Rod's Word of the Day

  Febrile Adjective: marked or caused by fever : FEVERISH Context: The mood was febrile Source: The Economist , January 9, 2021, The Arabs get in line ,  p39

Dudgeon [ˈdəjən]  NOUN:  a feeling of offense or deep resentment. anger: Context: They churned out numerous ads and endless tweets, all in the highest dudgeon, hammering the 45th president.  Source: National Review, March 8, 2021, page 6. 

j’accuse j'ac·​cuse | \ zhä-kᵫz \ Definition of j'accuse : I accuse : bitter denunciation Context:  In his j’accuse, Mattis excoriates the president for setting Americans against one another. Source:  The Atlantic, June 3, 2020

marcescent [ˌmärˈses(ə)nt] mar•ces•cent ADJECTIVE botany (of leaves or fronds) withering but remaining attached to the stem. withering but not falling off, as a part of a plant. marcescence [marcescence] DEFINITION noun form of marcescent Source: My sister Kathleen Williams used the word in conversation while we were taking a walk.

I spent every afternoon walking through a ______ park that was very close to my house. Vicinal [vi-sə-nəl] 1. Adjacent, local 2. Of or relating to a neighborhood or limited area Word Genius

Clerisy: [ˈklerəsē] NOUN a distinct class of learned or literary people Context: One can believe simultaneously that the press must remain free and that it has built itself into a ersatz clerisy that regards its primary job not as conveying information in as effective a manner as possible but as translating writs for the benighted public, the better to save its soul.   Source: National review; Feb. 11, 2019; p 30; Bad, Press by Charles C. W. Cooke.

mawkish: [ˈmôkiSH] ADJECTIVE, sentimental in a feeble or sickly way. Context: Our national press is a joke. Vain, languid, excitable, morbid, duplicitous, cheap, insular, mawkish, and possessed of a chronic self-obsession that would make, Dorian Gray blush, .... Source: National review; Feb. 11, 2019; p 29; Bad, Press by Charles C. W. Cooke.