- imprimatur: official approval or sanction
- vainglory: excessive vanity
- anodyne: unlikely to offend, often deliberately so
- equanimity: calmness or composure in difficult situations
- third rail: dangerous area of discussion, commonly used in politics
- moratorium: a temporary suspension of activity
- disabuse: to rid oneself or another of error or fallacy
- cachet: prestige, or the state of being respected
- blithely: happily, or in a joyous manner
- specious: superficially plausible, but actually wrong
- expiate: to make amends, atone
- purgatory: a place or condition of suffering or expiation
- denouement: the final resolution of the intricacies of a plot
- ineluctable: inevitable, inescapable
- demure: reserved, modest, and shy
- grist: useful material to support an argument
- legerdemain: a display of skill or adroitness, wizardry
- l'esprit de l'escalier: thinking of the perfect retort too late
- leitmotif: a dominant or recurring theme
- waiflike: apparently homeless, starving, or forsaken
- salient: most noticeable or important