ditsy
A: It just seems odd that the ditsy secretary gets the closing shot of the movie.
B: Hey - that “ditsy” secretary reads Dostoyevsky!:P ..
online forum about the movie High Art↗ (1998)
turpitude
...has gone to jail for committing unmentionable acts of moral turpitude.
2004. from online forum. (Lorand)
personage
any personage who could order a whore to his room and then let her in to do god-knows-what should not be worrying about the quality of female at this point...
online chat. —Adele
caterwaul
cat in heat does caterwaul. It's quite something to hear.
coterie
At the rehearsals, [Steve] Jobs huddled with his coterie of sycophants...
~2000. Articles on Apple
synonyms: entourage, retinue
miff
I think it's mildly unfortunate that the KDE camp considered itself so cornered that it felt compelled to issue miffed and wounded-sounding position statements that it will continue to fight the good fight.
computing industry forum (slashdot.org).
Microsoft miffed AOL yesterday, because a feature in MSN Messenger software lets users communicate with those using AOL's Instant Messenger.
computing industry news. ~2001?
imprecation
not to be confused with impregnation, or insemination, or implication.
doozy
In Breggin's [a psychatrist] case, his opponents found a doozy: the doctor once wrote approvingly of sexual relations between children.
source forgotten, probably Time magazine.
Not that there aren't gal assholes . . . but they tend to be fewer in number . . . but when you find one they can be real doozies.
~2000, mailing list message
cutthroat
me: do you want to play a round of game?
her: game OK, i don't want to have to win tho'
her: no cutthroat tactics
[2004. online chat with a cutthroat woman]
windfall
The real secret to such planning is patience. The investor must plan for the long term and consider short term profits a windfall.
2002. financial article
How Portal insiders reaped huge windfall
~1999. financial news on IPO manipulation
we were a nation of FARMERS before we became commuters and consumers. WINDFALL is the fruit which falls naturally from the tree and wasn't picked.
2004. email chat
SAN FRANCISCO (Billboard) - With a possible billion-dollar windfall at stake, U.S. music companies are eagerly awaiting the full-blown development of the stateside ringtone market.
200409 online business news.
waylaid
recently i was waylaid by a woman. I was going to say i was accosted by her, though that doesn't sound right. Man accosts woman, but from woman to man, we don't say accost by the nature of human animal's sexual sociology. Waylaid doesn't mean accost, but is a similar word that means ambush. Ambush is often used in military contexts, while waylaid is fitting between the sexes.
pie-in-the-sky
quite a number of people these days would like this nice, milky vision of culture in witch it's all rather improving, and leads us all to this nice little pie-in-the-sky moral heaven, where nobody's nasty to anybody else. But the only things is that literature, culture, art isn't put there to have that pleasant, normative effect.
--Robert Hughes, art critique, in the biography movie Crumb 1994.
tromping
At the beginning of this process, your cat could just step into the box; later he began jumping up into it, until at some point he probably started jumping up onto the toilet seat first and stepping into the box from there. You've been diligently keeping the lid up and the seat down, of course, so by now your cat is thoroughly familiar with tromping around on the open toilet.
2001. article on toilet training cat.
cathouse
patrons will be impressed by the snazzy multimedia presentations, such as an interactive computer map of early 20th century cathouses, with nice little Zagat-style reviews.
20021021, Time Mag. Joel Stein.
sesquipedalian
I started studying words to prep for the SAT, but I've been addicted ever since. I have learned most of the words you list, but recently I've questioned the need for such sesquipedalian terms.
a student, ~2000
high-flown
pusillanimous is a high-flown word for cowardly, fearful, or timid. Don't spell it pussilanimous.
The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993
lovesick
ok bye let me know how it all turns out .send email i want one LOVE-SICK email per day
2004. online chat
pablum
Great website. Usually I can't stand insult humour, but yours is exceptional. You should be on tv in the USA to replace the present pablum.
2004. from email
head off
Yahoo reports that PayPal is taking an aggressive stance against gambling, adult, and non-prescription drug sites: anyone caught using PayPal for these purposes will be charged $500. Eric Jackson, a former PayPal executive and author of the new book 'The PayPal Wars,' calls the new policy 'draconian' and says it is likely a two-fold strategy to discourage certain behavior while heading off regulators.
20040911, online business news
hang-ups
Look! Don't lay your hang-ups on me, just cause you lost your mojo.
dialogue from movie Austin Powers (the Spy who Shagged me)
© 2004-2007 by Xah Lee.