the limpid, witty, pansophical, profoundly adult writer we know from his stories
on Borges
given for much of his life to dithery romantic obsessions
Fervid is the next level up; it connotes even more passion/devotion/eagerness than fervent. At the top is perfervid, which means extravagantly, rabidly, uncontrollably zealous or impassioned.
it looms large in turgid crap like "Law-enforcement personnel apprehended the individual as he was attempting to exit the premises"
on "individual" being used as a synonym for "person"
a great many educated people accept effete now also as a pejorative synonym for elite or elitist, one with an added suggestion of effeminacy, over-refinement, pretension, and/or decadence
he notes the traditional meaning as "depleted of vitality, washed out, exhausted"
