Fenimore Cooper, The Leatherstocking Tales

I was wild--in troth I might go yet farther and say VERY wild, though 'twas a wildness of an innocent sort, since it hurt none but me, brought shame to none, nor loss, nor had in it any taint of crime or baseness, or what might not beseem mine honourable degree.
-- Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper

Troth derives from a variation of truth in certain regions of England. Over time it has taken on a distinct meaning in certain phrases

armistice

armistice \AHR-muh-stis\, noun:

A temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement of the warring parties.

Then one day, without warning, as though she, too, had accepted the armistice and the capitulation, the grandmother departed to visit her son in Mills City.
-- William Faulkner, Elly

Bill had eaten at the restaurant in 1918, and right after the armistice, and Madame Lecomte made a great fuss over seeing him.
-- Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Armistice is a Latin compound created by 17th century scholars. The Latin arma-, "arms," combines with sistere, "to be still."

nictitate

nictitate \NIK-ti-teyt\, verb:

To wink.

In Brakhage's hand- painted films, the isolated flecks, dripped trails, shaped smears, and layered washes of ink and paint all nictitate in bursts of patterned color against richly black ungiving grounds, flaring and disappearing with a rate that often renders them difficult to retain, or at times even to perceive with any certainty.
-- David E. James, Stan Brakhage: Filmmaker

The kid's upper lip is latticed with cracks and his eyes nictitate, a trace of buzz melting from them.
-- Don Waters, Desert Gothic

Nictitate stems from the Latin nictare, "to wink or blink."

cahoots

cahoots \kuh-HOOT\, noun:

In partnership; in league.

The soldier could only have concluded that my grandfather was in serious cahoots with John Brown, and attention of that kind could destroy everything.
-- Marilynne Robinson, Gilead: A Novel

The dreamers did not know that Kuyo and I, as if in cahoots with the soldiers, had trapped and imprisoned them on the island.
-- Russell Banks, The Darling: A Novel

Cahoots enters English in the United States in the 1800s, possibly derived from the French cahute, "cabin, hut," but others trace it to the roots of the English word cohort.

quid

quid \KWID\, noun:

1. A piece of something to be chewed but not swallowed.
2. One pound sterling.

Julius took the twist, wiped off his mouth with a loose male grin, and crammed a large quid into his cheek.
-- Thomas Wolfe, O Lost: A Story of the Buried Life

When he'd lost, he'd chew on his quid and spit in all directions . .
-- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Death on the Installment Plan

Quid is a dialectal variant of the same word in Middle English that leads to cud, the stuff that cows chew.

glean

glean \GLEEN\, verb:

1. To learn, discover, or find out, usually little by little or slowly.
2. To gather (grain or the like) after the reapers or regular gatherers.
3. To gather slowly and laboriously, bit by bit.

From what little I can glean, it's the edited journal of a voyage from Sydney to California by a notary of San Francisco named Adam Ewing.
-- David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas: a Novel

We all looked at each other, trying to glean something each from the other.
-- Bram Stoker, Dracula

Glean traces its origin back through Latin to the Celtic glan, "clean, pure." The sense "to learn or gather slowly" appears in English before the sense of "to gather grain left by the reapers."

franchise

franchise \FRAN-chahyz\, noun:

1. The right to vote.
2. A privilege of a public nature conferred on an individual,group, or company by a government.

One factor in the early mobilization of feminism was the 1832 Reform Act, through which women's exclusion from the franchise was formalized.
-- Angélique Richardson, Chris Willis, The new woman in fiction and in fact: fin-de-siècle feminisms

The national referendum of 1963 reflected general support for the six-point reform program, which included land reform and the franchise for women.
-- Robin Morgan, Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology -

Franchise derives from the Old French word for "freedom," which shares a root with the English frank.

climacteric

climacteric \klahy-mak-TER-ik\, noun:

1. A critical period.
2. Physiology: a period of decrease of reproductive capacity in men and women, culminating, in women, in the menopause.
3. A year in which important changes in health, fortune, etc., are held by some theories to occur, as one's sixty-third year
4. The period of maximum respiration in a fruit, during which it becomes fully ripened.

Ernestine, who was the elder, asked one day, after her sister's visit had terminated in a climacteric of sisterly love, kisses, admonitions, and promises.
-- Jack London, The Grilling of Loren Ellery

I had reached an intellectual and artistic climacteric, a life climacteric of some sort.
-- Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore

Climacteric originates in the Greek klimakter, "rung of a ladder."

siesta

siesta \see-ES-tuh\, noun:

A midday or afternoon rest or nap.

Among the Yangüesans it was customary for them and their teams to spend the siesta in places providing grass and water, and the spot where Don Quixote happened to be was very much to their liking.
-- Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote

At noon I closed the shop, but still I was reluctant to leave those three rooms filled with merchandise, and I lay down among some grain sacks to get through the heat of the siesta.
-- Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

While siesta is associated with Latin America, its origin is in the Latin sexta hōra, meaning "sixth hour," or noon

splendiferous

splendiferous \splen-DIF-er-uhs\, adjective:

Magnificent; fine.

"Then we'll build a charming villa, and plant a lovely garden round it, stuck all full of the most splendiferous tropical flowers, and we'll farm the land, plant, sow, reap, eat, sleep, and be merry."
-- R. M. Ballantyne, The Choral Island

[He] flew to the moon, thence back to earth and up the Orinoco impersonating a wild man but actually sound as a button, though no longer vulnerable, no longer mortal, a splendiferous hulk of a poem dedicated to the archipelago of insomnia.
-- Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn

Splendiferous is an elaboration of splendid, but owes its roots to the Latin splendere, "to shine," and ferre, "to bear."

canonize

canonize \KAN-uh-nahyz\, verb:

1. To glorify and honor.
2. Ecclesiastical. to place in the canon of saints.
3. To consider or treat as sacrosanct or holy.

She is a theme of honor and renown, a spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds, whose present courage may beat down our foes, and fame in time to come canonize us, for I presume brave Hector would not lose.
-- William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida: Act 2, Scene 2

There are an awful lot of sanctimonious people out there who expect everyone else to canonize them because they're going around like hall monitors confiscating all the ashtrays.
-- Christopher Buckley, Thank You for Smoking: A Novel

The original meaning of canonize is "to place someone in the canon or calendar of saints." Canon relates to the Greek kannon, "a measuring rod."

beatitude

beatitude \bee-AT-i-tood\, noun:

1. Supreme blessedness; exalted happiness.
2. Any of the declarations of blessedness pronounced by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

Still, they were remarkable photographs, and what made them so was Perry's expression, his look of unflawed fulfillment, of beatitude, as though at last, and as in one of his dreams, a tall yellow bird had hauled him to heaven.
-- Truman Capote, In Cold Blood.

She stayed till Hannah came to take her home to dinner, but she had no appetite, and could only sit and smile upon everyone in a general state of beatitude.
-- Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Beatitude derives from the Latin beatus, "happy, blessed," which in turn relates to the Latin prefix bene- "good."

lily-livered

lily-livered \LIL-ee-LIV-erd\, noun:

Weak or lacking in courage; cowardly; pusillanimous.

But surely, for your own sake, you will not be so lily-livered as to fall into this trap which he has baited for you and let him take the very bread out of your mouth without a struggle.
-- Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

He had skin as white as a lily, but he was not lily-livered; he was as strong as a champion at the Shrovetide games.
-- Geoffrey Chaucer and Peter Ackroyd, Canterbury Tales

Lily-livered was first used in English by Shakespeare in Macbeth. The liver was supposedly the seat of passion and was typically dark red or brown. Since a lily is pale and light-colored, a lily-livered person was weak and passionless

loup-garou

loup-garou \loo-ga-ROO\, noun:

A werewolf; lycanthrope.

In the bushes, the loup-garou snarled quietly, and its eyes brightened, burned with scarlet fury.
-- Jim Butcher, Fool Moon

Those who were of French descent among them, and full of the old Acadian superstitions, explained it simply enough by saying he was a "loup garou," or "were wolf," and resigned themselves to the impossibility of contending against a creature of such supernatural malignity and power.
-- Charles Roberts, "The Gray Master," Concord Junction, 1911

Loup-garou stems from the French word of the same spelling which also means werewolf. The word loup also means "wolf" in French. It entered English in the late 1500s.

eidolon

eidolon \ahy-DOH-luhn\, noun:

1. A phantom; apparition.
2. An ideal.

"An eidolon, a manifestation, if you will, sent up to us from the uttermost deeps to bring about the end of the world."
-- Neil Gaiman, Looking for the Girl

It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and desolation; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation, the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide.
-- H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider

Eidolon comes from the more common word idol, which originally referred to pagan religious idols. It was first used in the 1820s.

cantrip

cantrip \KAHN-trip\, noun:

1. Chiefly Scot. A magic spell; trick by sorcery.
2. Chiefly British. Artful shamming meant to deceive.

Used properly, it may be possible to drive a vampire or garou into frenzy with this cantrip.
-- Steve Long, Ethan Skemp, Combat

And before I knew it her arms were around me, and she smelt of lavender and delicious silk, and her voice in my ear was whispering something—a cantrip, I thought, with a twist of surprise, a cantrip, just like the days in Lansquenet—and then I looked up and it wasn't Maman there at all.
-- Joanne Harris, The Girl with No Shadow: A Novel

Cantrip is of uncertain origin, but it is most likely a variation of the Old English word calcatrippe which referred to both a plant and a type of iron ball used to block calvary in warfare.

teratoid

teratoid \TER-uh-toid\, adjective:

Resembling a monster.

They wandered, amazed, through street after street of these teratoid villas and they concluded that the architecture of Knokke-le-Zoute was unique and far more disrespectful to the eye than that of any other maritime settlement they had ever seen, worse, by far, than Brighton or Atlantic City.
-- Jean Stafford, "The Children's Game," The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, 1958

Later she rechecked the engraving and was appalled to see that Lincoln had lain on what appeared to be a teratoid, golden oak, four-poster bed.
-- William Manchester, The Death of a President, November 20-November 25, 1963

Teratoid was coined in the 1870s. The root terat- is a Greek combining form that means "indicating a monster."

supernorma

supernormal \soo-per-NAWR-muhl\, adjective:

1. In excess of the normal or average: supernormal faculties; supernormal production.
2. Lying beyond normal or natural powers of comprehension: supernormal intimations.

On the other hand, the voyager may also feel that he possesses supernormal powers of perception and movement, that he can perform miracles, extraordinary feats of bodily control, etc …
-- Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Richard Alpert, The Psychedelic Experience

The limbs twitched, the eyes gleamed, the blood-pressure appeared heightened, and there was a supernormal pinkness in the epidermis of the cheek.
-- P. G. Wodehouse, Summer Lightning

Supernormal was first used in the 1860s. The prefix super- has a number of common senses. In this case, it is used in the sense of "an individual, thing, or property that exceeds customary norms or levels" as in superstar.

uncanny

uncanny \uhn-KAN-ee\, adjective:

1. Having or seeming to have a supernatural or inexplicable basis; beyond the ordinary or normal; extraordinary: uncanny accuracy; an uncanny knack of foreseeing trouble.
2. Mysterious; arousing superstitious fear or dread; uncomfortably strange: Uncanny sounds filled the house.

Again the mood is uncanny, with strange perturbations in the atmosphere, the abstruse word choice purposely jarring: "suzerain," "diacritic," "acephalous," "zebu," "argute."
-- Charles Bukowski, introduction by David Stephen Calonne, Absence of the Hero

She saw him put his hand on the shoulder of their mother's chair, touch the fringe on a lampshade, as if to confirm for himself that the uncanny persistence of half-forgotten objects, all in their old places, was not some trick of the mind.
-- Marilynne Robinson, Home

Uncanny once meant "mischievous." The association with the supernatural arose in the 1770s. The word canny means careful, astute, skilled and frugal.

delate

delate \dih-LEYT\, verb:

1. Chiefly Scot. To inform against; denounce or accuse.
2. Archaic. To relate; report: to delate an offense.

"I will delate you for a warlock to the Privy Council!" said Sir John. "I will send you to your master, the devil, with the help of a tar-barrel and a torch!"
-- Sir Walter Scott, "Wandering Willie's Tale," Selected Short Stories

What's more, if you persist in disobeying me, I'll have no choice but to delate you to His Excellency the Archbishop.
-- Andrew M. Greeley, The Priestly Sins

Delate stems from the Latin word dēlātus which is the past participle of dēferre meaning "to bring down," like the modern English word defer.

parturient

parturient \pahr-TOOR-ee-uhnt\, adjective:

1. Bearing or about to bear young; travailing.
2. Pertaining to parturition.
3. Bringing forth or about to produce something, as an idea.

With a scornful snicker, he settled himself behind his desk, replaced the empty cigarette holder in his mouth and lapsed into parturient silence for a few moments.
-- Joseph Heller, Catch 22

To her nothing already then thenceforward was anyway able to be molestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferate mothers prosperity at all not to can be and as they had received eternity gods mortals generation to befit them her beholding, when the case was so hoving itself, parturient in vehicle thereward carrying desire immense among all one another was impelling on of her to be received into that domicile.
-- James Joyce, Ulysses

Prometheus or Hephaistos smote the head of the parturient god with an axe, and Athena leaped out fully armed.
-- William F. Hansen, Handbook of Classical Mythology

Parturient is derived from the Latin word parturient- which literally meant "being in labor" or "desiring to bring forth."

acephalous

acephalous \ey-SEF-uh-luhs\, adjective:
 
1. Without a leader or ruler.
 2. Also, acephalic Zoology. headless; lacking a distinct head.
 
Some magicians, as Walter Scott, for instance, having appeared in the world, who combined all the five literary senses, such writers as had but one—wit or learning, style or feeling —these cripples, these acephalous, maimed or purblind creatures—in a literary sense—have taken to shrieking that all is lost, and have preached a crusade against men who were spoiling the business, or have denounced their works.
 -- Honoré de Balzac, The Muse of the Department
 
Only one of my books is without a preface, — though some of them are disguised as notes, or forewords, or afterwords, — and I hereby apologize for the acephalous condition of that volume.
 -- Cyrus Townsend Brady, Woven with the Ship
 
Acephalous stems from the Greek combining form -cephalous meaning "having a head or heads" and the prefix a- meaning "not, without."

recusant

recusant \REK-yuh-zuhnt\, noun:

1. A person who refuses to submit, comply, etc.
2. English History. A person, especially a Roman Catholic, who refused to attend the services of the Church of England.

He looked swiftly around to make sure no one was watching, stepped forward, and put his arms around the recusant in a quick embrace. "I'm sorry it had to go this far," he murmured, then stepped back and raised his hand in a parting salute. "If you leave now you could still make it back to the recusant Headquarters alive. And may we meet as friends next time."
-- Vyshali Manivannan, Invictus

I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me by my monkish ingenuity in torture. My cognizance of the pit had become known to the inquisitorial agents—the pit whose horrors had been destined for so bold a recusant as myself—the pit, typical of hell, and regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule of all their punishments.
-- Edgar Allan Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum

Recusant comes from the Latin word recusāre meaning "to demur, object."

assoil

assoil \uh-SOIL\, verb:

1. To absolve; acquit; pardon.
2. To atone for.

Come up, wives, offer of your yarn! See, I enter your name here in my roll; you shall enter into heaven's bliss; I assoil you by mine high power, you that will make offerings, as clear and clean as when you were born — (lo sirs, thus I preach).
-- Bennett Cerf, An Anthology of Famous British Stories

"Go, and assoil thy living patient: the dead are past thy cares." — " I go," said the Monk of Montcalm, " and Heaven grant that I may shed around his death-hour, that peace which, I fear me, bloody prelate, will be denied to thine!"
-- Charles Robert Maturin, The Albigenses

Assoil is derived from the same root as the similar word absolve. However, assoil came into English through the Middle French word asoiler rather than directly from Latin like the word absolve.

veloce

veloce \ve-LAW-che\, adjective:

Played at a fast tempo.

And when I tired of reading I would swim in my pool, parting the azure blue water like a veloce human knife.
-- Sergio De La Pava, A Naked Singularity

Ah, I mention his name and your eyes, they light up veloce come un razzo—fast as a rocket.
-- Jacquie D'Alessandro, Summer at Seaside Cove

Veloce stems from the Latin word vēlōcem which was the accusative form of vēlōx meaning "quick."

ombudsman

ombudsman \OM-buhdz-muhn\, noun:

A government official who hears and investigates complaints by private citizens against other officials or government agencies.

Despite these common characteristics of ombudsman systems, there are significant variations across national contexts. The Swedish and Danish ombudsmen exemplify two different models.
-- Bruce E. Cain, Russell J. Dalton, Susan E. Scarrow, Democracy Transformed?

You have reached the Washington Sun's ombudsman desk. If you feel you have been inaccurately quoted, press one. If you spoke to a reporter off the record but were identified in the article, press two…
-- Christopher Buckley, Thank You for Smoking

Fate, or destiny, under God, is the poor man's omnipotent ombudsman.
-- Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nights

Ombudsman comes from the Swedish word ombud which means "agent, attorney." It entered English in the 1910s.

fulgurant

Origin:
1640–50; < Latin fulgurant-  (stem of fulgurāns,  present participle of fulgurāre ), equivalent to fulgur-  ( see fulgurate) + -ant-  -ant

Medical Dictionary
fulgurant  ful·gu·rant (f&oobreve;l'gyər-ənt, -gər-, fŭl'-)
adj. 
Characterized by sudden shooting pain.

World English Dictionary
fulgurate  (ˈfʌlɡjʊˌreɪt) 
 
— vb  
 rare  ( intr ) to flash like lightning 
 
[C17: from Latin fulgurāre , from fulgur  lightning] 
 
fulgurant 
 
— adj