Suspicious and leery describe a feeling of distrust or unease towards something or someone. If you are suspicious of the person parked in front of your house, you believe they’re up to no good despite there being no evidence of danger. Suspicious can also describe the object of our mistrust—a suspicious person or package, whereas leery applies only to people or their feelings or thoughts towards something. If you are leery of strangers, you are cautious, wary, or untrusting around them, and maybe avoid them, but you don’t necessarily attribute evil to them: your misgivings may stem from something else—maybe you are shy, or were taught not to trust strangers. A person can also be leery of entering into a particular activity or situation: He remained leery of boats; I am leery about walking home alone at night.

A meeting is an organized gathering of people for a specific purpose or agenda: a staff meeting; a town meeting. Meeting usually implies a scheduled assembly of the members or employees of a particular organization. Rendezvous, with the same form for the singular as the plural, can be much more intriguing than meetings. A rendezvous is when two or more people meet up at a place and time they have agreed upon. It’s similar to an appointment, but occurs outside the workday environment, and the word can connote a secret or romantic meeting: a rendezvous between spies; a rendezvous with a lover. But the word rendezvous is just as apt for a social meetup at a bar or reuniting with a group after splitting up to explore a museum. Half the point of a rendezvous is to return to each other.

Showy and ostentatious are both used to describe conspicuous outward display, either designed to attract attention or likely to do so. Showy is the more forgiving word. No one would accuse showy flowers or birds’ showy plumage of being anything but eye-catchingly bold, bright, and colorful. However, showy can also suggest the tasteless flashiness of something “done for show”: showy taste in jewelry. Something ostentatious is blatantly intended to attract notice and to flaunt one’s superiority to others, like an ostentatious engagement ring or an ostentatious lifestyle. Not surprisingly, the word appears very frequently in the phrase ostentatious display, which is usually used of wealth, but can also apply to learning, religiosity, or any belonging capable of being extravagantly flaunted.