fainéant \fay-nay-AHN\ - idle and ineffectual : indolent
I doubt I'll ever use this word. I just hope I can recall it if I ever see it in use.
Götterdämmerung \gher-ter-DEM-uh-roong\ - a collapse (as of a society or regime) marked by catastrophic violence and disorder; broadly : downfall
I knew the meaning, in a general sense, thanks to Wagner, but I had the pronunciation wrong. Also, the first part of the etymology was obvious, but I hadn't an inkling of the the second part.
chuckwalla \ˈchək-ˌwä-lə\ - a large herbivorous lizard (Sauromalus obesus) of the iguana family of desert regions of the southwestern United States
I have stopped redoing pronunciations for consistency when some come from the WOTD (such as the first two of this post) and others from the general www.m-w.com site word lookup, such as this one from today's Dictionary Devil puzzle. I might have heard this word and had a sense that it is an animal, but definitely wasn't picturing a lizard.
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