The Word
It always seems that one of my informal functions at work is playing Ad Hoc Coordinator of Recreation and Amusement. In my current work group this means I have to send out a daily e-mail with an odd news story. Other teams have someone sending out a "positive, inspirational quote." My supervisor would have nothing of that so he changed the content. Leaving not well enough alone, I add either a comic or humorous quote and an unusual word with definition to the mailing. "The Word" in a recent piece was rather good:
recherche \ruh-sher-SHAY\, adjective:The comic was rather good, too.
1. Uncommon; exotic; rare.
2. Exquisite; choice.
3. Excessively refined; affected.
4. Pretentious; overblown.
. . .recherche topics interesting only to university specialists.
-- Katharine Washburn and John F. Thornton, Dumbing Down
She was mocking the pretensions of the cookery writer who insists on recherche ingredients not because of their qualities but their snob value.
-- Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg
In recent years, Garber's appetite for the rigors of theory seems to have diminished. The books have kept coming, but the italics-heavy meditations and the recherche terminology have receded.
-- Zo Heller, "House Arrest", The New Republic, July 3, 2000
Recherche comes from French, from rechercher, "to seek out," from re- + chercher, "to look for, to seek."
(source: Dictionary.com)
