(Let no anti-preposition-ender decree that this theme should be titled "Words Into Which I've Recently Run".)

If we'd only take time to notice, we'd see what a richness of words we bump into just in our ordinary, day-to-day life. As this theme will illustrate. Each of its words is one I came across this week, without any special effort.

bona fide – genuine; real

Oh when you're talkin' bona fide? That means you're telling the real straight-up truth.
– television ad (punning on "chicken with the bone in")

I once had a really skinny dog, sort of a bony Fido.

When Cher divorced Sonny, she was no longer Bono--Fide.

This term is used with humorous results in the movie, "O Brother Where Art Thou."

cri de coeur – a passionate appeal or complaint [French, ‘cry from the heart’]

The Wall Street Journal's comment on Obama's health-care address to American Medical Association:

Mr. Obama's cri de coeur might have had more credibility had he not specifically ruled out the one policy to deter frivolous suits. … "I'm not advocating caps on malpractice awards."

– Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2009. Relevant part of Obama's address is here, at 30:40.]

Today's word was found on a trip to the zoo.

One meaning is "a helmet". That's rather uninteresting, in that there'd be little reason to use the word when you could just as well say "helmet". The fun is in the ancillary, zoological meaning.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

casque – a helmet, or an anatomical structure that suggests a helmet

[T]he red-knobbed hornbill, in Indonesia … seems to play an important role in maintaining and regenerating the rain forest. … Thirty inches long and weighing more than five pounds, the bird carries a huge curved bill that is topped, in the male, by a large red casque. The female has a somewhat smaller bill and a smaller, yellow casque.
– New York Times, Jan. 16, 1996

Another bird with a prominent casque is the cassowary, six feet tall, which the Guinness Book of World Records calls the most dangerous bird in the world.

quote:

Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Words are chameleons, which reflect the colour of their environment.
-Learned Hand, jurist

British spelling? I'm betting that your source has in wrong, since Hand was a U.S. jurist, but I'll check.

I questioned that too, Shu, but let it stand with the British spelling. Spelling is chameleon-like too!

Two advertisements seen.

The first was spotted in the window of a small Mexican hole-in-the-wall restaurant. You don't want to cook tonight, but don't want to go out to dine and be seen in public?

Got agoraphobia? We deliver!

And this from a drug advertisement. I thought the word I spotted was an error, but it turns out to be a perfectly respectable word, used principally in the medical context.

Patients on antidepressants and their families or caregivers should watch for new or worsening symptoms, unusual changes in behavior, thoughts of suicide, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, difficulty sleeping, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, restlessness, or extreme hyperactivity.

agoraphobia – an abnormal fear of open or public places
impulsivity – the character of acting on impulse, without reflection or forethought. (Hence impulsivist, one who acts on impulse.)

An interesting quote, seen in the newspaper.

lustrate – to purify by means of ceremony

All books about all revolutions begin with a chapter that describes the decay of tottering authority or the misery and sufferings of the people. They should begin with a psychological chapter, one that shows how a harassed, terrified man suddenly breaks his terror, stops being afraid. This unusual process, sometimes accomplished in an instant like a shock or a lustration, demands illuminating. Man gets rid of fear and feels free. Without that there would be no revolution.
– Ryszard Kapuscinski's, Shah of Shahs (1982)