Weeky Words #1:

Each week I pull 10 words from the vast ocean of vocabulary and share them for our mutual edification.

Quondam - Having been formerly; former: as, one's quondam friend; a quondam schoolmaster.
Captious - Apt to notice and make much of unimportant faults or defects; disposed to find fault or raise objections; prone to cavil; difficult to please; faultfinding; touchy: as, a captious man. Marked by a disposition to find and point out trivial faults: a captious scholar.
Rejoinder - An answer, especially to a reply. A quick response that involves disagreement or is witty; especially an answer to a reply.
Akimbo - In or into a position in which the hands are on the hips and the elbows are bowed outward: children standing akimbo by the fence.
Phantasmagoria -A fantastic sequence of haphazardly associative imagery, as seen in dreams or fever.A constantly changing scene composed of numerous elements. Fantastic imagery as represented in art.
Highfalutin - (Informal) Pompous or pretentious: "highfalutin reasons for denying direct federal assistance to the unemployed”. Self-important, pompous; arrogant or egotistical; tending to show off or hold oneself in unduly high regard.
Gauche -Lacking social polish; tactless. In mathematics, skew. Specifically— Not plane; twisted. Left-handed; awkward; clumsy.
Miasma -  noxious atmosphere or influence: "The family affection, the family expectations, seemed to permeate the atmosphere . . . like a coiling miasma” ( Louis Auchincloss). A poisonous atmosphere formerly thought to rise from swamps and putrid matter and cause disease. A thick vaporous atmosphere or emanation: wreathed in a miasma of cigarette smoke.
Patsy - (informal, derogatory) A person who is taken advantage of, especially by being cheated or blamed for something.
Risible - Relating to laughter or used in eliciting laughter. Eliciting laughter; ludicrous. Capable of laughing or inclined to laugh.


(Definitions sourced from various reputable online dictionaries, usually in association with wordnik.com)