Word: tarnish
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...actions do signify the demise of an admirable trait perhaps unique to Harvard: the confidence in the institution itself to allow unscreened public displays, and trust in the undergraduates to make them. Harvard's image is strong enough that one student group's tasteless jokes will not tarnish it. The percentage of students admitted who do opt to come to Harvard, each year about 75 percent, is always the highest in the nation, and the admissions office is hardly at the point where a frank discussion of the school's rough spots will turn away prospectives in droves. It might...
...make a buy. Bobby himself, says a family friend, has been dabbling heavily in both heroin and coke for at least the past three years. According to another pal, Bobby knew he had a problem and sometimes sought psychiatric help. Over the past year, his resume began to tarnish: he flunked the New York bar exam last summer, then walked out on the test on the second go-around last February...
When the Renaissance rediscovered the originals of the Homeric epics, Virgil's reputation started to tarnish. The Greeks had clearly borne great gifts to the Roman poet. The Aeneid now looked suspiciously like a pastiche. Its first half, recounting the wandering of Aeneas and his vanquished colleagues after the fall of Troy, owed more than a little to The Odyssey. Its last six books, in which the hero wages war on Italian tribes and fulfills his divine destiny to found the Roman Empire, showed the bloody imprint of The Iliad. Furthermore, Aeneas himself, compared with the Homeric heroes Odysseus...
Sabi suggests patina or decomposition: the retreat of bright new substance into a world of obscurity and hints. It is what a cypress doorframe acquires after three centuries of sliding the shoji back and forth. It is what Japanese collectors got when they left their silverware to tarnish, instead of polishing it to a bright Tiffany glitter. Wabi is an older and wider concept. It conveys not the dryness and stillness of sabi, but an aristocratic use of "poor," rustic materials. Tea is the origin of much of Japanese design since the 15th century; in fact, the nearest thing...
...many consider these accomplishments a mixed blessing. Nobody accuses the University of any athletic impropriety, but many fear that immoderate success on the playing fields might tarnish the Harvard image. Sports, after all, play a major role in establishing a school's public image. Mention the University of North Carolina and Dean Smith is bound to enter the conversation. Notre Dame is a football team and Digger Phelps...