Word origins

• Principality of MonacoOfficial name of Monaco: a city-state in Western Europe.
• prisoner of warA combatant or soldier who is captured by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict.
• professional deformationA tendency to view things from the point of view of one's own profession or expertise, rather than from a broader or humane perspective.
• propaganda of the deedA politically motivated act of violence, meant to broadcast an ideological message and serve as catalyst to ignite a spirit of socialist revolution among the proletariat against perceived oppressors.
• pull someone's chestnuts out of the fireSynonym of pull someone's bacon out of the fire (“rescue someone, especially at the last moment”).
• quadrille paperPaper marked out with squares.
• recreotourismRecreational tourism.
• regional county municipalityA type of supralocal administrative division in the province of Quebec, Canada, roughly equivalent to counties in other countries as well as similar subdivisions elsewhere in the rest of Canada
• replacistA member of the elite that is said to be assisting in the implementation of the Great Replacement.
• Republic of the NigerOfficial name of Niger: a country in West Africa.
• rite of passageA ceremony or series of ceremonies, often very ritualized, to celebrate a passage or transition from one stage of a person's life to another.
• Rocky MountainsA range of mountains running from Northern New Mexico to Alaska.
• romaine lettuceA long-leaved variety of lettuce, Lactuca sativa var. longifolia.
• Saint Lawrence RiverA large river in Canada, connecting the Great Lakes with the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
• Saint VerhaegenAn annual student celebration in Brussels commemorating the founding of the Free University of Brussels in 1834 by Pierre-Théodore Verhaegen.
• sand cookieName given to various types of shortbread.
• Schollaert ChannelA channel in Antarctica.
• scientific socialismSociety governed by science.
• sea cucumberAn echinoderm of the class Holothuroidea, with an elongated body and leathery skin.
• sea sorrelacidweed
• secretary generalThe chief administrator of an international body such as NATO or the United Nations.
• secret of PolichinelleA supposed secret known to everyone.
• sectionaryA member of a French antiroyalist political party that was one of the driving forces of the French Revolution.
• set one's cap atTo choose a man as a potential husband (for a girl).
• short scaleA system of numeric names in which every new term with -illion greater than million is 1,000 times the previous term. (i.e., a billion is a thousand million.)
• silver whiteSynonym of white lead, particularly (historical) in the form used in 19th-century Parisian paints.
• sinologueA student or expert of Chinese studies.
• Sino-TibetanOf or relating to both China and Tibet.
• sister republicA European republic established by the forces of the First French Republic (or with French assistance) during the French Revolutionary Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
• sixty-nineThe cardinal number immediately following sixty-eight and preceding seventy.
• slice of lifeA work in a genre (of theater, cinema, literature, manga, etc.) that presents day-to-day happenings with no clear central plot and takes place in a world that mirrors our own.
• small textA small size of type, in French and Italian printing, usually conflated with brevier but technically treated as 7½ Didot points.
• snare-pictureA kind of artwork, introduced by Daniel Spoerri, in which objects found in chance positions (such as cutlery and crockery after a meal) are permanently fixed in those positions.
• spoil-paperAn unskilled writer.
• staircase witThe thinking of an idea or course of action too late to use it effectively, or the tendency to do so.
• state of siegeAn exceptional legal condition in which constitutional limits on the powers of the government are suspended, usually owing to military necessity and implying martial law.
• stoicityStoicism.
• St. Peter'sA village in Nova Scotia, Canada.
• Sun KingLouis XIV, king of France between 1643 and 1715
• System DA manner of responding to challenges with quick thinking and improvisation.
• tannic acidAny of various complex phenols extracted from the bark or galls of trees and used in tanning.
• terrible infantAn enfant terrible.
• thanatopraxisFuneral rites; death rituals or practices.
• that is to sayIn other words. Used to introduce a clarification, simplification, or explanation
• the game is not worth the candleThe process or result is not worth the effort.
• the more things change, the more they stay the sameTurbulent changes do not affect reality on a deeper level other than to cement the status quo.
• toilet waterA perfumed mixture of water and alcohol somewhat like cologne: synonym of eau de toilette.
• tower of silenceA low, cylindrical, open-topped tower where Zoroastrians place the bodies of deceased people to disintegrate from exposure and consumption by carrion birds such as vultures, the remaining bones being kept in an ossuary.
• Traditional EgyptianSynonym of Neo-Middle Egyptian.
• trial balloonA small balloon released into the sky to determine the direction and tendency of winds in the upper air before a manned ascent in a larger balloon; a ballon d'essai.
• two left handsLack of dexterity in either hand; being ambilevous.
• Upper VoltaA territory now coextensive with Burkina Faso.
• virtual realityA computer technology that simulates a real or imagined environment so that the user can interact with it as if physically present.
• well-made playA play belonging to a 19th-century neoclassical theatrical genre involving a tight plot and a climax close to the end. The story depends upon a key piece of information kept from some characters, and moves forward in a chain of actions that use minor reversals of fortune to create suspense.
• whip-arseA schoolmaster.
• white marriageAn unconsummated marriage.
• white peaceA peace agreement after a war, in which the parties do not impose onerous terms on one other.
• Wilhelmina BayA bay of Antarctica.
• winter melonBenincasa hispida, a species of the gourd family (Cucurbitaceae) commonly cultivated in Asia.
• yellow jerseyEspecially in the Tour de France: the yellow shirt worn by the leader of a stage of a cycling race, which is then awarded to the cyclist who wins the race with the fastest overall time.
• yellow vestA member of a French protest movement which started in late 2018 against rising fuel prices and advocates for economic justice and institutional political reforms.
• young TurkFrom the late-19th to the early-20th century, a member of a movement that campaigned for reform of the Ottoman Empire.
• zinc whiteA form of zinc oxide powder used as an artist's pigment.