I seem to feel that this is often used in the sense of making the first move in order to gain an advantage over a perceived or actual foe. As in the Taiwan example.

Question for our British readers; do you use gossip in meaning 3?

Cenation is another one, and Cenatical was out there, too (lower right corner):.

Earth Day and Week are coming up;

Take a Clod to Lunch!

Judging from my short excursion into the internot, it would appear that, in the interests of politesse, or political correctness if you will, using the small-p meanings of this word should be avoided. Any thoughts?

Given definition 2, I guess a Molotov cocktail would count as a grenade, too.

Curious how many words there are for an inner grouping that begin with C: cabal, camarilla, coterie (& here), clique, cadre, etc. This one seems to be the most neutral of them. Exalted, but neutralish.

This morning this word reminded me of the wonderful Gordon Lightfoot song, "The Minstrel of the Dawn." I hadn't heard it in quite some time, but it still sounds great.

Lambent link.

I can see why impromptitude never caught on; it really should mean lateness, not spur-of-the-momentness.

A difficult one to remember, for me at least. There's cant argot, the gait canter, an intoning chanter, etc. vying for memory space. Being rare doesn't help much, either. I would like to be able to remember the back end of a saddle, though. Just to go along with pommel. A word we haven't seen here, ...

Well, it's the middle of April and we've got showers in my neck of the woods. May they bring an efflorescence of May flowers!

Though teeth can theoretically be in a pre-carious state (no caries, as yet), which would make long term health prospects precarious, those "cariouses" aren't related. Unless there's some Proto PIE hiding out there.

This one's from PIE prek-/prok-, while t'other's from kere-. Wild.

Basically, yes. Now I'm also thinking that coterie may be in the middle, but it can go either way, depending on how it's deployed by the user and taken by the usee.

If a cabal is usually up to no good, and a clique is as much for the exclusion of others as for the inclusion of like minds, where does a coterie fall? Any thoughts?