factitious (adj. fak-TIH-shuss)

1 : produced by humans rather than by natural forces

2 a : formed by or adapted to an artificial or conventional standard b : produced by special effort : sham

Like the common words fact and factual, factitious ultimately comes from the Latin verb facere, meaning "to do" or "to make." But in current use, factitious has little to do with things factual and true -- actually, factitious often implies the opposite. The most immediate ancestor of factitious is the Latin adjective facticius, meaning "made by art" or artificial. When English speakers first adopted the word as factitious in the 17th century, it meant "produced by human effort or skill" (rather than arising from nature). This meaning gave rise to such meanings as artificial and false or feigned.

Brigadoon (n. brih-guh-DOON)

: a place that is idyllic, unaffected by time, or remote from reality

This word is from the popular 1947 stage musical

_Brigadoon_, by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. In the

musical, Brigadoon is a Scottish village that is protected from the outside world by a magic spell from which the village awakens every hundred years. In the story, love bridges the gap when a lonely, 20th-century boy meets a beautiful, 18th-century girl. In the past few decades, the word Brigadoon has often been applied to places that resemble the fictional village -- that is, places that are old-fashioned, idyllic, or out of touch with reality.

cosmeticize (v. kahz-MEH-tuh-size)

: to make (something unpleasant or ugly) superficially

attractive

Cosmeticize first appeared in print in the early 19th century as a descendant of the noun cosmetic. Originally, its use was often literal, with the meaning "to apply a cosmetic to," but today it is usually used figuratively. Cosmeticize does occasionally draw criticism; usage commentators are sometimes irritated by verbs coined using "-ize" as they can sound like silly, one-time words. However, cosmeticize is fairly well-established in contrast with the two other, rarer verbs that have been derived from cosmetic: cosmetize, which often turns up in the literal sense that has been mostly lost from cosmeticize (cosmetize the face), and cosmetic, which can be literal or figurative (cosmeticked with bright rouge; embellished and cosmeticked).