A meeting is an organized gathering of people for a specific purpose or agenda: a staff meeting; a town meeting. Meeting usually implies a scheduled assembly of the members or employees of a particular organization. Rendezvous, with the same form for the singular as the plural, can be much more intriguing than meetings. A rendezvous is when two or more people meet up at a place and time they have agreed upon. It’s similar to an appointment, but occurs outside the workday environment, and the word can connote a secret or romantic meeting: a rendezvous between spies; a rendezvous with a lover. But the word rendezvous is just as apt for a social meetup at a bar or reuniting with a group after splitting up to explore a museum. Half the point of a rendezvous is to return to each other.

Showy and ostentatious are both used to describe conspicuous outward display, either designed to attract attention or likely to do so. Showy is the more forgiving word. No one would accuse showy flowers or birds’ showy plumage of being anything but eye-catchingly bold, bright, and colorful. However, showy can also suggest the tasteless flashiness of something “done for show”: showy taste in jewelry. Something ostentatious is blatantly intended to attract notice and to flaunt one’s superiority to others, like an ostentatious engagement ring or an ostentatious lifestyle. Not surprisingly, the word appears very frequently in the phrase ostentatious display, which is usually used of wealth, but can also apply to learning, religiosity, or any belonging capable of being extravagantly flaunted.

Indefensible and untenable describe views, arguments, or stances that are not capable of being defended or maintained against criticism. When indefensible is used of actions or behavior, however, it implies that they are morally unjustifiable, or inexcusable. Untenable, rooted ultimately in the Latin verb for “to hold,” suggests inability to be maintained, supported, or defended. An untenable argument or position on an issue will not hold up, perhaps because they are easily proved to be flawed or unsound, but not only for that reason. New developments in the world may make a position untenable. The common recent usage, untenable situation, means a situation that is incapable of being sustained, borne, or coped with, which is nudging the word further away from being synonymous with indefensible.