Rumor has it that tsuwm, after long hiatus, has restarted his marvelous word-of-the-day. Clearly this is a challenge to me to do the same for mine. Though I can’t hope to meet his standard, I joyously take up the gauntlet. Welcome back, old friend!

mordant — (especially of humor) sharp or critical; caustic; biting
also noun: (when dyeing cloth, etc.) an additive to “fix” the dye; that is, to keep it from running or bleeding out

Bonus word:
fraught — causing or characterized by emotional distress or tension
[fraught with — filled with a specified element, as fraught with danger]
[from the sense of "laden" (as a ship); cognate with freight]

In her previous fiction, most of it mordantly witty, Ms. Shriver has consistently delivered sophisticated treatments of fraught subjects. These include a school massacre, America’s health-care system, terrorism and the media, and obesity.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wordcrafter,

Great to see you again, Wordcrafter!

I second that! Keep it up!

Thanks for the encouragement!
(And Geoff, I got the reference.)

sans culotte — (usually disparaging) an extreme radical or revolutionary

(commenting on the earliest years of the French Revolution)
It cost money to turn a nation upside down, and the sans culottes could scrape up only so much by melting down church bells and expropriating noble estates. Anticipating modern central-banking practices, [they] turned to the printing press.

garrulous – talkative – usually in a negative sense of being long and rambling, wordy, or trivial; and tedious, tiresome and annoying

Like Mr. Biden, [Hubert] Humphrey was a garrulous establishment liberal and vice president who had spent decades in the Senate. Each man was nominated by a divided Democratic Party. Both were dogged by the enthusiasm for their more progressive runners-up, Sens. Eugene McCarthy and Bernie Sanders.

saltire – (accent on first syllable) an X-shaped cross (especially white on a blue background, as a national emblem of Scotland)

[A] globally popular British singer-songwriter known most simply as Adele posted a photograph of herself with her hair twisted into “Bantu knots”—small buns that are an African style of coiffure. She also wore a bikini top in the distinctive pattern of Jamaica’s flag, a gold saltire with green and black triangles. [ellipses omitted]

(random fact: Jamaica’s flag is the only national flag with no red, no white, and no blue. Very good-looking.)
Sometimes a picture makes the word memorable.

Hi, wordcrafter! How great to hear from you!

This is a brand-new word for me. I looked it up & found it's based on the "St Andrew's cross;" he was crucified on a diagonal cross. But the etymology seems unconnected: word comes from Latin "saltare" to dance, Old French "saultoir" stirrup cord, stile [?], thence to Middle English. Etymonline.com suggests, "The connection between a stirrup and the diagonal cross is perhaps the two deltoid shapes that comprise the cross."