As far as I know, not a single company has announced today that the securities class action filed against is "without merit" and that the company intends to "vigorously" defend itself. But GBC Acquisition Corp. said just that yesterday. And Ligand Pharmaceuticals said it the day before. And of course Biolase Technology said the exact same thing on Monday. And so on, and so on.

My point here (and I do have one) has nothing to do with the substance of any of those cases, but rather with the apparently unanimous use of the word "vigorous" for these "denial" press release by defendants. Is there no other word that can be used for this purpose? I will concede that the thesaurus is of little use here, offering the following unusable synonyms for "vigorous":

active, athletic, bouncing, brisk, dashing, driving, dynamic, effective, efficient, enterprising, exuberant, flourishing, forceful, forcible, hale, hard-driving, hardy, healthy, hearty, intense, lively, lusty, masterful, mettlesome, peppy, persuasive, potent, powerful, red-blooded, robust, rugged, snappy, sound, spanking, spirited, steamroller, strapping, strenuous, strong, sturdy, take-charge, take-over, tough, virile, vital, zealous, zippy

None of these really seem to work. "Zippy"? Too silly. "Athletic"? Hardly. "Masterful"? Too boastful. "Steamroller"? Um, no. "Strong" is not bad but it's more boring than "vigorous" and probably would not be used.

So I ask: is there some other word that can be used for this purpose, if only to mix things up once in a while? Or are we stuck with "vigorous" from here on out?