Updated on May 7, 2008
imbroglio \im-BROHL-yoh\, noun:
1. A complicated and embarrassing state of things.
2. A confused or complicated disagreement or misunderstanding.
3. An intricate, complicated plot, as of a drama or work of fiction.
4. A confused mass; a tangle.
The political imbroglio also appears to endanger the latest International Monetary Fund loan package for Russia, which is considered critical to avoid a default this year on the country’s $17 billion in foreign debt.
– David Hoffman, “Citing Economy, Yeltsin Fires Premier”, Washington Post, May 13, 1999
Worse still, hearings and investigations into scandals — from the imbroglio over Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination in 1991 to the charges of perjury against President Clinton in 1998 — have overshadowed any consideration of the country’s future.
– John B. Judis, The Paradox of American Democracy
To the extent that Washington had a policy toward the subcontinent, its aim was to be evenhanded and not get drawn into the diplomatic imbroglio over Kashmir.
– George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb
The imbroglio over the seemingly arcane currency issue threatens to plunge Indonesia — and possibly its neighbors as well — into a renewed bout of financial turmoil.
– Paul Blustein, “Currency Dispute Threatens Indonesia’s Bailout”, Washington Post, February 14, 1998
Imbroglio derives from Italian, from Old Italian imbrogliare, “to tangle, to confuse,” from in-, “in” + brogliare, “to mix, to stir.” It is related to embroil, “to entangle in conflict or argument.”
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Updated on May 6, 2008
faineant \fay-nay-AWN\, adjective:
1. Doing nothing or given to doing nothing; idle; lazy.
noun:
1. A do-nothing; an idle fellow; a sluggard.
Yet if nonhunters ever knew how many properly dressed, entirely palatable big-game carcasses wind up in dumpsters because someone was simply too faineant to butcher and cook and eat an animal he could find the time and energy to shoot and kill, hunting would be in even greater jeopardy than it is today.
– Thomas McIntyre, “The meaning of meat”, Sports Afield, August 1, 1997
According to Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Charles II was no faineant half-wit but a conscientious and reflective king.
– David Gilmour, “The falsity of ‘true Spain’”, The Spectator, July 22, 2000
A faineant government is not the worst government that England can have. It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something.
– Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn
Faineant is from French, from Middle French fait, “does” + néant, “nothing.”
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Updated on May 5, 2008
fustian \FUHS-chuhn\, noun:
1. A kind of coarse twilled cotton or cotton and linen stuff, including corduroy, velveteen, etc.
2. An inflated style of writing or speech; pompous or pretentious language.
adjective:
1. Made of fustian.
2. Pompous; ridiculously inflated; bombastic.
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Updated on May 4, 2008
sub rosa \suhb-ROH-zuh\, adverb:
1. Secretly; privately; confidentially.
adjective:
1. Designed to be secret or confidential; secretive; private.
Unlike progressive educators of the past, who openly proclaimed their goals, today’s multiculturalists are generally unwilling to engage the wider public in open debate about their methods, preferring to promote their agenda sub rosa.
Second, Abramson argues that since a certain amount of jury nullification goes on anyway, sub rosa, it should be brought out into the open.
The investigators said that a major purpose of the sub-rosa activities was to create so much confusion, suspicion and dissension that the Democrats would be incapable of uniting after choosing a presidential nominee.
The atmosphere of gloom and dislocation only thickened, though, and Marty found himself in over his head in a world of shadowy fixers, sub-rosa deputies of the C.I.A. and the mob.
Sub rosa comes from the Latin, literally “under the rose,” from the ancient association of the rose with confidentiality, the origin of which traces to a famous story in which Cupid gave Harpocrates, the god of silence, a rose to bribe him not to betray the confidence of Venus. Hence the ceilings of Roman banquet-rooms were decorated with roses to remind guests that what was spoken sub vino (under the influence of wine) was also sub rosa.
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