1. The practice of doing good; active goodness, kindness, or charity.
2. A charitable gift or act.

She had disseminated around her what seemed an involuntary aura of beneficence and goodwill.
– John Bayley, Elegy for Iris
Resource: Dictionary.com

Affectedly trendy.

“Whether the chichi gender theorists like it or not, sexual duality is a law of nature among all highly evolved life forms.”
– Camille Paglia
Resource: Dictionary.com

A person of great or varied learning; one acquainted with various subjects of study.

Like her literary heroine, George Eliot, Kingsolver is an old-fashioned polymath, curious about all branches of human learning.
– Sarah Kerr, “The Novel As Indictment”, New York Times
Resource: Dictionary.com

Conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible.

Mr. Gordon says he does not particularly like President Clinton, who also gets lavished with high job-approval ratings despite egregious personal acts.
– Maureen Dowd, “Streetcar Named Betrayal.”, New York Times
Resource: Dictionary.com

Self-styled; so-called.

The troupe, soi-disant egalitarians, mostly turn out to be royal phonies.
– Craig Offman, “Whiz Kid”, Time.
Resource: Dictionary.com

High seriousness (as in a person’s bearing or in the treatment of a subject).

And we want to tell our readers about sharp, clever books, utterly lacking in gravitas, that we know will delight them on the beach or the bus.
– Benjamin Schwarz, “(Some of) the best books of 2001″, The Atlantic
Resource: Dictionary.com

1. To utter, or express with, a snorting, exultant laugh or chuckle.
noun:
1. A snorting, exultant laugh or chuckle.

Even Isaksson’s stern wife, who rarely cracked a smile, chortled with glee, and Old Mothstead slapped his thighs and flapped his apron and danced around the couple, who moved in ever larger rings amongst the kegs.
– Kerstin Ekman, Witches’ Rings, translated by Linda Schenck
Resource: Dictionary.com

Understood or known by only a few.

Practitioners of this arcane art combine highly abstract mathematical deduction with some of the basic behavioral assumptions of micro-economics to produce theories of the behavior of voters, of representative assemblies, of bureaucracies, and even of courts.
– Jerry L. Mashaw, Greed, Chaos, and Governance
Resource: Dictionary.com

1. Having the disposition or temper of an enemy; unfriendly; unfavorable.
2. Opposed in tendency, influence, or effects; antagonistic; adverse.

T. H. Logan, an inimical police officer, drives his wife mad with grief by killing the seal she used to love to swim with. — Aoibheann Sweeney, “Gnawing on Bones”
Resource: Dictionary.com

1. To agree or assent; to give in to a request or demand.
2. To become a party to an agreement, treaty, convention, etc.
3. To attain an office or rank; to enter upon the duties of an office.

Well, after much blustering and standing and sitting, he acceded to my demand.
– Alfred Alcorn, Murder in the Museum of Man
Resource: Dictionary.com