Word: rabelaisian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...mean that there was something uniquely American about Kennedy's Rabelaisian style, or even that he was special because he was a member of America's most famous political family. Other political cultures have reformed rogues, just like Kennedy, and others have dynasties, too. Indeed, there have been times this year when it has seemed that the key attribute for political preferment in Tokyo is to have had a father who was also in politics. (See TIME's complete Ted Kennedy coverage...
...also poured forth showmanship. A six-footer who weighed 300 pounds or more for much of his life, he had a Rabelaisian appetite for food and fun. Offstage he clowned on TV talk shows, appeared in commercials and movies, and generated nonstop tabloid copy. Reports of his dietary struggles and weight fluctuations circulated like a runaway Dow Jones average: up 25, down 80, up 60. He was a household name to millions of people who had never seen the inside of an opera house...
...already been given the sacrament of Extreme Unction several times. He had suffered for years from life-threatening Addison's disease. Kennedy succeeded Dwight Eisenhower, whose presidency was much afflicted by heart trouble and ileitis. Lyndon Johnson, following J.F.K., had a history of heart attacks and a Rabelaisian appetite for all sorts of things that were not good for his coronary arteries, including quantities of Scotch. He abdicated the presidency in 1968, went home to the ranch and smoked himself to death...