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(Verb)Pronunciation: ['ek-stêr-peyt] Definition 1: To completely remove surgically.[@more@]Usage 1: Extirpation (action noun), extirpative (adjective), extirpator (agentive noun).Definition 2: To annihilate, exterminate, destroy completely, especially by rooting out. Suggested Usage: The close definition is "to eradicate by rooting out," so the verb is best used along these lines: "We are going to extirpate every single source of drugs in the city," or "When we extirpat

(Noun)Pronunciation: ['fahrd] Definition: Facial paint or rouge; any embellishment that conceals imperfection. Originally, the white coloring added to women's faces to conceal the tire-prints of time in the 18th and 19th centuries. [@more@]Usage: Used as a verb, today's word can refer to covering blemishes of the face with makeup or hiding faults with anything decorative: "The university uses these faculty dinners to fard over embarrassing dissensions between departments." Suggested Us

(Noun)Pronunciation: ['gæm-bit] Definition: A daring opening move in chess that sacrifices a piece for a future advantage.[@more@]Usage: Applied first and foremost to the game of chess.Suggested Usage: Of course, it can be applied to any daring opening move, such as a provocative statement to open a conversation or a risky business maneuver that promises long-term gains. "Buying so much of the flood plain was a risky gambit that could pay off if fish-farming becomes profitable."E

(Noun)Pronunciation: [halm or hawlm] Definition: The stalks or bushy parts of vegetables, grains, grasses, and flowering plants especially if used for animal litter or thatching on your roof. [@more@]Usage: Have you ever needed a word for stalky plants that are more plant than flower? Or garden vegetables that develop large bushes but bear little fruit (in either sense)? Now you have it: they are haulmy plants. Roses with long stems but small blossoms? Haulmy. If you ever cover your garden beds

(NounPronunciation: [iing-kwê-lIn, -in] Definition: Living in the dwelling place of an animal of another species.[@more@]Usage: Ants, usually thought to exemplify the Puritan work ethic, actually have quite a few instances of inquilinism (the noun) among species. Some inquiline queens kill the host queen and take over the nest while others spend their entire lives riding on the host queen's back! Today's noun is also an adjective: "The cuckoo is an inquiline bird that not only uses the nes

(Adjective)Pronunciation: ['ley-bIl or 'ley-bêl] Definition: Changeable, unstable; apt to slip away.[@more@]Usage: When used to describe personalities, today's word replaces "temperamental" or "moody," as in, "Birgitta was a labile lass with a personality hard to calculate." It also refers to unstable chemical and electrical changes. The noun is lability [lê-'bi-lê-tee]. Suggested Usage: Today's proffering works in discussions of international politics: "Don

(Noun)Pronunciation: [mah-nê-'mey-niyê] Definition: Fixation on or obsession with a single object or idea.[@more@]Usage: People with a single-minded obsession are monomaniacs and they behave monomaniacally. Suggested Usage: Here is a variant of "obsessive" that can be applied to any kind of single-minded obsession. "He is a football monomaniac and never watches anything else on TV" or "The media's monomaniacal focus on the election results is driving ME crazy." E

(Noun)Pronunciation: ['nim-fê-lep-see]Definition: Frenzied emotions resulting from being captured by nymphs or, for weaker souls, simply seeing them. Hence, emotional anxiety brought on by attempts to attain the unattainable. [@more@]Usage: A person suffering from nympholepsy is a nympholept and the adjective is "nympholeptic." (Using the same template, we might say that a person brought to a state of ecstasy by captivation with words is a logolept, someone who suffers logoleptic rapt

(Noun)Pronunciation: ['ah-si-tên-si] Definition: (1) Yawning or a yawn, hence (2) the drowsiness or dullness associated with yawning.[@more@]Usage: Today's word is rare but unvexed. It is the noun from the adjective oscitant "drowsy, yawning." Suggested Usage: It might be a bit ostentatious to say that the audience responded with more oscitancy than applause, even if true, but you might defend yourself by saying, "No, no, my oscitancy comes more from lack of sleep than from lack

（Verb)Pronunciation: ['ræ-vêl] Definition: To unweave, to disentangle, to unwind or untwist; to fray. [@more@]Usage: Here is another word we have bungled. Because raveling knitwear is undoing something previously done, we feel we need the prefix un- on this verb but the meaning of that suffix is built into the meaning of "ravel." The error is similar to the one which led us to remove the in- from "inflammable," thinking that it means "un-" when in fact it me