Category: Words That Strike My Fancy

offensive

• one who performs fellatio —often used as a generalized term of abuse

— Merriam-Webster

1. proceed to what follows without pause—used as a direction in music
2. perform the music that follows like that which has preceded —used as a direction in music

— Merriam-Webster

• marked by or exhibiting a fawning attentiveness

— Merriam-Webster

1. the configuration of stars especially at one’s birth
2. any of 88 arbitrary configurations of stars or an area of the celestial sphere covering one of these configurations; the constellation Orion
3. an assemblage, collection, or group of usually related persons, qualities, or things “… a constellation of … relatives, friends, and hangers-on ….” — Brendan Gill; a constellation of symptoms
4. pattern, arrangement; “… taking advantage of the shifting constellation of power throughout the known world,” H. D. Lasswell

— Merriam-Webster

1. a heading on a document.
   a category: such ideas naturally fall under the rubric of postmodernism.
2. a set of instructions or rules
   • a direction in a liturgical book as to how a church service should be conducted.
   • a statement of purpose or function: art for a purpose, not for its own sake, was his rubric.

• Adjective expressing contempt or disapproval: permissiveness is used almost universally as a pejorative term.
• Noun a word expressing contempt or disapproval: most of what he said was inflammatory and filled with pejoratives.

— Oxford Dictionary of English

1. a conception of or belief about something: children have different notions about the roles their parents; I had no notion of what her words meant.
2. an impulse or desire, especially one of a whimsical kind: she had a notion to ring her friend at work.
3. items used in sewing, such as buttons, pins, and hooks.

— Oxford Dictionary of English

• read (something), typically in a thorough or careful way: he has spent countless hours in libraries perusing art history books and catalogues.
• examine carefully or at length: Laura perused a Caravaggio.

— Oxford Dictionary of English

Medicine: a partial loss of vision or blind spot in an otherwise normal field of vision.

— Oxford Dictionary of English

: man-eater, cannibal

— Merriam-Webster