The book describes the political travails [trəˈveɪls] of the governor during her first year in office.travail
noun [trəˈveɪl]
Travail is a formal word, usually used in plural, that refers to a difficult experience or situation.
Travail traces back to trepalium, a Late Latin word for an instrument of torture. We don't know exactly what a trepalium looked like, but the word's history gives us an idea. Trepalium comes from the Latin adjective tripalis, which means "having three stakes" (from tri-, meaning "three," and palus, meaning "stake"). English Apr 25, 2025, 7:26 AM cowpoke
The editorial urges the mayor not to slough [slʌf] off responsibility for the errors in the report.slough
verb SLUFF [slʌf]
Slough is a formal verb used for the action of getting rid of something unwanted. It is usually used with off. Slough can also mean "to lose a dead layer of (skin)" or "to become shed or cast off."
※ If it means a swamp or a muddy area, it’s pronounced [slaʊ]. English Apr 23, 2025, 7:03 AM cowpoke
"While looking through the Perkins telescope [at Saturn] one night, a pugnacious [pʌɡˈneɪʃəs] 10-year-old commented, 'Hey! I only see one ring. Rip off!'" — Tom Burns, The Delaware (Ohio) Gazette, 23 Oct. 2024pugnacious
adj [pʌɡˈneɪʃəs]
Someone described as pugnacious shows a readiness or desire to fight or argue.
Pugnacious comes from the Latin verb pugnare (meaning "to fight"), which in turn comes from the Latin word for "fist," pugnus.
Pugnare has also given us impugn ("to assail by words or arguments"), oppugn ("to fight against"), and repugnant. English Apr 15, 2025, 6:34 AM cowpoke
"For those who have never experienced the gustatory [ˈɡʌstəˌtɔːri] pleasure, these cream puffs consist of freshly baked pastry shells generously covered with powdered sugar and bloated with chilled vanilla pudding that has been pumped into them." — Carl Hamilton, The Cecil Whig (Elkton, Maryland), 12 Feb. 2025gustatory [ˈɡʌstəˌtɔːri]
adj
Gustatory describes things that are related to or associated with eating or the sense of taste.
Gustatory is a member of a finite set of words that describe the senses with which we encounter our world, the other members being visual, aural, olfactory, and tactile. Like its peers, gustatory has its roots in Latin—in this case, the Latin word gustare, meaning "to taste." English Apr 12, 2025, 8:03 AM cowpoke
“Overall, Rendell is chary [ˈtʃɛri] about divulging the selling price of various documents, but he does occasionally reveal some financial details.” — Michael Dirda, The Washington Post, 3 Feb. 2024chary [ˈtʃɛri] or [ˈtʃæri]
Chary is usually used with about or of to describe someone who is cautious about doing something.
How did chary, which began as the opposite of cheery, become a synonym of wary? Don’t worry, there’s no need to be chary—the answer is not dreary. Chary’s Middle English predecessor, charri, meant “sorrowful,” a sense that harks back to the Old English word cearig, meaning “troubled, troublesome, taking care,”... English Apr 10, 2025, 6:15 AM cowpoke
He vouchsafed [ˈvaʊtʃseɪf] the secret to only a few of his closest allies.vouchsafe
verb [ˈvaʊtʃseɪf]
Vouchsafe [ˈvaʊtʃseɪf] is a formal and old-fashioned word meaning "to give (something) to someone as a promise or a privilege."
Shakespeare fans are well acquainted with vouchsafe, which in its Middle English form vouchen sauf meant "to grant, consent, or deign."
The word, which was borrowed with its present meaning from Anglo-French in the 14th century, pops up fairly frequently in the Bard's work—60 times, to be exact. English Apr 9, 2025, 6:34 AM cowpoke
"Played by What We Do in the Shadows' Matt Berry, Shazbor is a faithful party apparatchik [ˌæpəˈrɑːtʃɪk] and staunch defender of his country's traditions ..." — Damon Wise, Deadline, 25 Jan. 2025apparatchik
noun [ˌæpəˈrɑːtʃɪk]
used disapprovingly to refer to a blindly devoted official, follower, or member of an organization, such as a corporation or political party.
The apparat in apparatchik (a term English speakers borrowed from Russian) essentially means "party machine," with machine referring to a highly organized political group under the leadership of a boss or small group of individuals: apparatchik originally referred to someone functioning as a cog in the syste... English Apr 8, 2025, 6:13 AM cowpoke
The former heavyweight retired from the ring and later became a boxing impresario [ˌɪmprəˈsɑːrioʊ].impresario [ˌɪmprəˈsɑːrioʊ].
noun
An impresario is a person who manages, puts on, or sponsors a performance or other entertainment, such as a concert, play, or sporting event.
Concerts, music festivals, television series, professional wrestling matches—these are quite the undertakings. Luckily, there’s a word for the impressive individuals responsible for organizing and overseeing such productions: impresario.
nglish borrowed impresario directly from Italian, whose noun impresa. English Apr 6, 2025, 8:56 AM cowpoke
“With snark [snɑːrk] and whimsy, [Zelda] Williams and the screenwriter Diablo Cody … put a playfully macabre spin on the Frankenstein legend that doubles as a subversive exploration of the universal desire to be loved and understood.” — Erik Piepenburg, The New York Times, 16 Aug. 2024snark
noun [snɑːrk]
Snark is an informal word that refers to an attitude or expression of mocking irreverence and sarcasm.
The modern snark, however, is a back-formation. It comes from taking the longer word snarky and subtracting the -y.
Snarky emerged in English around the turn of the 20th century, initially with the meaning of “snappish, crotchety,” and then later took on the sense of “sarcastic, impertinent, or irreverent in tone or manner.” English Apr 3, 2025, 6:58 AM cowpoke
He was the cynosure [ˈsaɪnəˌʃʊr] of all eyes as he walked into the room.cynosure
noun [ˈsaɪnəˌʃʊr].
A cynosure is a person or thing that attracts a lot of attention or interest. As a proper noun, Cynosure may refer to the North Star or its constellation Ursa Minor.
Ancient mariners noted that all the stars in the heavens seemed to revolve around a particular star... The constellation that this bright star appears in is known to English speakers today as Ursa Minor, or the Little Dipper, but the Ancient Greeks called it Kynósoura English Apr 1, 2025, 7:45 AM cowpoke
