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Saturday February 13, 2010

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aplomb [uh-PLOM]

noun

1. Composure under strain; assurance of manner or of action; confidence; self-possession; coolness.

• Bistro du Midi is intent on providing atmosphere, but not at the expense of comfort or practicality. It's intent on serving food and wine that don't kowtow to recession fashion. It's intent on being a Restaurant with a capital R. It pulls it all off with aplomb.
  Devra First, "A bistro with good taste; Menu, service make for a memorable night out", Boston Globe, Feb 10, 2010
• These are all questions that have, at times, prompted lengthy and animated discussions among senior-ranking officials at the Vancouver Organizing Committee. And for the most part, VANOC has walked an incredibly fine line with a great deal of aplomb - an achievement that could all go up in smoke if British Columbians don't get their way with the cauldron lighter.
  Gary Mason, "These Games are an endeavour of the nation - not just B.C.", The Globe and Mail, Feb 9, 2010
• Why must he now expose himself to the boundless aplomb and momentum of this woman of forty-odd who was finding amusement in treating him as a "college boy"?
  Henry Blake Fuller (1857 - 1929) An American novelist and short story writer. Bertram Cope's Year (1919)

Origin of the Word

Aplomb, approximately 1828, derives from French aplomb, literally "perpendicularity," from phrase a plomb "poised upright, balanced," literally "on the plumb line," from Latin plumbum "(the metal) lead."