Scintilla

Wordy Wednesday’s Wonderful Word of the Week

scintilla

• a minute or scarcely detectable amount; an iota or trace
• a sparkling glittering particle; a spark; a flash

Sounds like: sin TILL uh

Origin: Latin. Literally means “particle of fire, spark, glittering speck, atom.”

Example: Everyone agreed that Jeff was lucky to benefit from his grandfather’s estate because there was not even a scintilla of drive or ambition detectable in his character.

Legerdemain

Wordy Wednesday’s Wonderful Word of the Week

legerdemain

• sleight of hand
• trickery; deception
• a show of skill or deceitful cleverness

Sounds like: ledge ur duh MAINE

Origin: Middle English from Old French. Literally meaning “light of hand.”

Example: Ryan thought that he was fooling his wife, telling her he spent a long weekend at a “meditation retreat” in the mountains when he was actually fishing with his buddies, but Sarah had the last laugh: She had gotten him to pay for weekly visits of the “cleaning woman,” Shonda, with whom she had been carrying on a passionate affair for two years, a cunning bit of domestic legerdemain that still brought a guilty smile to her lips.

Simulacra

Wordy Wednesday’s Wonderful Word of the Week

simulacra

• an image or representation
• an unreal or vague semblance

Sounds like: sim you LAY cruh

Example: Driving slowly through the “golf course community” where my old friend recently moved, past the oversized mini-mansions with glued on decorations and fake stucco, I felt as though I were looking at a saccharine simulacra of what used to be called “the good life,” but with none of the substance — or even the pleasure — of the real thing.

Vexation

Wordy Wednesday’s Wonderful Word of the Week

vexation

• irritation or annoyance
• anger produced by some annoying irritation
• something or someone that causes anxiety; a source of unhappiness
• the act of troubling or annoying someone

Sounds like: vek SAY shun

Example: Drunken yelling matches between brawny lesbian truckers after closing time at the Egyptian Lounge next door are a constant source of vexation for all our housemates, but especially for the two whose windows face the parking lot where the drama unfolds nightly.

Skullduggery

Wordy Wednesday’s Wonderful Word of the Week

skullduggery

• Crafty deception or trickery or an instance of it
• Verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way

Sounds like: skull DUG uh ree

Example: Some argue that Reagan’s carefully scripted speaches and flag-waving, feel-good rallies were the high point of twentieth century political skullduggery.

Vertiginous

Wordy Wednesday’s Wonderful Word of the Week

vertiginous

• Liable or threatening to cause vertigo
• Having or causing a whirling sensation
• Turning about an axis; revolving, whirling, spinning
• Affected by vertigo; dizzy

Sounds like: vir TIHJ en us

Example: Crossing the Sierra’s in my unreliable little U-Haul, especially navigating the insidious switchbacks and vertiginous drops of the Kingsbury Grade heading into Tahoe, was a harrowing, white-knuckle drive so exausting that it took two days of R&R to get me back on the road again.