word of the day: louche

The word of the day is louche:

adjective

1. dubious; shady; disreputable.

< French: literally, cross-eyed < Latin luscus blind in one eye (dictionary.com)

"When an impoverished student at Stanford, the first in his family to go to college, opts for a six-figure salary in finance after graduation, a very different but equally compelling kind of 'moral imagination' may be at play.  (Imagine being able to pay off your loans and never again having to worry about keeping a roof over your family's heads.)  William S. Burroughs, a corporate scion of elite genealogy, began reinventing himself at Harvard as a louche explorer of the underworld.  Why shouldn't someone who grew up in a crack-blighted neighborhood be equally free to imagine himself as a suit?"

 - Nathan Heller, "Poison ivy: Are elite colleges bad for the soul?", 1 September 2014 The New Yorker