Suasion \SWAY-zhun\, noun:The act of persuading; persuasion.As in the 1960s, violence converged with dynamism in American life, but unlike that subsequent period of protest, the militancy of the 1930s was restrained by the long arm of an American political tradition that favored reform by moral suasion.– Nona Balakian, The World of William SaroyanHe visualized a […]

Vade Mecum \vay-dee-MEE-kuhm; vah-dee-MAY-\, noun:1. A book for ready reference; a manual; a handbook.2. A useful thing that one regularly carries about. The reader who wants honestly to understand it, and not merely read into it his own ideas, needs some kind of vade mecum to provide the necessary background and explain unfamiliar words and […]

Wait a minute! What did that say? Small Beer? That’s really the WORD of the Day? OK. Must be Friday or something. I fear you tube at this point. This may not be safe for work. Small Beer \small beer\, noun:1. Weak beer.2. Insignificant matters; something of little importance. adjective:1. Unimportant; trivial. We dined early […]

I alluded to this late last week, but now I can announce it. I have been chosen as a Bear’s SuperFan Blogger at the Bears SuperFan Blog! I am on the hook for at least one post a week – not a problem, I think – and I am one of 11 bloggers to be […]

Pervicacious \puhr-vih-KAY-shuhs\, adjective:Refusing to change one’s ideas, behavior, etc.; stubborn; obstinate. In fact, I’m a word nerd. I get a kick out of tossing a few odd ones intomy column, just to see if the pervicacious editors will weed them out.— Michael Hawley, “Things That Matter: Waiting for Linguistic Viagra”, Technology Review, June, 2001 One […]

Verisimilitude \ver-uh-suh-MIL-uh-tood; -tyood\, noun:1. The appearance of truth; the quality of seeming to be true.2. Something that has the appearance of being true or real. In an attempt to create verisimilitude, in addition to the usual vulgarities, the dialogue is full of street slang.— Wilborn Hampton, “Sugar Down Billie Hoak’: An Unexpected Spot to Find […]

Arcane \ar-KAYN\, adjective:Understood or known by only a few. Under Indonesia’s arcane system of land tenure, disputes between local residents, and between locals and developers, are commonplace.— “Not Fair.”, TheEconomist, July 26, 1997 While addressing a problem in the arcane field of mathematical logic, he imagined a machine that could mimic human reasoning.— Paul Gray, […]

Surcease \SUR-sees; sur-SEES\, noun:Cessation; stop; end. One of his clearest remembrances from childhood was the feeling that swept over him when, on a Saturday morning, the sun had sequestered itself behind a cascade of clouds and rain, thick, relentless walls of rain, came pounding down with no promise of surcease, black greasy rain that eradicated […]

Insouciant \in-SOO-see-uhnt\, adjective:Marked by lighthearted unconcern or indifference; carefree; nonchalant. The insouciant gingerbread man skips through the pages with glee, until he meets his . . . demise at the end.— Judith Constantinides, “The Gingerbread Man”, School Library Journal, April 2002 They don’t seem to care whether they become stars or not, and their irony […]

confute \kuhn-FYOOT\, transitive verb:To overwhelm by argument; to refute conclusively; to prove or show to be false. Having settled in Rome in 1486, he proposed 900 theses and challenged any scholar to confute them, agreeing to pay his expenses.— David S. Katz and Richard H. Popkin, Messianic Revolution Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first […]