asseverate (verb)
To asseverate (uh-SEH-ver-ate) is to declare or state solemnly or emphatically. As used in The Atlantic Monthly: “When one begins to asseverate his honesty, his hearers begin to question it.”
labyrinthine (adjective)
Something that is labyrinthine (lab-uh-RIN-thin or lab-uh-RIN-then) is complicated; tortuous. As used by Zane Grey in Tales of Fishes: “Millions of marine creatures swarmed in the labyrinthine waterways.”
veritable (adjective)
Something that is veritable (VER-is-uh-buhl) is true, or at least feels that way. The word is used as an intensifier, usually to qualify a metaphor. Example by Hanya Yanagihara: “Between their rise in the thirteenth century and their sudden fall in the seventeenth, when the line abruptly ended, the Medicis produced three popes, two queens, and many Florentine rulers, and they supported the work of Galileo, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Botticelli – a veritable parade of geniuses.”
equivocal (adjective)
Equivocal (ih-KWIV-uh-kuhl) means ambiguous, open to more than one interpretation. As used by Italo Calvino: “A tale is born from an image, and the image extends and creates a network of meanings that are always equivocal.”
assuage (verb)
To assuage (uh-SWAYZH) is to make milder or less severe; to relieve, ease, mitigate. As used by Arthur Schopenhauer: “I’ve never known any trouble that an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.”
aberrant (adjective)
Something that’s aberrant (AB-er-unt) deviates substantially from the accepted standard. As I used it today: “If you are my age, you are worried. You are worrying about exposure. You know what I’m talking about – those little aberrant behaviors you’ve been indulging in privately.”
gregarious (adjective)
A person who is gregarious (gruh-GARE-ee-us) is fond of company; sociable. As I used it today: “I am rich in friendships. Not because I’m a gregarious person. I’m not. But I do have an irrepressible curiosity about people and especially about people that are new to me.”
integrity (noun)
Integrity (in-TEH-grih-tee) is adherence to moral and ethical standards. As used by Dwight David Eisenhower: “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”
facultative (adjective)
Facultative (FAK-uhl-tay-tiv) means optional; left to one’s choice. As used by Frederic Austin Ogg in The Governments of Europe: “In some cantons the referendum is obligatory, in others it is ‘facultative,’ or optional.”
apotheosis (noun)
Apotheosis (uh-poth-ee-OH-sis) is the perfect example of something; a glorified ideal. As used by Katie Baker (“The Queen of the French Kitchen”): “If life has such a thing as an apotheosis, it surely involves truffled capon.”