Apr 21, 2006

motley

Having elements of great variety or incongruity; heterogeneous: "Most Ivy League freshman classes are chosen from a motley collection of constituencies . . . and a bare majority of entering students can honestly be called scholars" New York Times.

motley crew of investors

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
--Dr. Samuel Johnson

April 06, 2006

gape

To open the mouth wide; yawn.

And as soon as I knew they saw me I gaped and stretched, and gave other signs of being mightily bored with traveling.

blister
A local swelling of the skin that contains watery fluid and is caused by burning or irritation.

I saw that the skin had begun to blister and peel off my face and neck.

grandeur
The quality or condition of being grand; magnificence: "The world is charged with the grandeur of God" Gerard Manley Hopkins.

There is no estimating the pride I took in this grandeur

abstruse
Difficult to understand; recondite.

who had been confronted with a problem too abstruse for solution.

blight
Any of numerous plant diseases resulting in sudden conspicuous wilting and dying of affected parts, especially young, growing tissues.

It was a sore blight to find out afterwards that he was a low, vulgar, ignorant, sentimental, half-witted humbug, an untraveled native of the wilds of Illinois