bemoan

bemoan \bi-MOHN\, verb:

to moan about or weep for; mourn

The tower's approval came despite opposition from residents and some city leaders who bemoan the proliferation of cell towers in the city, especially when they are placed near homes.
-- Janine Zúñiga, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 2008-11-22

Readers rave about Ubuntu's new version of Linux, slam copy protection for high-def content, and bemoan royalty fees for Internet radio.
-- Kellie Parker, The Washington Post, 2007-05-04

Old English bemænan.

acclaim

acclaim \uh-KLEYM\, verb:

1. to welcome with loud approval; praise highly
2. a shout or show of approval

A day after abandoning his proposal to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, Gov. Eliot Spitzer won the kind of wide acclaim from elected officials that he could not win for the proposal itself.
-- Nicholas Confessore and Raymond Hernandez, New York Times, 2007-11-15

H. Igor Ansoff, a retired educator and author whose visionary theories on strategic business manage-ment inspired worldwide acclaim died Sunday in Escondido.
-- Jack Williams, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 2002-07-16

c 1320 from Latin acclamare "to shout" from medieval Latin acclamare "to claim."

yielding

yielding \YEEL-ding\, adjective:

1. not resisting; compliant
2. not stiff or rigid; easily bent or shaped

While he forecasts that lower yielding stocks are likely to bounce more when the markets recover, he says the emphasis on dividends is part of a longer-term trend driven by four key factors.
-- Annette Sampson, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2002-10-26

In fact, on June 29, 2006 - the day the Federal Reserve Board last voted to raise short-term interest rates - the yield on 10-year Treasury notes stood at 5.20 percent. Today, new 10-year notes are yielding less, at 5.02 percent.
-- Paul J. Lim, New York Times, 2007-07-01

by 1340 from yield, Old English geldan/gieldan "to pay," from Proto Germanic *geldanan "pay," perhaps from Proto Indo-European *ghel-to- "I pay," found only in Balto-Slavic and Germanic. Yielding in sense of "giving up" is c 1425 and "giving way" is by 1588.

wanton

wanton \WON-tn\, adjective;
The plural is faunas or faunae.:

1. reckless, heartless, or malicious; without reason or excuse
2. not moral; lewd, lascivious

"Such (a) stand and attitude are leading to the grave, wanton violation of all the north-south agreements," the report said.
-- Kwang-Tae Kim, Denver Post, 2008-11-11

Ram raiders have smashed through the main admissions area of Royal North Shore Hospital, stealing the contents of an ATM and assaulting a man, in a rampage police have called "wanton bloody destruction".
-- Dylan Welch, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2008-11-11

c 1300, wan-towen, from Middle English privative prefix wan- "wanting, lacking" (from Old English wan "wanting") + togen/teon "to train, discipline;" literally "to pull, draw," from Proto Germanic *teuhan. The basic notion perhaps is "ill-bred, poorly brought up."

vacuous

vacuous \VAK-yoo-uhs\, adjective:

1. showing no intelligence or thought
2. having no meaning or direction; empty

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.
-- Don Frederick, LA Times

McCain's campaign has been mocking Obama on television and in speeches for weeks, attacking him personally as a vacuous celebrity.
-- Ben Smith, Denver Post, 2008-08-29

by 1561, from Latin vacuus "empty, void, free." Figurative sense of "empty of ideas" is from 1848.

unconscionable

unconscionable \uhn-KON-shuh-nuh-buhl\, adjective:

1. not influenced or guided by conscience
2. very great

Hastert also took aim at the rich pay package for Exxon Mobil Corp.'s retired chief executive, which he called "unconscionable."
-- Steven Mufson and Timothy Dwyer, The Washington Post, 2006-04-22

THE U.S. SUPREME Court on Wednesday executed an unconscionable U-turn on abortion, upholding a restrictive federal law that is virtually indistinguishable from a Nebraska statute it struck down only seven years ago.
-- LA Times, 2007-04-19

by 1570, "showing no regard for conscience," from un- (1) + now rare conscionable "conscientious" (1549), from conscioned "having a conscience."

talisman

talisman \TAL-is-muhn, TAL-iz-muhn\, noun:

1. an object, such as a ring, engraved with figures supposed to have magic power; charm
2. anything that seems to produce extraordinary results

Cheadle, who is one of the film's producers as well as its star, is deployed like an ethical talisman to show viewers that this movie is not like those other terrorist flicks.
-- Philip Kennicott, The Washington Post, 2008-08-29

Included, almost as a talisman, is the 1905 painting of Two Harlequins, one of the few survivors of the Thannhauser Paris collection.
-- Time, 1965-05-07

by 1599, from French talisman, in part via Arabic tilsam (pl. tilsaman), a Greek loan-word; in part directly from Byzantine Greek telesma "talisman, religious rite, payment," earlier "consecration, ceremony," originally "completion," from telein "perform (religious rites), pay (tax), fulfill," from telos "completion, end, tax."