Paltry is a formal word that can describe something that is very small or too small in amount, or something that has little meaning, importance, or worth.

// They're offering a paltry salary for the position.

// The professor announced they'd finally had enough of the students' paltry excuses for being late to class.

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"When the witty and wry English fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett interviewed Bill Gates for GQ in 1995, only 39% of Americans had access to a home computer. According to the Pew Research Center, the number who were connected to the internet was a paltry 14%." — Ed Simon, LitHub.com, 25 Nov. 2024

Before paltry was an adjective, it was a noun meaning trash. That now-obsolete noun came from palt or pelt, a dialect term referring to a piece of coarse cloth, or more broadly, to trash. The adjective paltry, which dates to the mid-16th century, originally described things considered worthless, or of very low quality, but it's gained a number of meanings over the centuries, none of which are complimentary. A paltry house might be neglected and unfit for occupancy; a paltry trick is a trick that is low-down and dirty; a paltry excuse is a poor one; and a paltry sum is small and insufficient.

Bravado refers to confident or brave talk or behavior that is intended to impress other people.

// She tells the stories of her youthful exploits with enough bravado to invite suspicion that they're embellished a bit.

// The crew of climbers scaled the mountain with youthful bravado.

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"One problem that exists in the whitewater community overall is that people don't always understand the basic elements associated with water and their ignorance and bravado often lead to an incident where someone gets injured or killed." — Tracy Hines, The Durango (Colorado) Herald, 19 Oct. 2025

Displays of bravado may be show-offish, daring, reckless, and inconsistent with good sense—take, for example, the spectacular feats of stuntpeople—but when successful, they are still likely to be met with shouts of "bravo!" Celebrities, political leaders, corporate giants, and schoolyard bullies, however, may show a different flavor of bravado: one that suggests an overbearing boldness that comes from arrogance or from being in a position of power. The word bravado originally comes from the Italian adjective bravo, meaning "wild" or "courageous," which English can also thank for the more common brave.

Something or someone described as enigmatic is mysterious and difficult to understand.

// The band’s lead singer has always been an enigmatic figure, refusing to use social media or even sit for interviews.

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“For thirty years, Perlefter’s carpet hung peacefully on the wall in the museum, delighting visitors with its beauty, its unusual palette, enigmatic motifs and its echoes of four empires.” — Dorothy Armstrong, Threads of Empire: A History of the World in Twelve Carpets, 2025

The noun enigma can refer to a puzzle, a riddle, a question mark. It’s no mystery then, that the adjective enigmatic describes what is hard to solve or figure out. An enigmatic person, for example, may be someone with a bit of je ne sais quoi. What’s behind a stranger’s enigmatic smile? Your guess is as good as ours. Does the vocabulary in the short story you’re reading render it a tad enigmatic? Better grab a dictionary! Both enigma and enigmatic come from the Greek verb ainissesthai, meaning “to speak in riddles.”

Sensibility is a formal word often used in its plural form to refer someone’s personal or cultural approach to what they encounter, as in “the speaker made sure to tailor his speech to the sensibilities of his audience.” Sensibility can also be used for the kind of feelings a person tends to have in general, as well as for the ability to feel and understand emotions.

// Many older cartoons feel out of line with modern sensibilities.

// She brought an artistic sensibility to every facet of her life, not just her celebrated painting.

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“[Lady] Gaga’s absurdist sensibilities have long been an underrated facet of her work—probably because she’s so good at delivering them with a straight face.” — Rich Juzwiak, Pitchfork, 10 Mar. 2025

The meanings of sensibility run the gamut from mere sensation to excessive sentimentality, but we’re here to help you make sense of it all. In between is a capacity for delicate appreciation, a sense often pluralized. In Jane Austen’s books, sensibility is mostly an admirable quality she attributes to, or finds lacking in, her characters: “He had ... a sensibility to what was amiable and lovely” (of Mr. Elliot in Persuasion). In Sense and Sensibility, however, Austen starts out by ascribing to Marianne sensibleness, on the one hand, but an “excess of sensibility” on the other: “Her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation ... she was everything but prudent.”

To inoculate a person or animal is to introduce immunologically active material (such as an antibody or antigen) into them especially in order to treat or prevent a disease. Inoculate can also mean "to introduce (something, such as a microorganism) into a suitable situation for growth," and in figurative use, it can mean "to protect as if by inoculation" or "to introduce something into the mind of."

// In 1796, the English physician Edward Jenner discovered that inoculating people with cowpox could provide immunity against smallpox.

// The cheese is inoculated with a starter culture to promote fermentation.

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"Truffle farmers ... inoculate oak or hazelnut seedlings with truffle spores, plant the seedlings and wait patiently often a decade or more for the underground relationship to mature. The eventual harvest is a reward for years of cooperation between tree and fungus." — David Shubin, The Weekly Calistogan (Calistoga, California), 30 Oct. 2025

If you think you see a connection between inoculate and ocular ("of or relating to the eye"), you have a good eye—both words look back to oculus, the Latin word for "eye." But what does the eye have to do with inoculation? Our answer lies in the original use of inoculate in Middle English: "to insert a bud into a plant for propagation." The Latin oculus was sometimes applied to things that were seen to resemble eyes, and one such thing was the bud of a plant. Inoculate was later applied to other forms of engrafting or implanting, including the introduction of vaccines as a preventative against disease.

Something described as frowsy has a messy or dirty appearance.

// The lamp, discovered in a neglected corner of a frowsy antique store, turned out to be quite valuable.

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“Footage from his early shows is sublime. In one, models with frowsy hair totter along the catwalk in clogs, clutching—for reasons not explained—dead mackerel.” — Jess Cartner-Morley, The Guardian (London), 4 Mar. 2024

Despite its meanings suggesting neglect and inattention, frowsy has been kept in steady rotation by English users since the late 1600s. The word (which is also spelled frowzy and has enjoyed other variants over the centuries) first wafted into the language in an olfactory sense describing that which smells fusty and musty—an old factory, perhaps, or “corrupt air from animal substance,” which Benjamin Franklin described as “frouzy” in a 1773 letter. Frowsy later gained an additional sense describing the appearance of something (or someone) disheveled or unkempt. Charles Dickens was a big fan of this usage, writing of “frowzy fields, and cowhouses” in Dombey and Son and “a frowzy fringe” of hair hanging about someone’s ears in The Old Curiosity Shop. Both senses are still in use today.

Alchemy refers to a power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way.

// They practiced their alchemy in the kitchen, turning a pile of vegetables and legumes into an extravagant meal.

// The shopkeepers hoped for some sort of economic alchemy that would improve business.

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“Forty years ago, the Nintendo Entertainment System hit North American shores, singlehandedly resurrecting the video-game market after its infamous post-Atari crash in 1983. To do so, it needed a heavy hitter, a killer must-have title that could put butts in seats and lock audiences into the tube TV until their eyes bleed. That game was Super Mario Bros.—a product so potent, its exact alchemy has never been re-created.” — Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 18 Oct. 2025

Alchemy—the medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy that focused on the attempt to change less valuable metals into gold, to find a universal cure for disease, and to discover a means of prolonging life indefinitely—was practiced in much of the ancient world, from China and India to Greece. Alchemy as practiced in ancient Egypt was later revived in 12th-century Europe through translations of Arabic texts into Latin, which led to the development of pharmacology and to the rise of modern chemistry. The word alchemy was first used in English in the 1400s, and by the mid-1500s it had developed figurative senses relating to powers and processes that can change or transform things in mysterious or impressive ways.

To cajole someone is to use flattery or gentle urging to persuade them to do something or to give you something. Cajole can also mean “to deceive with soothing words or false promises.” It is often used with the word into.

// She cajoled her partner into going to the party with her.

// They hoped to cajole him into cooperating with local officials.

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“... I cajoled my father into letting me use the company season tickets which were supposed to be used for clients, but sometimes wound up in my hands.” — Sal Maiorana, The Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, 22 Oct. 2025

However hard we try, we can’t cajole the full history of cajole from the cages of obscurity. We know that it comes from the French verb cajoler, meaning “to give much attention to; to make a fuss over; to flatter or persuade with flattery,” and goes back to the Middle French cajoller, meaning “to flatter out of self-interest.” But the next chapter of the word’s history may, or may not, be for the birds: it’s possible that cajoller relates to the Middle French verb cageoller, used for the action of a jay or other bird singing. Cageoller, in turn, traces back to gaiole, a word meaning “birdcage” in a dialect of Picardy.

A pseudonym is a name that someone (such as a writer) uses instead of their real name.

// bell hooks is the pseudonym of the American writer Gloria Jean Watkins.

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“Edgar Wright, the filmmaker and genre specialist who has given the world modern gems like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Baby Driver, estimates he was around 13 years old when he read ‘the Bachman Books,’ a collection of four novels that Stephen King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman during the early years of his career.” — Don Kaye, Den of Geek, 9 Oct. 2025

Pseudonym has its origins in the Greek adjective pseudōnymos, which means “bearing a false name.” French speakers adopted the Greek word as the noun pseudonyme, and English speakers later modified the French word into pseudonym. Many celebrated authors have used pseudonyms. Samuel Clemens wrote under the pseudonym “Mark Twain,” Charles Lutwidge Dodgson assumed the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll,” and Mary Ann Evans used “George Eliot” as her pseudonym.

Iconoclast originally referred to someone who destroys religious images or who opposes their veneration. It is now used to refer broadly to anyone who criticizes or opposes beliefs and practices that are widely accepted.

// The comedian had developed a reputation as a contrarian and an iconoclast for whom no topic was off-limits.

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“Chicago will be the only U.S. city to see the 92-year-old iconoclast Yoko Ono’s new show. ... ‘Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind’ goes back to the start of the artist’s career in the mid-’50s, and the role she played in the creative worlds of New York, Tokyo and London.” — Carrie Shepherd, Axios, 1 Apr. 2025

Iconoclast comes from the Middle Greek word eikonoklástēs, which translates literally as “image destroyer.” While the destruction wrought by today’s iconoclasts is figurative—in modern use, an iconoclast is someone who criticizes or opposes beliefs and practices that are widely accepted—the first iconoclasts directed their ire at religious icons, those representations of sacred individuals used as objects of veneration. The Byzantine Empire’s Iconoclastic Controversy occurred in the 8th and 9th centuries, but the word iconoclast didn’t find its way to English until the 17th century. Figurative use came later still.