Word of the Day!

bagatelle [bag-uh-tel]

noun:
1 something of little value or importance; a trifle
2 a game played on a board having holes at one end into which balls are to be struck with a cue
3 a short literary or musical piece in light style

Examples:

If anything, the slowly accumulating final chord of the bagatelle could have set up the softly arpeggiated one at the start of 'Twilight Way', the first of the 'Poetic Tone Pictures.' (Joshua Barone, Review: Dvorak’s 'Poetic Tone Pictures’ Makes Its Carnegie Debut, New York Times, February 2023)

Pinball got its start in 18th-century France with the billiardslike tabletop game bagatelle, which used a springlike launcher. (World-ranked pinball wizard is reviving the game in San Antonio with a new startup, san Antonio Express-News, March 2020)

When you are caught in a web of conspiracies, the best of deeds becomes a mere bagatelle, as we find in the fall of Udensi. (Henry Akubuiro, Travails of a Good Samaritan , The Sun Nigeria, March 2021)

Among the most divisive issues in philosophy today is whether there is anything important to be said about the essential nature of truth. Bullshit, by contrast, might seem to be a mere bagatelle. (Jim Holt, Say Anything, The New Yorker, August 2005)

'Overdue; was the title he had decided for it, and its length he believed would not be more than sixty thousand words - a bagatelle for him with his splendid vigor of production. (Jack London, Martin Eden)

The betrayal of one's friends is a bagatelle in the stakes of love, but the betrayal of oneself is a lifelong regret. (Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love)

Then there were the bird cages, the iron hoops, the steel skates, the Queen Anne coal-scuttle, the bagatelle board, the hand organ - all gone, and jewels, too. (Virginia Woolf, 'The Mark on the Wall')

Origin:

1630s, 'a trifle, thing of no importance,' from French bagatelle 'knick-knack, bauble, trinket' (16c.), from Italian bagatella 'a trifle,' which is perhaps a diminutive of Latin baca 'berry,' or from one of the continental words (such as Old French bague 'bundle') from the same source as English bag. As 'a piece of light music,' it is attested from 1827. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

sacerdotal [sas-er-doht-l]

adjective:
of, relating to, or characteristic of priests
characterized by belief in the divine authority of the priesthood

Examples:

He seemed indeed a sacerdotal figure - a high priest who offered his own life before accepting the animal's. Every one of us was transfigured by the rite. (Christopher North, Taurine state of grace , The Critic, March 2021 )

After the reading - ‘Neither pray I for these alone...' - one of the ladies was so pleased with the sacerdotal language that she blew me a kiss across the aisle. (Jason Goodwin, 'When someone dies, you can lose a place, as well as a person', Country Life, June 2019)

In the meltdown's aftermath, a small unregulated bank is unusually suspect, especially when operating in a 'sacerdotal-monarchical state established under the 1929 Lateran Treaty' and reporting to an abstract nominee with an ethereal address. Nor can it help that the bank is a market-maker in loaves and fishes. (Matthew Stevenson, The Vatican Bank: In God We Trust?, newgeography, May 2013)

The brand inspires a sacerdotal devotion in many of its workers (its archives contain the papers of one of the atelier's premieres, or heads, who served from 1947 to 1990). (Matthew Schneier, Atop Dior, Balancing Art and Commerce, The New York Times, July 2017)

He would immerse himself in the sacerdotal labor of translation. (Joyce Carol Oates, The Tattooed Girl)

Vixeela herself had at one time been numbered among the virgins but had fled from the temple and from Uzuldaroum several years before the sacerdotal age of release from her bondage. (Clark Ashton Smith, The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles)

Having fixed upon this, I hired a little bark to Jubo, a place about forty leagues distant from Pate, on board which I put some provisions, together with my sacerdotal vestments, and all that was necessary for saying mass: in this vessel we reached the coast, which we found inhabited by several nations: each nation is subject to its own king; these petty monarchies are so numerous, that I counted at least ten in less than four leagues. (Father Lobo, A Voyage to Abyssinia)

One would almost imagine from the long list that is given of cannibal primates, bishops, arch-deacons, prebendaries, and other inferior ecclesiastics, that the sacerdotal order far outnumbered the rest of the population, and that the poor natives were more severely priest-ridden than even the inhabitants of the papal states. (Herman Melville, Typee)

Origin:

'of or belonging to priests or the priesthood,' c 1400, from Old French sacerdotal and directly from Latin sacerdotalis 'of or pertaining to a priest,' from sacerdos (genitive sacerdotis) 'priest,' literally 'offerer of sacrifices or sacred gifts,' from sacer 'holy' (see sacred) + stem of dare 'to give' (from PIE root do- 'to give'). (Online Etymological Dictionary)

Sacerdotal is one of a host of English words derived from the Latin adjective sacer, meaning 'sacred.' Other words derived from sacer include desecrate, sacrifice, sacrilege, consecrate, sacrament, and even execrable (developed from the Latin word exsecrari, meaning 'to put under a curse'). One surprising sacer descendant is sacrum, referring to the series of five vertebrae in the lower back connected to the pelvis. In Latin this bone was called the os sacrum, or 'holy bone,' a translation of the Greek hieron osteon. (Merriam-Webster)

equipoise [ee-kwuh-poiz, ek-wuh-]

noun:
1 a state of equilibrium
2 counterbalance

Examples:

One reason for the endurance of George Stevens’s film, from 1953, is the supreme equipoise that it finds between two contending impulses - the will to wander, moving restlessly through a desert land, versus the urge to take root, battling for your right to settle down and defying those who would snatch it away. (Anthony Lane, Tough Girls, The New Yorker, January 2016)

LinkedIn has turned into the place you go to for the best of all possible worlds, where corporate vision, whole hearts, great work and a fulfilled life coexist in perfect equipoise, with good times and teamwork leading to virtuous riches and success for all. (Lucinda Holdforth, ‘A lot of nonsense’: It’s time to call out LinkedIn, The Sydney Morning Herald, July 2023)

Faye rarely looks inward; those books exude a kind of chilly spiritual equipoise. (Helen Shaw, Rachel Cusk and the Claustrophobia of Second Place, Vulture, April 2021)

Gradually, however, the conviction came upon me that I could, by a certain concentration of thought, think the veil away, and so get a glimpse of the mysterious face - as to which the two questions, "is she pretty?" and "is she plain?", still hung suspended, in my mind, in beautiful equipoise. (Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno)

Origin:

From Latin aequi- (equal) + Old French pois (weight), from Latin pendere (to weigh). Ultimately from the Indo-European root (s)pen- (to draw, to spin) (Wordsmith)

mélange [mey-lahnzh, -lahnj]

noun:
a mixture sometimes of incongruous elements, a medley

Examples:

Made with a mouliné yarn which twists two colored threads together for a mélange effect, the cardigan is both chunky and cloud-like with a plush, wide shawl collar and tailored fit. (Gerald Ortiz, The Best Cashmere Sweaters for Men Are Literally Goated, GQ, November 2024)

The plot can sometimes feel like a chaotic mélange stretched too thin, but White, who wrote the Illumination avian charmer 'Migration', elevates the overall narrative by injecting doses of his perennial interest in the social codes of the rich. (Lovia Gyarkye, 'Despicable Me 4' Review: Gru's Family Grows in Illumination Animation That Serves Up Familiar Antics, The Hollywood Reporter, June 2024)

Baseball at the highest club level in Britain is competitive, but it's a league in which babysitters are just as important as balls and strikes. Teams are a mélange of locals and expats - some with college and minor league experience (Ken Maguire, In the UK's top baseball league, crowds are small, babysitters are key and the Mets are a dynasty, The Seattle Times, June 2024)

I invoke your consideration of the scene - the marble-topped tables, the range of leather-upholstered wall seats, the gay company, the ladies dressed in demi-state toilets, speaking in an exquisite visible chorus of taste, economy, opulence or art; the sedulous and largess-loving garcons, the music wisely catering to all with its raids upon the composers; the mélange of talk and laughter - and, if you will, the Wurzburger in the tall glass cones that bend to your lips as a ripe cherry sways on its branch to the beak of a robber jay. (O Henry, The Four Million)

Here he kept a retinue of Kaffirs, who were literally his slaves; and hence he would sally, with enormous diamonds in his shirt and on his finger, in the convoy of a prize-fighter of heinous repute, who was not, however, by any means the worst element in the Rosenthall mélange. (E W Hornung, The Amateur Cracksman)

Origin:

'a mixture, a medley,' usually 'an uncombined mingling on elements, objects, or individuals,' 1650s, from French mélange (15c.), from mêler 'to mix, mingle,' from Old French mesler 'to mix, meddle, mingle' (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Mélange got mixed into the melting pot of English back in the 1600s. It derives from the Middle French verb mesler, which means 'to mix.' 'Mélange' is actually one of several French contributions to the English body of words for miscellaneous mixtures. (Merriam-Webster).

peripatetic [per-uh-puh-tet-ik]

adjective:
1 of, relating to, or given to walking
2 moving or traveling from place to place; itinerant
noun:
1 a person who walks or travels about
2 (initial capital letter) a member of the Aristotelian school

Examples:

When he pulls up at Lark Hall, a ramshackle seaside house that has been turned into a retirement home, he knows it is the final stop in his peripatetic itinerary. (Stephen Holden, Caine breathes life into film on old age, The Herald Tribune, May 2009)

And Witold, who leads the peripatetic life of a travelling artist, must serve as a local trinket, a curio, for the global flow of commerce. (Jennifer Wilson, J M Coetzee's Interlingual Romance, The New Yorker, September 2023)

I've always been peripatetic, so I'm happy to live in lots of places. (Nicole Elphick, Michael Snelling's secret Sydney, The Guardian, October 2015)

This duty discharged, he subsided into the bosom of the family; and, entertaining himself with a strolling or peripatetic breakfast, watched, with genteel indifference, the process of loading the carriage. (Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop)

There were the Italian peripatetic vendors of weather-glasses, who had their headquarters at Norwich. (Herbert Jenkins, The Life of George Borrow)

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mid-15c, Peripatetik, 'a disciple of Aristotle, one of the set of philosophers who followed the teachings of Aristotle,' from Old French perypatetique (14c) and directly from Medieval Latin peripateticus 'pertaining to the disciples or philosophy of Aristotle,' from Greek peripatētikos 'given to walking about' (especially while teaching), from peripatein 'walk up and down, walk about,' from peri 'around, about' + patein 'to walk, tread'. Aristotle's custom was to teach while strolling through the Lyceum in Athens. In English, the philosophical meaning is older than that of 'person who wanders about' (1610s). As an adjective, 'walking about from place to place, itinerant,' from 1640s, often with a tinge of humor. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Are you someone who likes to think on your feet? If so, you've got something in common with the followers of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Not only a thinker and teacher, Aristotle was also a walker, and his students were required to walk along beside him as he lectured while pacing to and fro. Thus it was that the Greek word peripatētikos (from peripatein, meaning 'to walk up and down') came to be associated with Aristotle and his followers. By the way, the covered walk in the Lyceum where Aristotle taught was known as the 'peripatos' (which can either refer to the act of walking or a place for walking). (Merriam-Webster)

fustian [fuhs-chuhn]

noun:
1 a stout fabric of cotton and flax
2 inflated or turgid language in writing or speaking
adjective:
1 pompous or bombastic, as language
2 worthless; cheap

Examples:

Freed of the architectural fustian of the Frick's Gilded Age home, the art breathes anew, each painting in its own world rather than entwined with others as part of a decorative ensemble. (Philip Kennicott, Sotheby’s purchase of the former Whitney Museum is a quiet tragedy, The Washington Post, June 2023)

The original play was apparently a bit of a screed against the 'New York idea of marriage,' to wit: "Marry for whim and leave the rest to luck and the divorce courts!" Auburn's gutted the script of all such regressive fustian, but in its place, he suggests nothing more thrilling, dramatic, or socially destabilizing than gentle rom-com symmetries. (Scott Brown, Stage Dive: David Auburn’s Back! Sort Of, New York Vulture, January 2011)

Before him all was staid, orderly, scripted and largely confined to the studio. It was fustian, beige, humdrum. (Matthew Fort, Why we love Keith Floyd, The Guardian, August 2009)

"Pooh!" said Sophy. "Mind your horses, Charles, and don't talk fustian to me." (Georgette Heyer, The Grand Sophy)

The knight is first dressed in a doublet of fustian, lined with satin, which is cut with holes for ventilation. (Charles John Ffoulkes, Armour & Weapons)

Yes, there were swells here, ball-room coxcombs in fustian and felt. (Charles Maurice Davies, Mystic London: or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis)

Origin:

c 1200, from Old French fustaigne, fustagne (12c, Modern French futaine), from Medieval Latin fustaneum, perhaps from Latin fustis 'staff, stick of wood; cudgel, club' as a loan-translation of Greek xylina lina 'linens of wood' (i.e. 'cotton'). But the Medieval Latin word also is sometimes said to be from Fostat, town near Cairo where this cloth was manufactured. [Klein finds this derivation untenable.] Figurative sense of 'pompous, inflated language' recorded by 1590s. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Fustian first entered English in the 13th century, by way of Anglo-French, as a term for a kind of fabric. (Its ultimate Latin source is probably the word fustis, meaning 'tree trunk'.) Several centuries into use as a noun and an attributive noun, fustian spread beyond textiles to describe pretentious writing or speech. Christopher Marlowe was a pioneer in the word's semantic expansion: in his 16th-century play Doctor Faustus, he employs the word in this new way when the student Wagner says, "Let thy left eye be diametarily [sic] fixed upon my right heel, with quasi vestigiis nostris insistere," and the clown replies, "God forgive me, he speaks Dutch fustian." And later, the titular doctor himself is called 'Dr Fustian' repeatedly by a horse dealer - an apt misnomer considering the Doctor's speech habits. (Merriam-Webster)

turpitude [tur-pi-tood, -tyood]

noun:
1 vile, shameful, or base character; depravity
2 a vile or depraved act

Examples:

Article 87 (c) of the constitution states that to qualify for a member of the federal parliament, the person must not have been convicted of a criminal offence involving 'moral turpitude'. (Tika R Pradhan, Even with a murder conviction, lawmakers might still be able to hold on to their seats, The Kathmandu Post, October 2019)

Renovated, the farmhouse with its square courtyard offers the happiness of a life in the country, far from the turpitude of big cities. (How do you bring the sun into an old square courtyard farmhouse facing north?, Espaciel, September 2020)

It is the worst form of moral turpitude because in academic plagiarism there is tangible evidence as the plagiarised material is scanned and identified, but in discussion and discourse the perpetrator easily gets scot free after committing intellectual vandalism. (M Nadeem Nadir, Intellectual vandalism, The Express Tribune, January 2024)

In the household of my childhood, saying you were sick was an evil as great as lying, a turpitude that had a special name. (Mary Schmich, Why getting the flu might actually be good - for your psyche, at least, Chicago Tribune, January 2024)

It is indeed well that you have come to me: for, innocent of the world's turpitude, you fare to a city of strange sins and strange witcheries and sorceries. (Clark Ashton Smith, The Witchcraft of Ulua)

I've never been disbarred, committed or convicted of moral turpitude, and the only time I was arrested, it was a case of mistaken identity... I didn't know the guy I hit was a cop. (Paul Levine, To Speak for the Dead)

Origin:

'depravity, infamy, inherent baseness or vileness,' late 15c, from Old French turpitude (early 15c), from Latin turpitudinem (nominative turpitudo) 'baseness,' from turpis 'vile, foul, physically ugly, base, unsightly,' figuratively 'morally ugly, scandalous, shameful,' a word of uncertain origin. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

ineffable [in-ef-uh-buhl]

adjective:
1 incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible
2 not to be spoken because of its sacredness; unutterable

Examples:

No unearthly agenda at all, in fact, ineffable or infernal. (Alexis Gunderson, The Ineffable Romance of Good Omens… Four Years, One Pandemic, and Two Hollywood Strikes Later, Literary Hub, August 2023)

"I'm aware it sounds kind of unbelievable," says Foot - which, among its other qualities, is what makes this show remarkable: a standup set that leads us into the ineffable, and dares to leave us there. (Brian Logan, Paul Foot: Dissolve review - a comic antidote to life's pain, The Guardian, August 2023)

Madagascar cinnamon, if you would. From the East Coast. It has a certain ineffable quality imparted by the rays of the setting sun. (James Lileks, How to do Father's Day the old-fashioned way, Star Tribune, June 2022)

Can you understand the happiness I get out of my absinthe? I yearn for it; and when I drink it I savour every drop, and afterwards I feel my soul swimming in ineffable happiness. (W Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage )

Origin:

late 14c, 'beyond expression, too great for words, inexpressible,' from Old French ineffable (14c) or directly from Latin ineffabilis 'unutterable,' from in- 'not, opposite of' + effabilis 'speakable,' from effari 'utter,' from assimilated form of ex 'out' + fari 'to say, speak,' from PIE root bha- (2) 'to speak, tell, say.' (Online Etymology Dictionary)

"Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness," wrote Frederick Douglass in his autobiography. Reading Douglass's words, it's clear that ineffable means 'indescribable' or 'unspeakable.' And when we break the word down to its Latin roots, we see how those meanings came about. Ineffable comes from ineffābilis, which joins the prefix in-, meaning 'not,' with the adjective effābilis, meaning 'capable of being expressed.' Effābilis comes from effārī, 'to speak out,' which in turn comes from ex- and fārī, meaning 'to speak.' (Merriam-Webster)

habiliment [huh-bil-uh-muhnt]

noun:
1a clothes or clothing.
1b clothes as worn in a particular profession, way of life, etc.
2 habiliments, accouterments or trappings.

Examples:

Women in America and England acquired a new viewpoint on this subject. They came to feel that they should not withdraw entirely from active life, except for a brief period, nor should they give themselves up to inanimate and sombre seclusion, wrapped in deep habiliments of woe. (Elise Taylor, Can You Wear Black To A Wedding?, British Vogue, August 2023)

This year's theme - bohemian circus - offers gala attendees vast opportunity for donning (and doffing, as the night gets boozy) all manner of embellishment, adornment and costumed habiliment. (Johnathan L Wright, A sneak peek at the sweets of 'Fantasies in Chocolate', Reno Gazette-Journal, October 2015)

The city of Krakow, Poland, is displaying the bloodied habiliment worn by the late Pope John Paul II on the day of an attempted assassination at the Vatican, some 34 years ago, AFP reports (Hili Perlson, Pope John Paul II Blood-Stained Robe Displayed in Krakow, Artnet news, May 2015 )

And now as to your natural question as to what brings me to Earth again and in this, to earthly eyes, strange habiliment. (Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Chessmen of Mars)

"Child of levity and scoffing," replied the other; "you err again, misled by these humble habiliments. I am the Rev. Ezekiel Thrifft, a minister of the gospel, now in the service of the great manufacturing firm of Skinn & Sheer (Ambrose Bierce, 'The Rainmaker')

They wear a veil, or mantle rather, of black stuff or silk, which head habiliment had been introduced by the Spaniards. (Matthew Weld Hartstonge, The Eve of All-Hallows)

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often habiliments, early 15c, ablement, 'munitions, weapons,' from Old French habillement, abillement, from abiller 'prepare or fit out,' probably from abile, habile 'fit, suitable,' from Latin habilem, habilis 'easily handled, apt,' verbal adjective from habere 'to hold' (from PIE root ghabh- 'to give or receive'). An alternative etymology makes the French verb originally mean 'reduce a tree by stripping off the branches,' from a- 'to' + bille 'stick of wood.' Sense of 'clothing, dress' developed late 15c, by association with habit. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Habiliment, from Middle French abillement, is a bit old-fashioned and is often used to describe complex, multi-pieced outfits like those of medieval times. For instance, a full suit of armor - which might include a helmet, a gorget, pallettes, brassard, a skirt of tasses, tuilles, gauntlets, cuisses, jambeaus, and sollerets, along with other pieces and plates - can be considered the habiliments of a knight. Nowadays, habiliment, which is usually used in its plural form, is also fitting for the dress of an occupation, such as the different vestments of a priest, or for clothes, such as elegant formal wear, worn on special occasions. When habiliment is used for plain old clothes, it is more than likely for jocular or poetic effect - as we see it being used by William Shakespeare. (Merriam-Webster)

dispiteous [dis-pit-ee-uhs]

adjective:
(archaic) without pity or mercy, ruthless

Examples:

Based on Sante Kimes, she is the most compulsive, dispiteous grifter in fiction I can think of. Identity theft, regular theft, fraud, arson, enslavement, murder—it's difficult to enumerate all the crimes Evangeline, her husband Warren, and their son Devin commit over the course of the novel. (Peter Goldberg, All-American Amnesia, The Baffler, January 2020)

She was battling for people she cared about: the dozens of condemned prisoners awaiting execution in dispiteous Southern cellblocks. (Colman Mccarthy, Marie Deans, 'courageous fool' of death row, National Catholic Reporter, July 2017)

Aeneas was our king, foremost of men in righteousness, incomparable in goodness as in warlike arms; whom if fate still preserves, if he draws the breath of heaven and lies not yet low in dispiteous gloom, fear we have none; nor mayest thou repent of challenging the contest of service. (Virgil, The Aenid)

Be but as sweet as is the bitterest, The most dispiteous out of all the gods, I am well pleased. (Algernon Charles Swinburne, 'Phaedra')

The morning had succeeded to the hopeless humidity of the night, and the drizzling rain fell with almost dispiteous persistence. (A M Sullivan, The Wearing of the Green)

Origin:

1795–1805; earlier despiteous, alteration, after piteous, of dispitous, despitous, Middle English from Anglo-French, Old French; see despite, -ous; later taken as dis-1 + piteous (Dictionary.com)