Brio

By Deane Barker • • tags: definition •

Definition: enthusiasm, vigor

It’s historically Italian for “mettle”, “fire,” or “life.” As of today, it translates directly as “liveliness.”

Why I Looked It Up

In Kingmakers:

Two years later, departing on leave for England, Wilson with characteristic brio signed on as a coal stoker to save money and build his muscles during the voyage home.

In Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House, Valerie Plame writes:

In a speech in early October 2002, President George Bush, said with typical brio…

Links from this – Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East April 21, 2023
I eventually abandoned this book, but I read quite a bit of it. What I came to appreciate is that history of the Middle East and history of the British Empire are wildly intertwined. The British were all over that region, and when they left, they made some attempts to split it up, but then left...
Links from this – Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House May 11, 2023
This is the inside story of The Plame Affair – the revelation that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative, allegedly initiated by the Bush White House because Plame’s husband, Joe Wilson, had been critical of the administration’s reasoning for starting the Iraq War. The most obvious part of this book is...