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hermetically

in an airtight manner "this bag is hermetically sealed"

ruction

the act of making a noisy disturbance

garbled

A garbled message makes no sense. If you get a bad phone connection, your friend's message might sound garbled. Or, if you have rewritten the same sentence numerous times, its message might also be garbled. When you were young you may have played the game telephone, where one student thinks up a line, whispers it to his neighbor, who whispers it to his neighbor, and so on, down the line. At the end, the last person to receive the message shouts it out; it usually has nothing to do with what the first person said: it has been garbled along the way

parsimonious

A parsimonious person is unwilling to spend a lot of money. You know those people who count up every penny when it's time to split a restaurant bill? You can call them parsimonious. Or cheap. Stingy is the most common and general synonym, but there are many other near synonyms: thrifty, frugal, penurious, niggardly, penny-pinching, miserly, tight-fisted, tight. The adjective parsimonious was formed in English from the noun parsimony "the quality of being careful in spending" (from Latin parcimonia, from parcere "to spare") plus the suffix -ous "having the quality of."

berate

A strong verb for harshly cutting someone down with words is berate. "He didn't just correct the cashier who gave him the wrong change, he started to berate her, calling her names in front of the whole store." When you berate someone it is more than just raising your voice at them; it implies putting them down by insulting their character. Berate comes from the 16th-century English and French for "to scold" or "to blame." Often the anger behind the scolding seems over-the-top, as in "When the young man behind the counter dropped the scoop of vanilla, the manager berated him excessively by declaring him worthless and weak."

virulent

A virulent disease is one that's infectious, spreading, and making lots of people sick, while a virulent rant is just a verbal attack, causing sickness of the emotional kind. Either way, something virulent puts a strain on the people who get it. Two meanings come out of the roots for virulent: one being "poisonous" and the other, "spiteful." The virus-carrying meaning of virulent often gets combined with strain, such as in a "virulent strain of the flu." Those who aren't carrying disease but are still considered virulent most likely lash out at others with a biting tone. Unleashing acid-tongued words on someone would be considered a virulent attack.

alabaster

Alabaster is a pale mineral that's soft enough for carving, like marble. In museums, you're likely to see statues and vases carved from alabaster. The root of alabaster is a Greek word meaning "perfume vase," alabastros. You'll also find ancient tomb carvings, windows in medieval cathedrals, and Egyptian sarcophagi made of alabaster. Alabaster is usually white, and because it is translucent, seems lit from within. For this reason, it often describes a pale complexion that seems to glow from the inside.

anomaly

An anomaly is an abnormality, a blip on the screen of life that doesn't fit with the rest of the pattern. If you are a breeder of black dogs and one puppy comes out pink, that puppy is an anomaly. The noun anomaly comes from the Greek word anomolia, meaning "uneven" or "irregular." When something is unusual compared to similar things around it, it's the anomaly. If you are an Olympian who comes from a family of bookish types who all find it strenuous to walk the dog, you are an anomaly.

antecedent

An antecedent is a thing that comes before something else. You might think rap music has no historical antecedent, but earlier forms of African-American spoken verse go back for centuries. In logic, mathematics, and grammar, the word antecedent (from Latin ante-, "before" + cedere, "to yield") has the meaning "the first part of a statement." More generally, it means "something that came before, and perhaps caused, something else." The word is also an adjective: a lawyer or judge might talk about the "antecedent events" leading up to someone committing a crime.

ideology

An ideology is a set of opinions or beliefs of a group or an individual. Very often ideology refers to a set of political beliefs or a set of ideas that characterize a particular culture. Capitalism, communism, socialism, and Marxism are ideologies. But not all -ism words are. Think: cronyism (a system of graft whereby friends unfairly help each other make money.) Our English noun is from French idéologie. The suffix -logy, used with many English words describing theories or doctrines, is from Greek logos "word, reason, speech, account."

vitiate

As some sneaky five-year-olds know, crossing one's fingers while making a promise is an effective way to vitiate, or destroy the validity of, an agreement. Vitiate is often used when a legal agreement is made invalid, but it can also refer to the debasement or corruption of something or someone. If a malicious five-year-old on the playground teaches the other children to lie with their fingers crossed, she would be responsible for vitiating the playground community. The first syllable of this word is pronounced "vish," like the first syllable in vicious.

berserk

Berserk is another way of saying deranged, destructively violent, or unrestrained — like a wailing toddler ravaging the playroom when he's hopped up on sugar and long overdue for a nap. Famous writer and runner George Sheehan said, "If you want to win anything - a race, your self, your life - you have to go a little berserk." He must have been thinking of the fierce Norse warriors called berserkrs that inspired the adjective we know to mean "crazed." Those warriors were feared to be fighters of superhuman strength who wore bear skins and chewed madly at their iron shields. It's safe to say most of their opponents ran away crying.

sordid

Describe a person's actions as sordid if they are so immoral or unethical that they seem dirty. Think of the worst parts of a bad soap opera!Something that is filthy or run down such as a neighborhood or someone's living conditions can be called sordid, but it is usually used figuratively to mean immoral or dishonest. If you want to hear the sordid details of someone's actions, it's because they were extremely dishonest or sexually immoral and also because they were supposed to be kept a secret.

remunerate

If I owe you money, then I need to remunerate you. To remunerate is to pay money that is owed. It's nice to be remunerated — that means someone paid you money that was owed. If an employer makes you work overtime, they will need to remunerate you for that. If you lost your dog, offered a reward, and then someone found the dog, that person should be remunerated. When you see remunerate, think "giving someone money they deserve."

homogeneous

If a group of things are homogeneous, they're all the same or similar, like a room full of identically dressed Elvis impersonators. It sounds very scientific, but if you look around the table at home and everyone is eating a bowl of oatmeal, you could safely describe your family's breakfast tastes as homogeneous.

cerebral

If you are a cerebral person, no one would ever call you a drama queen. You make decisions using your intelligence and cold, hard facts, instead of your emotions. The word cerebral gets its meaning from cerebrum, which is Latin for brain. Cerebral people use their brains instead of their hearts. The cerebrum is a particular section of the brain, and anything related to that part is also cerebral, like in medicine. A cerebral hemorrhage, for example, means a hemorrhage has occurred in the brain — a phrase you'd never want to hear coming from a doctor.

epitomize

If you epitomize something, you're a perfect example of that thing. If you never get nervous when playing basketball and can always make that last-second shot, your teammates might say you epitomize mental toughness. A person can epitomize something — usually an abstract quality, like grace or greed — but epitomize can apply to other things as well. A popular band might epitomize the spirit of the new decade, which means it has all the main characteristics associated with the era's music, like long folksy beards, pretty harmonies, and earnest lyrics. A frustrating situation at work involving careless coworkers might make you say that they epitomize everything that's wrong with your job.

opprobrium

If you go against or oppose what's good, you might earn opprobrium — the opposite of getting attention for something good. Bad behavior leads to opprobrium. If you throw a soft drink off the theater balcony, the opprobrium might keep you from getting dates to the movies. Even though the words aren't related, the "opp-" of the word opprobrium sounds a bit like the "app" part of "inappropriate." Opprobrium isn't an action that leads to disgrace, it's something that comes from the inappropriate thing that was done. A very inappropriate act leads to opprobrium for the person who did the act. "Infamy" — extreme dishonor, often with lasting consequences — is a synonym for opprobrium.

malign

If you malign someone, you badmouth them — just like the jilted girlfriend who tells the whole school her ex has bad breath and head lice. When you habitually malign people, you risk being described as "a malign influence" — in this case, malign is an adjective that describes a harmful or even evil person or thing.

effrontery

If you rudely behave as if you have a right to something that you have no right to, you're committing effrontery. When a couple stroll into a crowded restaurant, demand the best table, and threaten the staff unless they're seated right away, that's effrontery.

chronic

If you smoke a cigarette once, you've simply made a bad choice. But if you're a chronic smoker, you've been smoking for a long time and will have a hard time stopping. The word chronic is used to describe things that occur over a long period of time and, in fact, comes from the Greek word for time, khronos. If you have chronic asthma, it is a recurring health issue for you. No one likes a chronic liar! A problem that cannot be solved can also be called chronic - think of the chronic food shortages in certain parts of the world.

callow

If you're a rookie or new to something, you could be described as callow — like callow freshmen in high school or the callow receptionist who can't figure out how to transfer a call. The word callow comes from the Old English word calu, which meant "bald or featherless." It was used to describe young, fledgling birds. Over time, the meaning expanded to include young, inexperienced people. You'll most often see the adjective paired with the noun youth. Think of the callow youth as people who haven't tested their wings yet.

irrevocable

If you're on a diet but eat one tiny piece of chocolate, it might start an irrevocable slide into bad eating. Describe something as irrevocable if it cannot be undone or taken back. If you break down irrevocable, you wind up with ir "not," re "back" and vocable from the Latin vocare "to call." So if something is irrevocable, you cannot call it back — it is permanent. You must fulfill an irrevocable promise and live with an irrevocable decision. A law is irrevocable if it states within the law that it cannot be nullified. Now that's final!

reverie

If you're relaxing on the beach, dreaming of how you will never have to get up and go back to work, you're engaged in a reverie, or pleasant daydream. There's nothing wrong with reverie, but if you follow its path into English, you'll see how closely it is connected to madness. The noun is from French rêverie, from a Middle French word meaning "wild speech, delirium," from rever "to roam, speak wildly." Middle French rever is also the source of English rave, as in raving mad.

jaded

If you've done something so much that it doesn't excite you anymore but just leaves you tired, consider yourself jaded. If someone says you look a little jaded, it just means that you look tired. The history of jaded is not clear, but perhaps it is related to the noun jade, an old term for a worn-out horse. Even if not, picturing a tired old horse may be a nice way to remember that jaded means dulled or tired from too much of something. The word can also mean cynical because of bad experiences with something, like a jaded journalist who doesn't see the person behind the politician.

gibe

Loser! Bonehead!" the kids shouted, tossing those words and other gibes at the people who offered themselves up to the annual humiliation of the harvest-fest dunk-tank. A gibe is an insulting comment. To gibe is to insult.

megalomania

Megalomania is a crazy hunger for power and wealth, and a passion for grand schemes. Comic book villains often suffer from megalomania. Their plans are thwarted only by superheroes. Megalomania comes from the Greek megas ("great") and mania ("madness"). It is a madness of greatness, but not a great kind of madness! Megalomaniacs in history: Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Josef Stalin, and maybe even the tycoon Donald Trump.

meticulous

People who are meticulous can be pretty annoying, what with their extreme attention to detail. But if that person is, say, your surgeon or your accountant, you'll want them to be meticulous.

mendicant

People who live off begging can be called mendicants. However, you probably wouldn't call your kids mendicants, even though they beg you for stuff, because the word mendicant also implies extreme poverty. The noun mendicant can also refer to a man belonging to a religious order, such as the Franciscan Friars — who do not own personal property but live together in a monastery and survive off alms donated by others. As an adjective, mendicant describes someone who lives such an existence.

perjury

Perjury is the act of deliberately lying under oath. A defendant in a murder trial commits perjury when he swears he never met the murder victim before, even though he had a two-year relationship with her. Although the word perjury contains jury, members of the jury aren't likely to commit perjury, because they're not under oath and haven't sworn to be truthful. A witness in a trial can commit perjury by willfully lying about facts related to the case. Perjury isn't just a little white lie. It's a crime that can land the person who commits it in jail.

rococo

Rococo describes a very ornate style originating in Europe. If you love tons of decoration and fancy details, then you'll love the rococo style of architecture and music. Modern design is all simplicity: clean lines and no clutter. Rococo design — which came and went in Europe in the 1700s — is the opposite: it explodes with detail, ornament, patterns, and decoration. If something other than an actual work of design or music is described as rococo, it means wildly detailed, to the point of excess. They sat me next to Diana, who told me the whole rococo story of her divorce. Hours had passed before she even got to the part about the affair.

ruddy

Ruddy is used to describe something that is reddish — like the color of red hair, tomatoes, or your cheeks on a cold winter's day. Ruddy is commonly used to describe someone's complexion. In this case, it describes a healthy, reddish glow. Your skin might have a ruddy tone from working outside. You may hear someone use ruddy as a negative adjective, as well. In Britain it is a substitute for words like bloody or darn: "The ruddy door is stuck again. I'm going to take an axe to it!"

taciturn

Someone who is taciturn is reserved, not loud and talkative. The word itself refers to the trait of reticence, of seeming aloof and uncommunicative. A taciturn person might be snobby, naturally quiet, or just shy. Having its origin in the Latin tacitus, "silent," taciturn came to be used in mid-18th-century English in the sense "habitually silent." Taciturnity is often considered a negative trait, as it suggests someone uncommunicative and too quiet. Jane Austen wrote, "We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb."

dastardly

Someone who's dastardly is a scoundrel or a cowardly bad guy. The villain in a fairy tale is almost always dastardly. Use the adjective dastardly to describe a person or action that's underhanded and mean. Criminals, pirates, and bullies are all frequently called dastardly.

derogatory

Something that's derogatory is insulting or disrespectful. If you make derogatory comments, that means you say things that are unflattering, unkind, or demeaning. Derogatory means about the same as insulting. Derogatory language is meant to hurt, and it usually does. If you feel offended or insulted by what someone says, the person probably said something derogatory. Racial, sexist, and homophobic slurs are all derogatory. Insults that mean someone is stupid or crazy are derogatory. Making a joke about someone's mother is derogatory.

lucid

Something that's lucid is clear and understandable. Lucid writing is important in journalism, so that readers easily get the point of the article they're reading. When what you write or say is lucid, it's straightforward and its meaning is crystal clear. You can also use the adjective lucid to describe your mind or thoughts when you're thinking in a rational, sensible way: "I was worried about my grandmother's confusion yesterday, but she seems really lucid today."

despicable

Stealing the last piece of food from a starving child goes way beyond mean. It's despicable — a vile and harmful act. Mean, nasty, and scummy are synonyms of despicable, but they don't fully convey the awfulness of despicable. A man who lies to get a promotion meant for his co-worker would be considered mean. But the despicable man — the one who is so awful and worthless that he deserves to be despised — is the one who burns down the office building and frames his co-worker for it.

burly

The adjective burly describes someone (usually male) who is muscular and beefy. Types of people that you might describe as burly? Football players, wrestlers, and bouncers at nightclubs. The word burly is a synonym for words like husky, brawny, and muscular. The differences between the words can be subtle. Although they can all describe someone with beefy muscles, people tend not to think of burly as describing someone who has a lean, athletic muscular build. Burly is more often used to describe the guy that has a massive, muscular build, where his muscle may be tending toward fat.

utilitarian

The adjective utilitarian describes something that is useful or functional. If you are attracted to a car for its storage space and gas mileage — as opposed to its sparkly tire rims — then chances are you value a car's utilitarian features. The word utilitarian was coined by the philosopher and judge Jeremy Bentham, who argued that his principle of utility would create the "greatest happiness for the greatest number of people." The noun form of utilitarian refers to a person who adheres to this philosophy of usefulness. "They couldn't agree on the decor for their living room. She wanted whimsy — delicate tables, fragile statues of fairies and unicorns, and cushions on the floor to sit on. He wanted something more utilitarian and useful — comfortable chairs, a giant TV, and sturdy tables to put your feet on."

disheveled

The meaning of disheveled hasn't changed much from the 16th and 17th centuries, when it referred to disordered clothing or hair. If he were coming in from the snow, you could blame static and hat-hair for his disheveled look, but no, he just never uses a comb. People or things that are disheveled are kind of a mess. Wrinkled clothes, knotted hair, and a chaotic house might earn the adjective disheveled. There are a lot of synonyms for disheveled, including "disordered," "sloppy," and "cluttered." A person can look disheveled when getting up in the morning, and some people even adopt a disheveled look on purpose, trying to appear casual about grooming and dressing while working hard to achieve just the right unwashed and mussed-up style.

averse

To be averse to something is to be opposed to it on moral, philosophical or aesthetic grounds: my father is averse to people smoking cigarettes in the house, but he would not be averse to your smoking a cigar.Averse comes from a Latin word, aversus, which means "turned away from." To be averse to something is to shun it, turn away from it, or dislike it. Some people are averse to the use of cilantro in any food that comes near them, some others are averse to wearing itchy wool sweaters, and others are averse to any form of exercise. Aversions are really very personal.

expunge

To expunge is to cross out or eliminate. After Nicholas proved he had been in school on the day in question, the absence was expunged from his record. Expunge is often something you do to a document. When government censors block out text in documents before making them public, they are expunging the text. You can also use the word in a more metaphorical sense. The principal tried to expunge all traces of bullying from the school by implementing a kindness initiative and treating all complaints as serious.

writhe

To writhe is to squirm and twist. Often you'll see the phrase "to writhe in agony." Writhe when you've just ingested some stomach-wrenching poison, or perhaps in response to red ant stings. Writhe stems from the Old English, meaning "to twist or bend." It's not a coincidence that a Christmas wreath is greenery twisted and bent into a circle. A person can writhe in embarrassment but it's usually reserved for times when pain or discomfort cause you to twist and bend over and squirm because your body is in such distress.

arduous

Use the adjective arduous to describe an activity that takes a lot of effort. Writing all those college essays and filling out the applications is an arduous process! Arduous was first used in English to mean "steep" or "difficult to climb." If you're an outdoorsman, hiking up a mountain is a lot of fun, but if you're a couch potato, it's an arduous trek.

arduous

Use the adjective arduous to describe an activity that takes a lot of effort. Writing all those college essays and filling out the applications is an arduous process! Arduous was first used in English to mean "steep" or "difficult to climb." If you're an outdoorsman, hiking up a mountain is a lot of fun, but if you're a couch potato, it's an arduous trek. Today, the word can be used figuratively for something that is difficult or takes a lot of work. If you spend an arduous week studying for your final exams, you'll do well because you've worked really hard!

vociferous

Vociferous describes loudmouths, such as the vociferous mob at the soccer game. Vociferous is from the Latin vociferari meaning "to shout, yell." If you break it down to the first part, take vox meaning "voice" and add it to ferre meaning "to carry," then vociferous describes voices that carry; you can hear a vociferous person from across the room at a dance party. Vociferous isn't just loud, but annoying, too, like when the vociferous fans of the opposing team chant insults in unison. Try yanking a cookie out of a little kid's hand if you want to hear a vociferous reaction.

volatile

Watch out when a situation becomes volatile — it is likely to change for the worse suddenly. If you and your best friend have a volatile relationship, you frequently fight and make up. Volatile from Latin volatilis "fleeting, transitory" always gives the sense of sudden, radical change. Think of it as the opposite of stable. A person who is volatile loses his or her temper suddenly and violently. A volatile political situation could erupt into civil war. When the stock market is volatile, it fluctuates greatly. And in scientific language, a volatile oil evaporates quickly.

umbrage

When someone takes umbrage at something, they find it offensive, and it probably makes them angry. Umbrage comes from the same source as umbrella, the Latin umbra, "shade, shadow." The umbrella was invented to keep you in shade, and when you take umbrage at something, you're casting a shadow over the person or thing responsible for the offense. I take umbrage at the suggestion that I'm not a nice person: it's offensive and infuriating. After having devoted my life to helping animals, I might take umbrage at the notion that I've been doing it for publicity purposes: I resent the idea that it was for any other reason than my love of animals.

capacious

When something is really big and holds a lot it is capacious, like a woman's capacious purse that is so big, people mistake it for a piece of luggage.

propitious

When the timing of something is propitious, it's likely to turn out well. A propitious time for taking a big test is when you've studied hard and had a good night's sleep. If you believe in astrology, you might check your horoscope to settle on a propitious day for your wedding. A propitious moment to ask your parents about that spring break trip to Cancun might be when you've just unveiled your straight-A report card.

propound

When you propound an idea, you put it forward. If you tell your teacher that listening to music in class would help students do their work, then you propound the idea that music can be a motivator. The word propound is a little bit formal and often used in reference to something that's weighty and serious. Beloved by academics of all types, you might hear someone propound, say, his theory of logocentrism in the works of Jacques Derrida. Don't worry: you don't need to understand the theory, you just need to understand that propound means he's putting it out there.

subversive

You might want to call someone subversive if they are sneakily trying to undermine something, from the social structure of your high school to an entire system of government. You can use subversive as a noun or an adjective without changing it one whit. Note the prefix sub meaning "underneath" with the remainder coming from the Latin vertere "to turn." Think about a subversive as a sneaky kind of revolutionary who tries to turn the system from underneath. Art or literature is considered subversive if it attempts to undermine the morals and traditions of a society.

zenith

Zenith means the high point--it comes from astronomy, where it describes the highest point in an arc traveled by a star or a planet or another celestial body. The sun reaches its zenith when it is as high in the sky as it is going to go on that day. Zenith — and its opposite, nadir — have been appropriated by non-astronomers and are used to describe high and low points in non-astronomical contexts. For example, you can say that the high school quarterback hit his zenith in high school, and it was all downhill from there. Do yourself a favor and try to delay your zenith so you'll have something to look forward to in your future!

acerbate

cause to be bitter or resentful Lines attached to the pots can be cut by boats, a problem acerbated when people place pots in heavily used waterways.