Word: peculiar
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...earliest researchers to express concern over microwaves was a New York ophthalmologist, Dr. Milton Zaret, who warned more than a decade ago that even low-level exposure could produce a peculiar type of cataract, or clouding, on the rear surface of the lens. (The lens is especially vulnerable to microwave "cooking" because it has no blood vessels to carry off heat.) In 1968 the Department of Health, Education and Welfare said that another organ was vulnerable as well: the testes, because only slight temperature changes can affect the sperm-producing process...
...really educating boys? Or is it all a halfhearted pretense? There is a certain staginess to the place; the grounds and buildings, donated by a rich and eccentric old lady are too grand for the modest faculty and student body. In addition the donor has imposed some peculiar conditions-evening dress must be worn at supper, for instance-that have never matured to become traditions. Boys and masters repeatedly assure one another that Dorset really is a good school...
...Arok began life as just another gadget for an automated house, he has also become- in some peculiar way-a member of the family. Skora's wife Sharon was indifferent to her husband's creation at first, but now the couple cannot help being a bit anthropomorphic about what is their only child. They start the day by saying good morning to him. They keep a scrapbook of his press clippings. They worry about his delicate circuits the way parents worry about a nagging winter cough...
...achieving a profound fusion, becoming inextricable. Certain names become so incorporated with the acts or traits or destinies of their owners that they pop into the popular vocabulary as common nouns and adjectives: Cain, Jeremiah, Job (the Bible is a storehouse of such), Machiavelli, De Sade, McCarthy. The same peculiar joining of character and name occurs all the time, even in the fictive world. Romeo is as inseparable from the youth so named as he was from Juliet, and no actress could credibly play the role of Desdemona if the character's name were changed to, say, Sally. Some...
...MacArthur is a peculiar homegrown Yankee product, one of those ingenious cranks who are likely to do the Republic some good-in spite of itself. Hardly had the dam fallen than he was on the phone to Washington, inquiring cheerfully about a low-interest loan. He happened to be (he explained to the voice going uh-huh on the other end) just the American that President Carter always talks about. He was-reverent pause-a small businessman. He also happened to be another of the President's favorite people: an energy-crisis fighter, an advocate and indeed a practitioner...