The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength and the means of showing pecuniary strength and so of gaining or retaining a good name are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods.

The sense of humor has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter.

Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility all talks of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.

He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.

Famous adj.: Conspicuously miserable.

Let them be reassured it has never been one of our intentions to ban religion in society but solely to protect the national education system from any conspicuous display of religious affiliation.

Equipped with cell phones beepers and handheld computers the 'conspicuously industrious' blur the line between home and office by working anytime anywhere.

But picketing - picketing for or against something and handing out literature - these are conspicuously formal actions. They have to be understood as indirect communication.

I don't know much about auctions. I sometimes go to previews and see art sardined into ugly rooms. I've gawked at the gaudy prices and gaped at well-clad crowds of happy white people conspicuously spending hundreds of millions of dollars.