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."