Word of the Week: flounce (FLOUNSS) Definition (verb) 1. to move with exaggerated bouncy motions 2. to go with sudden determination 3. flounder, struggle In Context "With skirts flouncing, 15 young women ascended the steps … to a traditional Mexican birthday song played in a mariachi style." Laurel Wamsley and Vanessa Romo, NPR, 19 July 2017
Word of the Week: supersede (soo-per-SEED) Defintion (verb) 1. a) to cause to be set aside b) to force out of use as inferior c) to take the place or position of d) to displace in favor of another In Context "This park also supersedes what must have been the world's cleverest playground—a 10-foot-high fort made of telephone poles or logs up the hill at Rocky Ridge Park. (That simple, but popular play area was dismantled. Kids kept getting their heads stuck between the poles.)" Jim McClure, The York (Pennsylvania) Daily Record, 5 May 2019
Word of the Week: magniloquent (mag-nil-o-KWENT) Definition (adjective) speaking in or characterized by a high-flown often bombastic style or manner In Context "It [the television series Billions] features two outsize, magniloquent protagonists who are constant foils to one another: light and dark, good and evil, both cut from the same ambitious cloth and therefore destined to lock in an endless pas de deux of power." Rachel Syme, The New Republic, 1 May 2018
Word of the Week: fantod (FAN-tahd) Definition (noun) plural fantods a) a state of irritability and tension b) fidgets 2. an emotional outburst : fit In Context "Orin's special conscious horror, besides heights and the early morning, is roaches. There'd been parts of metro Boston near the Bay he'd refused to go to, as a child. Roaches give him the howling fantods." David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996
Definition (noun) 1. a: an acutely painful or embarrassing misunderstanding b: a circumstance or action that offends propriety or established moral conceptions or disgraces those associated with it : scandal c: a violently confused or bitterly complicated altercation : embroilment d: an intricate or complicated situation (as in a drama or novel) 2. A confused mass In Context "He was close to scandal—GOP chairman during the Watergate years, vice president during the Iran-Contra imbroglio—yet was not tainted by it." David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe, 1 Dec. 2018
Definition inclined to be merciful : lenient not severe: mild In Context "Eagle Scout Michael Eliason completed his project by literally blazing a trail: he created a half-mile-long trail along a Heights park still being developed along the Yellowstone River, Dover Park. 'We rototilled and used pickaxes on it, and we had to wait until the weather was clement,' he said." Mike Ferguson, The Billings Gazette, 24 Nov. 2014
Definition (noun) knickknack, trinket In Context "… a review from WireCutter … called it the best 3D pen of the lot. While we're debating whether any home needs the flood of tchotchkes that will inevitably pour forth as a result of this gadget, the idea of drawing something into existence is pretty appealing." Talia Milgrom-Elcott, Forbes, 1 Nov. 2018
Definition (Adjective) having an allover pattern of small flowers and plants. In Context "An early 16th century millefleurs tapestry is a charmer, with children playing amidst the birds and animals and the thousand flowers of the style's name." Sherry Lucas, The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi), 29 Sept. 2002
Definition 1 : present at all seasons of the year 2 : persisting for several years usually with new herbaceous growth from a perennating part 3 a : persistent, enduring b : continuing without interruption : constant, perpetual c : regularly repeated or renewed : recurrent In Context "Making the kids think of school as important to their complicated, often tragic lives—while meeting the demands of the curriculum—was a perennial struggle." Sarah Stodder, The Washingtonian, November 2018
Definition to move with a clumsy heavy tread In Context "Incredibly, a massive rhinoceros comes galumphing toward us as rapidly as something that weighs more than two tons and resembles a tank on four legs can move." Barbara Marshall, The Palm Beach (Florida) Post, 27 Aug. 2017.
