Someone or something described as astute has or shows an ability to notice and understand things clearly. In other words, they are mentally sharp or clever. Astute can also describe someone who is crafty or wily.

// They made some astute observations about the movie industry.

// Astute readers will notice the error.

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“Geraldine and Claire were out walking their dog, Daisy. They felt as though Daisy was very astute at reacting to their mood, rather than reflecting it.” — Robbie Meredith, BBC, 4 Dec. 2024

Road Runner always bests Wile E. Coyote in the famous Looney Tunes cartoon series, but both characters help demonstrate meanings of the word astute. Astute comes from the Latin adjective astutus, meaning “cunning, crafty, or clever,” which in turn comes from the noun astus, meaning “craft.” The English adjective, accordingly, can describe both the crafty and the wily. It’s easy to see how this applies to Wile E. Coyote: in each episode, Road Runner races along the highways of the American Southwest while the coyote sets an elaborate trap for the bird, usually with the aid of some goofy product ordered from the fictitious Acme company. But alas, Road Runner is astute, as in “mentally sharp or clever.” In other words, he is not only quick on his feet, but quick on the uptake. He usually catches wind of the schemes, which ultimately backfire due to either the products’ chronic unreliability or Coyote’s own ineptitude. Road Runner, never captured or damaged, responds with a characteristic “Beep! Beep!” and runs off.

Jabberwocky refers to meaningless speech or writing.

// When the character gets angry or flustered, she talks in a sort of agitated jabberwocky that is really quite comical.

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"The British press now converted the book into their native tongue, that jabberwocky of bonkers hot takes and classist snark. Facts were wrenched out of context, complex emotions were reduced to cartoonish idiocy, innocent passages were hyped into outrages—and there were so many falsehoods." — J. R. Moehringer, The New Yorker, 15 May 2023

In his poem titled "Jabberwocky," from Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll warned readers about a frightful beast:

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

This nonsensical poem caught the public's fancy upon its publication in late 1871, and by the turn of the 20th century jabberwocky was being used as a generic term for meaningless speech or writing. The word bandersnatch has also seen some use as a general noun, with the meaning "a wildly grotesque or bizarre individual." It's a much rarer word than jabberwocky, though, and is entered only in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary.

To flounder is to struggle, whether that struggle is about moving or obtaining footing (as in “horses floundering through deep snow”) or about knowing what to do or say.

// Caught off-guard by the reporter’s question, the mayor floundered for a few moments before remembering the talking points he had rehearsed.

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“In those early days we floundered in a city we didn’t know. Tottenham in 1992 wasn’t the London we’d imagined. There were no top hats, no smog, no Holmes, no Watson, no ladies, no gents, and no afternoon tea. Not for us. We lived in a different London. In our London, people swore and spat, drank, quarreled, and laughed in fretful bursts. They spoke strange words in accents we couldn’t parse.” — Leo Vardiashvili, Hard By a Great Forest, 2024

There’s nothing fishy about flounder... the verb, that is. While the noun referring to a common food fish is of Scandinavian origin, the verb flounder, which dates to the late 16th century, is likely an alteration of an older verb, founder. The two verbs have been confused ever since. Today, founder is most often used as a synonym of fail, or, in contexts involving a waterborne vessel, as a word meaning “to fill with water and sink.” Formerly, it was also frequently applied when a horse stumbled badly and was unable to keep walking. It’s likely this sense of founder led to the original and now-obsolete meaning of flounder: “to stumble.” In modern use, flounder typically means “to struggle” or “to act clumsily”; the word lacks the finality of founder, which usually suggests complete collapse or failure, as that of a sinking ship.

Obtuse is a formal word that describes someone who is not able to think clearly or to understand what is obvious or simple. It can also suggest a refusal to see something apparent to others, or a willful ignorance of or insensitivity to the real facts of a situation. Obtuse can also describe something that is difficult to understand because it is unclear or imprecise.

// They were too obtuse to take a hint.

// The text is poorly written and downright obtuse.

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“Engineers love complicated problems, but we have a reputation for being obtuse about personal interactions. I often tell my fellow engineers, ‘You won't find any problems more complicated than those involving people.’” — Bill Austin, Inc.com, 15 Jan. 2025

There’s a lot to understand about obtuse, so we’ll get straight to the point. Obtuse comes from a Latin word, obtusus, meaning “dull” or “blunt.” It can describe a geometric angle that is not acute (in other words one that exceeds 90 degrees but is less than 180 degrees), a leaf that is rounded at its free end, or a person who isn’t thinking clearly or who otherwise refuses to see something apparent to others—if someone asks you if you’re being obtuse about something, they are not paying you a compliment. Another common sense (no pun intended) of obtuse related to apprehension is “hard to comprehend,” often applied to speech or writing that isn’t clearly expressed or thought out. This sense may have developed due to the influence of two similar-sounding words: abstruse, a formal word that also means “hard to comprehend,” and obscure, a word that can mean, among other things, “not readily understood or clearly expressed.”

Chutzpah is audacious boldness often paired with reckless self-confidence. Someone with chutzpah dares to do or say things that seem shocking to others.

// It took a lot of chutzpah to stand up to her boss the way she did.

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“... [Anne] Hathaway is not easily talked out of things she believes in. She took drama classes, understudied future Tony winner Laura Benanti in a production of Jane Eyre at 14, and had the chutzpah to write to an agent with her headshot at 15.” — Julie Miller, Vanity Fair, 25 Mar. 2024

The word chutzpah has been boldly circulating through English since the mid-1800s. It comes from the Yiddish word khutspe, which comes in turn from the Hebrew word ḥuṣpāh. The ch in chutzpah indicates a rasping sound from the back of the throat that exists in many languages, including Yiddish. That sound is not part of English phonology, so it follows that the c is sometimes dropped in both the pronunciation and spelling of the word. Some speakers of Yiddish feel that chutzpah has been diluted in English use, no longer properly conveying the monumental nature of the gall that is implied. A classic example can be found in Leo Rosten’s 1968 book The Joys of Yiddish, which defines chutzpah as “that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.”

To pertain to someone or something is to relate, refer, or have a connection to that person or thing.

// That law pertains only to people who live in this state.

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"There are certain rules of conduct that pertain to office dressing no matter how lax your HR department may be. No shirt, no shoes, no job. But keeping it professional doesn’t have to mean feeling stuffy or boring ..." — Aemilia Madden, The Cut, 20 Nov. 2024

Pertain comes to English via Anglo-French from the Latin verb pertinēre, meaning "to reach to" or "to belong." Pertinēre, in turn, was formed by combining the prefix per- (meaning "through") and tenēre ("to hold"). Tenēre is a popular root in English words and often manifests with the -tain spelling that can be seen in pertain. Other descendants include abstain, contain, detain, maintain, obtain, retain, and sustain, to name a few of the more common ones. Not every -tain word has tenēre in its ancestry, though. Ascertain, attain, and certain are certainly exceptions. And a few tenēre words don't follow the usual pattern: tenacious and tenure are two.

A non sequitur is a statement that either does not logically follow from, or is not clearly related to, what was previously said.

// We were talking about the new restaurant when she threw in some non sequitur about her dog.

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“Late on Saturday, as members of Congress scrambled to strike a deal for legislation that would raise the nation’s debt ceiling, they agreed to a total non sequitur in the text they would release the next day. After a series of late-in-the-game interventions by lobbyists and energy executives, the draft bill declared the construction and operation of a natural gas pipeline to be ‘required in the national interest.’ It wasn’t really germane to the debt ceiling, at least not in the literal sense.” — Jonathan Mingle, The New York Times, 1 June 2023

Non sequitur comes directly from Latin, in which language it means “it does not follow.” Although the Latin non sequitur can constitute a phrase or even a complete sentence, in English non sequitur is a noun, and thus it follows that the plural of non sequitur is non sequiturs. Borrowed into English in the 16th century by logicians, non sequitur initially referred to a conclusion that did not follow the statements preceding it. The meaning has now broadened to include statements that are seemingly unrelated to the topic at hand, or that seem to come out of the blue. So if you ever forget the definition of non sequitur, just remember: a penny saved is a penny earned.

Livid means "very angry, enraged, or furious." It may also describe things having a dark purplish or reddish color.

// The teen's parents were livid when they discovered she had lied about her whereabouts.

// He had a livid bruise on his right arm.

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"Activists and vulnerable nations were understandably livid at the failure to garner stronger commitments on the reduction of fossil fuel use, noting that ... fossil fuels are barely referenced despite being the primary driver of global emissions." — David Carlin, Forbes, 26 Nov. 2024

Livid has a colorful history. The Latin adjective livēre, "to be blue," gave rise to Latin lividus, meaning "discolored by bruising." French adopted the word along with its meaning as livide, which English borrowed in the 15th century as livid. For a few centuries the English word described bruised flesh as well as a shade of dark gray and other colors having a dark grayish tone. By the 18th century people were livid, first by being pale with extreme emotion ("a pale, lean, livid face" —Henry James), and then by being reddish with the same ("His face glared with a livid red." —James Francis Barrett). By the late 19th century a livid person could also be furiously angry, which is the word's typical application today.

A billet-doux is a love letter. The word's plural is billets-doux.

// Since their relationship was long-distance, the couple thought it would be cute to send each other billets-doux on their anniversary.

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"... [Jon] Batiste creates splendid music—those of us with kids likely experienced it lately on his soundtrack to the Pixar hit 'Soul.' 'Batiste: Movement 11',' the composition of his that’s nominated for a Grammy in a classical category, is nearly two minutes of intense, pensive joy tinctured with darkness, of the kind that people send to each other as a billet-doux …" — John McWhorter, The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2022

When love is in the air, it's time to put it down on paper. If you ever find yourself having trouble thinking of Valentine's Day or anniversary gift ideas, how about sending your sweetie pie a billet-doux that reminds them of your perfect meet-cute, or invites them to see the latest rom-com? Wouldn’t that be sweet? In French, billet doux means "sweet letter." English writers first fell in love with the word during the 17th century and have been committed to using it as a romantic alternative to "love letter" ever since.

Someone or something described as gallant is very courageous and brave. Gallant is also sometimes used to mean “large and impressive” (as in “a gallant ship”), or to describe someone who has or shows politeness and respect for women.

// Though they failed to reach the summit, the mountaineering team made a gallant attempt.

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“He turned to go, and was promptly whacked across the backside by Miss Chokfi. ‘Ouch?’ he said. ‘What was that for?’ She was standing up very straight and gallant, though it still left her a foot and a half shorter than him, with the office stapler ready by her hand. ‘That was for not stopping him,’ she said. ‘Was there anything else you need?’ ‘Not a thing,’ said Barrow, and tipped his hat to her.” — Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz: A Novel, 2024

If you’re familiar with the long-running comic strip “Goofus and Gallant,” created by Garry Cleveland Myers and published in the monthly children’s magazine Highlights, you likely have a particularly good sense of the meaning of the adjective gallant. In the comic, the character of Goofus demonstrates to young readers all sorts of bad habits and behaviors, while Gallant provides examples of proper conduct and comportment when in circumstances similar to those of his ill-mannered counterpart. The characters’ names were, of course, chosen with purpose. We record several different senses of gallant and all are compliments. Someone described as gallant may be smartly dressed, courteous and chivalrous, or valiant and brave. Goofus, bless his heart, is none of these things (while we do not define the adjective goofus, the Oxford English Dictionary does: “stupid, foolish”). Perhaps ironically, gallant comes from the Middle French verb galer, meaning “to squander in pleasures”; such squandering is something Goofus is likely to do, and Gallant never would.