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unctuous - vocabulary

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  Ed Good  —  Grammar Tips
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adjective

Characterized by excessive moralistic fervor, especially in an affected manner; excessively smooth or smug; characteristic of an unguent or oil, oily, greasy; abundant in organic material, as in unctuous soil.

Congress—these, for the most part, illiterate hacks whose fancy vests are spotted with gravy and whose speeches, hypocritical, unctuous and slovenly, are spotted also with the gravy of political patronage.

—Mary McCarthy On the Contrary (1961)

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