#88

jejune \juh-JOON\, adjective:
1. Lacking in nutritive value.
2. Displaying or suggesting a lack of maturity; childish.
3. Lacking interest or significance; dull; meager; dry.

Were I to make this public now, it would be dismissed as the raving of a mind at the end of its tether, unable to distinguish fiction from reality, real life from the jejune fantasies of its youth.
-- Ronald Wright, A Scientific Romance

By the inflection of his voice, the expression of his face, and the motion of his body, he signals that he is aware of all the ways he may be thought silly or jejune, and that he might even think so himself.
-- Jedediah Purdy, For Common Things

A while ago, Michael Kinsley wrote that Jewish Americans envied Israelis for living out history in a way that made the comfort and security of life in New York or Los Angeles seem jejune.
-- Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "The Big Kibbutz", New York Times, March 2, 1997

Jejune derives from Latin jejunus, "fasting, hence hungry, hence scanty, meager, weak."

#79

pleonasm \PLEE-uh-naz-uhm\, noun:
1. The use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; as, "I saw it with my own eyes."
2. An instance or example of pleonasm.
3. A superfluous word or expression.

Dougan uses many words where few would do, as if pleonasm were a way of wringing every possibility out of the material he has, and stretching sentences a form of spreading the word.
-- Paula Cocozza, "Book review: How Dynamo Kiev beat the Luftwaffe", Independent, March 2, 2001

Such a phrase from President Nixon's era, much favored by politicians, is "at this moment in time." Presumably these five words mean "now." That pleonasm probably does little harm except, perhaps, to the reputation of the speaker.
-- Eoin McKiernan, "Last Word: Special Relationships", Irish America, August 31, 1994

Pleonasm is from Greek pleonasmos, from pleon, "greater, more."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for pleonasm




http://flickr.com/photos/junku/sets/303691/

#76

The titis, or titi monkeys, are the New World monkeys of the genus Callicebus. They are the only extant members of the Callicebinae subfamily, which also contains the extinct genera Xenothrix, Antillothrix (German article), Paralouatta, Carlocebus, Homunculus, Lagonimico and possibly also Tremacebus.

Titis live in South America, from Colombia to Brazil, Peru and north Paraguay.

Titis are monogamous, mating for life. The female bears a single young animal after about a five-month gestation. Twins occur rarely.[citation needed] The more "laid-back" adult cares for the young.[citation needed] Often it is the father who cares for the young, carrying it and bringing it to the mother only for nursing. The young are weaned after 5 months and are fully grown after two years. After three or more years, they leave their family group in order to find a mate. Their life expectancy is up to 12 years in the wild.

#75

Bowerbirds (IPA: [ˈbaʊəˌbɜːd(UK)/ˈbaʊɚˌbɝːd(US)]) and catbirds make up the family Ptilonorhynchidae. All are small to medium in size. Although their distribution is centered around the tropical northern part of Australia-New Guinea, some species extend into the central Australian desert and the cold mountainous regions of southeast Australia.

The most notable characteristic of bowerbirds is the extraordinarily complex behaviour of males, which is to build a bower to attract mates. Depending on the species, the bower ranges from a circle of cleared earth with a small pile of twigs in the center to a complex and highly decorated structure of sticks and leaves — usually shaped like a walkway, a small hut or a maypole — into and around which the male places a variety of objects he has collected. These objects — usually strikingly blue in hue — may include hundreds of shells, leaves, flowers, feathers, stones, berries, and even discarded plastic items or pieces of glass. The bird spends hours carefully sorting and arranging his collection, with each object in a specific place; if an object is moved while the bowerbird is away he will put it back in its place. No two bowers are the same, and the collection of objects reflects the personal taste of each bird and its ability to procure unusual and rare items (going as far as stealing them from neighboring bowers). At mating time, the female will go from bower to bower, watching as the male owner conducts an often elaborate mating ritual and inspecting the quality of the bower. Many females end up selecting the same male, and many underperforming males are left without mates.


http://www.cryptolizard.com/blog/?p=126

#70

camarilla \kam-uh-RIL-uh; -REE-yuh\, noun:
A group of secret and often scheming advisers, as of a king; a cabal or clique.

Mr Kiselev likened Yeltsin's entourage to a "camarilla" . . . which would turn Russia "into a gigantic banana republic corrupted from top to bottom by a rotten clique of demagogues".
-- Marcus Warren, "Moguls at war over control of Kremlin", Daily Telegraph, July 23, 1999

The arrest in October 1976 of Mao's radical camarilla, the so-called Gang of Four, led by his maniacal widow, Jiang Qing, was the second "liberation," delivering the Chinese from the most extreme forms of ideological conditioning.
-- Willem Van Kemenade, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Inc.


Camarilla comes from Spanish, literally, "a small room," from Late Latin camera, "chamber" ("vault; arched roof" in Latin), from Greek kamara, "vault."

#65

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2007
Thousands of you took part in the search for Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2007, and the vast majority of you chose a small word that packs a pretty big punch. The word you've selected hasn't found its way into a regular Merriam-Webster dictionary yet—but its inclusion in our online Open Dictionary, along with the top honors it's now been awarded—might just improve its chances. This year's winning word first became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t ("leet," or "elite") speak—an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters. Although the double "o" in the word is usually represented by double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for "we owned the other team"—again stemming from the gaming community.
Merriam-Webster's #1 Word of the Year for 2007 based on votes from visitors to our Web site:

1. w00t (interjection)
expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word "yay"
w00t! I won the contest!
Submitted by: Kat from Massachusetts on Nov. 30, 2005 23:18


Click on each of the other words in the Top Ten List for their definitions in either Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary or Merriam-Webster's Open Dictionary:
facebook
conundrum
quixotic
blamestorm
sardoodledom
apathetic
Pecksniffian
hypocrite
charlatan



from

#51

bete noire \bet-NWAHR\, noun:
Something or someone particularly detested or avoided; a bugbear.

Even more regrettable, as far as Dame Edna is concerned, is the presence of her old bete noire, the extravagantly disgusting Sir Les Patterson.
-- "The Dame's New Man", Daily Telegraph, April 18, 1998

Never an exceptional student, Andrews somehow managed to navigate the academy's rigorous courses with satisfactory grades, though all forms of mathematics were agonizing to him, remaining what he called his "bete noire" throughout life.
-- Charles Gallenkamp, Dragon Hunter: Roy Chapman Andrews and the Central Asiatic Expeditions


Bête noire is French for "black beast."

#30

trencherman \TREN-chuhr-muhn\, noun:
A hearty eater.

Quietly, almost stealthily, Livingstone has transformed himself . . . into a knowing gourmand-about-town, whose commitment to lunch is only rivalled by that other fabulous trencherman, Fatty Soames.
-- Catherine Bennett, "Vote Ken, vote polenta", The Guardian, March 9, 2000

Expecting that the experience would be too exciting for him to find time to eat, we were amazed to watch him consume a trencherman's breakfast, scarfing down French toast like it was going out of style.
-- Sheila Rothenberg, "Disney Bridges the Generation Gap", USA Today, March, 2001

In the space of the last five years, he fearlessly gained 40 pounds, displaying a trencherman's appetite for life and an admirable disdain for cardiologists and Surgeon Generals whining about moderation.
-- Martin Lewis, "Comb Back, Big Hair - All Is Forgiven", Time, December 23, 2000


Trencherman is from trencher, "a wooden board or platter on which food is served or carved" (from Medieval French trencheoir, from Old French trenchier, "to cut," from Latin truncare, "to lop off, to shorten by cutting") + man. It is related to trench, "a hole cut into the ground."

#17

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."