Word of the Week 06/30/19: Probity

From Merriam-Webster:

Adherence to the highest principles and ideals. 

Probity and its synonyms honesty, honor, and integrity all mean uprightness of character or action, with some slight differences in emphasis. Honesty implies a refusal to lie or deceive in any way. Honor suggests an active or anxious regard for the standards of one's profession, calling, or position. Integrity implies trustworthiness and incorruptibility to a degree that one is incapable of being false to a trust, responsibility, or pledge. Probity, which descends from Latin probus, meaning "honest," implies tried and proven honesty or integrity.

From Wiktionary:

Integrity, especially of the quality of having strong moral principles; honesty and decency. From Middle French probité, from Latin probitas (“uprightness, honesty”), from probus (“good, excellent, honest”).

Word of the Week 06/23/19: Élan

From Merriam-Webster:

Vigorous spirit or enthusiasm 

Once upon a time, English speakers did not have "élan." We had, however, "elance," a verb meaning "to hurl" that was used specifically for throwing lances and darts. "Elance" derived from Middle French (s')eslancer ("to rush or dash"), itself from lancer, meaning "to hurl." With the decline of lance-throwing, we tossed out "elance" a century and half ago. Just about that time we found "élan," a noun that traces to "(s')eslancer." We copied "élan" in form from the French, but we dispensed with the French sense of a literal "rush" or "dash," retaining the sense of enthusiastic animation that we sometimes characterize as "dash."

From Cambridge Dictionary:

A combination of style and energetic confidence, especially in performances or manner

From The Free Dictionary:

1. Enthusiastic vigor and liveliness
2. Distinctive style or flair
3. Dash or vivacity; verve

Word of the Week 06/16/19: Inscrutable

From Dictionary.com:

1. incapable of being investigated, analyzed, or scrutinized; impenetrable.
2. not easily understood; mysterious; unfathomable:
3. incapable of being seen through physically; physically impenetrable:

From Cambridge Dictionary:

1. very difficult to understand or get to know
2. not showing emotions or thoughts and therefore very difficult to understand or get to know

From Vocabulary.com:

of an obscure nature

From Merriam-Webster:

You may have to scrutinize this word closely in order to speculate as to its origins, but there is at least one clue in this sentence. Inscrutable derives from the Late Latin adjective inscrutabilis, which can be traced back to the verb scrutari, meaning "to search or to examine." "Scrutari" is also the source of the English words "scrutinize" and "scrutiny."

Word of the Week 06/09/19: Bucolic

From Dictionary.com:

1. of or relating to shepherds; pastoral
2. of, relating to, or suggesting an idyllic rural life

From Merriam-Webster:

We get bucolic from the Latin word bucolicus, which is ultimately from the Greek word boukolos, meaning "cowherd." When bucolic was first used in English in the early 17th century, it meant "pastoral" in a narrow sense - that is, it referred to things related to shepherds or herdsmen and in particular to pastoral poetry. Later in the 19th century, it was applied more broadly to things rural or rustic. Bucolic has also been occasionally used as a noun meaning "a pastoral poem" or "a bucolic person."

Word(s) of the Week 06/02/19: Animal adjectives using the -ine suffix

acarine (mite, tick)
aedine, anopheline, culucine (mosquito)
alcelaphine, antilopine, bubaline (antelope)
anguine, anguilline, aspine, ophidian, serpentine, viperine (snake)
 - colubrine (gartersnake, king snake)
 - crotaline (rattlesnake)
 - elapine (cobra, coral snake, mamba)
 - pythonine (python)
arietine (ram)
asinine (donkey)