pablum
[PAB-luhm] Something (as writing or speech) that is trite, insipid, or simplistic.
Examples:
1) I imagined his thoughts had been solely of me, that the letter would be filled with love sonnets, that it would gush with the same romantic pablum I devoured from those movie star magazines. (Kate Walbert, "The Gardens of Kyoto")
2) ...The mindless pablum of celebrity journalism, the endless stories about self-promoting actors and movie stars who pretend they dislike the press. (Richard Stengel, "It Ain't Necessarily Bad That Nobody's Interested in Politics", Time, March 2, 2001)
Etymology:
"Pablum" comes from Pablum, a trademark used for a bland soft cereal for infants.



pachyderm

• pachydermatous

[PAK-ih-derm]
any of various nonruminant mammals (as an elephant, a rhinoceros, or a hippopotamus) of a former group (Pachydermata) that have hooves or nails resembling hooves and usually thick skin; especially: elephant
Example:
The archetypal Seuss hero . . . was Horton, a conscientious pachyderm who was duped by a lazy bird into sitting on her egg. (Eric Pace, "The New York Times", September 26, 1991)
Etymology:
"Pachydermos" in Greek means literally "having thick skin" (figuratively, it means "dull" or "stupid"). It's from "pachys", meaning "thick", and "derma", meaning "skin". In the late 1700s the French naturalist Georges Cuvier adapted the Greek term as "pachyderme" and used it for any one of a whole assemblage of hoofed animals having thickish skin: elephants, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, tapirs, horses, pigs, and more. English speakers learned the word from French in the early 1800s. The adjective "pachydermatous" means "relating to the pachyderms" or "thickened" (referring to skin). Not too surprisingly, it also means "callous" or "insensitive" (somewhat unfairly to elephants, which are actually known to be rather sensitive).


pack heat

• pack
• heat

To carry a gun.
Examples:
1) Be careful when you're out late at night - you never know who might be packing heat. 2) You never had to tell Dirty Harry to pack heat - he was always carrying a .44 Magnum.
Etymology:
"Heater" is slang for a gun, and "pack" means 'a container' or 'to fold up' or 'to put away'. So when you "pack heat" you become a container for a gun - or put a gun on your body, in your clothes.

paean
[PEE-uhn]
1. A joyous song of praise, triumph, or thanksgiving.
2. An expression of praise or joy.
Examples:
1) Bud Guthrie had written a paean to the grizzly, calling it the "living, snorting incarnation of the wildness and grandeur of America." (David Whitman, "The Return of the Grizzly," The Atlantic, September 2000)
2) If you look at what British writers were saying about England before and after the war, you read for the most part a seamless paean to the virtues of the nation's strength and identity. (Hugo Young, "This Blessed Plot")
Etymology:
"Paean" comes from Latin "paean" (a hymn of thanksgiving, often addressed to god Apollo), from Greek "paian", from "Paia", a title of Apollo.


paint the town red

• paint the town
• red
• paint
• town

To have a wild time; to enjoy oneself immensely.
Examples:
1) We graduated! Let's paint the town red! 2) Lara and I painted the town red last night. I've never had so much fun before. Etymology:
The origin of this phrase is unclear. Some scholars trace it back to ancient Rome, where soldiers would celebrate a victory by painting the walls of a town with blood from its defeated soldiers. Other scholars believe the phrase comes from the American frontier, where 'paint' referred to liquor and 'red' referred to pleasurable but illegal activities.

paladin
[PAL-uh-din]
1. A knight-errant; a distinguished champion of a medieval king or prince; as, the paladins of Charlemagne.
2. A champion of a cause.
Examples:
1) Once in power, though, Clinton stumbled repeatedly over obstacles created by the schizoid campaign he had conducted, in which he had cast himself simultaneously as the champion of a more conservative Democratic credo and as a paladin of the party's traditional activism. (Robert Shogan, "The Fate of the Union")
2) Even Columbia University economist Jagdisch Baghwati, the paladin of free trade, calls for controls on capital flow. ("Terrors in the Sun," The Nation, June 29, 1998)
3) Matisse, paladin of modernism, is a long way from us now. (Robert Hughes, "The Color of Genius," Time, September 28, 1992)
4) ...The celebrated but distrusted paladin of imperialism and the romantic conception of life, the swashbuckling militarist, the vehement orator and journalist, the most public of public personalities in a world dedicated to the cultivation of private virtues, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Conservative Government then in power, Mr. Winston Churchill. (Isaiah Berlin, "Mr. Churchill," The Atlantic, September 1949)
Etymology:
"Paladin" derives from Late Latin "palatinus" ("an officer of the palace"), from Latin "palatium" ("royal residence, palace"), from Palatium, one of the seven hills of Rome, on which Augustus had his residence.


palaver
[puh-LAV-er]
1. Idle talk.
2. Talk intended to beguile or deceive; misleading or beguiling speech.
3. A parley, usually between persons of different backgrounds or cultures or levels of sophistication; a talk; hence, a public conference and deliberation.
4. To talk idly.
5. To flatter; to cajole.
Examples:
1) The spaceship crew settles down for a long bout of philosophical discourse that sounds suspiciously like teatime palaver in an Oxford University common room: "Time is a construct of thought too. In High Space this is all more nakedly obvious, is it not? Space isn't a thing." (Gerald Jonas, "Science Fiction", New York Times, July 8, 1990)
2) For me, a young writer about to have yet another commencement address inflicted on him, it was a wonderful surprise - an honest and detailed talk, free of the usual piety and palaver that clutter those speeches. (Alan Lelchuk, "The Death of the Jewish Novel", New York Times, November 25, 1984)
3) He is glad to palaver of his many adventures, as a boy will whistle after sundown in a wood. (O. Henry, "The Man Higher Up")
4) Ask folks involved why they opted to make [the movie], and you're not going to get a lot of palaver about high art and noble intentions. (Joshua Rich, "Entertainment Weekly", May 19, 2006)
Etymology:
During the 18th century, Portuguese and English sailors often met during trading trips along the West African coast. This contact prompted the English to borrow the Portuguese "palavra," which usually means "speech" or "word" but was used by Portuguese traders with the specific meaning "discussions with natives." The Portuguese word traces back to the Late Latin "parabola" ("proverb", "parable", "speech"), from Greek "parabole", meaning "juxtaposition" or "comparison", from "paraballein" ("to compare"), from "para-" ("beside") + "ballein" ("to throw").

palimpsest
[PAL-imp-sest] 1. A manuscript, usually of papyrus or parchment, on which more than one text has been written with the earlier writing incompletely erased and still visible. 2. An object or place whose older layers or aspects are apparent beneath its surface.
Examples:
1) The manuscript is a palimpsest consisting of vellum leaves from which the "fluent and assured script" of the original Archimedes text and 55 diagrams had been washed or scraped off so that the surface could be used for new writings. (Roger Highfield, "Eureka! Archimedes text is to be sold at auction", Daily Telegraph, October 3, 1998)
2) Each is a palimpsest, one improvisation partly burying another but leaving hints of it behind. (Robert Hughes, "Delight for Its Own Sake", Time, January 22, 1996)
3) It's a mysterious many-layered palimpsest of a metropolis where generations of natives and visitors have left their mark, from Boadicea and the Romans, through the Middle Ages and the Elizabethan era to the present. (Philip French, "Jack the knife", The Observer, February 10, 2002)
Etymology:
"Palimpsest" is from Latin "palimpsestus", from Greek "palimpsestos" ("scraped or rubbed again"), from "palin" ("again") + "psen" ("to rub (away)").


palindrome
A word, verse, or sentence (as "Able was I ere I saw Elba"), or a number (as 1881) that reads the same backward or forward.
Example:
Hannah was amused when Otto pointed out that they both had first names that were palindromes.
Etymology:
Palindromic wordplay is nothing new. Palindromes (literally "running back (again)")
have been around since at least the days of ancient Greece, and the English name for them comes from two Greek words, "palin", meaning "back" or "again", and "dramein", meaning "to run". Nowadays, we can all appreciate a clever palindrome (such as "Drab as a fool, aloof as a bard"), or even a simple one like "race car", but in the past palindromes were more than just smart wordplay. Until well into the 19th century some folks thought palindromes were actually magical, and they carved them on walls or amulets to protect people or property from harm.
Some more palindromes:
1) Madam, I'm Adam. (Adam's first words to Eve?)
2) A man, a plan, a canal - Panama! (The history of the Panama Canal in brief.)
3) Able was I ere I saw Elba. (Napoleon's lament.)
4) Mom, Dad.


pall-mall

• pell-mell

1. Pall-Mall - a street in London where many private clubs are located, the main street of St. James district.
Example:
The "Pall Mall Gazette", an evening newspaper, was founded in February, 1865 by Frederick Greenwood and George Smith.
2. The brand of American cigarettes.
Example:
A truly fine cigarette provides in fact what other cigarettes claim in theory - a smoother, less irritating smoke - "Pall Mall".
3. A 17th century game; a wooden ball was driven along an alley with a mallet. Etymology, more examples, related words:
From Italian "pallamaglio", "palla" ("ball") and maglio" ("mallet"), obsolete game of French origin ("pallemaille"), resembling croquet. An English traveler in France mentions it early in the 17th century, and it was introduced into England in the second quarter of that century.
Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary for 2 April 1661: "So I into St. James's Park, where I saw the Duke of York playing at Pelemele, the first time that ever I saw the sport." It's name was more usually spelled "pall-mall", but he wrote it as he heard it in upper-class speech. Pepys saw it played where London's Pall Mall now runs (the game was the direct origin of the street name) but the course was shifted later that same year, it is said because dust from royal carriages disrupted games. The new course was about 800 yards (740 metres) long, laid out where The Mall now lies. Pall-mall seems to have been a cross between croquet and golf, using a mallet and a boxwood ball a foot (30 cms) in diameter. The players drove the ball along the course by taking immense swings at it with the mallet. To end the game they then had to shoot the ball through a suspended hoop at one end. The person who required the fewest shots won. Some writers have sought a connection between "pall-mall" and "pell-mell", the latter meaning something that happens in a rushed, confused, or disorderly manner, in part because of Pepys's spelling and in part because of the supposed nature of the game. But this has a quite different source: French "p?le-m?le", ultimately a reduplication from "mesler" - "to mix".

palliate
[PAL-ee-ayt]
1. To reduce in violence (said of diseases, etc.); to lessen or abate.
2. To cover by excuses and apologies; to extenuate.
3. To reduce in severity; to make less intense.
Examples:
1) I had held a hope that she would take my class, that I would have the chance not only to cope with but to help palliate her pain. (Steven Polansky, "Pantalone", Harper's Magazine, February 1997)
2) He was widely praised in both East and West as a humanitarian seeking to palliate the excesses of a cruel regime. (Joseph Finder, "The Trade in Spies: Not All Black or White", New York Times, June 22, 1993)
3) The response to industrial decline was to cling even more to the British state, which had the resources to palliate its effects, and ease a transformation to a new economy - or, indeed, as many hoped, to prop up the declining industries. (Allan Massie, "Scotland not so brave in push for home rule", Irish Times, September 4, 1997)
Etymology, related words:
"Palliate" derives from Late Latin "palliatus", past participle of "palliare" ("to cloak, to conceal"), from Latin "pallium" ("cloak").
Long ago, the ancient Romans had a name for the cloak-like garb that was worn by the Greeks (distinguishing it from their own "toga"); the name was "pallium." In the 15th century, English speakers modified the Late Latin word "palliatus," which derives from "pallium," to form "palliate." Our term, used initially as both an adjective and a verb, never had the literal Latin sense referring to the cloak you wear, but it took on the figurative "cloak" of protection. Specifically, the verb "palliate" meant (as it still can mean) "to lessen the intensity of a disease." Nowadays, "palliate" can be used as a synonym of "gloss" or "whitewash" when someone is attempting to disguise something bad.


pallor
[PAL-urh]
Unusual or extreme paleness.
Examples:
1) Across the table, Joseph appeared pale, as if he never spent enough time out-of-doors on golf courses, in ballparks, or on fishing boats. He had earned this bureaucrat's pallor honestly, behind his desk, under fluorescent light, in candlelit church ceremonials. (Eugene Kennedy, "My Brother Joseph")
2) Although we had known each other for a couple of years, I don't think that I had ever seen you by daylight before, so I was surprised by the pallor of your skin. (David Bourdon, "A Letter to Charlotte Moorman," Art in America, June 2000)
Etymology:
"Pallor" is from Latin, from "pallere" ("to be pale").


palooka
[puh-LOO-kuh]
1. An inexperienced or incompetent boxer.
2. An oaf, a lout.
Example:
Before Ali, they say, boxing was just a bunch of palookas punching each other. (Joseph D. O'Brian, "American Heritage", October 1991)
3. A rookie.
4. A horse with very little chance of winning.
History:
The origin of "palooka" is unknown, though various theories have been put forth (some sources credit the baseball player and sportswriter Jack Conway with the coinage, for example). "Palooka" first appeared in print in 1924, and may have been popularized by a comic strip titled "Joe Palooka" (by Ham Fisher), which began a few years later. The probable connection between Fisher's comic and "palooka" only adds to the mystery surrounding this term, however. Joe Palooka was a boxer who was neither incompetent nor clumsy and oafish, and yet the word "palooka" came to have these negative meanings.

palpable
[PAL-puh-buhl]
1. Capable of being touched and felt; perceptible by the touch; as, "a palpable form."
2. Easily perceptible; plain; distinct; obvious; readily detected; as, "palpable imposture; palpable absurdity; palpable errors."
Example:
1) A sense of devastation from the attacks remains palpable, but so too is a sense of rejuvenation. ("Onwards and upwards," The Economist, May 23, 2002)
2) Crowds at Kennedy-related sites around Washington were no larger than usual yesterday, but the emotion was palpable. ("Grieving Public Seeks Ways to Say Goodbye to the JFK They Knew," Washington Post, July 22, 1999)
3) The loss of potential donors because of tattoos has been palpable if not drastic, blood-center officials said. ("Tattoo surprise: Many find body art bars them as blood donors," San Francisco Chronicle, July 19, 1999)
4) The movie's emotional potential, lying in wait for two hours, will sneak up on viewers, hitting them with a palpable thud. ("Crime tale told with restraint," Dallas Morning News, May 10, 1999)
5) Andre Garner and Dan Sklar... have clarion voices and the kind of palpable emotional heat and fiery commitment that can transform a song into a full-fledged little drama. (Review of "Songs for a New World," Chicago Sun-Times, December 8, 1998)
Etymology:
"Palpable" derives ultimately from Latin "palpabilis", from "palpare" ("to touch gently").


panacea

• cure-all
• Prunella vulgaris
• Prunella
• vulgaris
• self-heal

[pan-uh-SEE-uh]
A remedy for all ills or difficulties.
Synonym: cure-all.
Example:
Education reform is sometimes viewed as a panacea for all of society's problems.
History, related words:
"Panacea" is from Latin, and the Latin, in turn, is from Greek "panakeia." In Greek, "panakes" means "all-healing," combining "pan-" ("all") and "akos," which means "remedy." The Latin designation "Panacea" or "Panaces" has been awarded more than one plant at one time or other, among them the herb today known as "Prunella vulgaris", whose common name is "self-heal." More often than not, the word "panacea" is used when decrying a claim made for a remedy that seems too good to be true. Most likely that's what the author is doing in a 1625 anatomical treatise, describing "a certaine medicine made of saffron, quick silver, vermilion, antimonie, and certaine sea shels made up in fashion of triangular lozenges," and calling it a panacea.


panache
[puh-NASH; -NAHSH]
1. Dash or flamboyance in manner or style.
2. A plume or bunch of feathers, esp. such a bunch worn on the helmet; any military plume, or ornamental group of feathers.
Examples:
1) Dessert included a marvelous bread pudding and a fair bananas Foster, the old-time New Orleans dish, which was prepared with great panache tableside, complete with a flamb? moment. (Eric Asimov, "New Orleans, a City of Serious Eaters." New York Times, July 4, 1999)
2) It is... an inevitable hit, a galvanizing eruption of energy, panache and arrogantly sure-footed stagecraft that comes at a time when theatrical dance is in the doldrums. (Terry Teachout and William Tynan, "Seamy and Steamy." Time, January 25, 1999)
3) Although Black didn't have many friends and was not among the school's leaders, he was likeable, had panache, and his contemptuous tirades were rarely taken at face value. (Richard Siklos, "Shades of Black: Conrad Black and the World's Fastest Growing Press Empire")
Etymology:
"Panache" is from the French, from Medieval French "pennache", from Italian "pinnacchio" ("feather"), from Late Latin "pinnaculum", diminutive of "penna" ("feather"). It is related to "pen," originally a feather or quill used for writing.


pandect
[PAN-dekt]
1. A complete code of the laws of a country or system of law.
Example:
Obedience to the pandects of a civilized society is one mark of a good citizen.
2. A treatise covering an entire subject.
Etymology:
The original "pandect" was the "Pandectae", a massive fifty-volume digest of Roman civil law that was created under the emperor Justinian in the 6th century. The Latin word "pandectae" is the plural of "pandectes," which means "encyclopedic work" or "book that contains everything." "Pandectes" in turn derives from the Greek "pandektes" ("all-receiving"), from "pan-" ("all") and "dechesthai" ("to receive"). When the word "pandect" first cropped up in English in the mid-16th century, it referred to the complete code of laws of a particular country or system. Its "comprehensive treatise" sense developed later that century.


pandemic

• Endemic
• epidemic

[pan-DEM-ik]
1. Affecting a whole people or a number of countries; everywhere epidemic.
2. A pandemic disease.
Examples:
1) Believed to have originated in India in ancient times before first ravaging the Roman world as early as A.D. 165, since then it [smallpox] had scourged humanity in what amounted to a permanent pandemic, causing incalculable loss of life and misery through morbidity and disfigurement. (Frank Ryan, M.D., "Virus X")
2) Within a decade, half a million had perished. Nobody guessed that such a rare disease would become a pandemic. (Steve Jones, "Darwin's Ghost")
3) TV, in particular, spreads the common culture to the far corners of the world; it is a kind of global pandemic, but it spreads at a speed that makes the old plagues and pandemics unbearably slow. (Lawrence M. Friedman, "The Horizontal Society")
Etymology:
"Pandemic" ultimately derives from Greek "pandemos" - "of all the people," from "pan-" ("all") + "demos" ("people").
Related words: endemic, epidemic.
"Endemic" is peculiar to a district or particular locality, or class of persons ("diseases endemic to the tropics"). That which is "epidemic" is common to, or affecting at the same time, a large number in a community ("an epidemic outbreak of influenza"). "Pandemic" is epidemic over a wide geographical area.


panegyric
[pan-uh-JIR-ik; -JY-rik]
1. A lofty, formal composition or speech in praise of someone or something; a eulogistic oration or writing.
2. Formal or elaborate praise.
Examples:
1) It was a panegyric, a set piece praising the emperor just short of calling him a god - Rome was nominally Christian by then. (Robert Allen, "The confessions of St. Augustine," National Review, January 11, 1985)
2) The final section [of the poem]... so impressed one Catholic cleric of the 'old Faith' that he wrote an unabashed panegyric to the poet. (Philip Hoare, "Oscar Wilde's Last Stand")
3) Whether the thematics revolve around love, death, pain, and/or the struggle of existence, or panegyrics to life and to God, the swirling energetic patterns inherent in her words take on biblical power and grandeur. (Bettina L. Knapp, "World Literature in Review," World Literature Today, January 1, 1997)
4) That's all very persuasive, but it's not going to make me jump out of bed at five any more than a panegyric by a white water lily on the splendors of the morning is going to make the evening primrose transplant itself in Linnaeus's 6:00 A.M. flower bed. ("Night Owl Philonoe," American Scholar, Winter 1999)
Etymology:
"Panegyric" comes from Latin "panegyricus", from Greek "panegyrikos" ("of or for a public assembly"), from "panegyris" ("public assembly"), from "pan-" ("all") + "agyris" ("assembly").
On certain fixed dates throughout the year, the ancient Greeks would come together for religious meetings. Such gatherings could range from hometown affairs to great national assemblies, but large or small, the meeting was called a "panegyris." At those assemblies, speakers provided the main entertainment, and they delivered glowing orations extolling the praises of present civic leaders and reliving the past glories of Greek cities. To the Greeks, those laudatory speeches were "panegyrikos". Latin speakers ultimately transformed "panegyrikos" into the noun "panegyricus," and English speakers adapted that Latin term to form "panegyric."


panjandrum
[pan-JAN-druhm]
An important personage or pretentious official.
Examples:
1) Needless to say, when governors and ministers and the panjandrums of British public life asked these appointed advisers and those from whose ranks they were largely drawn for their views on democratic development, they gave the answers that might have been expected. (Christopher Patten, "East and West")
2) And so I have appointed myself the chairman, High Panjandrum, Grand Inquisitor - and sole member - of a grievance committee of my own making. (Alan K. Simpson, "Right in the Old Gazoo")
3) After years of expanding his vocabulary and perfecting his word play strategies, Uncle Peter considers himself to be a panjandrum in the world of SCRABBLE players.
Etymology:
"Panjandrum" looks like it might be a combination of Latin and Greek roots, but in fact it is a nonsense word coined by British actor and playwright Samuel Foote (1720-1777) around 1755. According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", Foote made up a line of gibberish to "test the memory of his fellow actor Charles Macklin, who had asserted that he could repeat anything after hearing it once". Foote's made-up line was, "So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. "What! No soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber: and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots". It was composed on the spot to challenge actor Charles Macklin's claim that he could memorize anything. Macklin is said to have refused to repeat a word of it.
Some 75 years after this, Foote's passage appeared in a book of stories for children by the Anglo-Irish writer Maria Edgeworth. It took another quarter century before English speakers actually incorporated "panjandrum" into their general vocabulary.


panoply
[PAN-uh-plee]
1. A splendid or impressive array.
2. Ceremonial attire.
3. A full suit of armor; a complete defense or covering.
Examples:
1) Every step taken to that end which appeases the obsolete hatreds and vanished oppressions, which makes easier the traffic and reciprocal services of Europe, which encourages nations to lay aside their precautionary panoply, is good in itself. (Winston Churchill, quoted in "This Blessed Plot", by Hugo Young)
2) The beige plastic bedpan that had come home from the hospital with him after his deviated-septum operation... now held ail his razors and combs and the panoply of gleaming instruments he employed to trim the hair that grew from the various features of his face. (Michael Chabon, "Werewolves in Their Youth")
3) To the east, out over the Ocean, the winter sky is a brilliant panoply of stars and comets, beckoning to adventurers, wise and foolish alike, who seek to divine its mysteries. (Ben Green, "Before His Time")
4) Labor was hard pressed to hold the line against erosion of its hard-won social wage: the panoply of government-paid benefits such as unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, Medicare, and Social Security. (Stanley Aronowitz, "From the Ashes of the Old")
Etymology:
"Panoply" is from Greek "panoplia" ("a full suit of armor"), from "pan" ("all") + "hoplia" ("arms, armor"), plural of "hoplon" ("implement, weapon").


paparazzo

• paparazzi

[pah-puh-RAHT-soh]
A freelance photographer who aggressively pursues celebrities for the purpose of taking candid photographs.
Example:
As a child star she had been constantly pursued by paparazzi, but only a single photographer showed up at her 21st-birthday bash.
History, related words, more meanings:
We can thank Italian for "paparazzo" and its plural "paparazzi." On the immediate origin of "paparazzo," there is complete agreement - it was the surname of one of four aggressive photographers in Federico Fellini's 1959 film "La dolce vita". Opinions divide, however, on where Fellini got the word. According to Fellini himself, the name was taken from an opera libretto. But "Paparazzo" was also the name of a hotelkeeper in George Gissing's 1901 travel memoir "By the Ionian Sea". Some folks have also noted that in the dialect of Ennio Flaiano, who co-wrote the script of "La dolce vita" with Fellini, "paparazzo" refers to a kind of clam that snaps its shell open and shut frequently. This supposedly reminded Flaiano of the action of a camera shutter.


paper pusher

• paper
• pusher

An office worker; one who works in an office and deals with forms and reports all day; one whose work is dull and without meaning.
Examples:
1) I'm not sure exactly what my brother does, but I know he's a paper pusher at some huge, faceless company. 2) Ted retired to Florida after putting in 30 years as a paper pusher at Greedie Corp.
Etymology: Office workers deal with a lot of paper -- forms, reports, letters, memos, etc. And some workers simply move all that paper from one place to another, pushing the paper from desktop to drawer and back again.


paper tiger

• full of hot air
• be full of hot air
• paper
• tiger
• full of
• hot air
• full
• hot
• air

A threat that lacks force; a bluff.
Examples:
1) For a long time, the United States regarded mainland China as a paper tiger, but now the U.S. is treating China as a genuine military threat. 2) Tony's a paper tiger - sure, he wears a leather jacket and looks tough, but he's actually a nice guy.
Etymology:
This phrase is from the Chinese "tsuh lao fu," which was made popular by Mao Zedong. It refers to a man who looks tough but is not. Synonym: (be) full of hot air

par for the course

• par
• course
• up to par
• below par
• below
• up to

Just what was expected; normal; typical; nothing unusual.
Examples:
1) That was par for the course. He always comes late when there is a lot of work to do.
2) Mr. Hernandez gave me a "C". The way he's been grading lately, that's about par for the course.
History, more examples, synonyms:
In the 1920s this expression, which came from golf, was broadened to include other activities in life. In golf, "par" is the number of golf strokes it usually takes for a golf expert to play a course. That's how "par for the course" came to mean a typical or expected result. It usually has a slightly negative tone to it: "It took me three hours to get home in this blizzard, about par for the course." Related expressions are "up to par" ("satisfactory") and "below par" ("unsatisfactory").


parable

• parabola

[PAIR-uh-bul]
example; (specifically) a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle
Example:
The novel is a modern-day parable about appreciating what you have.
Etymology:
"Parable" comes to us via Anglo-French from the Late Latin "parabola", which in turn comes from the Greek "parabole", meaning "comparison". The word "parabola" may look familiar if you remember your geometry. The mathematical "parabola" refers to a kind of comparison between a fixed point and a straight line, resulting in a parabolic curve; it came to English from New Latin (Latin as used since the end of the medieval period especially in scientific description and classification). "Parable", however, descends from Late Latin (the Latin language used by writers