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demur \dih-MUR\, intransitive verb: 1. To object; to take exception. 2. To delay.
noun: 1. The act of demurring. 2. Objection. 3. Delay. It had been Letitia's wish, not Thaddeus's, that there should be a child but, while wondering at the time what it was going to be like to have a baby about the place, he did not demur, and soon after Georgina's birth was surprised to find his feelings quite startlingly transformed. --William Trevor, Death in Summer
She would ask to see something I had written, and I would demur, saying that anything I had written was terrible, and she would persist until I gave in and said, "If you insist," and later she would proclaim that my work was not terrible, my work was terrific. --Rosemary Mahoney, A Likely Story
All the same, she succeeded in exacting from him the promise that . . . he would depart Milan forthwith. Beyle accepted this condition without demur and left Milan. --W.G. Sebald, Vertigo (translated by Michael Hulse)
One member of the staff who left his pass at home wrote on the temporary pass he was given the name 'Heinrich Himmler' and was admitted without demur. --Noel Annan, Changing Enemies: The Defeat and Regeneration of Germany
Demur comes from Old French demorer, "to linger, to stay," from Latin demorari, from de- + morari, "to delay, to loiter," from mora, "a delay."
gallimaufry \gal-uh-MAW-free\, noun: A medley; a hodgepodge.
Today bilingual programs are conducted in a gallimaufry of around 80 tongues, ranging from Spanish to Lithuanian to Micronesian Yapese. --Ezra Bowen, "For Learning or Ethnic Pride?" Time, July 8, 1985
What happened to this gallimaufry of people and birds once the 12 days of Christmas were over is something of which Dame Joan neither sang nor spoke. --"What Christmas presents," The Guardian, December 30, 2000
Maran reports the daily jostlings and thrivings in a public school with 3,200 students, 185 teachers, 45 languages, a principal and five vice principals, five safety monitors, 62 sports teams and a gallimaufry of alternative programs, clubs and cliques.
--Colman McCarthy, "A Writer Goes Back to School," Washington Post, August 20, 2001
Gallimaufry, originally meaning "a hash of various kinds of meats," comes from French galimafrée, from Old French, from galer, "to rejoice, to make merry" (source of English gala) + mafrer, "to eat much," from Medieval Dutch maffelen, "to open one's mouth wide."
impregnable \im-PREG-nuh-buhl\, adjective: 1. Not capable of being stormed or taken by assault; unconquerable; as, an impregnable fortress. 2. Difficult or impossible to overcome or refute successfully; beyond question or criticism; as, an impregnable argument.
During this destruction the villagers . . . relied on their ancient instinct for survival and retreated to the impregnable fortress of the mountain. --Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins, Kahlil Gibran: Man and Poet
What Spinoza says of laws is equally true of party-platforms,--that those are strong which appeal to reason, but those are impregnable which compell the assent both of reason and the common affections of mankind. --James Russell Lowell, "The Election in November," The Atlantic, October 1860
Impregnable is from Old French, from the prefix im-, "not" (from Latin in-) + prenable, "able to be taken or captured," from prendre, "to take," from Latin prehendere.
languid \LANG-gwid\, adjective: 1. Drooping or flagging from or as if from exhaustion; weak; weary; heavy. 2. Promoting or indicating weakness or heaviness. 3. Slow; lacking vigor or force.
Deliberately languid, slow to rise to a dignified height, his handsomely graying wavy hair perfectly combed, Floyd sits most of the day with his long legs sprawled under his table. --William S. McFeely, Proximity to Death
. . . in the languid heat of Rome, late summer, late afternoon. --Matthew Stadler, Allan Stein
With their strength, grace, and endurance, [they] move about naturally, freely, at a tempo determined by climate and tradition, somewhat languid, unhurried, knowing one can never achieve everything in life anyway, and besides, if one did, what would be left over for others? --Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Shadow of the Sun (translated by Klara Glowczewska)
Languid comes from Latin languere, "to become faint or weak; to droop; to be inactive."