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The conjunction while, for example, tends to pop up in contexts in which a different conjunction may be the better choice.

temporal conjunction

to introduce clauses that express opposition

cynic comes from a Greek word meaning “dog-like, currish, churlish.”

The word cynosure comes from a Greek word meaning “dog’s tail.” This was the name given by the Greeks to the northern constellation Ursa Minor, the “Small Bear” in whose tail is the Pole-star, also known as the North Star. Because the North Star is bright and a means of finding the direction of north, the word cynosure acquired the figurative meaning of “something that is bright and serves as a guide.”

“English words don’t end in u,”

The only two native English words that end in u are the pronouns thou and you, but they probably shouldn’t count because they really end in ou.

There remain 50 or so “English” words that do end in u. I put English in quotation marks because most of these u-words obviously came undigested from some other language, most from French.

The earliest meaning of anecdote in English is “Secret, private, or hitherto unpublished narratives or details of history.” Later, the word came to have its present meaning: “The narrative of a detached incident, or of a single event, told as being in itself interesting or striking.”

The adjective anecdotal dates from the 18th century. It can mean simply “pertaining to anecdotes,” but in modern usage it is often used in the sense of “unreliable.”