temerity \tuh-MER-uh-tee\ (noun) - Unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger; rashness.

"Then, he had the temerity, the ivory-tower temerity, if I may be so bold, as to suggest that there are younger, and less well-...Read More

rapine \RAP-in\ (noun) - The act of plundering; the seizing and carrying away of another's property by force.

"Let us look again upon mankind: interest is stull the ruling motive, and the world is yet full of fraud and ...Read More

pablum \PAB-luhm\ (noun) - Something (as writing or speech) that is trite, insipid, or simplistic.

"But even to her, the words sounded condescending, the kind of adult pablum he'd been forced to eat a hundred times." -- ...Read More

turgid \TUR-jid\ (adjective) - 1 : Swollen, bloated, puffed up; as, "a turgid limb." 2 : Swelling in style or language; bombastic, pompous; as, "a turgid style of speaking."

"Here and there among the turgid muddle, out of...Read More

The mail carrier was juggling a passel of parcels.

In a way, that sentence is redundant. For "passel" is a shortening of "parcel." In fact, "passel" is one of a whole passel of English words formed by dropping the "r" ...Read More

You've probably heard the joke about a Southerner visiting Harvard for the first time. When he asks a professor, "Can y'all tell me where the library's at?" the snobby scholar sniffs, "At Hahvahd, we refrain from ...Read More