"noun 
 a member of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law, and commonly held to have pretensions to superior sanctity. 
 • a self-righteous person; a hypocrite. 
 The Pharisees are mentioned only by Josephus and in the New Testament. Unlike the Sadducees, who tried to apply Mosaic law strictly, the Pharisees allowed some freedom of interpretation. Although in the Gospels they are represented as the chief opponents of Jesus, they seem to have been less hostile than the Sadducees to the nascent Church, with which they shared belief in the Resurrection. 

 moat |mōt| 
 noun 
 a deep, wide ditch surrounding a castle, fort, or town, typically filled with water and intended as a defense against attack. 
 verb [ trans. ] [often as adj. ] ( moated) 
 surround (a place) with a moat  a moated castle. 
 ORIGIN late Middle English  from Old French mote ‘mound.’ 

 ... PHRASES 
 a beam in one's eye a fault that is greater in oneself than in the person one is finding fault with. [ORIGIN: with biblical allusion to Matt. 7:3.] 
 off (or way off) beam informal on the wrong track; mistaken  you're way off beam on this one. 
 on the beam informal on the right track. 
 on her (or its) beam-ends (of a ship) heeled over on its side; almost capsized. 
 ORIGIN Old English bēam [tree, beam,] ; related to Dutch boom and German Baum. 

 With four tildes [tilde |ˈtildə| 
 noun 
 an accent (˜) placed over Spanish n when pronounced ny (as in señor) or Portuguese a or o when nasalized (as in São Paulo), or over a vowel in phonetic transcription, indicating nasalization. 
 • the same symbol as a part of a URL. 
 • a similar symbol used in mathematics to indicate similarity, and in logic to indicate negation. 
 ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from Spanish, based on Latin titulus (see title)]