• mortmain • Pronunciation: mort- mayn • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: 1. Perpetual inalienable ownership of real estate, that is, without rights to sell, give, or otherwise transfer it. 2. The stultifying effect of the past on the present (US usage). Notes: Today's word is another legalis...

• oleaginous • Pronunciation: o-lee- æ -ji-nês • Hear it! Part of Speech: Adjective Meaning: 1. Oily, greasy; containing, like, or related to oil. 2. Unctuous, obsequious, overly suave and solicitous. Notes: Although the preferred noun from this word is oleaginousness , its length and silly sound l...

• upstart • Pronunciation: êp -stahrt • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: 1. A parvenu, someone who has suddenly risen to prominence. 2. A brash, presumptuous, self-important young person; a whippersnapper. Notes: Today's Good Word is a true lexical orphan, a word with no derivational relative...

• churl • Pronunciation: chêrl • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: 1. A boor, lout, clod, yahoo. 2. A peasant. Notes: Today's Good Word, though rare today, has had a splendid run through the English language (see Word History). Along the way, it has spun off a few interesting derivations. The ...

• predicate • Pronunciation: pred -ê- kayt, -kêt • Hear it! Part of Speech: Verb, Noun Meaning: 1. (Verb) To base, establish, or found. 2. (Verb) To assert, state, or affirm. 3. (Noun) That which is stated about the subject of a sentence, for example, in the sentence, "The man bit the dog"...

• shilly-shally • Pronunciation: shi -li-shæ-li • Hear it! Part of Speech: Verb, intransitive (no predicates) Meaning: To dilly-dally, to dawdle, to tarry; to be indecisive, to hesitate lengthily. Notes: Today's Good Word is a rhyming compound, a musical feature of language. These words are usually...

• agglomeration • Pronunciation: ê-glah-mê- ray -shên • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: 1. The process of forcing unrelated things together into a jumbled mass or union. 2. A jumble of unrelated things forced or compacted together. Notes: Today's Good Word is one of the nouns from the verb a...

• wrought • Pronunciation: rawt • Hear it! Part of Speech: Adjective Meaning: Worked, crafted, done. Notes: Today's Good Word is an archaic but still occasionally encountered past participle of work (see Word History). You will notice that substituting worked for it usually, well, works. Wrought up...

• hedonist • Pronunciation: heed -ê-nist • Hear it! Part of Speech : Noun Meaning: 1. Someone whose life is devoted to pleasure and the avoidance of pain. 2. An adherent of the philosophy that anything pleasurable is good and anything painful, bad. Notes: The stuff that drives a hedonist is hedonis...

I should have apologized for causing such confusion. I will certainly be more careful in future.

• obsequious • Pronunciation: ahb- see -kwee-ês • Hear it! Part of Speech: Adjective Meaning: Fawning, servile, sycophantic, devoted to fulfilling the wishes of another or others. Notes: The most widespread noun accompanying today's word is obsequiousness . If this word is too long for you, you may...

Yours are still there, Philip. Juliet's were no longer valid; I credited her with editorial advice in the GW. If I deleted one of yours I thought it was irrelevant because i revised the GW along lines you had suggested.

I realize now that Juliet's points are well taken and I, too, welcome her to the Agora. This was a word I did 10 or 11 years ago, obviously without enough editing, and put up before coming to Colorado for my youngest granddaughter's 3rd birthday party. I promise to spend less time with my grandchild...

• baleful • Pronunciation: bayl -fêl • Hear it! Part of Speech: Adjective Meaning: 1. Miserable, wretched, distressed, suffering. 2. Malicious, injurious, noxious. Notes: No, today's Good Word has nothing to do with picking or packing cotton; it is derived from a noun that is no longer in use: bale...

• umami • Pronunciation: u- mah -mee • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: No, today's word is not an illiterate reference to your mother, but a word representing what many believe is a fifth taste. The same taste is referred to as xian wei in Chinese cooking. Notes: The consensus is that the hu...