In high school, at my father’s suggestion, I wrote down and looked up every word and phrase that I came across and didn’t know the meaning of. That exercise helped to increase my vocabulary considerably. Unfortunately, I’ve fallen out of that habit for several years, but now I have begun again. In just a few weeks, I’ve encountered the following unfamiliar words. Though most of them aren’t a part of my vocabulary yet, I’m working on them.

  • abattoir
  • alembic
  • aperçu
  • apodictic
  • arbitrage
  • arbitrageur
  • architectonic
  • arrogate
  • atelier
  • bespoke
  • bluestocking
  • brio
  • canard
  • cantonment
  • catafalque
  • catamite
  • cognoscenti
  • comme il faut
  • diaphanous
  • empyrean
  • eschutcheon
  • fatuous
  • fiducial
  • frisson
  • gendarmie
  • haptic
  • hubris
  • ingénue
  • limpid
  • littoral
  • loess
  • manqué
  • maven
  • mesalliance
  • ne plus ultra
  • pabulum
  • pace
  • parastatal
  • parvenu
  • pastiche
  • pesher
  • petite marmite
  • pièce de résistance
  • postil
  • preterition
  • pronaos
  • raconteur
  • senescent
  • seraglio
  • sotto voce
  • stentorian
  • sub-rosa
  • tergiversate
  • tergiversate
  • trompe-l’oeil
  • vertiginous