scintillating
(SIN-tihl-ay-ting)
Sparkling, shining, dazzling.

This word comes from Latin scintilla, or "spark" -- the same "spark" or "tiny particle" found in the English phrase, not one scintilla. Latin scintilla also gave us another shiny English word, tinsel.

"When their conversation proved less than scintillating, Vanessa tried to impress her date by performing that little trick with the spoons."

scuttlebutt
(SKUT-ull-buht)
Gossip.

In nautical language, a scuttle is a hole cut out of ship in order to sink it. (That's why we speak of a project being scuttled, as in "They had to scuttle today's shuttle launch")
Sailing ships once kept their drinking water in a butt, or "cask" on deck. In order to keep the water fresh, a small hole was cut out of it. For this reason, the cask called the scuttlebutt. Naturally, sailors would gather at the scuttlebutt not only to get a drink, but to gossip, much the way we do around the water cooler or coffee machine today. Eventually the name of the place where rumors were exchanged came to be applied to the rumors themselves.

"The scuttlebutt is that there's a photo of the candidate dancing nude on top of a bar, but no one's been able to find it."

seersucker
(SEER-suck-urr)
A light, thin fabric with a striped, crinkled surface.

One of the most delicious words in all of English, seersucker comes ultimately from Persian shir o shakkar, or literally, "milk and sugar" -- a picturesque reference to the way its smooth white stripes alternate with rough ones that resemble thin lines of sugar.

"We weren't quite sure what to make of the fact that Marvin showed up at that black-tie dinner in a seersucker suit ."
 
sesquipedalian
(SESS-kwih-puh-DAY-lee-un)
1. Characteristic of a long word.
2. Given to using long words.

Sesquipedalian comes from the Latin root sesqui-, which means "one and a half" (as in sesquicentennial, which refers to a period of "150 years"). The pedal in sesquipedalian comes from the Latin stem ped- meaning "foot" (as in pedal and pedestrian).

"As my sesquipedalian friend is fond of observing, 'The word sesquipedalian is rather sesquipedalian.'"
 
shambles
(SHAM-bulls)
A mess.

Although today a shambles can be anything from a messy room or a disintegrating political career, this word originally had a more grisly meaning. It derives from Middle English shamel, which first referred to "a portable stall in a marketplace for the butchering and sale of meat." For some 300 years after that, the word shambles specifically meant "slaughterhouse."

"'I'd invite you in, but um.. well, you see, I've been out of town, and the people who were housesitting for me turned this place into a complete shambles, ' she fibbed."

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Pindead, Pindrop, Pincushion, Pinwheel, Pinochle