truckle \TRUHK-uhl\, intransitive verb:

To yield or bend obsequiously to the will of another; to act in a subservient manner.

Only where there was a "defiance," a "refusal to truckle," a "distrust of all authority," they
believed, would institutions "express human aspirations, not crush them."
-- Pauline Maier, "A More Perfect Union", New York Times, October 31, 1999
The son struggled to be obedient to the conventional, commercial values of the father and, at the
same time, to maintain his own playful, creative innocence. This conflict could make him truckle
in the face of power.
-- Dr. Margaret Brenman-Gibson, quoted in "Theater Friends Recall Life and Works of Odets," by
Herbert Mitgang, New York Times, October 30, 1981
I am convinced that, broadly speaking, the audience must accept the piece on my own terms; that
it is fatal to truckle to what one conceives to be popular taste.
-- Sidney Joseph Perelman, quoted in "The Perelman Papers," by Herbert Mitgang, New York
Times, March 15, 1981

Truckle is from truckle in truckle bed (a low bed on wheels that may be pushed under another
bed; also called a trundle bed), in reference to the fact that the truckle bed on which the pupil
slept was rolled under the large bed of the master. The ultimate source of the word is Greek
trokhos, "a wheel."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for truckle

palindrome \PAL-in-drohm\, noun:

A word, phrase, sentence, or verse that reads the same backward or forward.

A few examples:

• Madam, I'm Adam. (Adam's first words to Eve?)

A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama! (The history of the Panama Canal in brief.)
Able was I ere I saw Elba. (Napoleon's lament.)
Mom, Dad.

Palindrome comes from Greek palindromos, literally "running back (again)," from palin, "back,
again" + dromos, "running."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for palindrome

slake \SLAYK\, transitive verb:

1. To satisfy; to quench; to extinguish; as, to slake thirst.

2. To cause to lessen; to make less active or intense; to moderate; as, slaking his anger.
3. To cause (as lime) to heat and crumble by treatment with water.
4. To become slaked; to crumble or disintegrate, as lime.

My companions never drink pure water and the . . . beer serves as much to slake their thirst as to
fill their stomachs and lubricate conversation.
-- Philippe Descola, The Spears of Twilight
She had the money he gave her (never enough to slake her anxieties).
-- Nuala O'Faolain, Are You Somebody

Slake comes from Middle English slaken, "to become or render slack," hence "to abate," from Old
English slacian, from slæc, "slack."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for slake

physiognomy \fiz-ee-OG-nuh-mee; -ON-uh-mee\, noun:

1. The art of discovering temperament and other characteristic qualities of the mind from the
outward appearance, especially by the features of the face.
2. The face or facial features, especially when regarded as indicating character.
3. The general appearance or aspect of a thing.

According to the latest rumours, he is now immersed in the science of physiognomy, the divining
of a person's character by the shape of their features, and is preparing a paper on the subject for
the inaugural meeting of the Van Diemen's Land Scientific Society.
-- Tom Gilling, The Sooterkin
Pasteur seems to have been most interested in capturing the actual looks of his subjects, and his
portraits form a gallery showing all kinds of physiognomies that are observed with almost clinical
patience.
-- Patrice Debré, Louis Pasteur (translated by Elborg Forster)
Over my crib hung a piece of tin embossed with the stern physiognomies of Vladimir Ilich Lenin
and Leon Trotsky.
-- William Herrick, Jumping the Line
It was an urban physiognomy different, Bourget thought, "from every other since the foundation
of the world," an unvarying flatland of industrial neighborhoods that rolled on -- backward from the
horizon -- for miles and miles until it climaxed in a silhouette of towers tightly wedged between
river, rail lines, and lake.
-- Donald L. Miller, City of the Century

Physiognomy comes from Greek physiognomonia, from physiognomon, "judging character by the
features," from physis, "nature, physique, appearance" + gnomon, "one who knows, hence an
examiner, a judge," from gignoskein, "to know."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for physiognomy

maladroit \mal-uh-DROYT\, adjective:

Lacking adroitness; clumsy; awkward; unskillful; inept.

Do you know someone who . . . loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a
dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small
talk?
-- Jonathan Rauch, "Caring for Your Introvert", The Atlantic, March 2003
Dodging these equally maladroit skiers in a small area is pretty tough going -- especially when
our few seconds of downhill glory are followed by minutes spent in an ungainly queue as
learners, by and large, fail to connect with the drag lift.
-- Gwyn Topham, "Skiing is for show-offs", The Guardian, January 28, 2003
And she has been battling the perception that she is a maladroit campaigner prone to missteps
amid New York's complex ethnic politics.
-- Martha T. Moore, "Clinton leans on old ideas, unveils new", USA Today, February 7, 2000
There was a time when the Left stood up for the underdog-for the worker against the boss, the
maladroit against the polished, the lone individual against the state.
-- John Derbyshire, "Elian Nation - He makes our battlefield plain as day", National Review, May
22, 2000

Maladroit comes from French, from mal-, "badly" + adroit, from à droit, "properly," from à, "to"
(from Latin ad) + droit, "right," from Latin directus, "straight, direct," past participle of dirigere, "to
lead or guide."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for maladroit

facetious \fuh-SEE-shuhs\, adjective:

1. Given to jesting; playfully jocular.

2. Amusing; intended to be humorous; not serious.

J. K. Morley was being both serious and facetious when he claimed that "the world's greatest
water power is woman's tears."
-- Tom Lutz, Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears
He was by all odds the liveliest, most genial man in the group--"a most engaging and entertaining
companion of a sweet, even and lively temper, full of facetious stories always applied with
judgment and introduced apropos."
-- Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War

Facetious comes from French facetieux, from Latin facetia, "wit," from facetus, "witty."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for facetious

exiguous \ig-ZIG-yoo-us\, adjective:

Extremely scanty; meager.

They are entering the market, setting up stalls on snowy streets, moonlighting to supplement
exiguous incomes.
-- Michael Ignatieff, "Rebirth of a Nation: An Anatomy of Russia", New Statesman, February 6,
1998
Among the pressures provoking these distresses were a father's financial inadequacy and a
growing awareness that, by finding employment himself, he could ameliorate the family's
exiguous circumstances.
-- Terence Brown, The Life of W. B. Yeats: A Critical Biography

Exiguous comes from Latin exiguus, "strictly weighed; too strictly weighed," hence "scanty,
meager," from exigere, "to determine; to decide; to weigh."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for exiguous

paroxysm \PAIR-uhk-siz-uhm\, noun:

1. (Medicine) A sudden attack, intensification, or recurrence of a disease.

2. Any sudden and violent emotion or action; an outburst; a fit.

But when he's on target -- and more often than not he is -- he can send you into paroxysms of
laughter.
-- William Triplett, "Drawing Laughter From a Well of Family Pain", Washington Post, June 13,
2002
Dickens had a paroxysm of rage: 'Bounding up from his chair, and throwing his knife and fork on
his plate (which he smashed to atoms), he exclaimed: "Dolby! your infernal caution will be your
ruin one of these days!"'
-- Edmund Wilson, "Dickens: The Two Scrooges", The Atlantic, April/May 1940
Mrs. Bumble, seeing at a glance that the decisive moment had now arrived, and that a blow
struck for mastership on one side or another, must necessarily be final and conclusive, dropped
into a chair, and with a loud scream that Mr. Bumble was a hard-hearted brute, fell into a
paroxysm of tears.
-- Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

Paroxysm is from Greek paroxusmos, from paroxunein, "to irritate, provoke or excite (literally to
sharpen excessively)," from para-, "beyond" + oxunein, "to sharpen, to provoke."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for paroxysm

redoubtable \rih-DOW-tuh-buhl\, adjective:

1. Arousing fear or alarm; formidable.

2. Illustrious; eminent; worthy of respect or honor.

He had been particularly involved in and articulate over policy toward East Asia, stressing the
threat from China after the Communists won power there in 1949, and had made dramatic
impressions of competence and coolness on two occasions -- under the physical threat of a
crowd in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1958, and in a dramatic kitchen debate in the Soviet Union in
1959 with the redoubtable Nikita Khrushchev.
-- William Bundy, A Tangled Web
The prospect was daunting, not least because Evelyn was still a redoubtable figure on campus
whom I saw almost every day and to whom I went for advice almost as regularly.
-- Keith Stewart Thomson, The Common But Less Frequent Loon and Other Essays
At the head of the table, as committee chair, sat the redoubtable Howard Mumford Jones—a
teacher famed even at Harvard for his fierce authority, his wide-ranging erudition, and his
intolerant exacting preciseness.
-- Nicholas Delbanco, The Lost Suitcase

Redoubtable derives from Old French redouter, "to dread," from Medieval Latin redubitare, "to
fear," literally "to doubt back at," from Latin re- + dubitare, "to doubt."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for redoubtable

distrait \dis-TRAY\, adjective:

Divided or withdrawn in attention, especially because of anxiety.

Yet when she stopped for a cup of coffee, finding herself too distrait to begin work, the picture
was in the course of being removed from the window.
-- Anita Brookner, Falling Slowly
He had painfully written out a first draft, and he intoned it now like a poet delicate and distrait.
-- Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt
Virtually nobody noticed a more private and simultaneous cameo in a little bay in West Cork: of a
delicate, somewhat distrait, gentleman of middle age being swept into the turbulent waters off
Kilcrohane.
-- Kevin Myers, "An Irishman's Diary", Irish Times, July 21, 1999

Distrait is from Old French, from distraire, "to distract," from Latin distrahere, "to pull apart; to
draw away; to distract," from dis- + trahere, "to draw, to pull." It is related to distraught and
distracted, which have the same Latin source.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for distrait

supervene \soo-pur-VEEN\, intransitive verb:

1. To take place or occur as something additional, extraneous, or unexpected (sometimes

followed by 'on' or 'upon').
2. To follow immediately after; to ensue.
After all, doctors outside the hospital can pick up the pieces and readmission is always possible,
provided death doesn't supervene.
-- Theodore Dalrymple, "How to win a million pounds", New Statesman, April 7, 2003
Sympathy will weaken; the anger of American public opinion will be uncontainable; doubt -- and
the usual conflict of differing interests -- will supervene.
-- "The terrible swift sword", Daily Telegraph, September 13, 2001
We must recognize that it is often unwise to change procedures long in place, lest unintended
adverse consequences supervene.
-- William Anderson, "It Is Ended", Weekly Standard, March 31, 2005
Perhaps it was inevitable that, after the magical extravaganza of the Eighties, a day-after-the-
feast mood should supervene.
-- Robert McCrum, "The Booker", The Observer, September 26, 1999

Supervene comes from Latin supervenire, from super-, "over, above" + venire, "to come."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for supervene

bouleversement \bool-vair-suh-MAWN\, noun:

Complete overthrow; a reversal; a turning upside down.

For the second time in his life Amory had had a complete bouleversement and was hurrying into
line with his generation.
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
Ian Salisbury had his chance yesterday but he tried too hard to give the ball a rip on the dry
surface and the old tendency to drop short or overpitch cost 34 from eight overs either side of tea
as Rhodes and McMillan threatened a bouleversement worthy of the famous England
deliverance against Australia in 1981.
-- Christopher Martin-Jenkins, "Gough takes England to brink", Daily Telegraph, August 10, 1998
It requires a complete bouleversement in your whole attitude, a process of adjustment that
anyone who's been in this position understands; but you need to go through it.
-- "Two years' hard Labour", Independent, July 13, 1996

Bouleversement comes from French, from Old French bouleverser, "to overturn," from boule,
"ball" (from Latin bulla) + verser, "to overturn" (from Latin versare, from vertere, "to turn").

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for bouleversement

precipice \PRES-uh-pis\, noun:

1. A very steep, perpendicular, or overhanging place; a cliff.

2. The brink of a hazardous situation.

Barbara got as close to the edge as she dared and looked down over the precipice.
-- Catherine Whitney, The Calling: The Year in the Life of an Order of Nuns
And then, just like that, there you were, on the edge of the precipice, with everything spread out
underneath: the valley, and then, twenty miles off, the shimmering, spangling City.
-- James Kaplan, Two Guys from Verona: A Novel of Suburbia
Mugabe's latest retreat to reason from the precipice of anarchy may have come too late, at least
for him.
-- Simon Robinson, "Power to the Mob", Time Europe, May 1, 2000
At that point, no other publication in the world had the technical capability, the organizational
latitude, or the raw nerve to operate on the very precipice of disaster the way that Sports
Illustrated regularly did.
-- Michael MacCambridge, The Franchise:A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine

Precipice comes from Latin praecipitium, "a precipice," from praeceps, praecipit-, "with head
before, headlong, steep," from prae, "before" + caput, "the head."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for precipice

doff \DOF\, transitive verb:

1. To take off, as an article of clothing.

2. To tip or remove (one's hat).
3. To put aside; to rid oneself of.

After I finished sweeping, I grabbed my check, went to the locker room, and doffed the monkey
suit, slipped into my jeans, sneakers and T-shirt and broke camp.
-- Reginald McKnight, White Boys: Stories
Any moment now and Max Linder would ride out from around the corner on a pair of white
horses, fire blanks at a passing beauty, and doff his top hat to hide his face from the policeman.
-- Nina Berberova, The Book of Happiness
Benny doffed his cap grandly.
-- Thomas Maier, Dr. Spock: An American Life
And he became as a pillar of fire to superannuated peoples who had but to doff the lethargy of
custom to find themselves young.
-- J. F. A. Pyre, "Byron in Our Day", The Atlantic, April 1907

Doff Middle English doffen, from don off, "to do off," from don, "to do" + off, "off."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for doff

desideratum \dih-sid-uh-RAY-tum; -RAH-\, noun;

plural desiderata:

Something desired or considered necessary.

No one in Berkeley -- at least, no one I consorted with -- thought art was for sissies, or that a
pensionable job was the highest desideratum.
-- John Banville, "Just a dream some of us had", Irish Times, August 24, 1998
Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the eye,
or tempt the taste. Here, appetite, not food, is the great desideratum.
-- Frederick Douglass, My Bondage, My Freedom
A technical dictionary . . . is one of the desiderata in anatomy.
-- Alexander Monro, Essay on Comparative Anatomy

Desideratum is from Latin desideratum, "a thing desired," from desiderare, "to desire."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for desideratum

betimes \bih-TYMZ\, adverb:

1. Early; in good time; before it is late.

2. At times; on occasion.
3. [Archaic] Soon; in a short time.

But it takes a piece of political theatre, like yesterday's release of the Iraq dossier, to get us out of
bed betimes.
-- Andrew Marr, "I couldn't have a lie-in because of the Iraq dossier", Daily Telegraph, September
25, 2002
It looks like it's trying to clear this morning, though waves of drizzle betimes pass through.
-- Will Cook, "Macklin's Cross", Irish America, February 1, 2004
Some of them were poets or novelists first and critics only betimes.
-- Denis Donoghue, The Practice of Reading

Betimes is from Middle English bitimes, from bi, "by" + time, "time."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for betimes

pecuniary \pih-KYOO-nee-air-ee\, adjective:

1. Relating to money; monetary.

2. Consisting of money.
3. Requiring payment of money.

He lacked the finer element of conscience which looks upon Art as a sacred calling, she
remembered, and because of "pecuniary necessities" he "scattered his forces in many different
and unworthy directions."
-- James F. O'Gorman, Accomplished in All Departments of Art
The young man of the house was absorbed in his vegetable garden and the possibilities for
pecuniary profit that it held.
-- Samuel Chamberlain, Clementine in the Kitchen
He sees the great pecuniary rewards and how they are gained, and naturally is moved by an
impulse to obtain the same for himself.
-- David J. Brewer, "The Ideal Lawyer", The Atlantic, November 1906
Over the decades, Pitt built an impressive roster of similarly well-heeled clients who stood
accused by the SEC of securities fraud, misstating their finances, other pecuniary offenses.
-- Jonathan Chait, "Invested Interest", The New Republic, December 17, 2001

Pecuniary comes from Latin pecuniarius, "of money, pecuniary," from pecunia, "property in cattle,
hence money," from pecu, "livestock, one's flocks and herds."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for pecuniary

aborning \uh-BOR-ning\, adverb:

1. While being produced or born.

2. Being produced or born.

In universities at least as much as anywhere else, vast floods of words pour forth to no useful
end. Nothing would be lost if they had died aborning.
-- Loren Lomasky, "Talking the talk: Have universities lost sight of why they exist?", Reason, May
2001
In "Base-Ball: How to Become a Player" he expounds on the importance of the sport's vital
edges: pickoffs, relay throws, brushback pitches, drawing the infield in or moving it out, hit-and-
run plays, signals -- all commonplace today, but in 1888 only aborning.
-- Bryan Di Salvatore, A Clever Base-Ballist
Nine months later, ABC Washington bureau chief George Watson left to join the aborning Cable
News Network, taking several staffers with him.
-- Judy Flander, "Catching up with Katie Couric", Saturday Evening Post, September 1, 1992

Aborning is derived from a-, "in the act of" + English dialect borning, "birth."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for aborning

didactic \dy-DAK-tik; duh-\, adjective:

1. Fitted or intended to teach; conveying instruction; instructive; teaching some moral lesson; as,
"didactic essays."
2. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively; moralistic.

The show trial may be defined as a public theatrical performance in the form of a trial, didactic in
purpose, intended not to establish the guilt of the accused but rather to demonstrate the
heinousness of the person's crimes.
-- Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism
In class, embarrassed girlish laughter joined the "hee-haws" of our male classmates when
centerfolds appeared in the middle of medical lectures, ostensibly to add a wake-up jolt to
otherwise uninspired didactic presentations.
-- Frances K. Conley M.D., Walking Out on the Boys
While Cooper offers a nice message about the demands of friendship and the need to share and
be flexible, her writing is not the least bit didactic or dogmatic.
-- Stephen Del Vecchio, review of Pumpkin Soup, by Helen Cooper, Teacher Magazine, May
2000

Didactic comes from Greek didaktikos, "skillful in teaching," from didaktos, "taught," from
didaskein, "to teach, to educate."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for didactic

acclimate \uh-KLY-mit; AK-luh-mayt\, transitive and intransitive verb:

To accustom or become accustomed to a new climate, environment, or situation.

Getting acclimated to being in the suburbs, Sally? Mrs. Westin asked.

-- Julia Slavin, The Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club and Other Stories
The Korbels did not have much time to pull their lives together and acclimate themselves to
English culture.
-- Ann Blackman, Seasons of Her Life

Acclimate is from French acclimater, from a-, "to" (from Latin ad-) + climat, "climate," from Late
Latin clima, climat-, from Greek klima, "inclination; the supposed slope of the earth toward the
pole; region; clime," from klinein, "to lean."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for acclimate