mendacious \men-DAY-shus\ adjective

mendacious  \men-DAY-shus\  adjective
: given to or characterized by deception or falsehood or divergence from absolute truth

Examples:
Liza wasn't about to fall for the unrealistic claims being touted by the mendacious car salesman.

"Don Draper, the creative ad man extraordinaire on 'Mad Men,' is so deeply flawed that his likability and his possible redemption are seriously in question. A man whose entire life, including his name, is a lie, Draper is a cunning man in a mendacious, predatory world of images." -- From an article by Neal Gabler in the Chicago Tribune, April 11, 2010

Did you know?
"Mendacious" and "lying" have very similar meanings, but the two are not interchangeable. "Mendacious" is more formal and literary, suggesting a deception harmless enough to be considered bland. "Lying" is more blunt, accusatory, and often confrontational. You might yell, "You lying rat!" in an argument, but you would most likely stick to the more diplomatic, "Aren't you being somewhat mendacious?" in a business meeting. "Mendacious" can also imply habitual untruthfulness, whereas "lying" is more likely to be used to identify specific instances of dishonesty.

Quick Quiz: What word that ends in "-acious" means "not true or accurate"? The answer is ... http://bit.ly/bXA0o8

kvetch \KVECH\, adjective

Word of the Day for Thursday, October 28, 2010

kvetch \KVECH\, adjective:

1. To complain habitually.

noun:
1. A complaint.
2. A habitual complainer.

People kvetched when someone else wouldn't relinquish his position.
-- Barry Lopez, "Before the Temple of Fire.", Harper's Magazine, January 1998

They begin to look like malcontents who kvetch about the weather so much that they don't notice the sun coming out.
-- David Shenk, "Slamming Gates", The New Republic, January 26, 1998

Time for my biennial kvetch about the West End theatre.
-- Simon Hoggart, "Hose bans, petrol mania: saying 'don't panic' always triggers chaos", The Guardian, November 4, 2000

He's just a very up person, she says, which is odd, because he is also a big complainer, a class-A kvetch.
-- Penny Wolfson, "Moonrise", The Atlantic, December 2001

He had difficulty getting American publishers for his later novels, partly because of his self-created image by then as a crusty old kvetch.
-- Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "What Kingsley Can Teach Martin", The Atlantic, September 2000

Kvetch comes from Yiddish kvetshn, "to squeeze, to complain," from Middle High German quetzen, quetschen, "to squeeze."