Reading

mistpouffer

(noun) A mysterious noise heard over the ocean in quiet, foggy weather off the coast of Belgium and Holland.

tapestries

A heavy textile with a woven design; used for curtains and upholstery.

frazzle

A state of extreme exhaustion.

frequentable

Accessible; easy of approach. Usage: The decision to portray Hoover as having often been on the correct side of things regarding ostensible subversion makes the movie not exactly fréquentable.

callus

An area of skin that is thick or hard from continual pressure or friction (as the sole of the foot).

betwixt

Between; in the space that separates; in intermediate relation to as regards time, quantity, or degree; passing between; from one to another, etc., in most of the uses of between (which see). Usage: At last I turned my haggard, burning eyes upon her murderers -- four of them there were and all staring into those cruel, black waters below and not a word betwixt them.

toted

Carry with difficulty. Usage: You'll have to tote this suitcase.

besotted

Characterized by or indicative of stupidity; stupid; infatuated. Made sottish by drink; stupefied by habitual intoxication.

sorghum

Economically important Old World tropical cereal grass.

panning

Express a totally negative opinion of. Usage: The critics panned the performance.

gynandromorphic

Having both male and female morphological characteristics. Usage: A gynandromorphic Cardinal that means two-coloured.

wry

Humorously sarcastic or mocking.

buffaloed

Intimidate or overawe; cowed.

ne'er-do-well

Likely never to do well; past mending. n. One whose conduct indicates that he will never do well; a good-for-nothing. Usage: Her father, Robert Carson, was a ne'er-do-well whose ventures inevitably failed; Carson's elder sister, Marian, did shift work in the town's coal-fired power plant.

pews

Long bench with backs; used in church by the congregation.

evangelical

Of or pertaining to the gospel of Jesus Christ; comprised in or relating to the Christian revelation or dispensation: as, the evangelical books of the New Testament; the evangelical narrative or history; evangelical interpretation.

culinary

Pertaining or relating to the kitchen, or to the art of cookery; used in kitchens or in cooking: as, a culinary vessel; culinary herbs.

disimpaction

Removal of impacted stool using the hands.

putative

Supposed; reputed; commonly thought or deemed: as, the putative father of a child. Usage: This lack of hair has been attributed to everything from a putative aquatic period in the species's past to the advantages of displaying a healthy skin to members of the opposite sex.

entrancing

That entrances or transports with delight or wonder: as, entrancing music; an entrancing tale. adj. capturing interest as if by a spell Usage: Football is a game of wonders; the experience of a young person learning and growing and playing sports is entrancing, too; it can have undeniable, and positive, value in one's moral development.

straddle

To include or favor two apparently opposite or different things; occupy or take up an equivocal position in regard to something: as, to straddle on the tariff question. v. To stand or sit with a leg on each side of; bestride: straddle a horse. v. To appear to favor both sides of (an issue). Usage: Capital," in its use of real estate as the key that unlocks a set of characters' values, resembles several other sturdy realist novels that have come out lately, which straddle the period of economic rise and ruin of the recent past.

harken

To listen; lend the ear; attend or give heed to what is uttered; hear with attention, obedience, or compliance. To hear by listening. To hear with attention; regard.

rollick

To move in a careless, swaggering manner, with a frolicsome air; swagger; be jovial in behavior.

evince

To overcome; conquer. To show clearly or make evident; make clear by convincing evidence; manifest; exhibit. Usage: Hathaway does about as well with the Selina Kyle role as one could reasonably hope, and evinces surprising combat agility of her own.

gawp

To stare with the mouth open in a stupid and dazed manner. To devour; eat greedily; swallow voraciously. Usage: We know it is unseemly to gawp at all this luxury, even as we may marvel at the skilled novelist's ability to bring a McMansion or multi-million-dollar urban townhouse to life.

denuded

To strip or divest of all covering; make bare or naked. Specifically In geology, to wear away and remove surface or overlying matter, and thus make bare and expose to view (the underlying strata). Usage: Perhaps two-thirds of the 1.2m inhabitants of Homs, Syria's third city, have fled. Surrounding villages have also been denuded; there are dismally repetitive reports of massacre, rape and pillage.

vertiginous

Turning round; whirling; rotary: as, a vertiginous motion. Affected with vertigo; giddy; dizzy. Apt to turn or change; unstable. Apt to make one giddy; inducing giddiness: as, a vertiginous height. Usage: A chance encounter in a Greenwich Village dive sets a Brooklyn-born secretary on a vertiginous climb toward the highest reaches of New York society.

prophylactic

adj. Acting to defend against or prevent something, especially disease; protective. n. A contraceptive device, especially a condom. Usage: The administrative news is that on July 16th America's Food and Drug Administration, in light of the ICRC trial and two similar studies, one on heterosexual couples in Botswana and the other on homosexual men in several places around the world, authorised the use of tenofivir and emtricitabine as a prophylactic as well as a treatment.

cookie-cutter

adj. Appearing to be mass-produced; identical in appearance: cookie-cutter tract housing in suburbia. Usage: Fishbone came into a major label, where everything was cookie-cutter, and we confused the hell out of everybody.

cock-a-hoop

adj. Being in a state of boastful elation or exultation. adj. Being askew. Usage: Hardliners (a conservative who is uncompromising) in Tehran have been cock-a-hoop over recent unrest in Shia-majority provinces in eastern Saudi Arabia. For their part, besides hoovering (to clean with a vacuum cleaner) up customers for Iran's oil, the Saudis are said to have executed several Iranian convicts who had been languishing for years in a Saudi jail.

Unctuous

adj. Characterized by affected, exaggerated, or insincere earnestness: "the unctuous, complacent court composer who is consumed with envy and self-loathing" ( Rhoda Koenig). adj. Having the quality or characteristics of oil or ointment; slippery.

musing

adj. Deep in thought; contemplative. n. Contemplation; meditation. Usage: The second, "Urne-Buriall," published in 1658, has Browne musing, with strangely uplifting fatalism, on some Anglo-Saxon urns found in nearby Norfolk.

grubby

adj. Dirty; grimy: grubby old work clothes. adj. Infested with grubs. adj. Contemptible; despicable: has a grubby way of treating others.

feral

adj. Existing in a wild or untamed state. adj. Having returned to an untamed state from domestication. adj. Of or suggestive of a wild animal; savage: a feral grin. Usage: There was a little fly in our bungalow that I adopted and named Wings, and I called the feral cat that howled for food Legs.

delectable

adj. Greatly pleasing; delightful. adj. Greatly pleasing to the taste; delicious. See Synonyms at delicious. n. Something delightful or delicious: a feast of home-cooked delectables.

telegenic

adj. Having a physical appearance and exhibiting personal qualities that are deemed highly appealing to television viewers. Usage: As the victim thrashes around, a telegenic doctor summons a posse (A group of people summoned by a sheriff to aid in law enforcement) of helpers, who start zapping the patient, compressing his chest or administering adrenalin jabs until the heart starts ticking again.

promiscous

adj. Having casual sexual relations frequently with different partners; indiscriminate in the choice of sexual partners. adj. Lacking standards of selection; indiscriminate.

lopsided

adj. Heavier, larger, or higher on one side than on the other. adj. Sagging or leaning to one side. adj. Characterized by the domination of one competitor over another: a lopsided victory.

swank

adj. Imposingly fashionable or elegant; grand. See Synonyms at fashionable. adj. Ostentatious; pretentious. Usage: They opened La Rosita seven years ago; at the time it was no more than a palapa, but they saved money and eventually built a dining room (and living quarters) out of cinder blocks. It's not swank, but it draws townspeople, cyclists and the occasional tourist.

bespoke

adj. Individually or custom made. Usage: It also opens the door, though, to bespoke tissue repair as it would allow cells of whatever type were desired to be grown from, say, a few skin cells and then transplanted back into the donor without risking an adverse reaction from his immune system.

punitive

adj. Inflicting or aiming to inflict punishment; punishing. Usage: In 2006, when George Bush's administration and its European allies drafted the first batch of punitive measures against Iran, the talk was of "smart" sanctions targeting only Iran's nuclear activities.

punitive

adj. Inflicting or aiming to inflict punishment; punishing. Usage: Methadone has been used in China for several years but, with its emphasis on employment rather than incarceration, humane rather than punitive treatment, and voluntary rather than compulsory participation, the Sunshine Project marks a departure from China's traditionally stern approach to drug users.

eerie

adj. Inspiring inexplicable fear, dread, or uneasiness; strange and frightening. adj. Suggestive of the supernatural; mysterious. See Synonyms at weird. adj. Scots Frightened or intimidated by superstition. Usage: When the final buzzer sounded, the Woodinville junior was overcome with what she called an "eerie" feeling.

dissolute

adj. Lacking moral restraint; indulging in sensual pleasures or vices.

randy

adj. Lascivious; lecherous. adj. Of or characterized by frank, uninhibited sexuality. adj. Scots Ill-mannered.

rabid

adj. Of or affected by rabies. adj. Raging; uncontrollable: rabid thirst. adj. Extremely zealous or enthusiastic; fanatical: a rabid football fan.

ghoulish

adj. Of or pertaining to ghouls. adj. Of or pertaining to corpses and graverobbing. adj. Fascinated with corpses.

infernal

adj. Of or relating to a lower world of the dead. adj. Of or relating to hell: infernal punishments; infernal powers. adj. Fiendish; diabolical: infernal instruments of war.

psychedelic

adj. Of, characterized by, or generating hallucinations, distortions of perception, altered states of awareness, and occasionally states resembling psychosis. Usage: And the band's sound is a handsome alloy of dry acoustic timbre and reverberant effect, suggesting a very British convergence of texture-minded electronic music and psychedelic folk.

bipartisan

adj. Of, consisting of, or supported by members of two parties, especially two major political parties: a bipartisan resolution.

eleemosynary

adj. Of, relating to, or dependent on charity. adj. Contributed as an act of charity; gratuitous. See Synonyms at benevolent. Usage: Fortunately, it only took me a few seconds to come to my senses and my better, more eleemosynary angels to take over.

festal

adj. Of, relating to, or of the nature of a feast or festival; festive.

beholden

adj. Owing something, such as gratitude, to another; indebted.

keening

adj. Sharp, shrill, especially of a sound. n. Exaggerated moanful wailing at a funeral or wake n. An unpleasant sound. Usage: A white-suited Jim James, of the reverberant rock band My Morning Jacket, sweetly keening a song by the Band?

buccaneering

adj. Showing boldness and enterprise, as in business, often to the point of recklessness or unscrupulousness. Usage: The second was the emergence of something approaching a guiding ideology of empire: the old buccaneering empire of conquest and commerce never quite disappeared, but the British empire fashioned in the 19th century was believed by many of those involved in the project to be based on "enlightened reform and disinterested trusteeship".

grungy

adj. Slang In a dirty, rundown, or inferior condition: grungy old jeans.

inextricable

adj. So intricate or entangled as to make escape impossible: an inextricable maze; an inextricable web of deceit. adj. Difficult or impossible to disentangle or untie: an inextricable tangle of threads. adj. Too involved or complicated to solve: an inextricable problem. adj. Unavoidable; inescapable: bound together by an inextricable fate. Usage: The chapter on money is revealing, since wealth and inheritance were inextricably tied to social standing and the all-engrossing business of getting married.

ramshackle

adj. So poorly constructed or kept up that disintegration is likely; rickety: a ramshackle cabin in the woods. Usage: About 2,000 people live here, in ramshackle trailer homes, weather-battered recreational vehicles and well-kept brick houses.

rank

adj. Strong and offensive in odor or flavor. Usage: The smell of tankage, fertilizer made from horse parts, was so rank that, along with the mosquitoes that bred in the swampland near the riverbank called the Bottoms, it prevented Springdale's 1,200 residents from sitting on their porches in the evening.

moot

adj. Subject to debate; arguable: a moot question. adj. Law Without legal significance, through having been previously decided or settled. adj. Of no practical importance; irrelevant. Usage: Some musicians are bound to respond by confounding expectations with new sounds. Whether audiences wish to be confounded remains moot.

snotty

adj. Vulgar Dirtied with nasal mucus. adj. Slang Vulgar Impertinent; arrogant. Usage: I also apologise to Not_Ally for a certain snotty post appearing earlier hearin for which I was reprimanded with some justification.

decrepit

adj. Weakened, worn out, impaired, or broken down by old age, illness, or hard use. Usage: With a decrepit economy, and now devastating floods, a closed regime shows signs of greater openness—though not to everyone

botched

adj. clumsily made or repaired in an unacceptable or incompetent manner. Usage: IN THE aftermath of a huge botched trade and the surrounding economic upheaval, JPMorgan's earnings call on July 12th became an indicator of the state not only of the bank, but the financial system and even the global economy.

flouncy

adj. gathered and pleated

hard-nosed

adj. guided by practical experience and observation rather than by theory. Usage: Meanwhile, more homes are being built in Israeli settlements deep within the Palestinian West Bank, placed there deliberately to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution. This hard-nosed observation is one reason why Patrick Tyler's readable and informative new history of Israel is so timely.

circadian

adj. of, relating to, or showing rhythmic behaviour with a period of 24 hours; especially of a biological process Usage: So I think clearly what we call circadian rhythms, these oscillating clocks within the body, within cells in the body, clearly exist.

tousled

adj. unkempt, disheveled or in disarray v. simple past tense and past participle of tousle. Usage: Rocking-horses can't run away," Sue said, shaking her head, the hair of which needed brushing, as it had become "tousled" in her sleep.

craved

adj. wanted intensely. Usage: Mr. Gersten and Mr. Bishop craved somewhere to stage small, experimental productions at modest ticket prices and entice young audiences, and for a while they rented the Duke Theater on West 42nd Street to that end.

wherefore

adv. For what purpose or reason; why. adv. Therefore. n. A purpose or cause: wanted to know all the whys and wherefores.

askance

adv. With disapproval, suspicion, or distrust: "The area is so dirty that merchants report the tourists are looking askance" ( Chris Black). To turn aside, as the eyes.

stifling

dj. Very hot or stuffy almost to the point of being suffocating. adj. Being of such a character or nature as to engender a feeling of stultification, repression, or suffocation: "The scholarly correctness of our age can be stifling" ( Annalyn Swan).

demirep

n. (noun) A person of doubtful reputation or suspected chastity. Usage: Like Lady Booby in Joseph Andrews, she is not a pleasant character; but the picture of the fashionable demirep, cynical, sensual, and imperious, has never been drawn more vigorously, or more completely -- even by Balzac.

carmagnole

n. (noun) A popular dance and song among republicans in the first French revolution. n. (noun) A garment and costume worn in France during the revolution, and considered as identified with the revolutionary party. n. (noun) The wearer of such a dress; any violent revolutionist. n. (noun) A bombastic report of the successes and glories of the French arms during the revolutionary wars; hence, any bombastic address or document.

sizzard

n. (noun) A very uncomfortably hot, moist atmosphere in which one 'sizzles.

hatchetation

n. (noun) A violent protest against the drinking of alcohol in which the protester attacks the bar with a hatchet.

rebuff

n. A blunt or abrupt repulse or refusal, as to an offer. n. A check or an abrupt setback to progress or action. v. To reject bluntly, often disdainfully; snub. See Synonyms at refuse1. v. To repel or drive back. Usage: Such a rebuff was a stunner to the recipient of it, who soon regained his own serenity, however, and answered.

confab

n. A casual talk; confabulation. v. To engage in casual talk.

marzipan

n. A confection made of ground almonds or almond paste, egg whites, and sugar, often molded into decorative shapes.

cul-de-sac

n. A dead-end street. n. An impasse: "This was the cul-de-sac the year kept driving me toward: men and women would always be at odds" ( Philip Weiss). n. Anatomy A saclike cavity or tube open only at one end.

shenanigan

n. A deceitful trick; an underhanded act. n. Remarks intended to deceive; deceit. Often used in the plural. n. A playful or mischievous act; a prank. n. Mischief; prankishness. Often used in the plural.

crevasse

n. A deep fissure, as in a glacier; a chasm. n. A crack or breach in a dike or levee. v. To develop or cause to develop crevasses. Usage: Workers in the field refer to the perceptual crevasse which separates acceptable caricature from accurate representation as "the uncanny valley"—and the "The Polar Express" fell right into it.

sauerkraut

n. A dish made by fermenting finely chopped cabbage.

rout

n. A disorderly retreat or flight following defeat. n. An overwhelming defeat. n. A disorderly crowd of people; a mob. n. People of the lowest class; rabble. Usage: Barely a year after stock markets looked like they were headed for a long-term rout, exchanges in New York and Toronto have leapt roughly 70 per cent.

Manichaeism

n. A dualistic philosophy dividing the world between good and evil principles or regarding matter as intrinsically evil and mind as intrinsically good. Usage: Heads, I win; tails, you lose. It's a cheap trick. The argument as usually deployed also depends on a combination of lazy partisan Manichaeism and the naive practice of taking politicians at their word.

fogey

n. A dull old fellow; a person behind the times, over-conservative, or slow; -- usually preceded by old. Usage: THE kids these days play their music too loud and it all sounds the same. Old fogies familiar with such sentiments will be happy to hear that maths bears them out.

conceit

n. A favorable and especially unduly high opinion of one's own abilities or worth. n. An ingenious or witty turn of phrase or thought. Usage: It was that the media shouldn't exploit Kretschmer's victims or gratuitously risk encouraging imitators, either by turning news coverage of their murders into mindless entertainment, or by consuming it as such, or, worst of all, by tactily indulging the sensational conceit that he was "some kind of antihero.

tour de force

n. A feat requiring great virtuosity or strength, often deliberately undertaken for its difficulty: "In an extraordinary structural tour de force the novel maintains a dual focus" ( Julian Moynahan).

wicker

n. A flexible plant branch or twig, as of a willow, used in weaving baskets or furniture.

gazebo

n. A freestanding, roofed, usually open-sided structure providing a shady resting place. n. A belvedere. Usage: The gazebo is made of concrete with supporting pillars amazingly all formed to look exactly like tree trunks and branches.

embargo

n. A government order prohibiting the movement of merchant ships into or out of its ports. n. A prohibition by a government on certain or all trade with a foreign nation.

perforation

n. A hole or series of holes punched or bored through something, especially a hole in a series, separating sections in a sheet or roll. Usage: Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) makes his plea to Wayne (Christian Bale) after suffering multiple bullet perforations and a near-drowning at the hands of Bane (Tom Hardy), a seething(angry, livid) mass of bicep and trapezius who is also, unfortunately, a terrorist mastermind.

colossus

n. A huge statue. n. Something likened to a huge statue, as in size or importance: a colossus of bureaucracy.

arthropod

n. A jointed invertebrate animal with jointed legs; one of the Arthropoda.

defection

n. A lack: a failure; especially, failure in the performance of duty or obligation. n. The act of abandoning a person or a cause to which one is bound by allegiance or duty, or to which one has attached himself; a falling away; apostasy; backsliding.

jeremiad

n. A literary work or speech expressing a bitter lament or a righteous prophecy of doom. Usage: To engage a taxi-driver in conversation in the capital, Tehran, is to invite a tearful jeremiad against life's iniquities.

cachet

n. A mark or quality, as of distinction, individuality, or authenticity: "Federal courts have a certain cachet which state courts lack" ( Christian Science Monitor). Usage: All this tacit (and free) quasi-endorsement gave the shoe a (white) counterculture cachet that has not quite burned off yet.

druid

n. A member of an order of priests in ancient Gaul and Britain who appear in Welsh and Irish legend as prophets and sorcerers. Usage: The celebration at the doctor's house left the heroes well-fed and drunk, and though it occurred to both Fabi and Paythan that the druid might be able to tell them more about these strange portals, they are reluctant to ask him about it.

serf

n. A member of the lowest feudal class, attached to the land owned by a lord and required to perform labor in return for certain legal or customary rights. n. A person in bondage or servitude. Usage: Companies have paid lip service to customer service for years, yet still treat customers like serfs.

bildungsroman

n. A novel whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a usually youthful main character. Usage: Morally he scarcely improves over the course of the novel I've seen it described as a bildungsroman, but I'm not convinced Gully develops enough to merit that.

epoch

n. A particular period of history, especially one considered remarkable or noteworthy. n. A notable event that marks the beginning of such a period. See Synonyms at period. Usage: After the last glacial epoch subsided 20,000 years ago, the sea subsequently rose 120 metres to reach roughly today's level.

upstart

n. A person of humble origin who attains sudden wealth, power, or importance, especially one made immodest or presumptuous by the change; a parvenu. adj. Suddenly raised to a position of consequence. adj. Self-important; presumptuous. v. To spring or start up suddenly. Usage: McCain, war hero, American patriot will prevail against the one term upstart from Illinois with questionable personal affiliations and no experience in the international theater.

voyeur

n. A person who derives sexual gratification from observing the naked bodies or sexual acts of others, especially from a secret vantage point. n. An obsessive observer of sordid or sensational subjects.

cognoscente

n. A person with superior, usually specialized knowledge or highly refined taste; a connoisseur.

moniker

n. A personal name or nickname. n. A signature Usage: Soon enough Batman is onto the scent of Bane, taking the occasional break to swap jabs, jibes, and a layer or so of lip gloss with cryptic cat burglar—yes, this would be Catwoman, but Nolan is sharp enough to skip the moniker—Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway).

panopticon

n. A proposed prison of supervision, so arranged that the inspector can se each of the prisoners at all times without being seen by them: proposed by Jeremy Bentam. n. An exhibition-room for novelties, etc. n. In astronomy, a kind of telescope and microscope combined.

sphinx

n. A puzzling or mysterious person. n. an inscrutable person who keeps his thoughts and intentions secret

twit

n. A reproach, gibe, or taunt. n. Slang A foolishly annoying person.

Levantine

n. A rich and stout silk material, characterized by having two faces of different colors or shades.

cutlass

n. A short heavy sword with a curved single-edged blade, once used as a weapon by sailors. n. Caribbean A machete.

epigram

n. A short, witty poem expressing a single thought or observation. n. A concise, clever, often paradoxical statement. See Synonyms at saying. Usage: But his photographs, in their epigrammatic compression of a whole subject into a single black-and-white image, were New Yorker profiles in miniature, and within weeks it was as if he had always graced these pages.

cassava

n. A shrubby tropical American plant (Manihot esculenta) widely grown for its large, tuberous, starchy roots. n. The root of this plant, eaten as a staple food in the tropics only after leaching and drying to remove cyanide. Cassava starch is also the source of tapioca.

sitcom

n. A situation comedy: an episodic comedy television program with a plot or storyline based around a particular humorous situation.

bratwurst

n. A small sausage of highly seasoned fresh pork, usually served fried.

totem

n. A social group having a common affiliation to such an object. n. A venerated emblem or symbol: "grew up with the totems and taboos typical of an Irish Catholic kid in Boston" ( Connie Paige). Usage: Hacker says that math is required in many professions "just to look rigorous," as "a hoop, a badge, a totem to impress outsiders and elevate a profession's status."

concierge

n. A staff member of a hotel or apartment complex who assists guests or residents, as by handling the storage of luggage, taking and delivering messages, and making reservations for tours. Usage: Circles, a concierge service, gives employees prizes, including time off, for getting high scores on customer-satisfaction surveys.

quandary

n. A state of difficulty or perplexity; a state of uncertainty, hesitation, or puzzlement; a pickle; a predicament. To put into a quandary; bring into a state of uncertainty or difficulty. To be in a difficulty or uncertainty; hesitate. Usage: The United States should encourage the Arab League to not only endorse the continuation of direct talks at this critical juncture, but also be more creative, take the initiative and change the dynamic of the negotiations regardless of how the settlement quandary is resolved.

spurt

n. A sudden forcible gush or jet. n. A sudden short burst, as of energy, activity, or growth. Usage: Lately, however, this rise has put on a spurt. Satellite observations over the past two decades record an increase of three to four millimetres a year. Like it or not, the only explanation for this acceleration is the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted by human activity.

shellacked/shellac

n. A thin varnish made by dissolving this substance in denatured alcohol, used to finish wood. n. An old phonograph record containing this substance, typically played at 78 rpm. v. To coat or finish with shellac. v. Slang To strike repeatedly and severely; batter. v. Slang To defeat decisively.

standoff

n. A tie or draw, as in a contest. n. A situation in which one force neutralizes or counterbalances the other. n. A standoff insulator. Usage: Plaintiffs' lawyers in personal-injury cases funded Democratic candidates for judgeships; defense lawyers in these cases—especially those representing insurance companies and large corporations—supported Republicans. For a time, the battle was something of standoff, but Republicans gained the upper hand in the nineties, especially in the South, where they were making big gains across the board.

clochard

n. A tramp; a vagrant. Usage: A clochard was asleep on the far pavement under a bush, his grizzled gray head resting on his extended arm, totally oblivious to the spray steadily heading his way.

junket

n. A trip or tour, especially: n. One taken by an official at public expense. Usage: an official trade mission to Japan became an auto-buying junket for scores of party wives, children and hangers-on. Izvestia reported that a returning ocean liner carried 167 second-hand Japanese cars bound for the province's party elite.

provost

n. A university administrator of high rank. n. The highest official in certain cathedrals or collegiate churches. Usage: Some universities are addressing their financial problems. Cornell began in 2009: Kent Fuchs, the provost, offered to cut the costs of administration by $70m, if the faculty would concentrate on excelling at a limited number of important things, rather than trying to do everything.

smidgeon

n. A very small quantity or amount. Usage: Mr Romney offered language on Iran that was a smidgeon tougher than Mr Obama's, talking of not tolerating the development of an Iranian nuclear capability, a lower threshold than denouncing an Iranian bomb.

balaclava

n. A warm woolen hood covering the head and neck, worn especially by mountain climbers and skiers. n. A similarly styled hood often covering the shoulders, as worn by soldiers and sailors or as protective clothing. Usage: He was clad in woodsy camouflage and had pulled what she called a balaclava over his head, concealing all save his eyes and mouth under its khaki wool.

bosun

n. A warrant or petty officer on board a naval ship. Usage: A bosun is a person who gives -- who blows a whistle to give orders to the other sailors.

bonmot

n. A witticism; a clever or witty saying; a witty repartee. Usage: She always wears black and she's so cool and she always has the perfect bon mot to toss off just effortlessly.

diptych

n. A work consisting of two painted or carved panels that are hinged together. n. An ancient writing tablet having two leaves hinged together. n. A list of names, originally contained on such a tablet, of living and dead Christians for whom special prayers are made during the liturgy in many eastern and western churches. Usage: The two photographs hung next to each other—a diptych to powerlessness.

oeuvre

n. A work of art. n. The sum of the lifework of an artist, writer, or composer. Usage: I've read a bit of her stuff online, and one thing I notice that seems to be missing from her oeuvre is her own romantic past.

scoliosis

n. Abnormal lateral curvature of the spine. Usage: A show with a liberal bent so strong it's practically scoliosis.

arachnophobia

n. An abnormal fear of spiders.

morass

n. An area of low-lying, soggy ground. n. Something that hinders, engulfs, or overwhelms: a morass of details.

shambling

n. An awkward, clumsy, irregular pace or gait. Characterized by an awkward, irregular, clumsy, weak-kneed motion or gait: as, a shambling trot; shambling legs.

pulpit

n. An elevated platform, lectern, or stand used in preaching or conducting a religious service. n. Clerics considered as a group. Usage: On the one hand, Bellamy takes critics to task for not using their bully pulpits (mainly, he suggests, online ones) to discuss in detail the movies that he thinks unfamiliar enough to require explication and justification.

tavern

n. An establishment licensed to sell alcoholic beverages to be consumed on the premises. n. An inn for travelers.

touchstone

n. An excellent quality or example that is used to test the excellence or genuineness of others: "the qualities of courage and vision that are the touchstones of leadership" ( Henry A. Kissinger). See Synonyms at standard.

alon des Refusés

n. An exhibition held in Paris from 1863 to 1886, showing works that had been rejected by the Académie des Beaux-Arts when submitted for display at the Paris Salon. Usage: Sometimes it un-gels once you get it home, which is why we have something of a Salon des Refusés in the basement of our current rental.

winch

n. An instrument with which to turn or strain something forcibly. n. lifting device consisting of a horizontal cylinder turned by a crank on which a cable or rope winds v. pull or lift up with or as if with a winch Usage: At 20 metres from the ground, the rover itself will be winched down on cables and set gently onto the Martian regolith.

kibble

n. An iron bucket used in wells or mines for hoisting water, ore, or refuse to the surface. v. To crush or grind (grain, for example) coarsely. n. Meal ground by this process and used in the form of pellets especially for pet food. Usage: Inside the bag, I discovered that their kibble is a small, thick triangle shape.

troubadour

n. An itinerant composer and performer of songs in medieval Europe; a jongleur or travelling minstrel (a musician). Usage: This was about as true of the indie-rock bands as it was of the troubadours and banjo pickers who more directly embody the festival's legacy.

fetish

n. An object of unreasonably excessive attention or reverence: made a fetish of punctuality. . An abnormally obsessive preoccupation or attachment; a fixation. Usage: But, when British design firm BERG announced plans for what looks more like a design fetish than a useful product last November, many tech blogs gave it their approval, giving us myriad (Composed of numerous diverse elements or facets) ways to meet the little guy.

pogrom

n. An organized, often officially encouraged massacre or persecution of a minority group, especially one conducted against Jews. Usage: Directed with seeming purpose against poor Sunnis, such pogroms appear aimed at securing what had been isolated Alawite villages and districts of Homs, a transport hub astride the strategic approach to the Alawite heartland in the craggy mountains that fringe Syria's Mediterranean coastline.

cornucopia

n. An overflowing store; an abundance: a cornucopia of employment opportunities. Usage: The website, Christianet. com, can only be described as a cornucopia of naked pandering of Christianity for profit and a brazen marketing of faith-based propaganda.

packrat

n. Any of several species of rodent in the genus Neotoma, but most commonly the Bushy-tailed Woodrat (Neotoma cinerea). n. One who tends to acquire various objects; one who collects, accumulates or has trouble throwing things away. Usage: I'm a bit of a packrat when it comes to saving these reflections.

ibex

n. Any of several wild goats of the genus Capra, especially C. ibex, native to mountainous regions of Eurasia and northern Africa and having long, ridged, backward-curving horns.

dole

n. Charitable dispensation of goods, especially money, food, or clothing. n. A share of money, food, or clothing that has been charitably given. n. Chiefly British The distribution by the government of relief payments to the unemployed; welfare.

plimsoll

n. Chiefly British A rubber-soled cloth shoe; a sneaker. Usage: Jordans and Chucks come from the same originary sneaker, a canvas plimsoll from the mid-19th century.

syndicalism

n. Control of government and industry by labor unions, usually achieved through revolutionary direct action.

hypoxia

n. Deficiency in the amount of oxygen reaching body tissues. Usage: Unsuspected obstructive fetal neck masses often prove fatal because of an inability to secure an airway and ventilate the neonate, which results in hypoxia and acidosis.

wiggle room

n. Flexibility, as of options or interpretation: ambiguous wording that left some wiggle room for further negotiation. Usage: He left none of the wiggle-room with which physicists often hedge their announcements when he summed up the results of his organisation's search for the Higgs boson.

grime

n. Foul matter; dirt; soil; foulness, especially of a surface; smuttiness. To cover with dirt; soil; befoul; begrime. Usage: She wore a bright yellow apron covered in grime and pizza toppings, and dried sarcasm stained her red sleeves.

cheeseparing

n. Hence, figuratively, a mean or parsimonious disposition or practice. Meanly economical; parsimonious: as, cheese-paring economy. Usage: The higher-education industry faces a stark choice: either adapt to a rapidly changing world or face a future of cheeseparing.

derecho

n. In Mexican and Spanish law: Right; justice; just claim. n. A strong wind or squall blowing straight forward, without any apparent cyclonic rotation.

gavage

n. In medicine, a similar method of forced feeding, employed under certain conditions. Usage: n. In medicine, a similar method of forced feeding, employed under certain conditions.

bushel

n. Informal A large amount; a great deal: We have bushels of time, so relax.

critter

n. Informal A living creature. n. Informal A domestic animal, especially a cow, horse, or mule. n. Informal A person. Usage: An extraordinary profusion of microscopic critters inhabit every crack and crevice of the typical human, so many that they probably outnumber the cells of the body upon and within which they dwell.

preppy

n. Informal A person whose manner and dress are deemed typical of traditional preparatory schools.

quagmire

n. Land with a soft muddy surface. n. A difficult or precarious situation; a predicament. Usage: Although she's pursued more death-penalty cases than any other current district attorney in the state, Chambers' efforts have been dogged by disclosure issues and ethical quagmires.

covenant

n. Law A formal sealed agreement or contract. n. Law A suit to recover damages for violation of such a contract. n. In the Bible, God's promise to the human race. Usage: Christians believe that it records a “new covenant, ” or “new testament, ” that fulfills and completes God’s “old covenant” with the Hebrews, described in the Old Testament.

moratorium

n. Law An authorized period of delay in the performance of an obligation. n. A suspension of an ongoing or planned activity: a moratorium on the deployment of a new weapon. Usage: Rather, the idea behind such a moratorium is a simple one: one does not send in the crime scene investigators while the fire is in progress -- one sends in the fire department.

underpinning

n. Material or masonry used to support a structure, such as a wall. n. A support or foundation. Often used in the plural. n. Informal The human legs. Often used in the plural. Usage: Surprisingly, however, the psychological underpinnings (tolerance = support) of a sense of injustice—in particular, what triggers willingness to punish an offender, even at a cost to the punisher—have not been well established.

insults

n. Medicine A bodily injury, irritation, or trauma. n. Something that causes bodily injury, irritation, or trauma: "the middle of the Bronx, buffeted and poisoned by the worst environmental insults that urban America can dish out" ( William K. Stevens). Usage: The insults ranged from fractured feet, dislocated shoulders and ruptured Achilles tendons to less traumatic but more prevalent ankle sprains and head contusions.

crescendo

n. Music A gradual increase, especially in the volume or intensity of sound in a passage. Usage: Her argument rises to a crescendo in a final chapter about how "Paul created Christ"; or how the apostle devised a serviceable form of world-religion based on his mystical intimations of a divine figure whom he had "met" only in visions.

reprise

n. Music A repetition of a phrase or verse. n. Music A return to an original theme. Usage: Ford will once again reprise his role as the adventuring archeologist in the next film.

bravura

n. Music Brilliant technique or style in performance. n. Music A piece or passage that emphasizes a performer's virtuosity. n. A showy manner or display. adj. Music Of, relating to, or being a brilliant performance technique or style. adj. Showy; ostentatious.

nought

n. Nothing; something which does not exist. n. A thing or person of no worth or value; nil. n. Not any quantity of number; zero; the score of no points in a game. n. The figure or character representing, or having the shape of, zero. adj. Good for nothing; worthless. adj. Wicked, immoral. v. To abase, to set at nought. adv. To no extent; in no way; not at all. adv. Not. pro. Nothing; zero.

elision

n. Omission of a final or initial sound in pronunciation. n. Omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable, as in scanning a verse. n. The act or an instance of omitting something. Usage: None of these omissions and elisions are coincidental, they're all part of Eastwood's game plan.

allele

n. One member of a pair or series of genes that occupy a specific position on a specific chromosome.

outlier

n. One who does not reside in the place with which his office or duty connects him. n. An outsider.

birther

n. One who gives birth n. A believer in one or more conspiracy theories, holding that President Barack Obama is not a "natural born" citizen of the United States, and therefore ineligible for the presidency.

pagan

n. One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, especially an adherent of a polytheistic religion in antiquity.

turncoat

n. One who traitorously switches allegiance. Usage: As if the slaughter of Mr Assad's crisis-management team were not enough, opposition sources claimed that a remote-controlled bomb had been placed inside the meeting room by a personal bodyguard of one of the men, helped by other turncoats from within the nizam, as the regime is known.

digerati

n. People who are knowledgeable about digital technologies such as computer programming and design. Usage: This year, ABC Family débuted Amy Sherman-Palladino's oddball "Bunheads," about small-town ballerinas. "Switched at Birth" is the work of Lizzy Weiss, the screenwriter behind the awesome girl-surf movie "Blue Crush," but the show is rarely discussed among the TV digerati, possibly because many people assume from the title that it's an exploitative reality show.

fettle

n. Proper or sound condition. n. Mental or emotional state; spirits: was in fine fettle. Usage: Or so it would if the compressor worked properly, the condenser and evaporator were in fine fettle, the hoses and seals had no leaks, and the filter/dryer used to remove moisture and other impurities from the refrigerant and its oil supply was not clogged.

incest

n. Sexual relations between persons who are so closely related that their marriage is illegal or forbidden by custom. n. The statutory crime of sexual relations with such a near relative. Usage: Another is that, on Tuesday, the drafters of the G.O.P.'s platform approved language—which the party has used before—saying that "the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed"—no exception for a woman who is raped, no exception for a child who is a victim of incest, and calling for a Constitutional amendment saying so.

downer

n. Slang A depressant or sedative drug, such as a barbiturate or tranquilizer. n. Slang One that depresses, such as an experience or person.

screwball

n. Slang An eccentric, impulsively whimsical, or irrational person. adj. Slang Impulsively whimsical; eccentric: That screwball proposal won't work.

shtick

n. Slang An entertainment routine or gimmick. Usage: You could ascribe Dylan's croak to the ravages of time. (He is seventy-one.) You might more accurately call it a stylistic flourish—a ravages-of-time shtick.

exiguity

n. Smallness; slenderness; tenuity. n. Scantiness; slightness; meagerness: as, the exiguity of a description.

riposte

n. Sports A quick thrust given after parrying an opponent's lunge in fencing. n. A retaliatory action, maneuver, or retort. v. To make a return thrust. v. To retort quickly.

clout

n. Sports An archery target. n. Informal Influence; pull: "Women in dual-earner households are gaining in job status and earnings ... giving them more clout at work and at home" ( Sue Shellenbarger).

simulacrum

n. That which is formed in the likeness of any object; an image. n. A shadowy or unreal likeness of anything; a phantom; a vague, unreal representation. n. A formal sign; a sign which represents a thing by resembling it, but does not indicate it, or stand for the actual presence of the thing. Usage: Simulacra that are intended to look like real people, though, are frequently perceived as creepy.

scouring

n. The act of cleaning a surface by rubbing it with a brush,soap,and water. Examine minutely. Usage: In "What Matters in Jane Austen?" he solves 20 crucial puzzles by asking such questions as "Is there any sex in Jane Austen?" and "Why is it risky to go to the seaside?", scouring her oeuvre for clues and providing answers within the social context of Georgian England.

conniving

n. The act of conniving, tacitly permitting, or indirectly aiding; collusion by withholding condemnation or exposure; tacit or implied encouragement, especially of wrong-doing. n. In the law of divorce, specifically, the corrupt consenting of a married person to that conduct in the spouse of which complaint is afterward made. Usage: The mob burnt down shops and even outlets selling milk allegedly in connivance with the police.

swilling

n. The act of drinking to excess.

exultation

n. The act of exulting; lively joy at success or victory, or at any advantage gained; great gladness; triumphant delight; triumph.

grapple

n. The act of grappling. n. A struggle or contest in which the participants attempt to clutch or grip each other. n. A struggle for superiority or dominance. v. To seize and hold, as with a grapple. v. To seize firmly, as with the hands. v. To hold onto something with or as if with a grapple.

infestation

n. The act of infesting or harassing; harassment; molestation. n. A harassing inroad; a malignant or mischievous invasion.

one-upmanship

n. The art or practice of successively outdoing a competitor. n. A succession of instances of outdoing a competitor. Usage: Both books are important. Ms Johnson's essays offer the reader a fuller appreciation of Austen and her admirers, but it is Mr Mullan's you should read for an unforgettable lesson in one-upmanship over your fellow Janeites.

sadomasochistic

n. The combination of sadism and masochism, in particular the deriving of pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting or submitting to physical or emotional abuse. Usage: The research showed 2 per cent of adult Australians regularly partake in sadomasochism and dominance and submission-type sexual role play.

oblivion

n. The condition or quality of being completely forgotten: "He knows that everything he writes is consigned to posterity (oblivion's other, seemingly more benign, face)" ( Joyce Carol Oates). n. The act or an instance of forgetting; total forgetfulness: sought the great oblivion of sleep. n. Official overlooking of offenses; amnesty (A period during which offenders are exempt from punishment).

visage

n. The face or facial expression of a person; countenance. n. Appearance; aspect: the bleak visage of winter. Usage: In the case of social anxiety these might be a neutral face and a disgusted face. Presented with this choice, an anxious person instinctively focuses on the disgusted visage.

fealty

n. The fidelity owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. n. The oath of such fidelity. n. Faithfulness; allegiance. See Synonyms at fidelity. Usage: the movie's problem with Hoover wasn't the way he dealt with Communists of foreign fealty but, rather, his self-mythologizing spotlight hogging and his efforts to discredit such authentic heroes as Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.

upshot

n. The final result; the outcome. See Synonyms at effect. n. The central idea or point; gist. Usage: The upshot was that in the first two cases about 15% of second players chose to retaliate if they had money taken.

gable

n. The generally triangular section of wall at the end of a pitched roof, occupying the space between the two slopes of the roof. n. The whole end wall of a building or wing having a pitched roof. n. A triangular, usually ornamental architectural section, as one above an arched door or window.

hinterland

n. The land directly adjacent to and inland from a coast. n. A region remote from urban areas; backcountry. n. A region situated beyond metropolitan centers of culture. Usage: But deep poverty remains the rule here in the rural hinterlands around Piggs Peak, a dusty town in the country's mountainous northwest.

hinterland

n. The land directly adjacent to and inland from a coast. n. A region remote from urban areas; backcountry. n. A region situated beyond metropolitan centers of culture. Usage: The first were the self-governing colonies in North America, the Caribbean and Australasia; second, India and the opportunity it provided for Britain to project power from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea; and third, a ragbag of smaller territories, some of them bases acquired as way stations to India, some trade entrepots such as Hong Kong and Singapore and some "maritime bridgeheads" in east and west Africa with relatively ungoverned hinterlands.

regolith

n. The layer of loose rock resting on bedrock, constituting the surface of most land. Also called mantle rock. Usage: Schultz said the silver and gold molecules detected were in atomic form - loosely attached to grains of lunar soil, or "regolith" - and were not the kind of deposits that could be mined.

shrift

n. The penitential act of confession to a priest, especially in the case of a dying penitent. n. Absolution received after confession; pardon. Usage: There's a bit in Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson"—a book that I started but never finished—where Johnson gives amusingly short shrift to the notion that you should finish reading any book you start.

gentrification

n. The restoration and upgrading of deteriorated urban property by middle-class or affluent people, often resulting in displacement of lower-income people. Usage: I lived the bulk of my life on these tough-but-safe streets long before the word "gentrification" entered the Park Slope lexicon, using this subway station as my gateway to the wide world.

purr

n. The soft vibrant sound made by a cat. n. A sound similar to that made by a cat: the purr of an engine. v. To make or utter a soft vibrant sound: The cat purred. The sewing machine purred. v. To express by a soft vibrant sound.

slipstream

n. The turbulent flow of air driven backward by the propeller or propellers of an aircraft. Usage: Vibrating in the wind, the bristles create some drag. But they also reduce the wing's slipstream, an area of low-pressure turbulence that pulls back on the wing, and hence reduce drag.

bedrock

n. The very basis; the foundation: Ownership of land is the bedrock of democracy. n. The lowest point: personal finances that were at bedrock.

travail

n. Work, especially when arduous or involving painful effort; toil. See Synonyms at work. n. Tribulation or agony; anguish. Usage: Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is hard to find Iranians who argue that their travails are a price worth paying for nuclear self-sufficiency as a barrier against foreign-inspired regime change.

travail

n. Work, especially when arduous or involving painful effort; toil. See Synonyms at work. n. Tribulation or agony; anguish. n. The labor of childbirth. v. To work strenuously; toil. Usage: I will explore the emotional travails of internship and bring you a better understanding of the training process for doctors in the United States.

hackles

n. a feeling of anger and animosity. Usage: Whether asymmetry and poor health or fitness really go hand in hand has not been easy to prove. Research on this in humans causes ethical problems and can raise hackles.

nom de guerre

n. a fictitious name used when the person performs a particular social role. Usage: He went into the bush as Legesse Zenawi and emerged as "Meles"—a nom de guerre he had taken in tribute to a murdered comrade.

contingence

n. a possible event or occurrence or result.

boutonniere

n. a small flower or bunch of flowers worn in a buttonhole or worn, pinned, to the lapel of a jacket.

disenchantment

n. freeing from false belief or illusions

sparring

n. making the motions of attack and defense with the fists and arms; a part of training for a boxer n. an argument in which the participants are trying to gain some advantage

detente

n. the easing of tensions or strained relations (especially between nations), as by agreement, negotiation, or tacit understandings. Usage: While we remained on the defensive or engaged in detente with the communists during the Cold War, the enemy continued to war against us indefinitely.

moonlighting

v. Informal To work at another job, often at night, in addition to one's full-time job. Usage: Civil servants have been reduced to moonlighting in menial jobs to make up for their shrinking buying power.

jockey

v. Sports To ride (a horse) as jockey. v. To direct or maneuver by cleverness or skill: jockeyed the car into a tight space. v. To trick; cheat.

scourge

v. To afflict with severe or widespread suffering and devastation; ravage. v. To chastise severely; excoriate. v. To flog. Usage: Ironically, Ryan came to national attention trying to dismantle the very program that helped him go to the college of his choice, pushing an even more radical version of President Bush's Social Security privatization plan, which failed. He has since become the scourge of the welfare state, a man wholly supported by government who preaches against the evils of government support.

resounding

v. To be filled with sound; reverberate: The schoolyard resounded with the laughter of children. v. To make a loud, long, or reverberating sound: The music resounded through the hall. v. To sound loudly; ring. v. To become famous, celebrated, or extolled: Picasso—a name to resound for ages in art history. Usage: There lies in it a truth, a beauty, and a grandeur which I am convinced will make his name resound through many lands!

reeked

v. To be pervaded by something unpleasant: "This document ... reeks of self-pity and self-deception" ( Christopher Hitchens). Usage: The prison guards refused to open the door of the locked punishment wing, which reeked of vomit and faeces.

flail

v. To beat or strike with or as if with a flail: flailed our horses with the reins. v. To wave or swing vigorously; thrash: flailed my arms to get their attention. Usage: In the next few days Syria's violently flailing regime dropped all such pretence.

restitute

v. To bring back to a former condition; restore. v. To refund. Usage: The recipient of a public scholarship is morally justified only so long as he regards it as restitution and opposes all forms of welfare statism.

ravage

v. To bring heavy destruction on; devastate: A tornado ravaged the town. v. To pillage; sack: Enemy soldiers ravaged the village.

wafting

v. To cause to go gently and smoothly through the air or over water. v. To convey or send floating through the air or over water. Usage: One, or several, of these problems may be the reason why no cool air is wafting from the air-conditioning vents in your correspondent's 24-year-old car.

schmooze

v. To converse casually, especially in order to gain an advantage or make a social connection. v. To engage in schmoozing with: "how to be a professional artist—how to be a businessperson, how to schmooze the collectors" ( Paige Powell). n. The act or an instance of schmoozing. Usage: There's a perverse satisfaction to watching Elaine confront her compromise-prone boss, President Garcetti, who won the primary with his message of hope, by convincing the voters to choose him over a woman who ran a bad campaign, and who knows that she's ill-suited to press the flesh, to schmooze, to lie.

mewl

v. To cry weakly; whimper. Usage: A few hours later Tune-Yards, the whiz-bang alter ego of Merrill Garbus, delivered a depth charge on the Harbor Stage: the same smallish, tented space where First Aid Kit, a Swedish sister act, had earnestly mewled Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust" on Saturday afternoon.

prune

v. To cut off or remove dead or living parts or branches of (a plant, for example) to improve shape or growth. v. To remove or cut out as superfluous. Usage: Not enough manure and the crop fetches a lower price. It must be carefully pruned to produce the right kind of flowers. And they have to watch out for weeds.

skimp

v. To deal with hastily, carelessly, or with poor material: concentrated on reelection, skimping other matters. v. To provide for or supply inadequately; be stingy with: accused them of skimping defense funding.

quaff

v. To drink (a beverage) heartily: quaffed the ale with gusto. v. To drink a liquid heartily: quaffed from the spring. Usage: But with each successive quaff, the flavors opened up, revealing a rich, complex tequila that stopped just short of overpowering the harmonious blend of the other ingredients.

scrimp

v. To economize severely. v. To be excessively sparing with or of. v. To cut or make too small or scanty. Usage: The researchers were able to scrimp in a number of clever ways. "One was scouring the globe for the least expensive, highest-performing components like motors, gears, etcetera," says Curt Salisbury, the project's principal investigator. "Another was to build the entire electronics system from commodity parts, especially those found in cell phones.

boggle

v. To hesitate as if in fear or doubt. v. To shy away or be overcome with fright or astonishment: "The mind now boggling at all the numbers on the table, both sides agreed to a recess of an hour" ( Henry A. Kissinger). v. To act ineptly or inefficiently; bungle. v. To cause to be overcome, as with fright or astonishment. v. To botch; bungle.

croon

v. To hum or sing softly. v. To sing popular songs in a soft, sentimental manner. v. Scots To roar or bellow. Usage: Dylan has never been a soothing singer; the closest he came was on "Nashville Skyline," in 1969, when he quit smoking and his nasal bark transformed, briefly, magically, into a croon.

prod

v. To jab or poke, as with a pointed object. v. To goad to action; incite. n. A pointed object used to prod: a cattle prod. n. An incitement; a stimulus. Usage: The program, however, prods him to complete tasks involving the neutral picture, such as identifying letters that appear in its place on the screen.

splice

v. To join (two pieces of film, for example) at the ends. v. To join (ropes, for example) by interweaving strands. Usage: Marker was a master of film editing—the part of the filmmaking process that Jean-Luc Godard, another master editor and memory-artist, defined as holding past, present, and future in one's own hands—and the very possibility of remembering Marker demands a little editing, a splicing-in of excerpts from a surprising and crucial document.

shangai

v. To kidnap (a man) for compulsory service aboard a ship, especially after drugging him. v. To induce or compel (someone) to do something, especially by fraud or force: We were shanghaied into buying worthless securities.

waylay

v. To lie in wait for and attack from ambush. See Synonyms at ambush. v. To accost or intercept unexpectedly. Usage: They seemed anxious to speed off, as did a lone pedestrian waylaid on an eerily deserted boulevard, who briskly agreed that things were "normal—very, very normal".

heft

v. To lift (something) in order to judge or estimate its weight. v. To hoist (something); heave. Usage: People who have strong reactions to a work—and most of us do—but don't possess the wider erudition that can give an opinion heft, are not critics.

brew

v. To make (ale or beer) from malt and hops by infusion, boiling, and fermentation. v. To make (a beverage) by boiling, steeping, or mixing various ingredients: brew tea. v. To concoct; devise: brew a plot to overthrow the government.

harrumph

v. To make a show of clearing one's throat. v. To offer usually brief critical comments: harrumphed for a while over the proposal. Usage: As a populist who says she always has the interest of the poorest at heart, she ostensibly opposes any liberalising reforms. Thus she must be given space to harrumph and protest against the changes.

embitter

v. To make bitter in flavor. v. To arouse bitter feelings in: was embittered by years of unrewarded labor.

knead

v. To mix and work into a uniform mass, as by folding, pressing, and stretching with the hands: kneading dough. v. To make or shape by or as if by folding, pressing, and stretching with the hands. v. To squeeze, press, or roll with the hands, as in massaging: kneading a painful calf muscle.

exude

v. To ooze forth. v. To discharge or emit (a liquid or gas, for example) gradually. v. To exhibit in abundance: a face that exuded self-satisfaction.

trundle

v. To push or propel on wheels or rollers: "I doubt if Emerson could trundle a wheelbarrow through the streets" ( Henry David Thoreau). v. To spin; twirl. v. To move along by or as if by rolling or spinning. Usage: Once the whole assembly had bounced to a stop, the airbags were deflated and the robots trundled out to begin their missions.

eviscerate

v. To remove the entrails of; disembowel. v. To take away a vital or essential part of: a compromise that eviscerated the proposed bill. Usage: Although the forecasts are lower, Charles Di Bona, an analyst at Bernstein Research, said Microsoft didn't "eviscerate" its numbers, which may give investors confidence that it is better insulated from economic turbulence than others.

muzzled

v. To restrain from expression: tried to muzzle the opposition. Usage: Opposition parties were banned and their leaders jailed or driven into exile; the press was muzzled.

scavenge

v. To search through for salvageable material: scavenged the garbage cans for food scraps. v. To collect and remove refuse from: The streets are periodically scavenged. v. To collect (salvageable material) by searching. Usage: Small drones are being developed with highly efficient wing-bottom infra-red cells that scavenge radiation energy reflected up from the ground.

scour

v. To search through or over thoroughly: The detective scoured the scene of the crime for clues. v. To clear (a channel or pipe) by flushing. Usage: Dr Gonon's group scoured PubMed and Factiva, two databases containing biomedical papers and newspaper articles respectively, for reports on ADHD.

rant

v. To speak or write in an angry or violent manner; rave. v. To utter or express with violence or extravagance: a dictator who ranted his vitriol onto a captive audience.

purloin

v. To steal, often in a violation of trust. See Synonyms at steal. v. To commit theft. Usage: They all grumble that foreign promises of weapons and cash have rarely been fulfilled; most equipment has been bought from local arms dealers, often purloined from army stocks, with donations from wealthy Syrians.

stanch

v. To stop or check the flow of (blood or tears, for example). v. To stop the flow of blood from (a wound). v. To stop, check, or allay: "My anxiety is stanched; I am at peace" ( Scott Turow). See Usage Note at staunch1.

sideswipe

v. To strike along the side in passing. n. A glancing blow on or along the side. n. An incidental critical remark; a gibe. Usage: Mr Obama is trying to channel the anger, to avoid being sideswiped by it.

vet

v. To subject to thorough examination or evaluation: vet a manuscript. Usage: Heffernan and his W.P.I. colleagues are now developing a system of vetting and ranking the thousands of math-related sites on the Internet.

advert

v. To turn attention. Used with to: The board next adverted to compensation issues. v. To call attention; refer. Used with to: He adverted to the problem in the opening paragraph. See Synonyms at refer. Usage: In a light-box covered with the kind of glossy advert one sees in the pages of Vogue magazine is a photograph of a dashing Arab man pictured in the desert.

yowl

v. To utter a long loud mournful cry; wail. v. To say or utter with a yowl. n. A long loud mournful cry; a wail. Usage: And yet it would have been easy to find a scrap of meta-meaning in a refrain yowled by Brittany Howard, of the ascendant Southern soul band Alabama Shakes, during a gritty and sure-footed set on Saturday: "I ain't the same no more/You'll find I have changed from before."

chafe

v. To wear away or irritate by rubbing. v. To annoy; vex. Usage: So he cherishes the stability and the repetitive banality of his existence, but he chafes at these things, too, because "the ambition to write something exceptional one day," an ambition that "has kept me going for the whole of my adult life," is threatened by the busyness of his routine.

secede

v. To withdraw formally from membership in an organization, association, or alliance.

swath

v. To wrap or bind with or as if with bandages. v. To enfold or constrict. n. A wrapping, binding, or bandage.

prise

v. regard highly; think much of v. make an uninvited or presumptuous inquiry v. to move or force, especially in an effort to get something open. Usage: But backing the FSA is probably the quickest way to prise Mr Assad from power.