Subscribe to the Definr Word of the Day RSS feed with your newsreader, or read Definr's daily picks here.
interregnum (http://definr.com/interregnum)
n : the time between two reigns, governments, etc.
Many of my students have returned to college after some manner of life interregnum: a year or two of post-high-school dissolution, or a large swath of simple middle-class existence, 20 years of the demands of home and family.
Send your Definr Word of the Day suggestions to cvonkleist at gmail dot com.
bellicose (http://definr.com/bellicose)
adj : having or showing a ready disposition to fight; "bellicose
young officers"; "a combative impulse"; "a contentious
nature" [syn: battleful, combative, contentious]
Traditionally, the military has been extremely reluctant to talk much about offensive operations online ... But in the last year or so, the tone has changed -- and become more bellicose ... "If you're defending in cyber, you're already too late."
-- Air Force Aims for 'Full Control' of 'Any and All' Computers - Wired
Send your Definr Word of the Day suggestions to cvonkleist at gmail dot com.
rodomontade (http://definr.com/rodomontade)
n : vain and empty boasting [syn: braggadocio, bluster, rhodomontade]
Alluding in a postscript to the affair, [Washington] adds: "... I heard the bullets whistle and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound." This rodomontade ... reached the ears of George II. "He would not say so," observed the king, dryly, "if he had been used to hear many."
-- Life of George Washington by W. Irving
Send your Definr Word of the Day suggestions to cvonkleist at gmail dot com.
punctilious (http://definr.com/punctilious)
adj : marked by precise accordance with details; "was worryingly
meticulous about trivial details"; "punctilious in his
attention to rules of etiquette" [syn: meticulous]
Ms. Tukhaifi and Shaden both spoke admiringly of the religious police, whom they see as the guardians of perfectly normal Saudi social values, and Shaden boasted lightly about an older brother who has become multazim, very strict in his faith, and who has been seeing to it that all her family members become more punctilious in their religious observance.
-- Love on Girls' Side of the Saudi Divide - The New York Times
Send your Definr Word of the Day suggestions to cvonkleist at gmail dot com.
fusillade (http://definr.com/fusillade)
n : rapid simultaneous discharge of firearms; "our fusillade
from the left flank caught them by surprise" [syn: salvo,
volley, burst]
v : attack with fusillade
Biggles fired, and the nearest man staggered, dropping the log. Again Biggles fired. Another man fired, prompting a general dash for cover. Biggles leapt aside as the fusillade of answering shots came. The acrid smell of cordite filled the room.
Send your Definr Word of the Day suggestions to cvonkleist at gmail dot com.
palliation (http://definr.com/palliation)
n 1: easing the severity of a pain or a disease without removing
the cause
2: to act in such a way as to cause an offense to seem less
serious [syn: extenuation, mitigation]
My own concept of prayer is not as a plea for special favors nor as a quick palliation for wrongs knowingly committed.
-- Walt Disney
Send your Definr Word of the Day suggestions to cvonkleist at gmail dot com.
susurration (http://definr.com/susurration)
n 1: the indistinct sound of people whispering
2: speaking softly without vibration of the vocal cords [syn: whisper,
whispering]
They were shooting blind, but they were throwing a lot of fire, and he was peripherally aware of the grav gun darts chewing at stonework, the shivering pulsations of warp grenades, and the susuration of more energy guns trying to mark him down.
-- Mutineer's Moon by David Webber
Send your Definr Word of the Day suggestions to cvonkleist at gmail dot com.
bete noire (http://definr.com/bete noire)
n : a detested person; "he is an anathema to me" [syn: anathema]
By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, today in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be represented as a bête noire, the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!
-- Albert Einstein
Send your Definr Word of the Day suggestions to cvonkleist at gmail dot com.
bunkum (http://definr.com/bunkum)
n : a ludicrously false statement [syn: bullshit, bull, {Irish
bull}, horseshit, shit, crap, bunk, buncombe, guff,
rot, hogwash, dogshit]
One of the biggest pieces of bunkum shoved down the American throat was the story of the 1929 Italian election. For this I cannot blame my colleagues.
-- George Seldes
Send your Definr Word of the Day suggestions to cvonkleist at gmail dot com.
fatuous (http://definr.com/fatuous)
adj : complacently or inanely foolish [syn: asinine, inane, mindless,
vacuous]
He is a fatuous gasbag, who's made a fortune through kickback deals that members of this Quorum have profited from.
-- "James McManus" (David Kaye) in Battlestar Galactica episode 1x11
Send your Definr Word of the Day suggestions to cvonkleist at gmail dot com.