Entry: epaulets (n.)
In context: "...Schtitt still does favor those high and shiny black boots, and yes the epaulets, still, and now a weatherman's telescoping pointer that's a clear stand-in for the now-forbidden old riding crop..."
Definition: A shoulder-piece; an ornament worn on the shoulder as part of a military, naval, or sometimes of a civil uniform. to win one's epaulets : (of a private soldier) to earn promotion to the rank of officer.
Other: Schtitt sounds like a border-line (at best) Fascist, and so I feel a certain guilt that I'd love to meet him, if he were a real person. His total lack of irony strikes me.
A humorous etymology - épaule is French for shoulder, so presumably epaulet is little/small shoulder.
SNOOT score: 1
Page: 79
Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Definitive Jest is a vocabulary-building and SNOOT-approved word-of-the-day blog centered around David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
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