Blasé

blasé \blä-ˈzā\ adjective: 1. apathetic to pleasure or excitement as a result of excessive indulgence or enjoyment; world-weary, 2. sophisticated, worldly-wise, 3. unconcerned

Etymology: French

Remember “Café Blasé” T-shirts from the ‘70s?

Jocose

jocose \jō-ˈkōs, jə-\ adjective: 1. given to joking; merry, 2. characterized by joking; humorous

Etymology: Latin jocosus, from jocus joke

I hear people use jocular more often than jocose.

Parlous

parlous \ˈpär-ləs\ adjective: 1. obsolete: dangerously shrewd or cunning,
2. full of danger or risk; harzardous {the parlous state of the country}

Etymology: Middle English, alteration of perilous

Don’t be fooled by definition #1’s obsolescence — it’s dangerously shrewd or cunning that way.

Argot

argot \ˈär-gət, -(ˌ)gō\ noun: an often more or less secret vocabulary and idiom peculiar to a particular group

Etymology: French

Don’t confuse argot with ergot, a fungal disease of rye and other grasses whose consumption can induce hallucinations (among other nasty symptoms).

Chorography

chorography \kə-ˈrä-grə-fē\ noun: 1. the art of describing or mapping a region or district,
2. a description or map of a region, 3. the physical conformation and features of such a region

Etymology: Latin chorographia, from Greek chōrographia, from chōros place + -graphia -graphy

I hope you didn’t mistake this word for choreography at first blush.

Lexicographer

lexicographer \ˌlek-sə-ˈkä-grə-fər\ noun: an author or editor of a dictionary

Etymology: Late Greek lexikographos, from lexikon (from neuter of lexikos of words, from Greek lexis word, speech, from legein to say) + Greek -graphos writer (from graphein to write)

“Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.” – Samuel Johnson (quoted in The Secret Life of Words by Henry Hitchings)

Simper

simper \ˈsim-pər\ noun: a silly smile; smirk
intransitive verb: to smile in a silly manner
transitive verb: to say with a simper {simpered an apology}

Etymology: akin to Middle Dutch zimperlijc elegant, Dan dialect simper affected, coy

“The Count succumbs to her perfidious simpers.” Who is this perfidious simperer, you wonder? She is the title character in Anton Giuglio Bragaglia’s 1917 film Thaïs, which screened at Anthology Film Archives last night as part of its series celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Italian Futurism. The quotation comes from Virginie Bobin’s live translation of the French intertitles.

Porcelain

porcelain \ˈpohr-s(ə-)lən\ noun: 1. a hard, fine-grained, sonorous, nonporous and usually translucent and white ceramic ware that consists essentially of kaolin, quartz and a feldspathic rock and is fired at a high temperature

Etymology: Middle French porcelaine cowrie shell, porcelain, from Italian porcellana, from porcello little pig, from Latin porcellus, diminutive of porcus pig

That etymology may give you more questions than answers, so here’s a further explanation. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “[Porcelain] was apparently so named on account of the resemblance of its translucent surface to the nacreous shell of the [cowrie].” Where does the pig come in? Henry Hitchings clears that up in The Secret Life of Words: “The word [porcelain] comes from the Italian for a cowrie shell; literally, porcellana was a ‘little pig’, and the connection seems grounded in the glossy shell’s resemblance either to a pig’s back or to a sow’s glistening crinkled vagina.” So now you know.

Habitué

habitué \hə-ˈbi-chə-ˌwā\ noun: 1. a person who may be regularly found in or at a particular place or kind of place {café habitués},
2. devotee {a backgammon habitué}

Etymology: French, from past participle of habituer to frequent, from Late Latin habituare to habituate, from Latin habitus

Are you a habitué of some place or thing?

Pareidolia

pareidolia /pær-ī-ˈdōl-yə/ noun: the psychological phenomenon of perceiving significant images or sounds in random stimuli or meaningless data

Etymology: Greek para- beside + eidolon, diminutive of eidos image, form

Examples of pareidolia include seeing animal shapes or faces in clouds and hearing messages embedded in pop song recordings played in reverse.

Tapetum lucidum

tapetum lucidum /tə-pē'təm 'lü-si-dəm/ noun: a membrane behind the retina of many animals responsible for improving vision in low-light conditions by reflecting received light back through the retina, making it available to photorecptors

Etymology: Latin tapetum lucidum bright tapestry

Three notes on the tapetum lucidum:
• Humans do not have tapeta lucida, but cats and dogs do. That’s why your pet gives you that creepy eyeshine when you catch its stare at the proper angle.
• Whereas the night vision of animals possessing tapeta lucida is better than that of those who do not, that vision comes at the price of clarity; all that light bouncing back inside the eyeball blurs the edges of perceived images.
• I dissected a cow eye several years ago. Its tapetum lucidum possessed a beautiful, metallic, bluish iridescence. (Don’t ask me what a cow — a diurnal creature — was doing with a tapetum lucidum. But sure enough, there it was when I sliced away.)

Quintessence

quintessence \kwin-ˈte-sən(t)s\ noun: 1. the fifth and highest element in ancient and medieval philosophy that permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies,
2. the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form,
3. the most typical example or representative {the quintessence of calm}

Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French quinte essence, from Medieval Latin quinta essentia, literally, fifth essence

I can comprehend that a word denoting an element permeating everything can acquire the sense of “pure nature” or “representative example,” but viewed solely in relation to its literal etymology — “fifth essence” — it sounds funny. Wouldn’t you want your “first essence” to be your archetype?

Quantum

quantum \ˈkwän-təm\ (plural quanta \ˈkwän-tə\) noun: 1 a. quantity, amount, b. portion, part, c. gross quantity; bulk, 2. any of the very small increments or parcels into which many forms of energy are subdivided
adjective: 1. large, significant {a quantum improvement}, 2. of, relating to, or employing the principles of quantum mechanics

Etymology: Latin, neuter of quantus how much

Quantum pulls such heavy weight in the language of physics that it bears stressing its quotidian denotations.

Autumnal

autumnal \aw-ˈtəm-nəl\ adjective: 1. of or relating to autumn; occuring in autumn, 2. having to do with a period of maturity or incipient decline

Etymology: Middle English autumpne, from Latin autumnus

I had always pronounced this word correctly: auTUMnal. Then I read somewhere that the stress should be placed on the first syllable: AUtumnal. It felt wrong, but I complied. Now Merriam-Webster corroborates my initial instinct. Either I misread that other authority (whose identity is now forgotten) or I dreamed up the whole thing.

Punctilio

punctilio \ˌpəŋk-ˈti-lē-ˌō\ noun: 1. a minute detail of conduct in a ceremony or in observance of a code, 
2. careful observance of forms (as in social conduct)

Etymology: Italian puntiglio point of honor, scruple, from Spanish puntillo, from diminutive of punto point, from Latin punctum

Merriam-Webster dates punctilio’s earliest written usage at 1596. Despite more than four hundred years of life on the lips of English speakers, the word doesn’t sound very English, at least to my ears.

Obfuscate

obfuscate \ˈäb-fə-ˌskāt\ transitive verb: 1 a. darken, b. to make obscure {obfuscate the issue}, 2. confuse {obfuscate the reader}
intransitive verb: to be evasive, unclear or confusing

Etymology: Late Latin obfuscatus, past participle of obfuscare, from Latin ob- in the way + fuscus dark brown

Obfuscate is a common word, but sometimes visiting a common word’s dictionary entry helps to refresh one’s understanding of the word and to fortify one’s confidence in using it. Often there is even a surprise waiting to be discovered, an “I didn’t know that!” moment.

Dysphoria

dysphoria \dis-ˈfor-ē-ə\ noun: a state of feeling unwell or unhappy

Etymology: New Latin, from Greek, from dysphoros hard to bear, from dys- + pherein to bear

Does it need to be pointed out that dysphoria is antonymous to euphoria?

Moxie

moxie \ˈmäk-sē\ noun: 1. energy, pep, 2. courage, determination, 3. know-how

Etymology: from Moxie, a trademark for a soft drink

Can one’s moxie be poxie? Can one have poxie moxie?

Inanition

inanition \ˌi-nə-ˈni-shən\ noun: the quality or state of being empty, as in 1. the exhausted condition that results from lack of food and water, 2. the absence or loss of social, moral or intellectual vitality or vigor

Old French inanicion, from Late Latin inanire empty, from inanis void, empty, hollow

You might think that inanition is the noun form of the adjective inane, but according to Merriam-Webster, inane simply means “empty, insubstantial, silly or insipid.” There is no sense necessarily impied of either “exhausted due to lack of sustenance” or “immoral or unintellectual.”

Illimitable

illimitable \(ˌ)i(l)-ˈli-mə-tə-bəl\ adjective: incapable of being limited or bounded; measureless {the illimitable reaches of space and time}

Etymology: Middle English il- not + limit, from Anglo-French limite, from Latin limit-, limes boundary

Illimitable rolls off the tongue much more pleasurably than unlimited.