| animus |
a feeling or attitude of enmity. |
| baleful |
threatening harm; full of malice; ominous. |
| benign |
causing little or no harm. |
| bereft |
deprived or stripped of something. |
| comity |
mutual courtesy and respectful treatment among people or nations. |
| convoluted |
complex; intricate. |
| espouse |
to take up, hold, or commit oneself to (a cause, idea, or belief); embrace. |
| fixation |
an obsession, especially one that interferes with normal functioning. |
| hackneyed |
made trite or commonplace by overuse, as an expression or phrase. |
| heinous |
extremely wicked or despicable; atrocious. |
| jeremiad |
a long complaint about life or one's situation; lamentation. |
| oblique |
not direct or straightforward in intent, means, or achievement; indirect or devious. |
| otiose |
having no purpose or use; unnecessary or futile. |
| periphrasis |
an indirect or roundabout way of phrasing something; circumlocution. |
| tort |
in law, any civil rather than criminal harm or injury that violates the implicit duty of each citizen not to harm others, and for which one may bring a civil suit and collect compensation. |