New Words

bonhomie \bah-nuh-MEE\, noun:
A good nature; pleasant and easy manner.
That bonhomie which won the hearts of all who knew him.
-- Washington Irving, Oliver Goldsmith
And what of the salesman's fabled bonhomie, the Willy Lomanesque emphasis on the importance of being liked?
-- "How to Manage Salespeople", Fortune, March 14, 1988
I would carefully study the exploits of positive role models like Peter Gabriel, Jimmy Carter, and Alec Baldwin, and attempt to emulate their radiant bonhomie.
-- Joe Queenan, My Goodness: A Cynic's Short-Lived Search for Sainthood


Nonplus \non-PLUHS\, transitive verb:
To cause to be at a loss as to what to think, say, or do; to confound; to perplex; to bewilder.
Mr Esswis had promptly negotiated an arrangement between himself, the owner of the sprayer and the owner of the sheep, nonplussing the other two farmers by accepting full blame of the straying animal, as long as unpleasantness and paperwork could be avoided.
-- Michel Faber, Under the Skin: A Novel
I told him that to many people she is one of the best sculptors alive, but he seemed nonplussed by the thought.
-- Jed Perl, Eyewitness: Reports from an Art World in Crisis
She had grown a good deal in the last six months, and an amount of thinking had gone on in that young head which would have astonished him greatly could he have known it all, for Rose was one of the children who observe and meditate much, and now and then nonplus their friends by a wise or curious remark.
-- Louisa May Alcott, Eight Cousins

gallimaufry \gal-uh-MAW-free\, noun:
A hodgepodge; jumble; confused medley.
Today bilingual programs are conducted in a gallimaufry of around 80 tongues, ranging from Spanish to Lithuanian to Micronesian Yapese.
-- Ezra Bowen, "For Learning or Ethnic Pride?", Time, July 8, 1985
We have the same eyes dark and chestnut hair. But I am a lame gallimaufry and she remains perfect.
-- Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
Maran reports the daily jostlings and thrivings in a public school with 3,200 students, 185 teachers, 45 languages, a principal and five vice principals, five safety monitors, 62 sports teams and a gallimaufry of alternative programs, clubs and cliques.
-- Colman McCarthy, "A Writer Goes Back to School", Washington Post, August 20, 2001
Gallimaufry, originally meaning "a hash of various kinds of meats," comes from French galimafrée, from Old French, from galer, "to rejoice, to make merry" (source of English gala) + mafrer, "to eat much," from Medieval Dutch maffelen, "to open one's mouth wide."
roborant \ROB-uh-ruhnt\, adjective:
1. Strengthening; restoring vigor.
noun:
1. A strengthening medicine; a tonic; a restorative.
A major field study of the effect of pollen extracts on the common cold and its roborant . . . effects in 775 Swedish military recruits did not give unequivocal results in relation to the prophylactic effect of the preparation used against the common cold.
-- James P. Carter, Racketeering in Medicine
That day, I felt the need of a roborant after my ghost-ridden night, and I swigged down two doses.
-- William Least Heat Moon, River Horse
Roborant derives from the present participle of Latin roborare, "to strengthen," from robur, roboris, "strength."
myrmidon \MUR-muh-don; -duhn\, noun:
1. (Capitalized) A member of a warlike Thessalian people who followed Achilles on the expedition against Troy.
2. A loyal follower, especially one who executes orders without question.
He risked assassination, torture or . . . retaliation, the defining signatures of Mr. Milosevic and his ultranationalist myrmidons.
-- Bruce Fein, "Follow U.S. war crimes advice?", Washington Times, May 10, 2001
I felt quite sure that the myrmidon on duty in Gadsby Row would tell you all about my visit.
-- Georgette Heyer, Behold, Here's Poison
The best hotel, and all its culinary myrmidons, were set to work to prepare the feast.
-- Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

intrepid \in-TREP-id\, adjective:
Fearless; bold; brave; undaunted; courageous; as, an intrepid soldier; intrepid spirit.
But the stubborn descendants of the twenty-one intrepid people who plowed through the mountains in search of the sea to the west avoided the reefs of the melodic mixup and dancing went on until dawn.
-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Not as energetically, certainly, as Walt-- who was intrepid, who flung his body into every new circumstance with faith and grace and with temerity.
-- John Irving, The World According to Garp
Britain's World War I-era prime minister, David Lloyd George, whom Jones had once served as an aide, said the intrepid journalist might have been killed because he "knew too much of what was going on."
-- Associated Press, "Diary That Helped Expose Stalin's Famine Displayed", New York Times, November 13, 2009

malleable \MAL-ee-uh-buhl\, adjective:
1. Capable of being extended or shaped by beating with a hammer, or by the pressure of rollers; -- applied to metals.
2. Capable of being altered or controlled by outside forces; easily influenced.
3. Capable of adjusting to changing circumstances; adaptable.
His image for his own imagination is the acid, the catalyst, that is mixed in to make the gold malleable, and is then wiped away.
-- "Nothing is too wonderful to be true", Times (London), June 7, 2000
The natives proved less malleable and far less innocent than the Europeans imagined, so much so that early colonial history is filled with countless stories of monks who met hideous deaths at the hands of their flocks.
-- Juan Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire
I think his request was just a vainglorious way of expressing the basic belief of behaviorism: that children are malleable and that it is their environment, not innate qualities such as talent or temperament, that determines their destiny.
-- Judith Rich Harris, The Nurture Assumption

rusticate \RUHS-tih-kayt\, intransitive verb:
1. To go into or reside in the country; to pursue a rustic life.
transitive verb:
1. To require or compel to reside in the country; to banish or send away temporarily.
2. (Chiefly British). To suspend from school or college.
3. To build with usually rough-surfaced masonry blocks having beveled or rebated edges producing pronounced joints.
4. To lend a rustic character to; to cause to become rustic.
Ezra holds out in London, and refuses to rusticate.
-- T. S. Eliot to Conrad Aiken, "21 August 1916", The Letters of T. S. Eliot: Volume I, 1898-1922 edited by Valerie Eliot
For the longest time, we're stuck in a cabin hewn out of the ground in a parcel of woods as the boys hide and mend; for another, we rusticate on a farm bounded by fields that must be tilled by the hard labor of man and beast.
-- Stephen Hunter, "When Johnny Doesn't Come Marching Home", Washington Post, December 17, 1999
Czechoslovak Communists would imprison or rusticate those who had been active in the Prague Spring.
-- Charles S. Maier, Dissolution

provender \PROV-uhn-duhr\, noun:
1. Dry food for domestic animals, such as hay, straw, corn, oats, or a mixture of ground grain; feed.
2. Food or provisions.
It turns out that he and thousands of other German immigrants have been acting as pre-invasion intelligence-gatherers, ensuring that "the German Army knew almost to a bale of hay what provender lay between London and the coast."
-- Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War
Frances Trollope, Captain Marryat, Colonel Basil Hall and Charles Dickens in 1842 all commented on the way Americans wolfed down their provender as fast as possible, cramming the cornbread in their sloppy maws and, worse, doing so in grim silence, punctuated only by the noise of slurps, grunts; scraping knives and hacking coughs.
-- Simon Schama, "Them and US", The Guardian, March 29, 2003

benison \BEN-uh-suhn; -zuhn\, noun:
Blessing; benediction.
In the beginning, Gibran's small estate was worth some $50,000, benison enough for a village of ten thousand souls.
-- Stefan Kanfer, "But is it not strange that elephants will yield -- and that The Prophet is still popular?", New York Times, June 25, 1972
Yet to be with him was a benison, a curiously exhilarating and anarchic experience, as the lightning celerity of his thought processes took you on a kind of helter-skelter ride of surreal non-sequiturs, sudden accesses of emotion and ribald asides, made all the more bizarre for being uttered in those honeyed tones by the impeccably elegant gent before you.
-- Simon Callow, "A life full of frolics", The Guardian, May 19, 2001

martinet \mar-t'n-ET\, noun:
1. A strict disciplinarian.
2. One who lays stress on a rigid adherence to the details of forms and methods.
His insistence on strict discipline began to earn him a reputation among his men as an unfeeling martinet.
-- Michiko Kakutani, "Still Pondering the Myth Of Custer's Last Stand", New York Times, May 28, 1996
At first, the recruits hate and fear the sergeant, but gradually they come to realize that he's been turning them into soldiers. It is the example of this unlovable martinet, not the "Good Joe" who replaces him, that will help them survive in combat.
-- Anthony Quinn, "Revolutionary Dead Ends", New York Times, April 29, 2001
Players coached by him have cursed the day they ever set sight on such a merciless martinet.
-- Gerry Thornley, "Chief architect oversees grand plan", Irish Times, February 19, 2000

affable \AF-uh-buhl\, adjective:
1. Easy to speak to; receiving others kindly and conversing with them in a free and friendly manner.
2. Gracious; benign.
Nonetheless, in view of the fact that Leon stated in the warrant that I was good-looking, cheerful and affable, they exhorted me to make myself appear to be taciturn, melancholy and ugly.
-- Susana Rotker (Editor), The Memoirs of Fray Servando Teresa De Mier
Johnny's father, while strict with his children, usually was affable and relaxed.
-- Paul C. Nagel, John Quincy Adams
There was even more joking than usual Saturday afternoon; he seemed to be in a particularly affable mood.
-- "Presley Treats Fans to His Best", New York Times, July 21, 1975