#5

ambuscade \AM-buh-skayd; am-buh-SKAYD\, noun:
1. An ambush.

transitive verb:
1. To attack by surprise from a concealed place; to ambush.

But so great were his fears for the army, lest in those wild woods it should fall into some Indian snare, that the moment his fever left him, he got placed on his horse, and pursued, and overtook them the very evening before they fell into that ambuscade which he had all along dreaded.
-- Mason Locke Weems, The Life of Washington

The storm is distant, just the lights behind
The eyes are left of lightning's ambuscade.
-- Peter Porter, "The Last Wave Before the Breakwater"

No more ambuscades, no more shooting from behind trees.
-- William Murchison, "What the voters chose", Human Life Review, January 1, 1995


Ambuscade comes from Middle French embuscade, from Old Italian imboscata, from past participle of imboscare, "to ambush," from in, (from Latin) + bosco, "forest," of Germanic origin.

from dictionary.com


----------------


The tooth fairy teaches children that they can sell body parts for money.
David Richerby

#4

punctilious \puhnk-TIL-ee-uhs\, adjective:
Strictly attentive to the details of form in action or conduct; precise; exact in the smallest particulars.

The convert who is more punctilious in his new faith than the lifelong communicant is a familiar figure in Catholic lore.
-- Patrick Allit, Catholic Converts

Nicholas showed us his butterfly collection. He had done a splendid job of spreading them (better than I ever have, let alone at his age). I tried to impress upon him the need for punctilious labeling, a tedious business that raises a butterfly from a mere curio to a specimen of scientific value.
-- Robert Michael Pyle, ChASINg Monarchs

Cooper had always been very punctilious about observing the rules laiddown in the . . . brochure.
-- Josef Skvorecky, Two Murders in My Double Life


Punctilious derives from Late Latin punctillum, "a little point," from Latin punctum, "a point," from pungere, "to prick."

from Dictionary.com

#3

coruscate \KOR-uh-skayt\, intransitive verb:
1. To give off or reflect bright beams or flashes of light; to sparkle.
2. To exhibit brilliant, sparkling technique or style.

They pulled up at the farthest end of a loop path that looked out over the great basin of the Rio Grande under brilliant, coruscating stars.
-- Bill Roorbach, "Big Bend", The Atlantic, March 2001

Beneath you lie two miles of ocean -- a bottomlessness, for all practical purposes, an infinity of blue. . . . A thousand coruscating shafts of sunlight probe it, illuminating nothing.
-- Kenneth Brower, "The Destruction of Dolphins", The Atlantic, July 1989

What coruscating flights of language in his prose, what waterfalls of self-displaying energy!
-- Joyce Carol Oates, review of A Theft, by Saul Bellow, New York Times, March 5, 1989

Whether we know or like it or not, those of us who turn our hands to this task are scribbling in a line of succession which, however uncertainly and intermittently, reaches back to the young Macaulay, who first made his public reputation as a coruscating writer in the 1820s.
-- David Cannadine, "On Reviewing and Being Reviewed", History Today, March 1, 1999


Coruscate comes from Latin coruscatus, past participle of coruscare, "to move quickly, to tremble, to flutter, to twinkle or flash." The noun form is coruscation. Also from coruscare is the adjective coruscant, "glittering in flashes; flashing."

from Dictionary.com


--------------------------



Equations are the devil's sentences.
- Stephen Colbert

#2

scintilla \sin-TIL-uh\, noun:
A tiny or scarcely detectable amount; the slightest particle; a trace; a spark.

In victory, they must hold on to at least a scintilla of humility, lest they get too cocky -- and ripe for a takedown.
-- Bill Breen, "We are literally trying to stop time", Fast Company, May 2000

I bear her not one scintilla of ill will, he said.
-- Sarah Lyall, "That Harriman Book", New York Times, May 4, 1994

There was never a scintilla of doubt, or a hint of equivocation, in Michael about his commitment to the party.
-- "Ferris's decency and sense of fun recalled", Irish Times, March 23, 2000


Scintilla is from Latin scintilla, "a spark, a glimmer, a faint trace." Also from scintilla is the verb scintillate, "to sparkle."

from Dictionary.com

-------------------------

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)

#1

autochthonous \aw-TOK-thuh-nuhs\, adjective:
1. Aboriginal; indigenous; native.
2. Formed or originating in the place where found.

For cultures are not monoliths. They are fragmentary, patchworks of autochthonous and foreign elements.
-- Anthony Pagden, "Culture Wars", The New Republic, November 16, 1998

I thought of the present-day Arcadians, autochthonous, sprung from the very earth on which they live, who with every draught from a stream drink up millennia of history and legend.
-- Zachary Taylor, "Hot Land, Cold Water", The Atlantic, June 17, 1998


Autochthonous derives from Greek autochthon, "of or from the earth or land itself," from auto-, "self" + chthon, "earth." One that is autochthonous is an autochthon.

from Dictionary.com


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing says, 'I have no idea what to get you,' quite like giant beige bath towels.
- Missbhavens