Dr. Goodword might want to segue today's entry, "genteel", with either "boor" or "vulgarian." I imagine them uttered with refined contempt by Ronald Coleman.

Dr. Goodword may wish to shed some light on "blunder."

"Bespoke," the past tense of the verb "bespeak" has a secret life as an adjective meaning custom-made (especially re clothes), or make and sell custom clothes, as in "a bespoke tailor." Dr. Goodword might want to explain how this adjective escaped its orbit into an enti...

Has "harbinger" been nominated? Make Tom Bodette happy...

And lovers of lace
A public disgrace

Fans of St. Audrey
May find it tawdry.

I nominate the word "conundrum" because of its fascinating etymology if it has not already been covered.

May I suggest "nosism" as the next Word of the Day naturally following "illeism." "Nosism" is the use of the the plural personal pronoun "we" to refer to oneself. It is derived from the Latin word "nos" for "we" and is known variously as th...

At the risk of stirring up painful memories and perhaps even a Primal Experience among the Wordie set, I think many of us will recall from Algebra that "abscissa" is the name for the X-axis. The Y-axis is referred to as the "ordinate." Apparently whoever coined the terms pictured...