Language Lessons

Chutzpah	chutzpa: (Yiddish) unbelievable gall; insolence; audacity
Dirigism	Dirigism is an economic term signifying direction of the economy by the state, through economic planning and other types of intervention. It is the opposite of laissez-faire.
Excoriate	condemn: express strong disapproval of; to denounce scathingly.
Fly off the handle	to react in a very angry way to something someone says or does. Eg. He really flew off the handle when I suggested selling the house.
Kleptocrat	A kleptocracy (sometimes cleptocracy) is a government that extends the personal wealth and political power of government officials and the ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats) at the expense of the population.
laissez-faire	It is a French phrase meaning "let do". In the laissez-faire view, the state has no responsibility to engage in intervention to maintain a desired wealth distribution or to create a welfare state to protect people from poverty, instead relying on charity and the market system. Laissez-faire also embodies the notion that a government should not be in the business of granting privileges. As such, advocates of laissez-faire support the idea that the government should not create legal monopolies or use force to damage de facto monopolies. Supporters of laissez-faire also support the notion of free trade on the grounds that the state should not use protectionist measures, such as tariffs and subsidies, in order to curtail trade through national frontiers. It is the opposite of dirigism.
Maven	ace: someone who is dazzlingly skilled in any field
Put paid	to suddenly stop someone from being able to do what they want or hope to do. Eg: A serious back injury put paid to her tennis career.
Requiem	Simply - the mass (communion service) for the dead. In music, it's the term for the setting of texts from that service to music.
tautological	repetition of same sense in different words. ‘a true fact'’and ‘a free gift’ are tautological (also called pleonastic) expressions; the phrase ‘a beginner who has just started’ is tautological. Another example is: "at the risk of being redundant I return to my original proposition".