magoosh advanced 350

impetuous

1.acting or done quickly and without thought or care. Syn: Impulsive "she might live to rue this impetuous decision" adjective: characterized by undue haste and lack of thought or deliberation Herbert is rarely impetuous, but on the spur of the moment, he spent thousands of dollars on a motorcycle today./Someone impetuous acts too hastily or carelessly. Hotheaded, impulsive folks are impetuous. If you're a careful person who thinks everything through and doesn't act rashly, then you're not very impetuous. Impetuous has to do with doing things on the spur of the moment — and not good things. Being impetuous usually goes along with being impatient and easily angered. If you're impetuous, you act quickly and thoughtlessly when you should just take a deep breath, relax, and think about the best thing to do.

subterfuge

1.deceit used in order to achieve one's goal.Syn: trickery "he had to use subterfuge and bluff on many occasions noun: something intended to misrepresent the true nature of an activity Finally deciding to abandon all subterfuge, Arthur revealed to Cindy everything about his secret affair over the past two years./If you want to surprise your mom with a sweatshirt, but don't know her size, it might take an act of subterfuge, like going through her closet, to find it out. Subterfuge is the use of tricky actions to hide, or get something. It's pronounced "SUB-ter-fyooj." As a countable noun, a subterfuge is a tricky action or device: She employed a very clever subterfuge to get the information she needed. Subterfuge is from French, from Old French suterfuge, from Late Latin subterfugium, from Latin subterfugere "to escape," from subter "secretly, under" plus fugere "to flee."

crestfallen

1.sad and disappointed. "he came back empty-handed and crestfallen" adjective: brought low in spirit I asked Maria on a date and she refused without a moment's thought; I was crestfallen./If you are crestfallen, you are dark, depressed, and down in the dumps. You are in need of a pep talk, or at least a hug. Although experts can't agree on the origins of crestfallen, they do know it has something to do with fallen or defeated animals. Some say it is cocks, with their crested heads, that are responsible for the words' origins. Others think it has to do with horses bowing their heads (touching their heads to the crest of their chests) when bested in battle. No matter which animal gave us the word, today's humans are crestfallen when they are in low spirits.

pith

(N)the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience/Pith is the central idea or essence of something. If you're in danger, you could exclaim, "I would greatly appreciate it if someone would provide assistance." Or, you could get right to the pith of your point by shouting, "Help!" In botanical terminology, pith refers to a spongy, central cylinder of tissue found inside the stems of most flowering plants. If you know a lot about plants, that fact should help you remember the primary definition of pith. If not, just take our word for it. You can think about the pith of an argument like the pith of a plant: both lie at the heart or core of something.

Languish

(V)become feeble;have a desire for something or someone who is not present/To languish is to become pitiful or weak because you're sick, in love, or stuck somewhere. A prisoner might languish in jail, longing for her freedom. Languish, like languid, is from the Latin word languere which means to "be weak or faint." Your houseplants might languish in a dark dry corner. A Romantic poet might languish on a velvet couch with the back of her hand to her forehead. People in operas love to languish: The main character in La Traviatta, Violetta, languishes from longing and eventually tuberculosis.

desiccated

/To be desiccated is to be dried out. If you like desiccated fruit, you like dried fruit — such as raisins or dried apricots. Something that's described with the adjective desiccated is extremely dry, or parched. During a drought, the ground becomes cracked and desiccated. Removing moisture and humidity from something is what makes it become desiccated. The Latin root, desiccatus, means "to make very dry."adjective: uninteresting, lacking vitality Few novelists over 80 are able to produce anything more than desiccated works--boring shadows of former books. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study

unpropitious

adjective: (of a circumstance) with little chance of success With only a bottle of water and a sandwich, the hikers faced an unpropitious task: ascending a huge mountain that took most two days to climb.

derelict

adjective: (of a person) not doing one's duties The teacher was derelict in her duties because she hadn't graded a single student paper in three weeks. noun: (of a building) abandoned At one time the waterfront factories were busy and productive, but now they stand derelict and will be torn down./If something has been abandoned, you can call it derelict. Even if a person has abandoned his responsibilities, you can say that he is derelict in his duties. But don't call a lost child derelict — unless, of course, he has neglected his chores. As an adjective, derelict describes something that is rundown, neglected, or in deplorable condition, but the word can also mean "negligent in duty." The politician was so busy using his office for personal gain that he was derelict in his duty to the people who voted for him; he hadn't been present at a vote in months. As a noun, a derelict means a homeless person.

internecine

adjective: (of conflict) within a group or organization The guerilla group, which had become so powerful as to own the state police, was finally destroyed by an internecine conflict./Prepare yourself, because internecine is a gloomy word. It's an adjective you'd use to describe a bloody battle where both sides are badly hurt. On a lighter note, it can also mean a conflict that tears an organization apart. A combination of the Latin inter- ("among") and necare ("to kill"), internecine conflicts are full of blood and death, and they end up destroying everyone involved, which sounds fair but also awful. Many wars are internecine, as are most Shakespearean tragedies and Hollywood action films. An internecine meeting would be one where everyone gets mad, says really horrible things, and then suddenly leaves, plotting revenge. It's probably the last meeting for that group, which might be a good thing.

discursive

adjective: (of e.g. speech and writing) tending to depart from the main point Many readers find it tough to read Moby Dick since the author is discursive, often cutting the action short to spend 20 pages on the history of a whale./If people accuse you of rambling from topic to topic in your speech or writing, they may say you have a discursive style — with changes in subject that are hard to follow. But it's okay because unicorns are shiny. The adjective discursive is often used to describe speech or writing that tends to stray from the main point, but the word can also have almost the opposite meaning. Discursive can also be used to describe an argument based on reason instead of intuition: "Her discursive dissertation on Colonial American women was well-argued and well-reasoned. Her professors were most impressed with her work."

turgid

adjective: (of language) pompous and tedious The amount of GRE vocabulary he used increased with his years--by the time he was 60, his novels were so turgid that even his diehard fans refused to read them./Turgid describes something that's swollen, typically by fluids, like a turgid water balloon that's way too big to resist dropping on your friend's head.Turgid comes from the Latin word turgidus, meaning "swollen, inflated." Turgid can be used in a figurative sense to describe things that are overblown. That might remind you of some people's egos! If a famous singer wants to showcase his incredible vocal range and his love of yodeling in a single song, the result may well be turgid, something so swollen with notes and styles that it seems ready to burst.

untenable

adjective: (of theories etc) incapable of being defended or justified With the combination of Kepler's brilliant theories and Galileo's telescopic observations, the old geocentric theory became untenable to most of the educated people in Europe./If something is untenable, you can't defend it or justify it. If your disagreement with your teacher puts you in an untenable position, you better just admit you made a mistake and get on with it. When untenable entered English in the 17th century it meant "unable to be held against attack." That sense still holds true: you can use the adjective untenable to describe any situation, position, or theory that simply can't be defended. Untenable is a great word to use when you want to criticize something, whether it's a flawed system or a referee's bad call.

complicit

adjective: Associated with or participating in an activity,especially one of a questionable nature. While the grand jury cleared the senator of all criminal charges, in the public mind he was still complicit in the corruption./Complicity is involvement in a wrongful act — like when you drove your newly-turned-vegetarian friend to a fast food joint so that she could scarf down a hamburger. Complicity refers to the act of helping someone else behave inappropriately or illegally. If you find yourself accused of complicity, it's often helpful to show that you were unaware of the other person's intentions. In the case of the trip to the fast food restaurant, that's going to be hard to prove. You'll probably be scorned for being an accomplice, or someone who is complicit, in your friend's shameful act.

palatable

adjective: acceptable to the taste or mind Mikey didn't partake much in his friends' conversations, but found their presence palatable./Something that is palatable is acceptable to one's sense of taste—literally or figuratively. If it's palatable, then you can put up with it — whether it's leftovers or a mediocre made-for-TV movie. The palate is the roof of the mouth, the combination of structures that separates the mouth from the nose. Early anatomists believed that the sense of taste was located in the palate, and, just as taste is metaphorically expanded to include sensibilities beyond the experience of food and drink, so palatable can be used to describe phenomena beyond the culinary. And, while palatable can mean pleasing or agreeable, it generally means merely tolerable—edible, rather than delicious.

perspicacious

adjective: acutely insightful and wise. Do not confuse with precocious, meaning characterized by excessively early development. Many modern observers regard Eisenhower as perspicacious, particularly in his accurate prediction of the growth of the military./Perspicacious is an adjective that means "shrewd" and "wise." A perspicacious child can't be fooled when her parents try to keep a secret by talking in Pig Latin. The adjective perspicacious is a long word for a short definition: "keen" or "shrewd." This word is descended from the Latin word perspicere, which means "to look closely." In other words, if you look closely at something you are paying attention to it and know it well. A definition of perspicacious that is out of date but still relevant is "having keen eyesight" and people who can see clearly are also aware and attentive!

hoary

adjective: ancient Most workout gurus are young, fit people, whereas most yoga gurus are hoary men with long white beards./Use the adjective hoary to describe something that is old and worn out — like the hoary jokes your great uncle Albert clings to. The word hoary can also be used to describe something that is white or gray with age. Santa is usually depicted with a hoary beard and hoary hair, although sometimes mall Santas have to fake this with wigs and artificial beards. Hoary can also mean covered with white down — "The hoary leaves felt like velvet to the touch."

facile

adjective: arrived at without due care or effort; lacking depth Many news shows provide facile explanations to complex politics, so I prefer to read the in-depth reporting of The New York Times./If someone does something easily, or shows ease, it is described as facile in a good way, but if someone takes the easy way out and shows a lack of thought or care, it is facile in a bad way. While it is a lovely sounding French word, facile is both a compliment and an insult depending on how it's used. Something that shows ready skill is facile, such as being facile with text messaging. But if something is too simple and superficial, or shows little care, it can also be called facile, or lame. "Being too cowardly to tell the truth and admit he didn't do it, he used the facile and sarcastic excuse that the dog ate his homework."

overweening

adjective: arrogant; presumptuous Mark was so convinced of his basketball skills that in his overweening pride he could not fathom that his name was not on the varsity list; he walked up to the basketball coach and told her she had forgotten to add his name./Overweening is a negative term meaning arrogant or excessive. People can be described as having overweening pride or overweening ambition. It's too much and not good. Confidence and pride are okay in moderation. Overweening means having too much of it though so that it overtakes the rest of your personality, and not in a good way. If your football team has won every game of the season, they need to watch that they don't become overweening and start playing games as if they have already won

factitious

adjective: artificial; not natural The defendant's story was largely factitious and did not accord with eyewitness testimonies/If you create a "diamond" out of plastic, then you've created a factitious diamond, meaning that it's a phony.Factitious, pronounced "fac-TISH-us," means "fake," like a factitious compliment you give the person who cooked you an awful meal — you don't mean it, but you say it anyway, just to be nice. As he or she happily walks away, another friend might whisper, "Were you being facetious about the dinner being good?" Facetious, pronounced "fuh-SEE-shuhs," means "trying to be funny." Don't confuse factitious with facetious — or fictitious, which means "made up."

tempestuous

adjective: as if driven by turbulent or conflicting emotions; highly energetic and wildly changing or fluctuating Chuck and Kathy had always been stable and agreeable people on their own, but when they got involved, it was a tempestuous relationship./A tempest is a storm, so you can use the adjective tempestuous to describe anything stormy or volatile — from a tempestuous hurricane to a tempestuous romance. The adjective tempestuous can describe violent weather, but it can also figuratively describe something that just has the characteristics of such blustery and turbulent weather. A person could be described as tempestuous if she's prone to violent mood swings and fits of passion. Impetuous is a synonym. The author Joseph Conrad once wrote, "To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence."

coterminous

adjective: being of equal extent or scope or duration The border of the state is coterminous with geographic limits on travel; the east and north are surrounded by a nearly uncrossable river and the south by a desert./Use the word coterminous to describe things that are equal in scope. If an earthquake in Australia was coterminous with the earthquake in China, that means it caused the same amount of destruction. The adjective coterminous derives from the Latin word conterminus, meaning "bordering upon, having a common boundary." When something is coterminous, it has the same boundaries, or is of equal extent or length of time as something else. The expansion of the American Old West was coterminous with the expansion of the Great American Frontier. Your mayor's term in office might be conterminous with increased access to social services.

moribund

adjective: being on the point of death; declining rapidly losing all momentum in progress Whether you like it or not, jazz as a genre is moribund at best, possibly already dead./Something that is moribund is almost dead, like a moribund economy that has been stuck in a recession for years.In Latin, mori means "to die." You probably recognize this root in words like mortal, mortician, and mortuary. Moribund means "near death," but it can also mean something that is coming to an end, nearly obsolete, or stagnant. For example, as streaming videos over the Internet becomes a more and more popular way to watch movies and television shows, the DVD has become a moribund medium.

mordant

adjective: biting and caustic in thought, manner, or style While Phil frequently made mordant remarks about company policy overall, he always was considerably gentler in discussing any person in particular./If you like Edgar Allan Poe and "The Addams Family," you have a taste for mordant entertainment — that is, anything particularly grim or dark in nature. The original meaning of mordant (which comes from the Latin word modere, meaning "to bite or sting,") was that of a physical substance that literally bit into something, such as the one used to set dye into fabrics, or etch lines into a copper plate. Now, mordant generally refers to a dark or biting artistic style, sense of humor, or psychological outlook.

peremptory

adjective: bossy and domineering My sister used to peremptorily tell me to do the dishes, a chore I would either do perfunctorily or avoid doing altogether./Peremptory comments are like orders. If you say something in a peremptory manner, you want people to stop what they're doing and do what you say. Peremptory comments put an end to a discussion, and that's final! The word peremptory comes from the Latin peremptorius for "decisive, final." Trace it further and find that peremptor means "destroyer," from perimpere for "destroy, cut off." Basically, peremptory commands destroy the conversation. They are given with an air of authority, and they are often barked. In the courtroom, peremptory orders are not open to appeal; they're final. Outside of the courtroom, a peremptory manner is just plain rude.

doughty

adjective: brave; bold; courageous I enjoy films in which a doughty group comes together to battle a force of evil.

provident

adjective: careful in regard to your own interests; providing carefully for the future In a move that hardly could be described as provident, Bert spent his entire savings on a luxurious cruise, knowing that other bills would come due a couple months later./If you are provident, that means you plan carefully for the future. You have your Christmas lights up in early December, you have a well-stocked pantry, and you have some savings tucked away just in case. The word provident traces back to the Latin word providere, meaning "foresee, provide." The word can be used to describe someone who looks into the future — foresees the future, in a sense — and makes decisions based on future needs. It's often used to describe a thrifty individual who denies himself something today in order to save up for tomorrow, but it can describe actions as well — such as a provident decision that ends up preventing ruin down the road.

nettlesome

adjective: causing irritation or annoyance Maria found her coworker's cell phone nettlesome, because every few minutes it would buzz to life with another text message.

chary

adjective: cautious, suspiciously reluctant to do something Having received three speeding tickets in the last two months, Jack was chary of driving at all above the speed limit, even on a straight stretch of highway that looked empty for miles ahead./.Being chary (pronounced CHAIR-ee) is being wary or cautious. If you lost two teeth in last year's rugby season, you should be chary of signing up again this year. Chary comes from the Old English word cearig for "sorrowful, careful," which is basically what you are if you're chary. If you're a little suspicious of something and mulling it over, you're being chary. A synonym of chary is wary, and both include caution, but some definitions suggest that it's obvious when someone is wary — it shows — while being chary is more of an inside, or hidden, distrust.

autocratic

adjective: characteristic of an absolute ruler or absolute rule; having absolute sovereignty The last true autocratic country is certainly North Korea; nowhere does a leader exercise the absolute control over all aspects of a people the way that Kim Jong-un does. adjective: offensively self-assured or given to exercising usually unwarranted power The manager was finally fired for his autocratic leadership, which often bordered on rude and offensive./Autocratic describes a way of ruling, but not in a nice way. An autocratic leader is one who rules with an iron fist; in other words — someone with the behavior of a dictator. Autocratic rulers don't tend to be popular. They use fear and control to gain total power over their people. Often, their country is left destitute as a result of their actions. The word autocratic is often used to describe the head of a country, but really, anyone who is a despotic leader can qualify — including the boss who threatens to fire you if you refuse to polish his shoes and work every holiday.

ethereal

adjective: characterized by lightness and insubstantiality Because she dances with an ethereal style, ballet critics have called her Madame Butterfly./Ethereal is something airy and insubstantial, such as a ghostly figure at the top of the stairs. It might also be something delicate and light, like a translucent fabric, or a singer's delicate voice. Ethereal comes from the Greek word for ether, which is a drug that makes you feel light headed and, in larger doses, causes you to lose consciousness. An ethereal substance or sound is one that carries the feeling of ether--something you might see in a vision, that might strike you as heavenly or supernatural.

trenchant

adjective: characterized by or full of force and vigor; having keenness and forcefulness and penetration in thought, expression, or intellect Jill presented a rather superficial treatment of sales in Asia, but her trenchant analysis of sales in Europe inspired a number of insights into how to proceed in that market./If you're trenchant, it means you think or say smart, sharply worded things that cut right to the heart of the matter. A trenchant observation is one that makes people scratch their chins thoughtfully, or wince with embarrassment for whomever you're talking about, or both. The word trenchant originates from tranchant, which in French means "sharp" or "cutting," and it's related to the word trench, which originally meant a line carved in wood and later came to mean a ditch carved into the earth. The word is often used to describe political commentary or cultural criticism. One person known for her trenchant wit was the author and critic Mary McCarthy, who once said of the writer Lillian Hellman, "Every word she writes is a lie, including the 'and' and the 'the'."

nonchalant

adjective: coming across as uninterested or unconcerned; overly casual The twenty-somethings at the coffee shop always irked Sheldon, especially the way in which they acted nonchalantly towards everything, not even caring when Sheldon once spilled his mocha on them./If your friend is acting cool, unconcerned or in an indifferent manner, call him nonchalant — like when he saunters by a group of whispering, giggling girls and just nods and says, "Hey." If you act nonchalant, you are literally acting cool, as nonchalant traces back to non- "not" and Latin calēre "to be warm." Isn't that cool? Sometimes, a nonchalant person acts indifferent or uninterested, but really cares very much. If you give a girl a nonchalant smile, you definitely want her to notice you! Even though it begins with non, nonchalant has no positive form — chalant is not a word.

expansive

adjective: communicative, and prone to talking in a sociable manner After a few sips of cognac, the octogenarian shed his irascible demeanor and became expansive, speaking fondly of the "good old days". This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/Expansive is all about being able to grow or get larger. An expansive piece of land is large, an expansive mind is one that is always thinking of the big picture, an expansive vocabulary is one that holds lots of words. Warning: don't confuse expansive, "large," with expensive, "high priced." They differ by only one letter but mean very different things. A Big Mac may contain what McDonald's advertizes as an expansive all-beef patty, but it isn't expensive food.

arrant

adjective: complete and wholly (usually modifying a noun with negative connotation) An arrant fool, Lawrence surprised nobody when he lost all his money in a pyramid scheme that was every bit as transparent as it was corrupt./The word arrant intensifies. An arrant criminal is one heck of a criminal. Arrant nonsense is total nonsense. Do you struggle for adequate superlatives? If so, you might want to add arrant to your arsenal. It can be used to add emphasis to other words, most often negative words. Arrant rudeness is extreme rudeness. Arrant hypocrisy is very hypocritical. An arrant liar is a world-class liar. Arrant has a meaning similar to complete or utter. Like other intensifiers, arrant turns up the volume on another word.

unprepossessing

adjective: creating an unfavorable or neutral first impression World leaders coming to meet Gandhi would expect a towering sage, and often would be surprised by the unprepossessing little man dressed only in a loincloth and shawl./If you find someone to be unprepossessing, you find them unattractive. Not that they're ugly, mind you! Just unprepossessing. Unprepossessing is a rather indirect way of calling someone unattractive, or at best OK-looking. Unprepossessing is not quite the same as "ugly." Rather, just a way of saying that someone's looks aren't what you're most likely to remember about them. Cinderella was most unprepossessing in the filthy clothes and worn-out shoes that her step-sisters forced her to wear. But when she was all decked out by her fairy godmother, she was the belle of the ball: she was no longer unprepossessing.

inimitable

adjective: defying imitation; matchless Mozart's music follows a clear pattern that, anyone could imitate, but his music gives an overall sense of effortlessness that is inimitable./Use the adjective inimitable to describe someone or something that is so special or unique, it is impossible to duplicate, like that superstar tennis player with the inimitable serve no other player can copy. To correctly pronounce inimitable, accent the second syllable: "ih-NIH-muh-tuh-bul" Inimitable comes from imitabilis, meaning "imitable," or "that which can be imitated." Comedians, for example, find the way certain celebrities talk to be quite imitable. But add the prefix in-, meaning "not," and you get "not imitated." Use this word to describe things that are truly one-of-a-kind and just can't be copied.

stalwart

adjective: dependable; inured to fatigue or hardships Despite all the criticism directed at the President during this scandal, Lisa has remained his stalwart supporter./To be stalwart is to be loyal, no matter what, like your friend who remains a devoted fan of an actor she's admired since childhood, even if that was the last time the guy made a decent movie. Stalwart can describe someone who's able to keep on going even when things get hard, like a marathon runner who doesn't slow down, even after spraining an ankle, or a supporter of a political cause that everyone else has long declared over. In U.S. history, the word stalwart was used in 1877 to describe Republicans who remained unwilling to trust the South, even though the Civil War was long over by that time.

pyrrhic

adjective: describing a victory that comes at such a great cost that the victory is not worthwhile George W. Bush's win in the 2000 election was in many ways a pyrrhic victory: the circumstances of his win alienated half of the U.S. population./Use the adjective pyrrhic to describe a victory that is won, but at too great a cost. In this use as an adjective, the word is often capitalized. The word pyrrhic comes from the Greek general, Pyrrhus, who defeated the Romans at the Battle of Asculum but lost so many troops that he couldn't defeat Rome itself. If you are the winner in an argument with your brother, but the fight ends up ruining your relationship with him, it's a Pyrrhic victory. An ancient Greek war dance is also called a pyrrhic.

concomitant

adjective: describing an event or situation that happens at the same time as or in connection with another Concomitant with his desire for nature was a desire for the culture and energy of a big city./Concomitant means accompanying. If you run into someone that you have a crush on you might feel nervousness with a concomitant forgetfulness. Concomitant is one of those Latin-based words you can break down into little pieces: con means with, and comit means companion. So something that is concomitant is like the companion of the main event. If you start training really hard at the gym, the main effect is that you become stronger, but there are concomitant effects, like better circulation, or a rosy glow, or getting happy from all those endorphins you're releasing.

estimable

adjective: deserving of esteem and respect After serving thirty years, in which he selflessly served the community, Judge Harper was one of the more estimable people in town./Something or someone estimable is worthy of respect and admiration. Many U.S. presidents might be described as estimable, though it depends on who you ask. This is a word for people who deserve respect. A hardworking scholar who has written several books might be estimable. Things can be estimable, too. You might describe an impressive book, restaurant, or film as estimable. Estimable is related to esteem, which can be used to mean "regard highly." Being estimable is the opposite of being disgraceful.

sardonic

adjective: disdainfully or ironically humorous; scornful and mocking in a humorous way A stand-up comedian walks a fine line when making jokes about members of the audience; such fun and joking can quickly become sardonic and cutting./If someone is being scornful and mocking in a humorous way, call her sardonic. If you want to write comic sketches for late-night talk shows, work on being sardonic. Sardonic comes from the Greek adjective Sardonios, which actually describes a plant from a place called Sardinia that supposedly made your face contort into a horrible grin...right before you died from its poison. The Greeks used sardonic for laughter, but we only use it when someone's humor is also mocking or ironic.

sedulous

adjective: done diligently and carefully An avid numismatist, Harold sedulously amassed a collection of coins from over 100 countries—an endeavor that took over fifteen years, and to five continents./A sedulous person is someone who works hard and doesn't give up easily. If you make repeated and sedulous attempts to fix a leaky pipe and it only makes things worse, it might be time to go online and find the number of a plumber.There are a couple of words that basically mean the same thing as sedulous but are a little more common, namely assiduous, painstaking, and diligent. Like sedulous, all of these adjectives can be turned into adverbs by adding the suffix ly: "He assiduously tried to fix the pipe, but to no avail."

perfunctory

adjective: done routinely and with little interest or care The short film examines modern perfunctory cleaning rituals such as washing dishes, doing laundry and tooth-brushing./Perfunctory means done as part of a routine or duty. If you give someone a gift and they look at it like it's roadkill and say nothing about it but a perfunctory "thank you," you might not be giving them another one anytime soon. A person who does something in a perfunctory way shows little enthusiasm or interest in what they are doing. Many of our everyday greetings are perfunctory. For example, when we say hello and how are you, it's usually done out of habit. Perfunctory is from Latin perfunctus, from perfungi "to get through with, perform," formed from the Latin prefix per- "completely" plus fungi "to perform."

prosaic

adjective: dull and lacking imagination Unlike the talented artists in his workshop, Paul had no such bent for the visual medium, so when it was time for him to make a stained glass painting, he ended up with a prosaic /Prosaic means ordinary or dull. Most of us lead a prosaic everyday life, sometimes interrupted by some drama or crisis. This adjective is from Latin prosa "prose," which is ordinary writing intended to communicate ideas and information. Prose is often contrasted with poetry, which usually has a more imaginative and original style.

jejune

adjective: dull; lacking flavor Although many top chefs have secured culinary foam's popularity in haute cuisine, Waters criticizes it for being jejune and unfilling. adjective: immature; childish Her boss further cemented his reputation for being jejune after throwing a fit when the water cooler wasn't refilled./Use the adjective jejune to describe something that is uninteresting or insignificant. Many people claim to find celebrity gossip jejune, but ask them about a recent movie star scandal and chances are they know all about it. Jejune can also describe something that's immature or simplistic. All that actress could say about her latest movie was that it was "Super fun"? That's a pretty jejune comment. Basically jejune means lacking substance. It originally comes from the Latin word jejunus, which means "fasting," so when something is jejune, it's figuratively empty — devoid of intellectual nourishment.

venial

adjective: easily excused or forgiven; pardonable His traffic violations ran the gamut from the venial to the egregious—on one occasion he simply did not come to a complete stop; another time he tried to escape across state lines at speeds in excess of 140 mph./Some crimes are unforgivable. Others are venial — venial crimes and sins are excusable. They're not a big deal.In school, there are so many things that are against the rules: talking during class, tossing spitballs, pulling the fire alarm, stealing a basketball, etc. Something venial would be something against the rules but forgivable. For example, if you were late for school because your parents were in the hospital, that lateness is venial. If you burned the gym down, that could never be considered venial. When you see venial, think "forgivable," "excusable," and "no biggie."

hagiographic

adjective: excessively flattering toward someone's life or work Most accounts of Tiger Woods's life were hagiographic, until, that is, his affairs made headlines.

lugubrious

adjective: excessively mournful At the funeral, lugubrious songs filled the small church./Funerals are lugubrious. So are rainy days and Mondays. Anything that makes you sad, gloomy, or mournful can be called lugubrious.Lugubrious comes from the Latin verb lūgēre, "to mourn." You can also listen to the sound of the word: lugubrious sounds slow, heavy, and sad. Sometimes, just the "feel" of a word is enough to clue you in to its meaning, and lugubrious is one of those words. I was feeling great when I got to the concert, but the lugubrious music left me in a terrible mood.

approbatory

adjective: expressing praise or approval Although it might not be her best work, Hunter's new novel has received generally approbatory reviews.

elegiac

adjective: expressing sorrow Few can listen to the elegiac opening bars of the Moonlight sonata without feeling the urge to cry./If there's one song on your playlist that always brings tears to your eyes, maybe it's because it has an elegiac quality. Elegiac means "mournful or sad." The adjective elegiac is useful when you're talking about music, a movie, a book, or another work of art that has a sorrowful tone. Sometimes elegiac specifically refers to something or someone that's gone: a person who's died, or a time in the past, especially if you feel a sense of longing for it. You can speak in an elegiac way, or sing an elegiac tune. The word comes from the Greek elegos, "poem or song of lament."

Pollyannaish

adjective: extremely optimistic Even in the midst of a lousy sales quarter, Debbie remained Pollyannaish, never losing her shrill voice and wide smile, even when prospective customers hung up on her./Someone who is unfailingly cheerful — no matter what — can be described as pollyannaish. If your friend tells you some terribly bad news, it would be pollyannaish to say, "Yes, but it's such a beautiful day!" While the adjective pollyannaish describes an optimistic outlook and a determined cheeriness, it also implies that this attitude is taken too far. When you put a positive spin on everything, even things that call for sadness or discouragement, you're being pollyannaish. The word comes from a 1913 children's book by Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna, about a young girl who tries to find something positive in every situation — a trick she calls "the Glad Game."

equitable

adjective: fair to all parties as dictated by reason and conscience The equitable distribution of ice cream to a group of 5 year olds will ensure little to no fighting—at least until the ice cream is gone./If you work on a group project in class, you want an equitable share of the credit, you want as much credit as you deserve for your work. Equitable distribution means each party gets the share of something that they deserve. When you look at equitable, you might think you see the word, equal, but it doesn't mean fair in the sense of exactly the same. If you worked ten hours at a lemonade stand and your friend worked five, you'd want an equitable share of the profits rather than an equal share. Equitable would take into account the amount of work you did, equal would not.

benighted

adjective: fallen into a state of ignorance Far from being a period of utter benightedness, The Medieval Ages produced some great works of theological speculation./Being called benighted is much like being called naive. It means lacking in knowledge or understanding—the kind you might have if you were older or more sophisticated. Although it sounds a lot like "being knighted", benighted has nothing to do with knights and, in fact, includes the word "night" (as in the opposite of day) and not "knight" (as in "of the Round Table"). One way to remember what benighted means is to think of a person "being nighted" or, put into the dark. A benighted person is in the dark about things: they don't know because they can't see. The Dark Ages are thought to have been a benighted time, full of primitive ideas.

mettlesome

adjective: filled with courage or valor For its raid on the Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Seal Team Six has become, for many Americans, the embodiment of mettle.

doleful

adjective: filled with or evoking sadness No event is more doleful than the passing of my mother; she was a shining star in my life, and it brings me great sadness to think that she is now gone./To be doleful is to be down in the dumps, to have a hole in your soul, to be full of woe. Doleful has nothing to do with a doe, a deer or a female deer. Unless one of those animals has a really sad look in its eyes. Expressions can be doleful, ditto a song or a set of circumstances. You can use the adjective doleful to describe something that is bringing you down, that makes you want to give into gravity or crawl into bed. Doleful is pretty much the opposite of how a ray of golden sun can make you feel.

unimpeachable

adjective: free of guilt; not subject to blame; beyond doubt or reproach After his long and unimpeachable service to the company, Sharat felt that a gold watch was a slap in the face rather than an honor./Unimpeachable describes someone or something that is totally, completely, without any doubt, innocent and good, like an unimpeachable role model who avoids bad influences and sketchy situations. Impeach means "to accuse, or charge with a crime." It is a verb usually reserved for when high-ranking officials like presidents do something wrong. So, when you add the prefix im- and the suffix -able, the result is an adjective that means "not able to be accused," in other words, beyond doubt or question. If you run for public office and your past is unimpeachable, your opponents will have nothing to use against you in their advertisements.

demonstrative

adjective: given to or marked by the open expression of emotion When Sally told James that she wanted to break up with him, she expected he would react demonstratively, but he quietly nodded his head and left without saying a word./People who are demonstrative easily and clearly show their emotions. A demonstrative person might shout "Hooray" and jump for joy at good news. A non-demonstrative person might feel no less excited, but refrain from demonstrating it. To demonstrate means to show, so think of demonstrative as showing. In legal terms, demonstrative is used to describe evidence that shows that something happened--a note that says "I did it" might show, or demonstrate, an accused person's guilt. In grammar, demonstrative pronouns--this, that, these, those--indicate the thing or person that is being pointed out, or shown, as in "Officer, it was 'that' man who stole my purse!"

patent

adjective: glaringly obvious Since the book had been through no fewer than six proof runs, the staff was shocked to see such a patent spelling mistake remaining, right in the middle of the front cover! This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/A patent is a government document that proves that an invention is yours and yours alone. In the US, as of 2009, over 7,000,000 patents were issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. Patent also refers to leather that has a very shiny finish. The process for making leather look like this was once patented, but since patents do not last forever, the process is now available for anyone to use. As with patent leather, the word is often used as part of a sales pitch, explaining why something is special: "We use patented technology..." or "Our patented method..."

exorbitant

adjective: greatly exceeding bounds of reason or moderation Shelley made one exorbitant purchase after another, buying new clothes and taking vacations even though she earned a limited salary./Use the adjective exorbitant when you want to describe something that is really just too much! You'll often hear people griping about exorbitant bank fees or exorbitant interest rates. The adjective exorbitant was originally a legal term to describe a case that was outside the bounds of the law. It comes from the Latin roots — the prefix ex, meaning "out of," and orbita, meaning "wheel track." You can see how the word now has come to be described as something that has gone way off the beaten track, especially in terms of price and value.

vitriolic

adjective: harsh or corrosive in tone While the teacher was more moderate in her criticism of the other student's papers, she was vitriolic toward Peter's paper, casting every flaw in the harshest light.

precipitate

adjective: hasty or rash Instead of conducting a thorough investigation after the city hall break-in, the governor acted precipitately, accusing his staff of aiding and abetting the criminals. verb: to cause to happen The government's mishandling of the hurricane's aftermath precipitated a widespread outbreak of looting and other criminal activity. This word has other definitions, but these are the most important ones to study/Precipitate usually means "bringing something on" or "making it happen" — and not always in a good way. An unpopular verdict might "precipitate violence" or one false step at the Grand Canyon could precipitate you down into the gorge. Precipitate, as a verb, can also mean specifically, "to fall from clouds," such as rain, snow, or other forms of precipitation. When used as an adjective, precipitate means "hasty" or "acting suddenly." If you decide to throw your class project in a trash masher just because someone in your class had a similar idea, then your actions might be described as precipitate. Or if you do that sort of thing regularly, you may be a precipitate person.

supercilious

adjective: haughty and disdainful; looking down on others Nelly felt the Quiz Bowl director acted superciliously towards the underclassmen; really, she fumed, must he act so preternaturally omniscient each time he intones some obscure fact—as though everybody knows that Mt. Aconcagua is the highest peak in South America./Supercilious people think very highly of themselves, more highly than of others. Think of them as a "super silly ass," and you'll remember the basic sense of supercilious. You might expect Nobel Prize winners to be supercilious. After all, they've reached the very heights of their profession. But Dagmar was incredibly humble and fun to talk to: she was anything but a "super silly ass." Most often, it's people who have no right to be arrogant, rude, and holier-than-thou who behave in the most supercilious way. It's the people who really are exceptional who don't feel the need to behave superciliously, because they've got nothing to prove. Most supercilious people are just insecure.

truculent

adjective: having a fierce, savage nature Standing in line for six hours, she became progressively truculent, yelling at DMV employees and elbowing other people waiting in line./If you are quick to argue, always looking for a fight, and hard to please, you are truculent. You can also write a truculent essay, and fans upset by a loss can become truculent. This word has no connection to truck, but the similar sound is still a good way to remember it: truculent folks are like monster trucks, ready to run over anything that gets in their way. To be truculent is to be defiant, aggressive, and quarrelsome. A truculent student will get in trouble with teachers, and a truculent teacher might get fired. In a violent sport like football, it helps to be truculent, but it's usually not a great quality.

debonair

adjective: having a sophisticated charm James Bond is known for his good looks, high tech gadgets, and debonair manner./.Someone debonair is charming or suave. They have good manners, and they probably look good too. This French word has a fancy feel to it, and it is a fancy kind of word. Being debonair is a specific form of being charming that applies mostly to men. When you're debonair, you impress women, other men, and pretty much everyone with your manners, wit, and style. Debonair a little bit of an old-fashioned word. Old movie stars like Cary Grant were often called debonair, but not many people are today.

noisome

adjective: having an extremely bad smell Each August, when the winds moved in a south easterly direction, the garbage dump would spread noisome vapors through the small town./If you accidentally leave half a sandwich under your bed for a few days, cover your nose while you sleep because it will probably become quite noisome. This is a fancy way of saying that it will stink. Despite that first syllable, this adjective doesn't have root origins in the word noise, but is related to the word annoy. Noisome can refer to anything unpleasant or anything that makes you nauseous. However, it is most often used to describe bad smells. So spray some air freshener, open the windows, and clean out under your bed!

limpid

adjective: having clarity in terms of expression Her limpid prose made even the most recondite subjects accessible to all./The adjective limpid describes something (often liquid) that is clear, serene and bright. Nature calendars often feature glamour shots of a limpid stream or a limpid lake. The adjective limpid may also describe language that is easily understandable. Your teacher might ask you to give an answer in a single limpid sentence. But he probably won't because limpid is a word that's fallen out of use. Maybe because it sounds too much like limp. Or maybe because it's associated with the king of all clichés: "Her eyes were like limpid pools."

sagacious

adjective: having good judgement and acute insight Steve Jobs is surely one of the most sagacious CEOs, making Apple one of the most recognizable and valuable companies in the world./Use the formal adjective, sagacious, to describe someone who is wise and insightful like an advisor to the president or a Supreme Court justice. Someone like an inspirational leader or an expert in a field who seeks knowledge and has foresight can be described as sagacious. If you comment on something at a deeper level, you are making a sagacious observation. The word is a descendent of Latin sagus "prophetic" and is related to the Old English word seek. Synonyms include discerning, insightful and another formal word perspicacious.

imperious

adjective: having or showing arrogant superiority to and disdain of those one views as unworthy Children are imperious with each other before they learn that earning someone's respect is better than demanding./Someone who is imperious gives orders in a way that shows they feel superior or more important than other people. You might want the smartest kid in the class as your lab partner, but not if they have an imperious attitude and boss you around. Near synonyms are arrogant, overbearing, and domineering. The adjective imperious is from Latin imperiōsus, from imperium "command, supreme power, empire." This Latin word is also the ultimate source of English empire "a group of countries or territories controlled by a single ruler or one government."

vaunted

adjective: highly or widely praised or boasted about For years, they had heard of New York City's vaunted skyline, and when they finally saw it, the spectacular cityscape did not disappoint them in the least./To vaunt is to brag and boast and flaunt and go on and on about how great something is. It's over-the-top showing off, and when you taunt and exaggerate your greatness, you vaunt to the point of no longer seeming so great. From the Latin vānitāre — which comes from vānus, meaning "vain" or "empty" — vaunt is a verb for taking praise too far or talking something up too much. Even if it's earned or deserved bragging, vaunting about something gets old and loses it impact. Other times, vaunt, as a noun, is a sure sign that a hard sell is going on — someone is talking big but can't deliver.

percipient

adjective: highly perceptive Even the most percipient editor will make an occasional error when proofreading.

ribald

adjective: humorously vulgar The speaker was famous for his ribald humor, but the high school principal asked him to keep the talk G-rated when he spoke to the student body./Ribald is an adjective you would use to describe someone who makes dirty sexual jokes. Vulgar, perverted, but still kind of funny — that's a ribald person. Remember the time Uncle Marvin told hilarious stories about his sex life? Everyone was rolling with laughter, except your grandmother, who thought Marvin's ribald tales were disgusting. People are conflicted about whether being ribald is good or bad, and the fact that its root means "indulge in licentious pleasure" and "prostitute" doesn't clear up the matter much. Should you feel like behaving in a ribald way, remember that your saucy sense of humor might be offensive to others.

halcyon

adjective: idyllically calm and peaceful; suggesting happy tranquillity; marked by peace and prosperity The first decade after WWI was a halcyon period in America with new-found wealth and rapidly improving technology./An old man watching his grandchildren play might look back fondly on his halcyon days, remembering the peaceful, happy time of his youth. The word halcyon comes from a story in Greek mythology about the halcyon bird, which had the power to calm the rough ocean waves every December so she could nest. Like those calm waters, halcyon has come to mean a sense of peace or tranquility. People often use the phrase halcyon days to refer idyllically to a calmer, more peaceful time in their past.

phantasmagorical

adjective: illusive; unreal Those suffering from malaria fall into a feverish sleep, their world a whirligig of phantasmagoria; if they recover, they are unsure of what actually took place and what was simply a product of their febrile imaginations.

unassailable

adjective: immune to attack; without flaws Professor Williams is so self-assured as to seem arrogant, presenting each and every opinion as an unassailable fact./The adjective unassailable means without flaws or indefensible. If you are going to get home late (again!), you'd better have an unassailable alibi for your parents, or else you should plan on not seeing the outside of your room for a while. The adjective unassailable also means immune to attack or doubt, such as an unassailable military holding or an unassailable reputation. Unassailable can also mean untouchable or unable to be defeated. If your high school basketball team is leading 92 to 14 with just a couple of seconds to go, the announcer might say you have an unassailable lead. The corrupt politician had so many connections, he seemed unassailable; he always seemed to manage to deflect even a hint of scandal onto others in the party.

ineluctable

adjective: impossible to avoid or evade: For those who smoke cigarettes for years, a major health crisis brought on by smoking is ineluctable./Huh? Are you scratching your head at this word? The ineluctable conclusion is that you haven't the faintest idea what it means. Ineluctable means impossible to avoid. A five syllable beauty like ineluctable is obviously not the kind of word you throw around in daily speech. It's far more often used as a written word, as in the common phrase "ineluctable conclusion." Used interchangeably with the more common unavoidable, though ineluctable implies an unsuccessful attempt to battle against whatever is ineluctable: after all, it comes from the Latin word "to struggle."

irrefutable

adjective: impossible to deny or disprove Scientists are searching for irrefutable evidence that some form of life existed on mars at some point in its history./Have you ever had to prove a point? If so, you probably needed to find evidence that could not be denied — that was absolutely true. That evidence would be considered irrefutable, impossible to disprove. The adjective irrefutable comes from the Latin verb refutāre, "repel or beat," with the added negative prefix in-. Some things are simply irrefutable. These are things based in logic (if a=b and b=c, then a=c), or in fact (George Washington was the first president of the United States). But some things that are irrefutable, while maybe not logical, are simply not arguable, as when someone responds to "Why not?" with "Because I don't want to"!

embryonic

adjective: in an early stage of development The Board of Directors is hoping to launch a new product soon, but planning for the Z7 is in an embryonic stage./If something is described as embryonic, it's just starting to develop or come together. An "embryo" is a person or animal that is still growing in the womb or egg, and embryonic means "like an embryo." The idea for Facebook was still embryonic when its creators agreed to be partners. At that early stage, none of them could have imagined what an enormous company it would become. Scientists working on embryonic stem-cell research are working on stem cells from embryos, which have special properties not found in any other cells. Our relationship was still embryonic when you suggested we move in together, but for me, the first date is way too early to think about such things.

infelicitous

adjective: inappropriate During the executive meeting, the marketing director continued to make infelicitous comments about the CEO's gambling habit./You can use the adjective infelicitous when something doesn't work quite right, whether it's a remark or a wrong turn down a dark street or an unfortunate outfit worn to a job interview. If the ultimate outcome is awkward or unhappy, it's infelicitous. It would be infelicitous to complain about the broken air conditioning in your Mercedes while volunteering at a homeless shelter. In other words, it would be dreadfully inappropriate. Since the 1530s, infelicitous has been used to mean the opposite of felicitous, meaning "happy," which comes from the Latin word for "happiness," felicitas.

redoubtable

adjective: inspiring fear or awe On television basketball players don't look that tall, but when you stand in front of a seven-foot tall NBA player, he is truly redoubtable./.Redoubtable means honorable, maybe even intimidatingly so. If your grandmother worked tirelessly to raise four kids on her own and start her own taxi cab business and to this day, keeps all of her cabbies in line, she is without a doubt redoubtable. The adjective redoubtable traces back to the French word redute, meaning "to dread," a combination of the prefix re-, which adds emphasis, and duter, which mean "to doubt." But it isn't the redoubtable person that you doubt — it's yourself or your ability to compete against or be compared to him or her. That's where the dread comes in. But you can learn a lot from and be inspired by redoubtable people, if you can just get over being afraid of them.

fecund

adjective: intellectually productive The artist had entered a fecund period, producing three masterpieces in the span of two months./The adjective fecund describes things that are highly fertile and that easily produce offspring or fruit. Rabbits are often considered to be fecund animals, and you may hear jokes in poor taste about people reproducing like rabbits if they have a lot of children. The word fecund comes from the Latin word fecundus, meaning fruitful. But the English word does not just describe something or someone fertile, the adjective fecund can also be used to describe someone who is innovative or highly intellectually productive. Your fecund imagination will be an asset if you have to tell ghost stories around the fire at camp while eating s'mores but that same fecund imagination could be less helpful if you're at home alone on a stormy night and you think you hear a knock at the door!

insufferable

adjective: intolerable, difficult to endure Chester always tried to find some area in which he excelled above others; unsurprisingly, his co-workers found him insufferable and chose to exclude him from daily luncheons out/If something is insufferable, it's unbearable and impossible, like the insufferable humidity of the "rain forest room" at the zoo on a hot summer day. You can see the word suffer in insufferable — and it's no coincidence. If it's unacceptable or too much to handle, it's insufferable. An egotistic co-worker is insufferable, and so is a blizzard that leaves six-foot drifts against the doors of your house, or insufferable working conditions in many of the factories that produce goods around the world.

byzantine

adjective: intricate and complex Getting a driver's license is not simply a matter of taking a test; the regulations and procedures are so byzantine that many have found themselves at the mercy of the Department of Motor Vehicles.

officious

adjective: intrusive in a meddling or offensive manner The professor had trouble concentrating on her new theorem, because her officious secretary would barge in frequently reminding her of some trivial detail involving departmental paperwork./Though officious sounds like official, it means being annoyingly eager to do more than is required. "The officious lunch lady made everyone's food choices her business, and made nasty comments when students chose cookies over carrots." Officious is a tricky word as it seems like it might mean something like office or official. Instead, it is a word to describe someone that acts more official than they actually are. People who are officious are busybodies. They want to make their opinions known and followed, despite not having any kind of real power.

fractious

adjective: irritable and is likely to cause disruption We rarely invite my fractious Uncle over for dinner; he always complains about the food, and usually launches into a tirade on some touchy subject./If you're prone to picking fights, making snarky comments, and being frustratingly stubborn, you're fractious. And odds are you're not invited to too many parties. Someone who is fractious is cranky, rebellious and inclined to cause problems. Tempers and children are commonly described as such. In To Kill A Mockingbird, author Harper Lee uses the word to describe the trouble-making Calpurnia: "She had always been too hard on me, she had at last seen the error of her fractious ways, she was sorry and too stubborn to say so."

bilious

adjective: irritable; always angry Rex was bilious all morning, and his face would only take on a look of contentedness when he'd had his morning cup of coffee./If an unpleasant meal has left you feeling grumpy and looking green, you're bilious in several senses of the word. This adjective can mean both "troubled by indigestion" and "irritable," and it can also be used to suggest a sickly green shade. The wonderfully descriptive word bilious comes from the root bile, which is a foul green fluid made in the liver and stored in the gall bladder — a fact that helps us picture something described as bilious as being really foul. Because of the connection with bile, we often refer to something that's an ugly shade of green as being bilious. Of course, the word can also be more kindly applied to someone who has a liver or gall bladder disorder.

ebullient

adjective: joyously unrestrained Can you blame him for his ebullient mood? He just graduated from medical school./More than chipper, more than happy, more than delighted is ebullient — meaning bubbling over with joy and delight. There are two senses of the word of ebullient. One describes an immediate, and ultimately short-lived, reaction to a particular event — for example if you've just won the lottery, you are ebullient. The other describes someone who is perpetually upbeat and cheerful, for example, as in "an ebullient personality." Watch out for ebullient personalities: they can often be "over the top" as well.

anemic

adjective: lacking energy and vigor After three straight shows, the lead actress gave an anemic performance the fourth night, barely speaking loudly enough for those in the back rows to hear./Sometimes you can tell just from looking at someone's pale face and lips that they're anemic. If you're anemic, your body has a shortage of healthy red blood cells. Often when someone's diagnosed as being anemic, they're counseled to eat more foods that contain iron, which can help rebuild the red blood cells in their body. Besides looking pale, an anemic person is often tired and weak. Another, non-medical, meaning of anemic is simply "lacking in vitality or energy." Both meanings come originally from the Greek anaimia, "lack of blood." The British spelling of anemic is anaemic.

churlish

adjective: lacking manners or refinement The manager was unnecessarily churlish to his subordinates, rarely deigning to say hello, but always quick with a sartorial jab if someone happened to be wearing anything even slightly mismatching./A churlish person is one whose middle name might as well be Rude. He's the one who was never taught to mind his manners and avoid telling vulgar jokes at the dinner table. Churlish has its origins in late Old English, but its modern-day meaning of "deliberately rude" developed in the 14th century. It's a fitting adjective to describe boorish or surly behavior. It can also describe a material that is difficult to work with, such as hard wood that's resistant to quick whittling. Our prolific pal Shakespeare coined the phrase, "as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear."

impecunious

adjective: lacking money; poor In extremely trying times, even the moderately wealthy, after a few turns of ill-fortune, can become impecunious./If you are hard up, broke, penniless, or strapped for cash, you could describe yourself as impecunious. Then maybe you could make some money teaching vocabulary words. Impecunious comes from the old Latin word for money, pecunia, combined with the prefix im, meaning not or without. But impecunious doesn't just mean having no money. It means that you almost never have any money. If you go into the arts, you are most likely facing an impecunious future. If you gamble away your cash instead of saving it for rent, your landlord might throw you out for being impecunious.

penurious

adjective: lacking money; poor Truly penurious, Mary had nothing more than a jar full of pennies. adjective: miserly Warren Buffett, famous multi-billionaire, still drives a cheap sedan, not because he is penurious, but because luxury cars are gaudy and impractical./Don't have two nickels to rub together? You're penurious — a lovely long way of saying you're flat broke. Penurious also means a general dislike of spending money. If someone accuses you of being cheap, tell them you prefer to be thought of as penurious. It sounds so much classier. It's related to a similar word, penury, which means "a state of extreme poverty."

feckless

adjective: lazy and irresponsible Two years after graduation, Charlie still lived with his parents and had no job, becoming more feckless with each passing day./If a newspaper editorial describes a politician as feckless, you might wonder, "What is feck, and why doesn't he have any?" In fact, the columnist is accusing the politician of being irresponsible and incompetent. Did you know that most varieties of English are in fact "feck"-less? They don't contain a word feck, only the negative counterpart feckless. The "feck" in feckless began as a short form of effect used in the Scots dialect. So feckless essentially means "ineffective," but is also used to describe someone who is irresponsible, incompetent, inept, or without purpose in life.

lascivious

adjective: lecherous; sexually perverted Lolita is a challenging novel for many, not necessarily because of the elevated prose style but because of the depravity of the main character, Humbert Humbert, who, as an old, lascivious man, falls in love with a girl.

meteoric

adjective: like a meteor in speed or brilliance or transience The early spectacular successes propelled the pitcher to meteoric stardom, but a terrible injury tragically cut short his career./Because meteors move through the sky so quickly, we often refer to something moving very fast as meteoric. A newly-popular singer might be said to experience a meteoric rise to the top. (The fall can be meteoric, too.) The "-ic" suffix on a word creates an adjective meaning "with the characteristics of." So meteoric means "having the characteristics of a meteor." Both words take their origin from the Greek meteōros, meaning "high up." By the way, a shooting star is meteoric, being a meteor that is burning up as it plunges through the earth's atmosphere.

contentious

adjective: likely to argue Since old grandpa Harry became very contentious during the summer when only reruns were on T.V., the grandkids learned to hide from him at every opportunity./A contentious issue is one that people are likely to argue about, and a contentious person is someone who likes to argue or fight. Some issues — like abortion, the death penalty, and gun control — are very controversial. They're also contentious, because people tend to argue about them, and the arguments will probably go on forever. Contentious issues get people angry and in a fighting mood. On the other hand, some people always seem to be in a fighting mood, no matter what the issue is. People like that are contentious too.

invidious

adjective: likely to cause resentment At a time when many others in the office were about to be laid off, many considered Cheryl's fine clothes that day an invidious display. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/Something can be described as invidious when it is resentful, discriminatory or envious, as in: "Fred was angered by the invidious gossip about his divorce being spread by his ex-wife's allies."The adjective invidious is used to describe an act, thought, opinion or critique that is full of ill will or prejudice. It comes from a Latin word that means "hostile." When the captain of a cheerleading squad says nasty things about an opposing cheer captain's new party dress, those are invidious comments.

tendentious

adjective: likely to lean towards a controversial view Because political mudslinging has become a staple of the 24-hour media cycle, most of us, despite protestations to the contrary, are tendentious on many of today's pressing issues./If you are writing a report on climate change, and ignore evidence that the earth is warming, the paper might be called tendentious. Tendentious means promoting a specific, and controversial, point of view. When something is tendentious, it shows a bias towards a particular point of view, especially one that people disagree about. It shares a root with the word, tendency, which means leaning towards acting a certain way. If you have the tendency to talk in a tendentious manner about politics, people might tend to avoid you at parties.

antic

adjective: ludicrously odd The clown's antic act was too extreme for the youngest children, who left the room in tears. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/An antic is a prank to the extreme. It's outrageous, but it's usually meant to be funny. When the senior class steals the principal's car and manages to get it inside the gym, the antic may be condemned by the school, but everyone else probably thinks it's hilarious. The noun antic is most commonly used in the plural form, as in "the coach was growing tired of his star player's silly antics after scoring." Sometimes antics can lean toward the not-so-funny side as well. Really ridiculous behavior, that is more foolish than funny, can also be called antics. Antic can also be used an as adjective, as in "her antic stand-up routine had everyone rolling in the aisles." It more infrequently can be used as a verb meaning basically "to act like a clown."

rarefied

adjective: made more subtle or refined Jack's vulgar jokes were not so successful in the rarefied environment of college professors./Use the adjective rarefied to describe things that are so stylish, smart, or moral that they seem elevated above the ordinary, like the rarefied conversation of brilliant scholars. To correctly pronounce rarefied, accent the first syllable: "RARE-uh-fied." In addition to high-minded conversation, the word rarefied can also describe the air in high elevations that has less oxygen, like the rarefied air that can be challenging to mountain climbers. Sometimes the quality of airlessness shades the other meaning of the word, implying that the rarefied world of elegant people isn't comfortable to everyone.

plucky

adjective: marked by courage and determination Some scouts initially doubted Pedroia because of his short stature, but he is a plucky player, surprising everyone with his boundless energy and fierce determination/To be plucky is to show courage. Plucky people are often underdogs fighting against the odds, like a plucky kid who scares away a burglar or a plucky kitten who refuses to run away from a Great Dane. Pluck is courage or heart, so to be plucky is to have those qualities. This word describes brave people and actions, and it means about the same as feisty and spunky. It often applies to people who bravely struggle against powerful forces. A short person playing basketball is plucky. You can be plucky in fighting a terrible disease. Anyone who refuses to give up, no matter what, is plucky.

effervescent

adjective: marked by high spirits or excitement After the sales result, the manager was in an effervescent mood, letting several employees leave work early that day. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/Something effervescent has bubbles or froth, like a sparkling wine or a bubble bath. If you have a happy, light, cheerful personality — if you are "bubbly" — you too are effervescent. Coming from the Latin effervēscere, the original meaning was more boiling than bubbly, thanks to the ferv part, which means "hot." The word literally refers to bubbles giving off gas, and any drinks you enjoy that are nose-ticklingly effervescent make bubbles that pop and release into the air. Remember, someone with an effervescent personality is just bubbly, not full of gas!

punctilious

adjective: marked by precise accordance with details The colonel was so punctilious about enforcing regulations that men feel compelled to polish even the soles of their shoes./A punctilious person pays attention to details. Are you always precisely on time? Is your room perfectly neat? Do you never forget a birthday or a library book's due date? Then you are one of the punctilious people. The adjective punctilious, pronounced "punk-TIL-ee-us," is related to the Italian word puntiglio, meaning "fine point." For someone who is punctilious no point is too fine, no detail too small, to be overlooked. The word is often used to describe people, but it can be used more broadly to apply to observations, behavior, or anything else that is characterized by close attention to detail.

saturnine

adjective: morose or gloomy Deprived of sunlight, humans become saturnine; that's why in very northerly territories people are encouraged to sit under an extremely powerful lamp, lest they become morose./Medieval alchemists ascribed to the planet Saturn a gloomy and slow character. When people are called saturnine, it means they are like the planet--gloomy, mean, scowling. Not exactly the life of the party. Saturnine is a word you don't hear often nowadays, though you probably know people with saturnine dispositions. The ultimate saturnine character in literature is Heathcliff--and for clarification's sake, that would be the brooding, bitter, obsessed hero of "Wuthering Heights," not the lovably pudgy cat of comic-strip fame.

inviolate

adjective: must be kept sacred While the literary critic subjected most of the classics to the harshest reviews, he regarded Cervantes as inviolate, and had nothing but praise for him./If something's inviolate, it's sacred and must be protected. If you make an inviolate promise to your sister to never reveal her secret superhero identity, it's one you must honor and take very seriously. Inviolate comes from the Latin word inviolatus, made up of in-, meaning "not" and violare, meaning "violate." So inviolate describes something so sacred or pure that it must not be violated. It can be used to describe fundamental principles or rights, such as the inviolate right of free speech, but it can also describe things that must be kept safe and pure. You might believe that the natural coastline outside your city should remain inviolate and not be developed.

incontrovertible

adjective: necessarily or demonstrably true; impossible to deny or disprove Unless you can provide incontrovertible evidence, I will remain skeptical./When something is incontrovertible, it is undeniably, absolutely, 100 percent, completely true. That rain is wet is an incontrovertible fact. If you look at incontrovertible, you see that -controver-, as in controversy, is hiding inside. Add in the prefix, and it's easy to see that incontrovertible means there is no controversy about something, or, in other words, it is unchangeable and true. Incontrovertible evidence or proof is what you are looking for if you suspect that someone is doing something wrong.

inviolable

adjective: never to be broken, infringed, or dishonored To many the grass at Wimbledon is inviolable and only greater tennis players are able to enjoy a game there./Wedding vows and vault combinations that can't be broken are considered inviolable. (Of course, divorce lawyers and bank robbers consider this a challenge.) The word can refer to a physical structure (a fortress, for instance) or something more conceptual (human rights or morals, perhaps). Inviolable has changed little from its Latin origin of inviolabilis, which combines the prefix in- (meaning "not") with the verb violare ("to violate"). Inviolable turns up in religious settings too, usually in reference to texts or rites. In that context, it means "sacred." No surprise: the antonym of inviolable is violable ("accessible or penetrable").

obstreperous

adjective: noisily and stubbornly defiant; willfully difficult to control When the teacher asked the obstreperous student simply to bus his tray, the student threw the entire tray on the floor, shouted an epithet, and walked out./Obstreperous means boisterous, noisy, aggressive, defiant. You've probably seen an obstreperous child in the grocery store, pulling away from her mother, screaming at the top of her lungs. If you've been to a large concert where the band doesn't come on stage for hours, you might have been part of an obstreperous crowd: increasingly impatient, with fights breaking out, things thrown up onto the stage, and demands being shouted, "Give us some music before the night is out!" Some people are kind and gentle with strangers, but around their own family turn obstreperous, shouting "You never loved me!" at their mom when she gives them the smaller of two cookies.

unviable

adjective: not able to work, survive, or succeed (also spelled inviable). The plan was obviously unviable considering that it lead to complete environmental destruction in the river valley.

impervious

adjective: not admitting of passage or capable of being affected I am not impervious to your insults; they cause me great pain./An impervious surface is one that can't be penetrated. The word is often followed by "to," as in "His steely personality made him impervious to jokes about his awful haircut."Most of the sentences you'll run across using impervious will be followed by the word "to" and a noun. Things are often described as being impervious to physical assaults like heat, water, bullets, weather, and attack, but just as frequently to less tangible things, like reason, criticism, pain, and pressure. The word comes from Latin: in- + pervius, meaning "not letting things through." A common synonym is impermeable

untrammeled

adjective: not confined or limited The whole notion of living untrammeled inspired the American Revolution and was enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution./Something that's untrammeled is completely free and unrestricted. If you live a truly untrammeled life, you feel free to follow your dreams. As opposed to a lion in a zoo, a wild animal is untrammeled, or free to roam. You could also describe a dictator's power as untrammeled, in a much less positive sense — he is free to make any laws he wants, and to treat his subjects however he chooses. Untrammeled comes from trammel, or "restriction," which also refers to a particular kind of fishing net. The root is Late Latin, tremaculum, "net made of three layers."

unflappable

adjective: not easily perturbed or excited or upset; marked by extreme calm and composure The house shook and the ground quaked, but my dad was unflappable and comforted the family./To be unflappable is to be calm and relaxed, even in a stressful situation. A confident person is usually unflappable. Some people get nervous and jittery under pressure, while others are unflappable. If you're unflappable, you stay calm, relaxed, and poised no matter what's happening. A good kindergarten teacher stays unflappable in the midst of chaos, and a successful businessperson is unflappable when faced with deadlines and unexpected problems. The earliest use of this word was in 1953, in reference to the British prime minister. At its root is flap, twentieth-century British slang meaning "disturbance or tumult."

improvident

adjective: not given careful consideration Marty was improvident, never putting money aside for the future but spending it on decorating the interior of his home./Someone who is improvident doesn't worry about the future — or plan wisely for it. If you spend all your money on video games even though you know you have to buy your mom a birthday present next week, you have made an improvident decision. In the adjective improvident, the prefix im- means "opposite" or "not." Provident comes from the Latin word providere, meaning "foresee, provide." Put that together and you get something that lacks foresight and consideration for the future, like an improvident town council that spends the whole budget on playground equipment, leaving nothing to cover the inevitable repairs to fire trucks or public restrooms.

ersatz

adjective: not real or genuine; phony The car dealer's ersatz laughter was immediately followed by a price quote, one that Shelley found highly inflated./The ersatz version of something is an inferior substitute or imitation. Instant coffee would be considered ersatz to a freshly brewed cup made from hand-ground Costa Rican beans. Used as a noun or adjective, ersatz stems from the German verb ersetzen, which means "to replace." Compared with regular Coke, Diet Coke may be considered an ersatz beverage because of its artificial sweeteners. Similarly, rich, creamy, full-fat ice cream is much better than the ersatz, fat-free version, or frozen yogurt. You would be in deep trouble if your fiancé found out that her engagement ring was an ersatz diamond.

disingenuous

adjective: not straightforward; giving a false appearance of frankness Many adults think that they can lie to children, but kids are smart and know when people are disingenuous./Use the adjective disingenuous to describe behavior that's not totally honest or sincere. It's disingenuous when people pretend to know less about something than they really do. Disingenuous combines dis-, meaning not, with ingenuous (from the Latin gen-, meaning born) which was originally used to distinguish free-born Romans from slaves, and later came to mean honest or straightforward. So disingenuous means dishonest. Ingenuous is less common now than disingenuous, but we still use it for someone who is sincere to the point of naiveté. A good synonym is insincere.

oblique

adjective: not straightforward; indirect Herbert never explicitly revealed anything negative about Tom's past, but at times he would obliquely suggest that Tom was not as innocent as he seemed. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/If something is oblique, it has a slanting position or direction. In figurative use, oblique means indirect or purposely misleading. "What is two plus two?" "Fish!" as an answer is completely oblique. In math, this adjective refers to geometric lines or planes that are not parallel or perpendicular to a line or surface. A playground is positioned at an oblique angle to the ground. By correcting the clerk's "Mrs." with "That's Ms. now," the woman made an oblique reference to her change in marital status.

catholic

adjective: of broad scope; universal Jonah's friends said that Jonah's taste in music was eclectic; Jonah was quick to point out that not only was his taste eclectic but it was also catholic: he enjoyed music from countries as far-flung as Mali and Mongolia./When capitalized, Catholic refers to the Catholic Church. With a lower-case "c," catholic means "universal" and "inclusive." If you listen to anything from hip-hop to Baroque, you have catholic taste in music. When it entered the English language in the sixteenth century, catholic simply meant "general" or "common." Applied to the Western Church, it essentially meant "the Church universal," or the whole body of Christian believers, as opposed to separate congregations. After the Reformation, the Western Church called itself the Catholic Church to distinguish itself from communities of faith that were no longer obedient to Rome. This usage remains the most common, although you can still use catholic to mean general.

puerile

adjective: of or characteristic of a child; displaying or suggesting a lack of maturity Helen enjoyed blowing soap bubbles, but Jim regarded this as puerile, totally unworthy of a woman with a Ph.D./Some people like their movies to have sophisticated humor and others prefer the more puerile humor of pratfalls or jokes about smelly underwear, inappropriate belching, and passing gas. Although the adjective, puerile can be used to describe anything related to childhood, more often than not, it is used in a derisive manner to comment on the immaturity, silliness, or juvenile nature of something or someone. So if you hear someone talk about puerile toys, they may merely be remarking on the toys of childhood, but it is more likely they are discussing whoopee cushions, fake dog poo, and the like.

magisterial

adjective: offensively self-assured or given to exercising unwarranted power Though she was only a third grade teacher, Ms. Martinet was magisterial in dealing with her class, lording over them like a queen. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/A person who is magisterial can be distinguished and grand, or possibly just conceited and bossy. You will learn a lot if you listen to a magisterial presentation of early American history. The Latin word for teacher is magister, so think of magisterial as describing a person with the great authority of a teacher or learned person. It can also mean related to the office of magistrate — think of magisterial documents or inquiries into a matter. If, however, someone calls you magisterial, he or she may think you are a bit pompous. It will irritate you if a person speaks to you in a magisterial tone!

portentous

adjective: ominously prophetic When the captain and more than half the officers were sick on the very first night of the voyage, many of the passengers felt this was portentous, but the rest of the voyage continued without any problems./.The black crows slowly circling the front entrance to your office building at 6:00 am may have a portentous quality, meaning it seems like they're an omen indicating something bad will happen. Use the adjective portentous to describe something that seems be a sign related to a future event — generally an ominous sign. Something that is portentous often seems to hint at or warn of a future disaster. For example, in a movie ominous music playing in the background while someone turns a dark corner can have a portentous quality, predicting doom for the hapless character.

inchoate

adjective: only partly in existence; imperfectly formed Inchoate ideas about the relation of humans to other animals had been discussed since the Middle Ages but the modern theory really began with Darwin./Inchoate means just beginning to form. You can have an inchoate idea, like the earliest flickers of images for your masterpiece, or it can be a feeling, like the inchoate sense of anger toward your new neighbor's talking parrot. Inchoate comes from a Latin word for beginning. When something is inchoate, although you don't yet understand what it is fully, you have a strong sense that it is indeed coming. It's stronger than the wisp of an idea that never turns into anything. But it's hard to really find the language to describe an inchoate idea. That's the whole point: you don't have the words for it yet!

maudlin

adjective: overly emotional and sad Just as those who were alive during the 70's are mortified that they once cavorted about in bellbottoms, many who lived during the 80's are now aghast at the maudlin pop songs they used to enjoy—really, just what exactly is a total eclipse of the heart?/You can use maudlin to describe something that brings tears to your eyes, or makes you feel very emotional. Tearjerkers like "Forrest Gump" and "Titanic" can be described as maudlin. Maudlin was a form of the name Mary Magdalene, a character from the Bible represented in paintings as a weeping sinner asking forgiveness from Jesus. Maudlin is often paired with sentimental, or even schlocky, to describe cry-fests, as in "I can't watch another second of that overly-sentimental, maudlin soap opera. Turn that schlock off."

indigent

adjective: poor; having very little In the so-called Third World, many are indigent and only a privileged few have the resources to enjoy material luxuries. noun: a poor or needy person The indigents, huddled under the overpass, tried to start a small bonfire in the hope of staying warm./An indigent person is extremely poor, lacking the basic resources of a normal life. Often the indigent lack not only money but homes. Indigent comes from a Latin word meaning wanting, which we used to use to mean "lacking" and not just to describe desires. Homeless shelters, soup kitchens, free medical clinics and court-appointed lawyers are all institutions that our society has developed to help indigent people.

puissant

adjective: powerful Over the years of service, and quite to his surprise, he became a puissant advisor to the community./Puissant means powerful and in possession of authority, and is often used to describe the political power of someone, like a prince or president. Said the English poet, historian, and arguably puissant scholar John Milton, "Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks." Synonyms for this somewhat rarely used adjective include forcible, mighty, strong, steady, unyielding, and vigorous.

factious

adjective: produced by, or characterized by internal dissension. Dissent means holding ideas that are in opposition of the people of power/ Disagreement with the majority opinion The controversial bill proved factious, as dissension even within parties resulted/Do not confuse with factitious meaning artificial/The idea behind factious is that of dissent, but in a rather angry way. To say that the Confederacy was a factious group of states would be to understate the case. They wanted out of the Union, and they were willing to go to war to get their way. Looking at the word factious, you can see that it looks a lot like its cousin "faction," which is a small, sometimes rebellious group. Factious, then, is easy to remember, as it's the adjectival form of the noun "faction." To be factious is to act like a faction. Among bakers, almost all agree that you have to be precise when measuring ingredients. The Brooklyn Faction, though, disagrees. This factious bunch never uses measuring cups or spoons and has called for them to be abolished.

choleric

adjective: prone to outbursts of temper; easily angered While a brilliant lecturer, Mr. Dawson came across as choleric and unapproachable—very rarely did students come to his office hours./Are you easy to tick off? Known to have a short fuse? Then, you could be described as choleric. Don't worry; it's not a disease related to cholera. Choleric just means you're testy and irritable. Before the advent of modern medicine, most folks believed that health and disease were the result of the balance of "humors" in the body. If you were quick to anger, you were thought to have too much choler in your system. You were called choleric. W. C. Fields, Richard Nixon, and Ebinezer Scrooge are just a few people famous for being choleric, easy to tick off.

grandiloquent

adjective: puffed up with vanity The dictator was known for his grandiloquent speeches, puffing his chest out and using big, important-sounding words./Grandiloquent is a fancy term for, well, being fancy or pretentious. In fact, you might say grandiloquent is itself a pretty grandiloquent word. The word grandiloquent generally refers to the way a person behaves or speaks. Politicians and schoolteachers are the usual suspects of this manner of behavior, known as grandiloquence, but it can refer to anything that's overbearing or pompous in style or manner. Architecture, especially, is highly guilty of being grandiloquent — if you check out just about anything built in the Baroque style, you could describe it as grandiloquent.

protean

adjective: readily taking on different roles; versatile Peter Sellers was truly a protean actor—in Doctor Strangelove he played three very different roles: a jingoist general, a sedate President and a deranged scientist./When Picasso is described as a protean genius, it means that not only was he brilliant, but he changed the way he worked many times. Protean means able to change shape. Proteus was a Greek god who could tell the future, but when he was asked a question he didn't want to answer, he would change shapes. With someone or something protean, you get all the power of shape-shifting, plus some of the menace of a god you cannot control.

sartorial

adjective: related to fashion or clothes Monte was astute at navigating the world of finance; sartorially, however, he was found wanting—he typically would attempt to complement his beige tie with a gray suit and white pants./If it's the day before a big event and you have no idea what to wear and nothing in your closet is going to cut it, you are facing a sartorial dilemma — one that pertains to clothing, fashion or dressing. Sartorial comes from the Modern Latin word sartor which means "tailor," literally "one who patches and mends." In English the adjectives sartorial and sartorially are used to refer to any matter pertaining to the consideration of clothing or fashion. The root word sartor has also made its way into the field of biology. The sartorius — a muscle in the leg and the longest muscle in the human body — gets its name because it is used when crossing the legs, also known as the "tailor's position."

pecuniary

adjective: relating to or involving money The defendent was found guilty and had to serve a period of community service as well as pay pecuniary damages to the client./If it has to do with money, it's pecuniary — not to be confused with "peculiarity" — which actually has one more syllable than pecuniary but isn't worth as much because it rarely pertains to money. Pecuniary seems like a peculiar word for talking about money, but it all adds up when you learn that it was the worth of the cattle, or pecū in Latin, that give pecuniary its meaning. In Roman times livestock served as money in making transactions. Some cultures still have economies based on cattle, but most modern societies have a pecuniary, or money, system based on, well, money.

self-effacing

adjective: reluctant to draw attention to yourself The most admirable teachers and respected leaders are those who are self-effacing, directing attention and praise to their students and workers./Someone who's self-effacing is shy and likes to stay out of the spotlight, shunning attention and praise. To efface something is to erase it, so to be self-effacing is to try to remove yourself from various situations, especially ones that draw attention. If someone says you did a great job and you say, "It was nothing," that's self-effacing. It is usually considered a positive quality, since it's the opposite of being cocky, egotistical, and attention-hogging. The root of effacing is the Old French word esfacier, which means "to wipe out or destroy," literally "to remove the face."

apposite

adjective: remarkably appropriate For a writer with such quick wit, Jonathan Swift has a rather apposite name./Something apposite is fitting or relevant. It is apposite that radio stations play Christmas carols on Christmas Eve, and that your tax accountant takes vacation after April 15th. It all makes sense.The adjective apposite is derived from the Latin terms appositus and apponere. Ponere means to place, and thus apponere is "well-placed or well-put." Don't confuse apposite with opposite; they have almost opposite meanings!

complaisant

adjective: showing a cheerful willingness to do favors for others On her first day at the job, Annie was complaisant, fulfilling every request of her new employer and anticipating future requests./If only the world were populated entirely with complaisant people! Complaisant means willing to do something to please others, and complaisant people or animals are wonderful to be around. Don't confuse complaisant with its near-homonym complacent. Both derive from the Latin complacere "to please," but while complaisant means willing to do something to please another, complacent means smug and self-satisfied, something that you want to avoid when you're on the winning team.

solicitous

adjective: showing hovering attentiveness Our neighbors are constantly knocking on our door to make sure we are ok, and I don't know how to ask them to stop being so solicitous about our health. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/When you hear the word solicitous, think of your mom — attentive, caring and concerned. It's nice when your waiter gives you good service, but if he or she is solicitous, the hovering might annoy you. Solicitous comes from the Latin roots sollus "entire" and citus "set in motion." If someone is solicitous, they are entirely set in motion caring for you. Your neighbors are solicitous if they try to help your family out all the time. Use this word too if you're eager to do something. A good student will be solicitous to appear interested in what the teacher says — even when it's not that interesting.

flippant

adjective: showing inappropriate levity. Levity means the treatment of a serious matter with humor or lack of due respect. Although Sam was trying to honor Mark's sense of humor, many found it quite flippant that he wore a comic nose and glasses mask to Mark's funeral./When a parent scolds a teenager for missing a curfew or blowing off a test and the teen snaps back, "Whatever," you could say the teen is being flippant. His reply was casual to the point of sarcasm and disrespect. When it first showed up in the English language around the 17th century, flippant meant glib and talkative. But over the years it has developed a more negative connotation. Today flippant is used to describe a blasé attitude or comment in a situation that calls for seriousness. Make a flippant comment about your friend's mother and the odds are good that they'll be offended.

phlegmatic

adjective: showing little emotion Arnold is truly noble, remaining reserved until an issue of significance arises, but Walter is simply phlegmatic: he doesn't have the energy or inclination to care about anything/Yes, phlegmatic has roots in that colorless, mucousy stuff called phlegm, but people who are phlegmatic aren't called that because they have lots of mucus. They are just a little dull in expressing feelings or showing emotion. It may be their training more than their natural behavior, but those palace guards who wear the red coats and big hats and show absolutely no expression on their faces are phlegmatic. Attempts to make them laugh, smile, or twist their faces in irritation won't work, because being phlegmatic is important to their role as stone-faced keepers of the palace. Phlegmatic people show less emotion on the outside — but who knows, they may be jumping up and down on the inside.

dolorous

adjective: showing sorrow Chopin's ballades are filled with sharp changes in moods--a dolorous melody can give way to a lighthearted tempo./Dolorous is not a woman's name (that's Dolores), it is an adjective that describes someone showing great sadness. If your friend Dolores is crying about a lost puppy, you could call her dolorous Dolores. Music written in a minor key can have a dolorous effect. It sounds really sad, and can make you feel the same way. Dolorous shares the same root with the word, condolence, an expression of sympathy with someone's sadness. Both of these words come from the Latin word for grief, dolor, which in current Spanish happens to mean pain.

lachrymose

adjective: showing sorrow Lachrymose and depressed, Alexei Alexandrovich walked two miles home in the rain after learning that his wife was having an affair./A good place to see a display of lachrymose sorrow is at a funeral — people sobbing openly or sniffling quietly into their hankies. To be lachrymose, in other words, is to be tearful. Lachrymose is not a word used much in everyday speech; you wouldn't say, for example, "I feel a bit lachrymose today." No, you'd probably say, "I feel a bit weepy today." Lachrymose is generally confined to use as a written critical term, often meaning much the same as sentimental. Books and plays and films can all be lachrymose, if their intent is to induce shameless sniveling

obtuse

adjective: slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity; lacking in insight or discernment Jackson was the most obtuse member of the team: the manager's subtle ironies were always lost on him. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/The adjective obtuse is good for describing someone slow on the uptake: "Don't be so obtuse: get with the program!" The adjective obtuse literally means "rounded" or "blunt," but when it's used for a person, it means "not quick or alert in perception" — in other words, not the sharpest tool in the shed. It's not just for dull people, but also dull angles: in geometry, an obtuse angle is one that is not so sharp (between 90 and 180 degrees).

mellifluous

adjective: smooth and sweet-sounding Chelsea's grandmother thought Franz Schubert's music to be the most mellifluous ever written; Chelsea demurred, and to her grandmother's chagrin, would blast Rihanna on the home stereo speakers./Use the adjective mellifluous to describe something that sounds sweet and smooth, like the honeyed voice of a late-night radio DJ. You might think that that mell in mellifluous has something to do with mellow. Actually, it's related to Melissa. In Greek mythology, Melissa was a nymph who discovered that you could eat the smooth, sweet stuff that bees make. Honeybees were named after her, and their tasty product was called meli. Mellifluous means to "flow as if with honey."

philistine

adjective: smug and ignorant towards artistic and cultural values Jane considered Al completely philistine, because he talked almost exclusive about video games; she was entirely unaware of how well read he really was. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/A philistine is a person who doesn't think a lot and isn't interested in learning. Your uncle Marvin, who's only interested in eating, sleeping, and watching game shows, could be considered a philistine. In the late 17th century, during a conflict in Jena, Germany, between townspeople and students, someone referred to the townspeople as "Philistines." Since then, philistine has described someone who stands against learning and the arts. And if you don't start reading the great Russian authors, someone might suggest that you have a philistine attitude toward literature — the word can also be used as an adjective describing a person or thing that displays indifference to the arts and intellectual pursuits.

surreptitious

adjective: stealthy, taking pains not to be caught or detected Since his mom was a light sleeper, Timmy had to tiptoe surreptitiously through the entire house, careful to not make the floors creak, until he at last was able to enjoy his plunder: a box of chocolate chip cookies./When someone behaves in a surreptitious way, they're being secretive. They're doing something that they don't want to be seen doing. While surreptitious means secret, it has the added sense of "sneaky" or "hidden." During the Jewish Passover meal of Seder, an adult will surreptitiously place a piece of matzoh somewhere in the house for the children to hunt for later in the meal. You'll see surreptitious applied mostly to actions, rather than to things or ideas. We do things surreptitiously. The members of the secret society hold surreptitious meetings because, well, they're a secret society. I was very surreptitious in how I organized the surprise party: she never knew!

besotted

adjective: strongly affectionate towards Even though her father did not approve, Juliet became besotted with the young Romeo. adjective: very drunk Never before have I seen my mom so besotted, and honestly, I hope it's the last time she drinks so much.

enamored

adjective: strongly attracted to or in love with. She is completely enamored with Justin Bieber, and goes to all his concerts on the East coast./The rock star wasn't enamored, or in love, with the idea of performing old-fashioned ballads, until his agent told him there'd be no big paycheck until he started crooning out those romantic tunes. Being enamored of something or with someone goes far beyond liking them, and it's even more flowery than love. Enamored means smitten with, or totally infatuated. Someone enamored with another will perhaps even swoon. A man who's in love sends the object of his affection a dozen roses, but if he is enamored with her, he covers her entire front lawn with a blanket of rose petals.

appurtenant

adjective: supplying added support In hiking Mt. Everest, sherpas are appurtenant, helping climbers both carry gear and navigate treacherous paths./Something that is appurtenant helps or supports something else. Good physical health is appurtenant to mental well-being. The adjective appurtenant sounds similar to pertinent, and you can use the two words in the same way, to show that something relates or belongs to something else. Appurtenant shows up a lot in scholarly writing, in situations like a building addition that fits, or is appurtenant to the original structure, or a legal decision about whether a claim of discrimination is appurtenant to a particular law.

evanescent

adjective: tending to vanish like vapor The storm flashed into existence above us and lasted only a short time—an evanescent turbulence of wind and cloud./A beautiful sunset, a rainbow, a wonderful dream right before your alarm clock goes off — all of these could be described as evanescent, which means "fleeting" or "temporary." Evanescent comes from the Latin ex, meaning "out of," and vanescere, meaning "to vanish." When pronouncing this word, emphasize the third syllable and note that the c is silent. You might want to practice saying evanescent a few times right now; if you stumble over pronunciation when you need this word the most, whatever you're describing — be it a shooting star or a whiff of fragrant perfume — will be gone.

fell

adjective: terribly evil For fans of the Harry Potter series, the fell Lord Voldemort, who terrorized poor Harry for seven lengthy installments, has finally been vanquished by the forces of good—unless, that is, JK Rowling decides to come out of retirement. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to stud/Something that has been felled has been brought down, like a tree that has been felled by a powerful storm. The word fell wears many hats in addition to being the past tense of fall. As a noun, a fell can be a stitching on the hem of a piece of clothing like pants, or an animal skin that has the fur intact. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the character MacDuff is stricken when he learns that his family has been killed "in one fell swoop." Here the adjective fell means "vicious and cruel."

base

adjective: the lowest, without any moral principles She was not so base as to begrudge the beggar the unwanted crumbs from her dinner plate./The base of something is usually the foundation, starting point, or main ingredient of something. A soup base is the flavoring or broth you use to get your soup started. If you're a soldier, you might live on a base ("place where you're stationed"). When your unit plays softball, you must touch each base before scoring. The bottom of pentagon-shaped home plate is its base ("bottom"). Yelling at or pushing the empire is considered base ("mean-spirited") behavior. At end of the season, your team might get a trophy, which sits on a base ("pedestal"), or a plaque made of brass, an alloy of zinc, which is base metal (it corrodes easily).

baleful

adjective: threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments Movies often use storms or rain clouds as a baleful omen of evil events that will soon befall the main character./Baleful means the foreshadowing of tragic or evil events. If no one's listening in class and your teacher reprimands you with a baleful glance, expect a pop quiz. If your car breaks down and you take refuge in a deserted mansion, you might huddle under a dusty blanket and find yourself thinking that the wind moaning at the windows sounds baleful — maybe it's really the voice of a young woman murdered in the very bed where you sleep?

jaundiced

adjective: to be biased against due to envy or prejudice Shelly was jaundiced towards Olivia; though the two had once been best friends, Olivia had become class president, prom queen, and, to make matters worse, the girlfriend of the one boy Shelly liked./So you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror. To your surprise, and horror, instead of your usual rosy complexion, your skin is yellow and the whites of your eyes are yellow, too! You, my friend, are jaundiced. Jaundice is from the Greek, ikteros, which referred to both the disease and a rare, yellow bird. It was thought that someone with jaundice could stare at this yellow bird, and the jaundice would be magically transferred to the bird. Jaundiced can also refer to ideas or feelings being distorted by negative views or qualities, since yellow has been associated with bitterness and envy. Too bad there is no bird to get rid of that!

arch

adjective: to be deliberately teasing The baroness was arch, making playful asides to the townspeople; yet because they couldn't pick up on her dry humor, they thought her supercilious. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/An archetype is a perfect example of something. If you have blond hair, a perfect size six body and are on the cheerleading squad, you're the archetype of a high school cheerleader. In the psychology of Carl Jung, an archetype is an inherited pattern of thought derived from the past experience of the whole race and present in our unconscious minds--Cinderella might be an archetype for girls in our culture; the boogey man is another. This noun is from Latin archetypum, from Greek archetypon, from archetypos "of the first mold," from archein "to begin" plus typos "type."

sententious

adjective: to be moralizing, usually in a pompous sense The old man, casting his nose up in the air at the group of adolescents, intoned sententiously, "Youth is wasted on the young."/If you speak in sententious phrases, your listeners are probably falling asleep, as your speech is pompous and pretentious, and full of moralistic babble. When sententious first appeared in English — back in the late Middle Ages — it meant "full of wisdom," but now it usually has a negative sense, meaning heavy handed and self-important. The sententious blowhard makes people laugh, and you can probably think of at least three cartoon characters who fit the bill — often a politician or minister who drones on and on, oblivious to the fact that his audience is snickering or trying to sneak out.

histrionic

adjective: to be overly theatrical Though she received a B- on the test, she had such a histrionic outburst that one would have thought that she'd been handed a death sentence./Anything that has to do with actors or acting can be called histrionic, like a Broadway actor's histrionic voice projection that would sound strange in everyday life but is perfect for the stage. The adjective histrionic, pronounced "his-tree-ON-ic," comes from the Latin words histrionicus and histrio which mean "actor." It can describe things that have to do with acting on the stage, but it can also describe a person who in regular life is a little too dramatic and even over-acts, like your friend whose histrionic rantings make a trip to the grocery store seem like a matter of life and death.

blinkered

adjective: to have a limited outlook or understanding In gambling, the addict is easily blinkered by past successes and/or past failures, forgetting that the outcome of any one game is independent of the games that preceded

ineffable

adjective: too sacred to be uttered; defying expression or description While art critics can occasionally pinpoint a work's greatness, much of why a piece captures our imaginations is completely ineffable./When you find something hard to express or difficult to pin down, it's ineffable. The feeling when you get a new puppy is ineffable — too strange and wonderful to define. You could call something "indescribable", but it wouldn't be quite the same as calling it ineffable. An ineffable feeling, for example, has an almost ghostly quality. You can almost touch it, but it slips away just before you do. The bubbles in a glass of champagne have an ineffable joy to them. The sense of sadness that you feel watching certain TV commercials is often ineffable: you simply can't explain it. You know that strange feeling of satisfaction you feel when you learn a new word? That's an ineffable feeling.

pellucid

adjective: transparently clear; easily understandable The professor had a remarkable ability to make even the most difficult concepts seem pellucid./A sentence that teaches a new vocabulary word should always be pellucid, that is, its style and meaning should be easily understandable so that you can derive the definition from the sentence. You may have heard the word lucid, which means clear. Both lucid and pellucid derive from a Latin word that means "to shine through." Pellucid water is clear, a pellucid sky is a particularly intense shade of blue, pellucid prose is writing that's easy to understand, and pellucid singing is clear and light in tone.

peripatetic

adjective: traveling by foot Jim always preferred a peripatetic approach to discovering a city: he felt that he could see so many more details while walking./If you're reading this on a treadmill or while taking a walk, you may know about the peripatetic, or walking, philosopher Aristotle, who taught while strolling with his students. Or, maybe you just like being a peripatetic, a walking wanderer. Peri- is the Greek word for "around," and peripatetic is an adjective that describes someone who likes to walk or travel around. Peripatetic is also a noun for a person who travels from one place to another or moves around a lot. If you walk in a circle, you are peripatetic, or walking, but you aren't a peripatetic, or wanderer, unless you actually go somewhere.

picayune

adjective: trifling or petty (a person). Don't confuse it with Piquant, meaning pleasantly pungent in taste, spicy, provocative. English teachers are notorious for being picayune; however, the English language is so nuanced and sophisticated that often such teachers are not being contrary but are only adhering to the rules./The adjective picayune refers to those things that are so small, trivial, and unimportant that they're not worth getting into. Why focus on the picayune details, when it's the larger ideas that are the real problem? There are several newspapers in America called the Picayune, because they see it as their job to comb through even the minor details of the story to get to the truth. Hear the word "picky" in picayune (though they're not related)? That's one way to remember it. A picky person is picayune. Airline disaster investigators spend their lives rummaging through the debris, knowing that it might be the most picayune detail that leads them to understand the cause of a crash.

veritable

adjective: truthfully, without a doubt Frank is a veritable life-saver -- last year, on two different occasions, he revived people using CPR./When something is veritable it is true, or at least feels that way. "The trees and lights turned the campus into a veritable wonderland" means that the campus seemed to be transformed into a true wonderland (if there is such a thing). Veritable comes from the Latin veritas which means true. But unlike true, it does not describe things like statements. It is often used to enhance the word that follows it. "A veritable cornucopia of food" is a lot of food of different varieties. If someone calls you "a veritable force of nature," they don't mean that you are actually a hurricane; they just mean that you have the unstoppable quality of a big old storm.

unforthcoming

adjective: uncooperative, not willing to give up information The teacher demanded to know who broke the window while he was out of the room, but the students understandably were unforthcoming./You know when you go to a movie and they show the previews under the heading "coming soon?" They could just as well say forthcoming, because it means the same thing. Only who would want to see that stuffy movie? "Forthcoming with" means "providing"--if your neighbors are not forthcoming with candy on Halloween, you might have to egg their house. When parents complain that their teenagers are not forthcoming with information about their life at school, they should remember how much they valued their privacy when they were their kid's age.

untoward

adjective: unfavorable; inconvenient Some professors find teaching untoward as having to prepare for lectures and conduct office hours prevents them from focusing on their research./The adjective untoward describes something offensive or inappropriate, like the rumors of untoward behavior that can shatter a Hollywood icon's reputation. Untoward also describes things that are not good for you, such as untoward advice from someone your parents always said was a bad influence. Think about what you do when you move toward something: you get closer to it. Suppose you're moving toward a goal. You are, as they say, "on the right path." But when you add the prefix un- you reverse that, and you're no longer on the path to that goal — you're untoward

bereft

adjective: unhappy in love; suffering from unrequited love After 64 years of marriage, William was bereft after the death of his wife. adjective: sorrowful through loss or deprivation "You are not bereft if you haven't played on your Xbox in the past week," his mother said./So, they took the thing you most loved, and you're never going to get it back. You've gone beyond just plain grief-stricken — you're bereft. The way in which bereft differs just from plain mournful or grief-stricken is in its sense of deprivation or lack. It can be used that way too, for example when you're bereft of words. It's the past tense of bereave, following the same pattern as leave and left. When you see your bereft relatives at a funeral, it's very sad, but if your friend says that their cookie is bereft of chocolate chips, you know they are using exaggerated language to be a little funny.

spartan

adjective: unsparing and uncompromising in discipline or judgment; practicing great self-denial After losing everything in a fire, Tim decided to live in spartan conditions, sleeping on the floor and owning as little furniture as a possible./A spartan existence is kind of like being a monk. Your room is bare, you live simply and eat sparingly, and your sheets are probably scratchy. In ancient Greece, there were two great city states: Athens and Sparta. Athens had the artists, the good food, the great parties. Sparta had the warriors — the guys who went to bed early and drilled all day. They lived in bare rooms and didn't get sick days or time off. A spartan life is a life of discipline and self-denial. Some people like it like that. Go figure.

loath

adjective: unwilling to do something contrary to your custom (usually followed by 'to') I was loath to leave the concert before my favorite band finished playing./If you are loath to do something, you really don't want to do it. If you are reluctant to go swimming, people will say you are loath to swim, but if they are really mean — they may throw you in anyway.The adjective loath is used to describe being extremely opposed to something. The term is generally followed by to — "The teacher was loath to let the students turn in papers late, but he made an exception for the girl who had missed class due to illness."/Loath means to be unwilling or reluctant about something:Loathe, on the other hand, means to strongly dislike someone or something or find it disgusting:When it comes to loath and loathe, choose your words with care and avoid a common error.

unstinting

adjective: very generous Helen is unstinting with her time, often spending hours at the house of a sick friend

splenetic

adjective: very irritable Ever since the car accident, Frank has been unable to walk without a cane, and so he has become splenetic and unpleasant to be around.

ponderous

adjective: weighed-down; moving slowly Laden with 20 kilograms of college text books, the freshman moved ponderously across the campus./When you call Frankenstein ponderous, it's not because he likes to ponder the great questions of life. It's because he moves like a Mack truck, only slower and less gracefully. Ponderous also describes a person's manner, or their manner of speaking. If it does, this is a person you will want to avoid. They're solemn, speak slowly about things that are boring, and get to the punchline of a joke about seven years after anyone with half a brain has figured it out for themselves.

illustrious

adjective: widely known and esteemed; having or conferring glory Einstein was possibly the most illustrious scientist in recent history./Something that's Illustrious is well known or famous, leaving a trail of glory in its wake. An illustrious career, for example, is full of impressive achievements and celebrated contributions to society. Coming from the Latin illustris, meaning "bright, distinguished, famous," illustrious is a powerful adjective. It's similar to luster, which is a brilliant shine — so imagine that something illustrious is as wonderful as a sparkling diamond. Use this word to describe the career or reputation of someone really successful, like a bestselling author or business mogul.

quixotic

adjective: wildly idealistic; impractical For every thousand startups with quixotic plans to be the next big name in e-commerce, only a handful ever become profitable./Use quixotic for someone or something that is romantic and unrealistic, or possessed by almost impossible hopes. Your quixotic task is easy to understand, if difficult to achieve: establish world peace. What a wonderful word quixotic is! While it is most often used to mean equally impractical and idealistic, it also has the sense of romantic nobility. Its source is from the great Spanish novel "Don Quixote," whose title character is given to unrealistic schemes and great chivalry. In the middle of a recession and high unemployment, it would be quixotic to imagine that you could quit your job and find another easily.

artless

adjective: without cunning or deceit Despite the president's seemingly artless speeches, he was a skilled and ruthless negotiator./Yes, artless could mean lacking in art, but more often it means lacking in superficiality or deceit. An artless person could never make a living as a con artist. Originally meaning "unskillful" or "uncultured," artless evolved into meaning not skilled or cultured in the art of deceit. If you are artless, you are natural and uncontrived. Young people, animals, the socially inept — these can all be artless in the way they express themselves. They seem to mean exactly what they say

callow

adjective: young and inexperienced Both Los Angeles and New York are known for callow out-of-towners hoping to make it big./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.

assiduously

adverb: with care and persistence The top college football program recruits new talent assiduously, only choosing those who were the top in their county./Something done assiduously is done with care and dedication. If you assiduously count your lemonade stand earnings, you tally up the dimes and quarters very carefully, possibly counting them twice to make sure you get it right. Diligence, care, thoroughness, precision — all of these describe what's needed to do something assiduously. It comes from the Latin word assiduus, which means "busy, incessant, continual, or constant." The people who shelf books at your local library do so assiduously — they take great care to put the books exactly where they belong in the stacks so that others can find them.

exemplar

exemplar noun: something to be imitated Lena's homework is on the wall because it is an exemplar of clean, neat, and thoughtful work.'/Exemplary people excel at what they do and are excellent examples to others. Something exemplary is so good that it is an example for others to follow. When something is the best it can be or reaches the highest point, it is exemplary and thus worth imitating. Exemplary comes from the Latin exemplum, meaning "sample" or "example." While some people and things are held as examples of what not to do, an exemplary person or thing is always a positive example. A country can have an exemplary record of preventing pollution, and a person may have an exemplary reputation just for being all-around praiseworthy or noble.

imbroglio

noun: a confusing and potentially embarrassing situation The chef cook-off featured one gourmand who had the unfortunate distinction of mixing the wrong broths, creating an imbroglio that diners would not soon forget./An imbroglio is a complicated or confusing personal situation. To rephrase the J. Geils band song, "Love Stinks," if you love her and she loves him and he loves somebody else, you've got quite an imbroglio. Although an imbroglio is a tangled situation or a messy complicated misunderstanding, its history is just the opposite, clear as a bell. Imbroglio is just a borrowed word from Italian meaning "entanglement." If something embarrassing happens at a public event, such as a mishap during the musical performances at the Super Bowl, it is sometimes called an imbroglio.

despot

noun: a cruel and oppressive dictator The Emperor Claudius was regarded as a fair-minded leader; his successor, Nero, was an absolute despot./A despot, is a cruel, all-controlling ruler. For example, a despot does not allow people to speak out against the leadership, nor really want them to have much freedom at all. The word despot came into English in the sixteenth century from Old French, but it traces all the way back to the Greek word despotes, meaning "master of a household, lord, absolute ruler." The word is often used to describe someone who abuses power and oppresses others. Obviously, it's not a nice thing to call someone, especially within earshot of the despot who has absolute power over you.

canard

noun: a deliberately misleading fabrication The public will always be fooled by the media's canards/During a political campaign, you will often hear on TV commercials some canard about the opponent. This is a false, deluding statement designed to confuse the voters, as it presents the other candidate in a bad light by spreading an untruth. The Old French word quanart, "duck," morphed into canard, as in "vendre un canard à moitié," which refers to "half-selling" a duck, or cheating someone, and the word came to mean something meant to fool someone deliberately. Poet James Whitcomb Riley said, "When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck." Not always the case with canard.

anathema

noun: a detested person; the source of somebody's hate Hundreds of years ago, Galileo was anathema to the church; today the church is anathema to some on the left side of the political spectrum./Something that one absolutely and positively cannot stand is anathema. Garlic is anathema to vampires (ditto for stakes and daylight). So is kryptonite to Superman or a silver bullet to a werewolf. Originally the term anathema comes from the Catholic practice of denouncing a particular individual or idea that was antithetical to the Catholic Church. If done to a person, it excommunicated them, meaning they could no longer partake in the church's sacraments (with presumably pretty poor consequences for the soul.) That's a lot worse than kryptonite.

umbrage

noun: a feeling of anger caused by being offended Since he was so in love with her, he took umbrage at her comments, even though she had only meant to gently tease him./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.

presentiment

noun: a feeling of evil to come On the night that Lincoln would be fatally shot, his wife had a presentiment about going to Ford's Theater, but Lincoln persuaded her that everything would be fine./Do you ever have the feeling that something bad is about to happen? That's called a presentiment. The word presentiment comes from the Latin word præsentire, meaning "to sense beforehand." Some people call it a "gut feeling." For example, if you leave for a trip and something doesn't feel right, you may chalk it up to just being nervous. But later, when your flight is cancelled and you lose your luggage, you may remember that little twinge — the presentiment that something bad was about to happen.

solicitude

noun: a feeling of excessive concern I walked to his house in the rain to make sure he had enough to eat while he was sick, but he seemed not to appreciate my solicitude./Solicitude is more-than-average concern for someone. When you're sick in bed, it's nice to have someone around to treat you with solicitude, hovering nearby, bringing you cups of tea, and handing you tissues all day. Someone who shows you solicitude obviously cares about you. You could act with solicitude toward a lost child in a shopping mall if you calm him, dry his tears, and help him find his mother. Sometimes solicitude implies too much concern, bordering on anxiety. The Latin word for agitated is sollicitus — which is also the root of solicitude.

charlatan

noun: a flamboyant deceiver; one who attracts customers with tricks or jokes You may call him a "motivational speaker," but I call him a charlatan--he doesn't have any idea what he's really talking about./A charlatan is a quack, a person who is trying to deceive you with false claims. Beware of charlatans who try to sell you access to the fountain of youth or to a Ponzi scheme disguised as an exclusive investment fund. A charlatan is one who pretends to possess knowledge he or she lacks. From the 16th century Italian ciarlatano "a quack," the usage of charlatan has not shifted much. Other words for charlatan are impostor, cheat, or pretender. Charlatans are marked by the elaborate schemes they cook up. Russian playwright Anton Chekhov said, "No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand...Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing."

juggernaut

noun: a force that cannot be stopped Napoleon was considered a juggernaut until he decided to invade Russia in winter; after which, his once indomitable army was decimated by cold and famine./Juggernaut means a massive force. If the army marching into your country is a juggernaut, you're doomed. If you're trying to market a new Cola product, you're up against corporate giant Coca-Cola, a beverage juggernaut if ever there was one. With its roots in Hindi, juggernaut originally referred to a crude statue from which the Hindu god, Brahma, turned into the living god, Krishna. There continues to be a festival in honor of this miracle, in which a statue of Krishna is carted through town. It is said that in times past, devotees would throw themselves under the cart's wheels.

panegyric

noun: a formal expression of praise Dave asked Andrew to do just a simple toast, but Andrew launched into a full panegyric, enumerating a complete list of Dave's achievements and admirable qualities./A formal, high-minded speech can be described with a formal, high-minded word — the word panegyric, which is a very elaborate tribute to someone. You could consider most eulogies as panegyrics. It stands to reason that the original use of the word panegyris, from which panegyric derives, was to describe a public gathering in honor of a Greek god. The Latin, L. panegyricus, altered slightly to mean "public eulogy," which around the 16th Century shifted to the French panégyrique, which meant "laudation." In any case, the word today stands for high praise given in a speech or tribute as highfalutin as the word itself sounds.

curmudgeon

noun: a grouchy, surly person Since Uncle Mike was the family curmudgeon, each Thanksgiving he was plied with copious amounts of wine, in the hope that he would become less grouchy./Old, cranky, and more than a little stubborn, a curmudgeon is the crusty grey haired neighbor who refuses to hand out candy at Halloween and shoos away holiday carolers with a "bah humbug!" As fickle and stubborn as the type of person it describes, curmudgeon comes to us without a history, its origins undisclosed. It was originally believed to have come from coeur mechant, the French phrase for "evil heart," but that theory has been long discarded. Don't worry though, you'll know a curmudgeon when you see one: He'll be ill-tempered and miserly, eager to shake his fist and spout disagreeable opinions.

dissolution

noun: a living full of debauchery and indulgence in sensual pleasure Many Roman emperors were known for their dissolution, indulging in unspeakable desires of the flesh./The dissolution of a relationship means that it's broken up or ended. The dissolution of your band means you better get started on your solo album.Dissolution comes from the Latin word dissolutio, meaning "a dissolving of something." Dissolution looks very similar to "dissolve," so to help you remember the meaning, think about what happens if you put paper in water — it breaks apart. A dissolution of a marriage is the same thing as divorce. Although it sounds like disillusion, if you try to use them interchangeably, your logic will fall apart./disillusion / dissolution To disillusion someone is to rid her of an illusion, like lifting up the curtain to show that the wizard is just a man. Dissolution, on the other hand, is when everything falls apart. Both are disappointing.

gambit

noun: a maneuver or risk in a game or conversation, designed to secure an advantage Randy played a gambit, telling his boss that he would leave at the end of the week if he didn't get a raise./A gambit is a strategic move, often in chess but also in politics or business, where a player sacrifices something up front for future gain. The noun gambit comes from an Italian word, gambetto, which means "tripping up." When you make an opening move, offer something, or start a conversation with something that seems self-sacrificing but is really a ploy for greater advantage in the long run, that's a gambit. In chess, a gambit is when you sacrifice a pawn early for better positioning. When you offer to drive the morning carpool, that might be a gambit to get the afternoon shift off.

mendicant

noun: a pauper who lives by begging Tolstoy was an aristocrat, but he strove to understand the Christianity of the Russian peasants by wandering among them as a 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.

raconteur

noun: a person skilled in telling anecdotes Jude is entertaining, but he is no raconteur: beyond the handful of amusing stories he has memorized, he has absolutely no spontaneous story-telling ability./Raconteurs are gifted storytellers, able to spin amusing tales from everyday life. Who is the biggest raconteur in your group? He or she's the one who always tells the best stories — or jumps in when another storyteller isn't being vivid enough. Do you make going to the store to buy groceries a fascinating experience? Do you offer witty observations of the people you pass on the street? If so, you're a raconteur, someone who can regale his or her listeners with riveting stories, usually funny, sometimes dramatic. Raconteur comes from the French word "raconter," meaning "to recount." Note its "eur" ending, signaling its French origin.

apostate

noun: a person who has abandoned a religious faith or cause An apostate of the Republican Party, Sheldon has yet to become affiliated with any party and dubs himself an independent./An apostate is someone who has deserted his cause. The word apostate originally comes from a Greek word that meant "runaway slave." Now, apostate has a religious or political tone to it, so someone might call you "a political apostate" if you ran for office as a Republican during one election and then ran as a Democrat in the following election.

arriviste

noun: a person who has recently reached a position of power; a social climber The city center was aflutter with arrivistes who tried to outdo one another with their ostentatious sports cars and chic evening dress.

parvenu

noun: a person who has suddenly become wealthy, but not socially accepted as part of a higher class The theater was full of parvenus who each thought that they were surrounded by true aristocrats./A parvenu is an upstart, somebody who's suddenly rich but doesn't fit into his new social status. If you're a parvenu, people might also describe you as "nouveau-riche" or an "arriviste." Maybe it's not quite so insulting in French. The Beverly Hillbillies, a sitcom from the 1960s, featured the Clampetts, classic parvenus, who struck oil on their backwoods West Virginia swampland. They arrive at their mansion in Beverly Hills, dressed in overalls, in their pick-up truck, with their shabby furniture strapped on top. As parvenus, they don't fit in — to say the least. Parvenu is from French, and it's the past participle of parvenir, "arrived."

sybarite

noun: a person who indulges in luxury Despite the fact that he'd maxed out fifteen credit cards, Max was still a sybarite at heart: when the police found him, he was at a $1,000 an hour spa in Manhattan, getting a facial treatment./If you know someone who's totally addicted to luxurious things and all of life's pleasures, call them a sybarite. Unless she's inviting you over for champagne brunches and showering you with gifts — in which case you should keep your mouth shut./Sybarite was first recorded in the 1600s, meaning a "person devoted to pleasure." The literal translation of this noun is "inhabitant of Sybaris," which was an ancient Greek town full of citizens who loved nice things. Today, the word still has the same two meanings: it's either a person who could be described as addicted to pleasures and luxury (like a hedonist), or an actual person who lives in Sybaris.

jingoist

noun: a person who thinks their country is always right and who is in favor of aggressive acts against other countries In the days leading up to war, a nation typically breaks up into the two opposing camps: doves, who do their best to avoid war, and jingoists, who are only too eager to wave national flags from their vehicles and vehemently denounce those who do not do the same./If your car sports a bumper sticker that reads, "my country, right or wrong," you might be accused of being jingoistic, or of taking your love for your country way too far. The line between patriotic and jingoistic can sometimes seem vague and confusing. Both adjectives describe a devotion to one's country, but jingoistic implies a fanatical allegiance that goes beyond pride, and often includes aggression toward other countries. The word jingo, "mindless, gung-ho patriot," arose from a popular 1878 song that praised Britain's warlike stance toward Russia at the time, and came into American use in the 1890s during the Spanish-American war.

corollary

noun: a practical consequence that follows naturally A corollary of Hurricane Sandy, which ravaged the east coast of the U.S., is a push to build higher sea walls to protect against future hurricanes./Corollary describes a result that is the natural consequence of something else. You could say that your weight gain is a corollary of the recent arrival of a bakery across the street from your house.The noun corollary describes an action's consequence, such as having to study more, a corollary to getting a bad grade. The word is often seen with the prepositions "to" or "of," as in "a corollary to fortune is fame." Math enthusiasts may already be familiar with the word corollary, which can be used more formally to describe a new proof or proposition that follows naturally from an established one.

atavism

noun: a reappearance of an earlier characteristic; throwback Much of the modern art movement was an atavism to a style of art found only in small villages through Africa and South America./.Atavism is a return to a previous way of doing, saying, or seeing things. It can be casual, like wearing retro clothing and listening to vinyl records, or committed, like living in a straw hut without electricity. It makes sense that atavism comes from a Latin word meaning "forefather," since it refers to a way of doing things like our ancestors did them. It's often used negatively, though, to refer to behavior the speaker finds primitive or unacceptable. Atavists are often called "throwbacks." In biology, the term atavism or "evolutionary throwback" is used when animals are born with features that had disappeared, such as legs on a whale.

simulacrum

noun: a representation of a person (especially in the form of sculpture) The Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center showcases a simulacrum of all the present and approved buildings in the city of Shanghai. noun: a bad imitation The early days of computer graphics made real people into a simulacrum that now seems comical./A simulacrum is a fake version of something real. A wax museum is full of simulacrums of famous people. Simulacrum comes from the Latin word simulare meaning "to make like" and is related to words like simulate (to imitate) and similarity. A simulacrum might look like a person, but it's usually a sculpture. Also, a simulacrum can be a representation that's not very good. If you say, "This video game is only a simulacrum of playing football!" that means it does a poor job of copying the game.

reprisal

noun: a retaliatory action against an enemy in wartime The Old Testament doctrine of an eye for an eye is not the kind of retaliation practiced in war; rather, an arm, a leg, and both ears are the reprisal for the smallest scratch./A reprisal is an act of retaliation, especially one committed by one country against another. If you attack your enemy's village and cause lots of damage, expect a reprisal. Reprisal comes from the French for taking back, and used to mean the seizure of property as a compensation for some earlier loss. Now we use it more in the sense of a retaliatory attack. When Germany bombed London during World War II, the British reprisals included the bombing of Berlin. Reprisal doesn't always have to be about war; you can use it for any act of retaliation.

apothegm

noun: a short, pithy instructive saying Winston Churchill is famous for many apothegms, but this might be his most famous: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."/An apothegm is a short instructive saying that's easy to remember and sometimes even slightly witty, like "haste makes waste." An apothegm often expresses a fundamental truth or general rule. To correctly pronounce apothegm, put the accent on the first syllable and give it the short a sound, as in apple: "A-puh-them." It comes from the Greek word apophthegma, meaning "terse, pointed saying," derived from apo-, meaning "from," and phthengesthai, meaning "to utter."

modicum

noun: a small or moderate or token amount If my sister had even a modicum of sense, she wouldn't be engaged to that barbarian./If you want to describe a small amount of something, try modicum. If you have a modicum of interest in something, you are a little bit interested. Modicum comes from the Latin modicus, for moderate, and modus, for measure. We often use it to mean "any at all," as if "If you had a modicum of sense (i.e. any sense at all), you'd be able to see that the pencil you've spent the last five minutes looking for is tucked behind your ear."

gaffe

noun: a socially awkward or tactless act In a famous gaffe, Vice President Quayle attempted to correct the spelling of a grade school student, only to find that the child was correct./A gaffe is a mistake that embarrasses you in front of others. If you run into a friend out with her grey-haired father, and you blurt out, "Oh, hi, you must be Tara's grandfather!" then you've made a gaffe. Gaffe rhymes with laugh, and you'll be lucky if that's how people respond to your social blunder. A gaffe seems to occur most often when you literally don't know your audience — you make a joke about the mayor; you didn't know you were talking to his sister. That's definitely a gaffe. And who knew your hosts come from a culture that takes offense if you refuse to try every dish?

solecism

noun: a socially awkward or tactless act Mother Anna was always on guard against any solecism from her children and scolded them immediately if any of them talked out of place in public. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/Ever snore at the opera? Burp at the dinner table? Forget your mom's birthday? Probably all three, right? Well, don't worry. Instead of just screwing up, what you did was commit a solecism. Sounds kinda neat that way, huh? The origin of solecism comes from the ancient Greek word meaning "speaking incorrectly," and solecism does have another meaning that's more specifically verbal. If you say something incorrectly, or make a grammatical error in writing, that's also a solecism. It can be just as mortifying as burping at the dinner table. Well, almost.

prognostication

noun: a statement made about the future When the Senator was asked about where the negotiations would lead, he said that any guess he could make would be an unreliable prognostication./A prognostication is a prediction about the future. If you make gloomy prognostications about how much traffic there will be on the way home, you'll be pleasantly surprised to find the drive fast and easy. Use the noun prognostication when someone's making a forecast or a guess about upcoming events. Your prognostication about whether or not it will rain tomorrow might lead to your family's picnic being cancelled. Another way to use the word is to mean a sign or portent: "I hope that black cat isn't a prognostication of bad luck!" The Latin root, prognostica, means "sign to forecast weather," and it comes from the Greek prognostikos, "foreknowing."

martinet

noun: a strict disciplinarian The job seemed perfect to Rebecca, until she found out that her boss was a total martinet; after each project the boss would come by to scrutinize—and inevitably criticize—every little detail of the work Rebecca had done./Use the noun martinet to describe someone who is a stickler when it comes to following rules, such as the teacher who won't accept homework if it is written in a color other than blue. Pronounce martinet with the accent on the last syllable: "mar-ti-NET." Jean Martinet, the man for whom the word was coined, would insist you say his name correctly. He was a legendary drillmaster for the French army during the reign of Louis XIV. In 1779, a hundred years after Martinet's death, martinet came to mean any officer who was as strict and demanding in adhering to the rules as Martinet himself.

diatribe

noun: a strong verbal attack against a person or institution Steve's mom launched into a diatribe during the PTA meeting, contending that the school was little more than a daycare in which students stare at the wall and teachers stare at the chalkboard./It's pretty overwhelming when you ask your friend a seemingly innocuous question, like "Do you like hot dogs?" and she unleashes a diatribe about the evils of eating meat. A diatribe is an angry, critical speech. This noun has its roots in the Greek diatribē, "pastime or lecture," from diatrībein, "to waste time or wear away," combining dia-, "thoroughly," and trībein, "to rub." So the origin of the word diatribe is connected to both serious study and the spending or wasting of time. With most diatribes, the speaker thinks he's well informed and knows something the listener doesn't, while to most listeners the diatribe is so angry and unhinged that it's just a waste of time.

broadside

noun: a strong verbal attack. Do not confuse it with browbeat meaning to intimidate with language, Political broadsides are usually strongest in the weeks leading up to a national election

epiphany

noun: a sudden revelation or moment of insight Gary one day had an epiphany that he was a people person; he promptly quit his factory job and began working as a salesman./When inspiration hits you out of the blue, call it an epiphany. In the Christian tradition, Epiphany (ə-PIF-ə-nee) is a festival celebrating Christ's appearance to the Gentiles, observed every year on January 6. From the Christian sense we get an additional religious sense, "the appearance of a god or deity" and the more common modern usage, a noun meaning "a sudden revelation." There's nothing religious about most epiphanies these days — your "Eureka!" moment could come when you realize that you're in the wrong line of work and you need to quit your job to join the circus.

recapitulation

noun: a summary (think of recap) Every point of the professors lesson was so clear that the students felt his concluding recapitulation was not necessary./A recapitulation is a short summary. At the end of an hour-long speech, you should probably give a recapitulation if you want your audience to remember anything you've just said. A recapitulation, or "recap," is a summary, review, or restatement. The purpose of a recapitulation is to remind your reader or audience of your main points. There's no new information in a recapitulation, just the same information in a smaller, more condensed form. The prefix re- is a signal that a recapitulation involves repeating something.

quisling

noun: a traitor History looks unfavorably upon quislings; indeed they are accorded about the same fondness as Nero—he who watched his city burn down while playing the violin./A quisling is a traitor, especially one who collaborates with an enemy occupying force for personal gain.The term arose because in World War II, Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian politician, volunteered to help the occupying Nazis rule Norway for Germany. Quisling was tried for treason and executed at the end of the war, and his name became synonymous with traitor and collaborator. The word quisling is not commonly used in the United States, however, probably because the American term for a traitor is "Benedict Arnold," the name of a Revolutionary War turncoat.

bromide

noun: a trite or obvious remark Instead of sharing his umbrella, the cheeky stranger offered Martha the following bromide: "Looks like it's raining."/A bromide is a common saying or proverb that is obvious and not that helpful, like "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade." Some people love to say things like "Follow your dreams" and "Love takes hard work." Such trite, clichéd sayings are bromides. A bromide isn't very helpful or specific, and people tend to say them over and over again. The word bromide comes from the chemical compound made of the element bromine and another metal. This kind of bromide was historically used as a sedative, a medicine that dulls your senses, just as figurative bromides are boring and dull.

conflagration

noun: a very intense and uncontrolled fire In the summer months, conflagrations are not uncommon in the southwest, due to the heat and lack of rain./A conflagration isn't just a few flames; it's an especially large and destructive fire that causes devastation. That tiny campfire that somehow turned into a raging forest inferno? You could call that intense, uncontrolled blaze a conflagration. Mrs. O'Leary's cow knew a thing or two about conflagrations: It was that unknowing animal that kicked over a kerosene lamp in the night, setting the O'Leary's barn on fire and sending four square miles of the Windy City into that blistering conflagration known as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

epigram

noun: a witty saying My favorite epigram from Mark Twain is "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn no other way./An epigram is a short, clever remark. One of Oscar Wilde's many memorable epigrams is "I can resist everything but temptation."Epigram comes from the Latin word epigramma, which means "an inscription." If you've ever seen an inscription on, say, the back of a watch, you know the writing has to be brief. It won't surprise you, then, that epigrams are very short poems, sayings, or famous quotations, like Benjamin Franklin's "Little strokes fell great oaks," a memorable reminder to keep working toward big goals or to pay attention to little details, the opposite of an epigram from our era: "Don't sweat the small stuff."/epigram / epigraph An epigram is a little poem or clever statement, but an epigraph is a specific kind of epigram: a witty statement that's inscribed somewhere, such as on a building or at the beginning of a chapter or book.

invective

noun: abusive or denunciatory language The Internet has unleashed the invectives in many of us; many people post stinging criticism on the comments section underneath newspaper articles or YouTube videos./Invective is harsh, abusive language, like, "you dirty rotten scoundrel." I'm sure you can think of harsher and more obscene examples, but we won't get into them here. Invective comes from the Latin for "abusive." It kind of sounds like a harsh word, actually, with those sharp, dagger-like V's. People usually put a colorful verb or phrase before it. Some examples: "She spewed invective," "She hurled invective," "She burst forth into invective." You can follow it with a phrase like, "picking up her plate and throwing it across the room."

vitriol

noun: abusive or venomous language used to express blame or bitter deep-seated ill will His vitriol spewed forth from a deep-seated racism that consumed his whole life./Vitriol is harsh, nasty criticism. You may have deserved some blame when the cake didn't rise, but the head chef's stream of vitriol was unnecessary. Back in the day, vitriol was the name for sulfuric acid, which burns through just about anything. So think of vitriol as language so mean-spirited and bitter that it could eat through metal: "As a divorce lawyer, you were familiar with vitriol, but nothing prepared you for the time you wore a Red Sox cap at Yankee Stadium."

enormity

noun: an act of extreme wickedness The enormity of Pol Pot's regime is hard to capture in words--within months hundreds of thousands of Cambodians lost their lives. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/An enormity is something extreme or huge, almost beyond comprehension. If you call having to paint the house all by yourself an enormity, your friends might take pity on you and show up with brushes and rollers. Something that's enormous can be good — a huge paycheck! — or bad, such as a tumor. But when it comes to enormity, some word lovers are up in arms. The word originally meant "a crime," so some people think it should only be used to describe wickedness or lack of morals. Others can't resist the word's similarity to enormous and apply it to anything vast, positive or negative.

bastardization

noun: an act that debases or corrupts The movie World War Z is a complete bastardization of the book with little more in common than zombies and a title.

row

noun: an angry dispute The Prime Minister looked very foolish after his row with the foreign dignitary was caught on video and posted on youtube. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/A row is a straight line of something, like a row of penguins at the zoo, tulips planted in a row in a garden, or a row of tuba players marching in the Fourth of July parade in your town. A row is anything that's lined up, from the row of stitches on your knitting needle to the row of numbers on your spreadsheet. Row is also a verb meaning "to paddle." Row also means a noisy argument, but when you use it this way, it rhymes with cow, rather than toe. The origin of this last meaning is uncertain, but it probably came from the word carousal, or "drinking bout," as a kind of British university slang.

alacrity

noun: an eager willingness to do something The first three weeks at his new job, Mark worked with such alacrity that upper management knew it would be giving him a promotion./Someone with alacrity shows cheerful willingness and eager behavior, like a kid whose mother has told him he can buy anything in a candy store. While the noun alacrity normally refers to someone's peppy behavior, it can also describe a certain mood or tempo of a musical composition, indicating how the music should be played. Alacrity comes from the Latin alacritas, and the Italian musical term allegro is a near relation.

cataclysm

noun: an event resulting in great loss and misfortune The introduction of smallpox was a cataclysm for Native Americans, killing off more than half of their population./The hurricane battered the coast, causing the city to flood, and tens of thousands of people were stranded without food or water. When an event causes great suffering, we call it a cataclysm. Cataclysm comes from the Greek word kataklysmos which means "a deluge or flood." So saying something was "a disaster of cataclysmic proportions" is particularly apt when you're talking about a tsunami. Still, people use the word cataclysmic to describe non-watery disasters, too, like stock market crashes, painful breakups, and failed grammar tests.

surfeit

noun: an excessive amount of something There was no such thing as a surfeit of shopping for Nancy--she could stay at the outlet stores from opening to closing time./Steve baked a surfeit of jam tarts. Steve ate a surfeit of jam tarts. Steve surfeited himself on jam tarts. Whether surfeit is a noun or a verb (as in "overabundance" or "gorge"), Steve is likely to end up with a bellyache. "Overabundance," "glut," "gorge," and "cloy": these are all synonyms for surfeit, and they all convey a sense of too-much-ness, as does the Old French root of the word — surfaire, "to overdo." When it is used in reference to food or eating, surfeit tends to suggest indulging to the point of sickness or disgust. In other contexts, though, the meaning is not necessarily negative: "A surfeit of kindness," for example, would hardly be a bad thing.

dispensation

noun: an exemption from a rule or obligation Since her father is a billionaire, she is given dispensation from many of the school's policies. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/The act of giving or portioning something out is called dispensation. Your teacher will have a hard time with the dispensation of biology textbooks if there aren't enough copies for everyone in the class. The Latin root word of dispensation is dispensare, which means to disburse or administer. Doctors and pharmacists commonly talk about the dispensation of prescription medication. Another meaning of dispensation is an exemption from a rule. Your teacher might give you a dispensation to take the algebra final at a later date if you're sick on the scheduled day, for example.

intimation

noun: an indirect suggestion At first the hostess tried intimation, praising the benefits of cutlery; when Cecil continued eating with his hands, the hostess told him to use a fork at dinner./The noun intimation means a hint or an indirect suggestion. Your teacher's intimation that there could be a quiz the next day might send you into a panic, while your friend sitting beside you might not even notice. Intimation comes from the Latin word intimationem, which means an announcement. In English, intimation refers to a less direct form of communication. It's a suggestion or hint, rather than a blatant statement of fact. Your first intimation that your brother had a girlfriend was the amount of time he spent whispering into the phone. The second intimation was when he asked your parents for money for two movie tickets.

sinecure

noun: an office that involves minimal duties The position of Research Director is a sinecure: the job entails almost no responsibilities, nor does the person in that position have to answer to anyone./If you have a cushy job — one that pays, but involves minimal work — then you have a sinecure. "Because he was the brother of the CEO, he was offered a sinecure in the company: he showed up each day and collected a pay check, but others actually did his work." The noun sinecure comes from the Latin root words sine cura meaning "without care." It originally was used to describe a church position that did not include caring for the souls of parishioners, but that meaning is considered archaic now. The word is now usually associated with political appointments.

pariah

noun: an outcast The once eminent scientist, upon being found guilty of faking his data, has become a pariah in the research community./A pariah is someone that has been soundly rejected by their community. Your constant gossiping might make you a pariah on campus. Pariah takes its name from a tribe in Southeast India. The pariahs were drummers, sorcerers, and servants who became untouchables in Indian society because of the unsanitary jobs they did. Pariah maintains this sense of untouchableness. Pariahs are not just unliked, they are avoided at all costs. Imagine how a once popular restaurant could gain pariah status if it fails health inspections three times in a row.

semblance

noun: an outward or token appearance or form that is deliberately misleading While the banker maintained a semblance of respectability in public, those who knew him well were familiar with his many crimes./Semblance is all about illusion. Cramming all of your dirty clothes into the closet gives the semblance, or false appearance, that you've done your laundry — but the stench might give you away. Semblance comes from the 14th-century French word for "resemble," and it is a noun for things that look one way on the outside but are very different on the inside. A popular combination is to say that a person or place has the "semblance of order," when, underneath, everything is out of control.

litany

noun: any long and tedious account of something Mr. Rogers spoke to a Senate committee and did not give a litany of reasons to keep funding the program, but instead, appealed to the basic human decency of all present./If you've got a whole slew of complaints to get off your chest or requests to make, you've got yourself a litany — a long, drawn-out list. From Greek origins meaning "entreaty" or "supplication," litany often refers to certain long responsive petitions offered to God, particularly by practitioners of the Christian faith. For some reason, litany is usually used in reference to negative things — such as a litany of complaints or a litany of injuries.

empiricism

noun: any method that derives knowledge from experience, used in experimental science as a way to gain insight and knowledge Empiricism does not always lead to knowledge; an experience or experiment may raise more questions than it answers./Empiricism means a method of study relying on empirical evidence, which includes things you've experienced: stuff you can see and touch. Empiricism is based on facts, evidence, and research. Scholars and researchers deal in empiricism. If you believe in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus, you're out of the realm of empiricism — there are no facts to support those myths. If you want to get something practical done, or to really know what the deal is with something, empiricism is the way to go.

effrontery

noun: audacious (even arrogant) behavior that you have no right to The skateboarders acted with effrontery, skating through the church grounds and spray-painting signs warning trespassers./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. People have been guilty of outrageously self-centered behavior at least since 1715, when effrontery was coined. Tracing to the French word effronté, meaning "shameless," the word effrontery is also connected to brazen, which means "of brass," and describes someone so accustomed to effrontery that he's hardened to it and has no concern for the harm done to others.

prolixity

noun: boring verbosity I loved my grandfather dearly, but his prolixity would put me to sleep, regardless of the topic. /If someone likes to talk but they're really boring, they've got prolixity. It's not something to be proud of. Prolixity means about the same thing as long-windedness. If someone is yammering on and on and on — that's an example of prolixity. Part of prolixity seems good: we'd all like to be able to put words together easily. On the other hand, none of us want to be boring. That's a major downside to prolixity. Prolixity is similar to "wordiness" — using too many words, or too many long words — when a few would get the job done.

sangfroid

noun: calmness or poise in difficult situations The hostage negotiator exhibited a sangfroid that oftentimes was more menacing than the sword at his throat, or the gun at his head./If you have sang-froid, you can keep your cool, even under stress. Your feathers aren't easily ruffled. This foreign-sounding word is another way of saying "poise under pressure." We borrowed it from French, where it literally means "cold blood." Great athletes who do well in the last two minutes of a game have sang-froid. James Bond definitely has sang-froid. You better have sang-froid when you're taking the SATs. If you're worried, nervous and starting to crack, you've pretty much lost your sang-froid.

vicissitude

noun: change in one's circumstances, usually for the worse Even great rulers have their vicissitudes—massive kingdoms have diminished overnight, and once beloved kings have faced the scorn of angry masses./When you talk of the vicissitudes of life, you're referring to the difficult times that we all go through: sickness, job loss, and other unwelcome episodes. No one can escape the vicissitudes of life. While vicissitude comes from the Latin vicis, which means "change" and technically can mean a change of any kind, you'll find that vicissitude is almost always used to talk about an unfortunate event or circumstance. Losing a pet, crashing the car, being called in for jury duty: these are examples of vicissitudes — chapters in one's life that one would rather avoid but must get through. Some lives have more vicissitudes than others, to be sure, but no life is without events that test and challenge us.

graft

noun: corruption, usually through bribery In countries with rampant graft, getting a driver's license can require no more than paying an official. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/Graft can mean bribery or corruption. It's also a way of transplanting skin or bones in medicine, as in a skin graft. People who get terrible burns on their faces often have pieces of skin taken from other parts of their bodies to help them heal and look better. That transplanted skin is called a graft. There are also grafts in agriculture, when farmers take a branch from one tree and graft it onto another tree. The most common use of graft is in political corruption cases when politicians are accused of taking money in exchange for granting favors.

exegesis

noun: critical explanation or analysis, especially of a text The Bible is fertile ground for exegesis—over the past five centuries there have been as many interpretations as there are pages in the Old Testament./If your teacher gives an explanation of a difficult text you are reading, she is giving you an exegesis on it. An exegesis is a critical look at a text. Exegesis comes from the Greek word for interpret and it's often used in connection with the Bible. Often times, religious rules are based on an exegesis of a text. For instance, some Jewish people do not eat meat and dairy in the same meal based on an exegesis of a law in the Torah that says you should not eat a calf cooked in its mother's milk.

artifice

noun: cunning tricks used to deceive others The mayoral candidates both spent much of the campaign accusing each other of artifices designed to mislead the voting public./If a politician pretends to be angry as a way of rousing the anger of the voters and getting more votes, he's guilty of artifice — a subtle and crafty trick. Before taking on its current meaning, artifice meant a skilled piece of workmanship. A beautiful diamond bracelet might have been considered a piece of artifice, for example; now it would only be called artifice if the diamonds were fake.

duplicity

noun: deceitfulness, pretending to want one thing but interested in something else A life of espionage is one of duplicity: an agent must pretend to be a totally different person than who she or he actually is./Though he said he didn't know anything about the footprints in the new sidewalk, his duplicity, or deceitfulness, was obvious from the cement caking his shoes. His mouth said one thing, his feet said another. Many words with "du" have meanings with "two" or "duo." Duplicity is from a Latin word meaning "twofold, having two parts." Someone who shows duplicity is two-faced — maybe showing one side in public and another in private — or is just a liar, saying something known to be untrue or misleading. A fraud uses duplicity to gain something with false promises, and someone described as "fake" might use duplicity just to fit in or be accepted.

truculence

noun: defiant aggressiveness When the boss confronted Aaron about his earlier remarks, Aaron responded with utter truculence, simply throwing a glass of water in the boss' face and walking away./If you get into fights all of the time, you might be accused of truculence and sent for anger management classes. Truculence is showing a fierce kind of aggression. If your basketball team wins a game by sheer truculence, it means that they win not by skill or talent, but by playing with ferocious aggression. It would be a dirty win, one with lots of fouls and thrown elbows. Truculence comes from the Latin word for trux meaning fierce or wild.

turpitude

noun: depravity; a depraved act During his reign, Caligula indulged in unspeakable sexual practices, so it is not surprising that he will forever be remembered for his turpitude./If you are guilty of turpitude, you should be ashamed of yourself. Turpitude is a word that represents depraved behavior. Prisons are filled with criminals who have engaged in acts of moral turpitude. Turpitude comes from the Latin word turpitudo, which means "repulsiveness." Corrupt politicians get booted out of office for acts of turpitude, like taking bribes in exchange for lucrative government contracts. Turpitude often follows the word moral, and acts of moral turpitude are usually crimes that are unusually sick or corrupt.

apotheosis

noun: exaltation to divine status; the highest point of development As difficult as it is to imagine, the apotheosis of Mark Zuckerberg's career, many believe, is yet to come./If your teacher says the term paper you handed in last week is a work of genius that sets a new gold standard for the school, he's telling you your work is the apotheosis of term papers. The epitome. Perfection. Hidden in the middle of apotheosis you'll find the Greek theos, meaning god. (Theology, the study of religion, has the same root.) Combine theos with apo "from" and you get a person, place, or thing that is so out-of-this-world amazing that it seems as if it's "from God." It's divine. You could make the assertion that Leonardo da Vinci was the apotheosis of genius and that the Mona Lisa is the apotheosis of all his paintings.

chauvinism

noun: fanatical patriotism; belief that one's group/cause is superior to all other groups/causes Vegetarians argue that man is chauvinistic in his belief that animals do not consciously feel the pain we humans do. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/Chauvinism means the belief that your country is superior to all others. If you traveled to China and complained about everything that was unfamiliar and talked about how much better things are back home, you'd be guilty of chauvinism. While the main meaning of chauvinism is an exaggerated sense of patriotism, or being convinced that your country is vastly better than any other, the word is most familiar in the sense of male chauvinism. When it's used this way, it means a belief that men are better than women. The word comes from a Napoleonic soldier, Nicholas Chauvin, who was famous for his extreme patriotism — in other words, his chauvinism.

temerity

noun: fearless daring. DO not confuse with Timorous meaning being fearful, lacking self confidence.No child has the temerity to go in the rundown house at the end of the street and see if it is haunted./Use the noun temerity to mean the quality of being unafraid of danger or punishment. If you have the temerity to jump off the bridge even after hearing about the risk of instant death, you truly are a nutcase. Someone who has the temerity to do something is usually considered to be bold in a foolish way. Near synonyms are audacity and recklessness. Temerity is from Middle English temeryte, from Latin temeritas, from temere "by chance, rashly.

aplomb

noun: great coolness and composure under strain Nancy acted with aplomb during dangerous situations--she once calmly climbed up an oak tree to save a cat./Aplomb is the ultimate test for cool: grace under pressure. Use aplomb to show great restraint under even the most trying circumstances. In retail, it's always a good idea to handle the angry customers with aplomb. Angry at the long lines at the grocery store? Irritated because the driver ahead cut you off? Take a deep breath, and approach life's messes with aplomb. When you think of aplomb, think cool, calm and collected. Not frazzled, furious, and fiery. Aplomb comes from the French word meaning "perpendicularity," from the phrase à plomb for "poised upright, balanced."

cupidity

noun: greed for money Some people believe that amassing as much wealth as possible is the meaning to life—yet they often realize that cupidity brings anything but happiness./Remember the saying "Greed is good"? It could just as easily be "Cupidity is good," though admittedly it doesn't roll off the tongue quite the same way. Cupidity means a burning desire to have more wealth than you need.Though it sounds like it might have something to do with the little winged figure who shoots arrows and makes folks fall in love on Valentine's Day, cupidity is all about the love of money. It comes to us from Latin cupidus, which means "desirous." It's not a word that crops up a lot in conversation, though you might run across it in newspapers and magazines, particularly those blaming Wall Street's unbridled cupidity for America's economic woes.

asperity

noun: harshness of manner The editor was known for his asperity, often sending severe letters of rejection to amateur writers./Asperity is the harsh tone or behavior people exhibit when they're angry, impatient, or just miserable. When your supervisor's "Late again!" greeting causes your entire future to pass before your eyes, he is speaking with asperity. The harshness that asperity implies can also apply to conditions, like "the asperities of life in a bomb shelter." Or even more literally to surfaces, like "the asperity of an unfinished edge." But, most often, you will see asperity used in reference to grumpy human beings.

panacea

noun: hypothetical remedy for all ills or diseases; a universal solution While the company credit card has made most large purchases easier, it is no panacea: some smaller basic transactions still must be conducted in cash./If someone offers you a pill that promises eternal life, don't take the pill. It's a panacea, a remedy that falsely claims to solve every problem ever. The Greek word pan means "all" (think of a panorama, a view where you can see everywhere). The Greek word for "cure" is akēs (which looks like the word "aches"). Those are the roots of panacea, a cure for all aches. But a panacea doesn't really cure everything; it just acts like it can. Use the word to describe an unbelievable solution, like a new law that will make everyone rich, or a robot that does your homework for you.

inequity

noun: injustice by virtue of not conforming with rules or standards After decades of racial inequity, the "separate but equal" doctrine was successfully overturned./The noun inequity describes a situation that's not fair. If you feel, for example, that your brother gets to do whatever he wants while you must follow the rules to the letter, you might rage against inequity. The prefix in- in inequity means "not" or "opposite of." Equity, means "justice or fairness." Put it together and you get inequity: something that's unfair or unjust. The word can be used to describe a wide range of unfair situations, such as an inequity in a school's buying new equipment for the football team while the field hockey team continues to wear uniforms from 1981.

probity

noun: integrity, strong moral principles The ideal politician would have the probity to lead, but reality gravely falls short of the ideal of morally upright leaders./Though probity sounds like what you might do with a sharp stick, it actually means being morally and ethically above reproach, having integrity. If you show fiscal probity, it means you are responsible and ethical with your money. The story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and refusing to lie about it is a story of probity. The story was first told by a pastor, who may have made the whole thing up according to today's scholars, possibly to sell books -- no act of probity.

schadenfreude

noun: joy from watching the suffering of others From his warm apartment window, Stanley reveled in schadenfreude as he laughed at the figures below, huddled together in the arctic chill./When another person's bad luck secretly makes you feel good, that's Schadenfreude. Your brother's rejection from a college that also rejected you might give you a twinge of Schadenfreude. If you're fired from your difficult job, no one can blame you for a bit of Schadenfreude as you watch your replacement struggle with your old tasks. This German word perfectly captures that satisfied feeling everyone gets at times when someone else runs into misfortune. In German, Schadenfreude literally means "damage-joy," and it's always spelled with a capital S. The word came into English use in the 1920's, and you can spell it with a small s if you prefer.

insouciance

noun: lack of concern Surprisingly, Hank had become a high-powered CEO; his high school friends remembered him as "Hanky Panky", who shrugged off each failed class with insouciance./Insouciance is how you feel when you are feeling cool, like nothing can bother you. Insouciance has roots in the French in, meaning not and se soucier, meaning "to care," giving the English word its "uncaring" meaning. Insouciance can be a positive state — like the childlike insouciance you feel when you are watching cartoons instead of paying your bills. However, insouciance is not always so sunny. Young voters are often accused of treating the right to vote with insouciance, meaning they just can't be bothered

raillery

noun: light teasing The new recruit was not bothered by the raillery, finding most of it light-hearted and good-natured./Use the noun raillery to describe a kind of joking or gentle teasing. There will probably be a bit of raillery between elementary school students on a field trip bus, for example. If you engage in raillery, you make fun of someone — but lightheartedly, not in a way that would cause offense. The raillery between good friends or siblings might include laughter and teasing, or a joking banter back and forth. To rail is to complain, although its Middle French root, railler, means "to tease or joke," possibly from the Old Provençal word ralhar, "to scoff or to joke.

malfeasance

noun: misconduct or wrongdoing (especially by a public official) Not even the mayor's trademark pearly-toothed grin could save him from charges of malfeasance: while in power, he'd been running an illegal gambling rink in the room behind his office./Whenever you see the prefix "mal-," you know it's not good. Malfeasance is bad behavior, especially from officials or people who should know better. If nothing else, the mal- in malfeasance will alert you to the fact that something bad is going on. If you know French, fease-, faise- will ring a bell, as it often means "to do." You can probably then infer that malfeasance means "to do bad." Today, it's usually a bad deed done by an official or an organization. You wouldn't accuse a dog who peed on the carpet of malfeasance, but you would accuse a mayor who took a bribe of malfeasance.

paragon

noun: model of excellence or perfection of a kind; one having no equal Even with the rise of Kobe Bryant, many still believe that Michael Jordon is the paragon for basketball players. noun: an ideal instance; a perfect embodiment of a concept Some say that Athens was the paragon of democracy, but these people often forget that slaves and women were still not allowed to vote./Paragon applies to someone who is a model of perfection in some quality or trait. We link paragon with other words that follow it, such as "paragon of virtue" or "paragon of patience." A paragon means someone or something that is the very best. The English noun paragon comes from the Italian word paragone, which is a touchstone, a black stone that is used to tell the quality of gold. You rub the gold on the touchstone and you can find out how good the gold is. You are hoping that it is the paragon of "goldness."

recrimination

noun: mutual accusations The two brothers sat and cried, pointing fingers and making elaborate recriminations of the other's guilt/Sometimes you accuse your opponent of refusing to compromise and he accuses you of the same thing. That's a recrimination, an accusation or insult that's hurled back at someone. If you've ever been in a verbal disagreement with someone, odds are that you've experienced recriminations. You can remember it by noticing that crim as in "crime" is part of the word. When recriminations fly back and forth between two sides, each accuses the other of crimes in the metaphorical sense. Once the emergencies of a disaster have been taken care of, recriminations are sometimes hurled at those in charge for the way the crisis was handled.

hauteur

noun: overbearing pride evidenced by a superior manner toward inferiors As soon as she won the lottery, Alice began displaying a hauteur to her friends, calling them dirty-clothed peasants behind their backs./Hauteur is an obnoxious display of overbearing pride and superiority over others. Rather than showing humility and respect, a bad king might act with hauteur toward his subjects. The noun hauteur stems from the Old English word haute, meaning "high in one's own estimation." Because it often develops as a result of power over others (or perceived power), it's often associated with royalty or politically powerful figures who throughout history have become vain and arrogant because of their position: A high-powered CEO might show hauteur toward the newly hired assistant; a professional athlete's hauteur may result from the media spotlight and multi-million-dollar contracts.

hubris

noun: overbearing pride or presumption Bill Clinton was criticized for his hubris, since he believed he could get away with anything once in the White House./Hubris is an excess of confidence: a boxer who shouts "I'm the greatest!" even though he's about to get pummeled by a much stronger opponent is displaying a lot of hubris. Hubris is from Greek, where it meant "excessive pride, violating the bounds set for humans" and was always punished by the gods. We no longer have the Greek gods, so in English it just refers to over-the-top self-confidence. If you call yourself the best in something, you better have the goods to back it up, since too much hubris can lead to embarrassment and humiliation. It's an age-old human failing: pride goeth before the fall.

gumption

noun: resourcefulness and determination Wallace Stegner lamented the lack of gumption in the U.S. during the sixties, claiming that no young person knew the value of work./If you have gumption, you have guts. People with gumption are determined and full of courage — and common sense, too. If you easily give up, and don't have a lot of confidence or smarts, then you are lacking in gumption. It takes gumption to get things done — especially difficult things. Someone who takes risks without being afraid has gumption. Having gumption is like having "chutzpah." We all could probably use more gumption. Like common sense, it isn't that common.

Tyro

noun: someone new to a field or activity All great writers, athletes, and artists were tyros at one time—unknown, clumsy, and unskilled with much to learn./A tyro is a beginner, a new recruit, or someone who is just learning something. If you are the new guy at the job and you're wearing a big dorky badge that says "Trainee" on it, you are a tyro. Tyro isn't used much these days but it's similar to newbie, novice, or recruit. We have all been tyros at some point, but it doesn't necessarily prevent us from hazing the new kid, the next-generation tyro. Tyro can also be used as an adjective to describe someone new to a particular scene — such as "the tyro congressman" or "the tyro quarterback."

malingerer

noun: someone shirking their duty by pretending to be sick or incapacitated At one time, our country was full of hardworking respectful people, but now it seems that everyone is a malingerer with little inclination to work./Have you ever pretended to be sick or hurt to get out of taking a test or doing a chore? Then you, my dear, are a malingerer, and should be ashamed of yourself. Shape up!Knowing that the prefix mal is from the Latin for "bad," we can tell right off that being a malingerer is not a good thing. This noun form of the verb malinger comes from the French malingre which means "sickly." (Obviously, it's bad to pretend to be sick.) In Jack London's Call of the Wild, the new dog, Pike, is referred to as "a clever malingerer and thief," giving a clear negative context to the word.

firebrand

noun: someone who deliberately creates trouble Freddie is a firebrand: every time he walks into the office, he winds up at the center of heated argument./When someone is known for being wildly devoted to a cause or idea, they're called a firebrand. A firebrand enjoys pushing buttons and stirring up passions. Firebrand isn't such a tough word to remember if you think of that person's "brand" being "fiery." Someone who enjoys heating up the debate around a subject or lighting a fire under other people is a firebrand. "Fire" is their "brand." Firebrands come in all shapes and sizes: conservative, liberal, militant, creative. Anyone who takes a strong, provocative stance and challenges people with heated rhetoric might be labeled a firebrand. All it takes is guts and a willingness to stir things up.

desideratum

noun: something desired as a necessity The desideratum of the environmental group is that motorists should rely on carpooling./A desideratum is something you desire or want. It's a fancy word for a must-have. This official-sounding Latin word means something very common: anything you want or need. A new book could be a desideratum. A chocolate cake could be a desideratum. More commonly, a desideratum is something that is truly needed, like food or shelter. For many people, a happy marriage is a desideratum. For a politician, getting elected is a desideratum. You can almost see the word desire in desideratum, and that should help you remember it's an object of desire.

chimera

noun: something desired or wished for but is only an illusion and impossible to achieve Many believe that a world free of war is a chimera—a dream that ignores humanity's violent tendencies./A chimera is something you've imagined that's bits and pieces of others things mashed together into a new horrible fantasy, something impossible in real life that only exists in your mind. In Greek mythology, a chimera is a monster that has a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. And it breathes fire. No creature like that has ever existed, but the idea seemed real and terrifying to Greeks, and that's another meaning: an idea that feels real but is impossible, like the idea of a world without evil. Pronouncing the word is very possible though, just try it one of two ways, either kye-MEER-uh or kih-MEER-uh, both work

palimpsest

noun: something that has been changed numerous times but on which traces of former iterations can still be seen. Iteration means repetition of something. The downtown was a palimpsest of the city's checkered past: a new Starbucks had opened up next to an abandoned, shuttered building, and a freshly asphalted road was inches away from a pothole large enough to swallow a small dog./If you are writing fast and hastily erase something not quite all the way and continue writing right over the smudgy bit, then you've created a palimpsest — which means you can see traces of the earlier writing mixed in with the new. The noun palimpsest originally described a document, such as a page from a manuscript written on parchment, that had been rubbed smooth so it could be used again, with traces of the original writing showing through. The word still carries that meaning, but ancient manuscripts are rare these days, so you're more likely to hear palimpsest used to describe something that has traces of early stages showing through, like "the palimpsest of an urban neighborhood" — in which hints of earlier styles and designs are still evident among the new highrises.

anachronism

noun: something that is inappropriate for the given time period (usually something old). Dressed in 15th century clothing each day, Edward was a walking anachronism./An anachronism is something that doesn't fit its time period, like if you say you'll "dial" your smartphone. Anachronism comes from the Greek roots ana- which means "against" and chron- which means "time." Together they represent a situation in which something happens that should not because it belongs to another time period. You see anachronisms all the time in the movies — they occur when you see a jet fly over a Civil War battle! Or knights jousting over a maiden during the time of Shakespeare!

anodyne

noun: something that soothes or relieves pain Muzak, which is played in department stores, is intended to be an anodyne, but is often so cheesy and over-the-top that customers become irritated. adjective: inoffensive Wilbur enjoyed a spicy Mexican breakfast, but Jill preferred a far more anodyne meal in the mornings./When your back is killing you from helping your friend move furniture into his new apartment, you need to take an anodyne, a painkiller. An anodyne doesn't have to be actual medicine. If the pure joy of helping your friend is soothing enough to make you forget your aching back, that counts as an anodyne too (though perhaps an unlikely one). Anodyne can also be used as an adjective to describe something that relieves pain, or is at least inoffensive. When you're stressed out or unhappy, try looking at anodyne pictures of kittens. Er, unless you had a bad experience with a cat once.

celerity

noun: speed, rapidity We aim to respond to customers' questions with celerity and accuracy, with no longer than a 24 hour wait time./While it looks a lot like celery, celerity means something that vegetables are not — fast moving. Gossip often travels with celerity, as do children trying to get to a big plate of cookies. When you see the word celerity, think accelerate, like a car when you step on the gas. Both words share the Latin root celer which means swift. You may want to study for exams with celerity, but using a slower, more methodical approach will often yield better results.

zeitgeist

noun: spirit of the times Each decade has its own zeitgeist—the 1990's was a prosperous time in which the promise of the American Dream never seemed more palpable./Zeitgeist is the spirit or essence of a particular time. In the 1920s, flappers and speakeasies contributed to that era's Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is a word that comes straight from German — zeit means "time" and geist means spirit, and the "spirit of the time" is what's going on culturally, religiously, or intellectually during a certain period. Think about how something like Woodstock symbolized the 1960s: Woodstock was part of the Zeitgeist of the 1960s. Whatever seems particular to or symbolic of a certain time is likely part of its Zeitgeist.

chagrin

noun: strong feelings of embarrassment Much to the timid writer's chagrin, the audience chanted his name until he came back on the stage. verb: cause to feel shame; hurt the pride of She never cared what others said about her appearance but was chagrined by the smallest comment from her mother./Chagrin is a noun that represents an emotion or feeling and it's an uncomfortable one. If you feel chagrin, it means that you are embarrassed or distressed as a result of a failure. The word chagrin, a noun, comes from the French word of the same spelling and means "melancholy, anxiety, vexation." An odd fact about the word in English is that it had been thought to be related to another, similar-sounding word, shagreen, "an untanned leather with a granular surface, prepared from the hide of a horse, shark, seal, etc." When one mistakes one word as a relative of another, it's called "false etymology."

verisimilitude

noun: the appearance of truth. Do not confuse it with Veritable, meaning something that is true, at least feels that way. All bad novels are bad for numerous reasons; all good novels are good for their verisimilitude of reality, placing the readers in a world that resembles the one they know./Verisimilitude means being believable, or having the appearance of being true. You can improve your play by using the sounds and smells of the beach as well as lots of sand to create verisimilitude. Verisimilitude comes from the Latin verisimilitudo "likeness to truth" and is used to describe stories. In it, you'll see the word similar, meaning it is similar to what's real. Art that aims for realism seeks verisimilitude. An actual synonym for verisimilitude is truthlikeness. Tell that to your friends, and they'll probably think that your story lacks verisimilitude.

malapropism

noun: the confusion of a word with another word that sounds similar Whenever I looked glum, my mother would offer to share "an amusing antidote" with me—an endearing malapropism of "anecdote" that never failed to cheer me up./A malapropism occurs when you say one word but you mean another, like instead of saying a certain restaurant is prosperous, you say it is preposterous. As you can tell, malapropisms are often humorous, though sometimes the joke is on the speaker. The word malapropism, pronounced "mah-luh-PRAH-pih-zum," comes from the French phrase mal à propos, which means "ill-suited." Playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan must have been thinking of the French phrase when he created his character Mrs. Malaprop, who made audiences howl with laughter when she used the wrong word. Examples include saying "allegory" instead of "alligator," and "illiterate him from your memory" instead of "obliterate."

denouement

noun: the final resolution of the many strands of a literary or dramatic work; the outcome of a complex sequence of events At the denouement of the movie, all questions were answered, and the true identity of the robber was revealed./You know that part of every movie after the big action scene, where things get explained, and the characters tie up loose ends? That's called the denouement, or the showing of how the plot eventually turns out. Denouement is a French word that literally means the action of untying, from a verb meaning to untie. The English word is pronounced like the French: day-noo-MON. The last syllable has a nasalized vowel instead of the n sound. You can use it outside the context of plays or novels, too: you might describe the denouement of an argument between two friends.

apogee

noun: the highest point The apogee of the Viennese style of music, Mozart's music continues to mesmerize audiences well into the 21st century./For an object in orbit around the earth, the apogee is the point that is highest or furthest from the earth. Early satellites had low apogees, so it wasn't long before they burnt up in the atmosphere. Apogee comes from two Greek words meaning "away" and "earth," so it's specific to things orbiting the earth. If you're talking about something orbiting the sun, the equivalent word is aphelion ("away" + "sun"). Because apogee denotes the highest point something reaches in an orbit before falling back, it can also figuratively refer to other highs. For example, "Child stars sometimes reach their apogee by 20, and there's nowhere to go but down from there."

nadir

noun: the lowest point For many pop music fans, the rap- and alternative-rock-dominated 90s were the nadir of musical expression./If a highly forgetful person loses his phone, his wallet, and then his car keys in separate instances all in one day, you could say that he has reached an organizational nadir. This means "lowest point." This was originally strictly an astronomical term and is the opposite of the word zenith, which is the part of the sky located directly above a person's head or, "high point." In fact, nadir is derived from the Arabic nazir, which means "opposite to." It is still used in astronomy to indicate the part of the celestial sphere located directly below an observer, but also more generally to describe the worst point of someone's life or career.

eponym

noun: the name derived from a person (real or imaginary); the person for whom something is named Alexandria, Egypt is an eponym because it is named after Alexander the Great./When something is eponymous, it takes its own name as its title. For example, Foo Fighters' first album was eponymous — it was called "Foo Fighters." It's interesting that books are almost never eponymous. For instance, Herman Melville never wrote a story or a novel called "Herman Melville," and Dickens never titled any of his novels "Charles Dickens." But singers and bands often name at least one of their albums or CDs after themselves. The same goes for TV shows. Think of "Roseanne." Her eponymous show was called, obviously, "Roseanne." Sometimes there's a pun in the name. For example, the Doral Company is named for its founders, Doris and Al. Is that eponymous? You tell me...

exiguity

noun: the quality of being meager After two months at sea, the exiguity of the ship's supplies forced them to search for fresh water and food.

artlessness

noun: the quality of innocence I, personally, found the artlessness of her speech charming.

rapprochement

noun: the reestablishing of cordial relations Although Ann hoped that her mother and her aunt would have a rapprochement, each one's bitter accusations against the other made any reconciliation unlikely./Rapprochement is the reestablishment of a happy relationship or arrangement. A peace treaty between warring nations is a kind of rapprochement. People who usually get along sometimes come into conflict: formerly allied nations go to war, friends feud, and spouses divorce. If a conflict ends and the parties go back to being on good terms, they achieve rapprochement. This term is most often used in international politics — for example, when two countries make peace after a long war, that's rapprochement. The word means "reunion" or "reconciliation" in French, and its root is rapprocher, "to bring near."

primacy

noun: the state of being first in importance The primacy of Apple Computers is not guaranteed, as seen in the recent lawsuits and weak growth./Something with primacy has first importance. If you are deciding who to take on an all-expenses-paid trip up the Amazon, the quality of being chill and fun might take primacy over the number of years you've been friends. Primacy comes from primary, meaning first, and it is like a condition of always having first place. If you are the teacher's pet, you might have primacy over your classmates. You can also talk about primacy within a field. Madonna, Beyonce, and Shakira have all at one time or another achieved primacy in the field of pop music. Keep practicing, maybe you'll be next.

diminutive

noun: to indicate smallness;very small He prefers to be called a diminutive of his name: "Bill" instead of "John William." adjective: very small When he put on his father's suit and shoes, his appearance was that of a diminutive youth./Diminutive means small. A diminutive person is short and small. A diminutive word is a "cute" version of a regular word, "Maggie" is the diminutive of "Margaret." A diminutive name or word is formed from another by the addition of a suffix expressing smallness in size: a booklet is a small book, a dinette is a small version of a dining set. The adjective diminutive descends from Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin dīminūtīvus, from Latin dēminuere "to lessen."

inanity

noun: total lack of meaning or ideas Bill's poem was nothing more than a list of impressive sounding words, so there was no point in trying to take meaning from the inanity.

misattribute

verb: To erroneously attribute; to falsely ascribe; used especially of authorship. I made a mistake; I misattributed "Crime and Punishment" to Leo Tolstoy when it was actually written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

extrapolate

verb: When you extrapolate, you use specific details to make a general comment. By extrapolating from the data on the past three months, we can predict a 5% increase in traffic to our website./ For example, if you travel to Canada and encounter only friendly, kind natives, you might extrapolate that all Canadians are friendly. The verb extrapolate can mean "to predict future outcomes based on known facts." For example, looking at your current grade report for math and how you are doing in class now, you could extrapolate that you'll likely earn a solid B for the year. Another meaning of extrapolate is "estimate the value of." You could extrapolate how much your antique watch is worth by finding how much similar watches sold for at recent auctions.

countermand

verb: a contrary command cancelling or reversing a previous command;cancel officially By the time the colonel countermanded his soldiers not to land in enemy territory, a few helicopters had already touched down amid heavy gunfire./When an officer in the military shouts, "Belay that order, Private!" that is a countermand. A countermand is an order that cancels or reverses an earlier command. Countermand is also used as a verb meaning "to cancel or revoke." Counter means "opposing" or "opposite," and mand is short for "mandate" or "command." Put them together and you've got countermand — an "opposing command." When you issue a countermand, you cancel the original command and usually replace it with a new one. Countermand is often used in a military context, but it can be applied more widely. If your parents tell you to take out the trash, you might countermand these orders by telling your little brother to do it instead.

beg

verb: assume something is true (usu. followed by "the question", meaning that you ask a question in which you assume something that hasn't been proven true) By assuming that Charlie was headed to college—which he was not—Maggie begged the question when she asked him to which school he was headed in the Fall./To beg is to ask for something in an earnest, pleading way. You might beg your roommates to be quiet if you're desperately trying to get some sleep. You can beg your parents to let you go to a concert with your friends, and you can beg your sister for forgiveness after you inadvertently hurt her feelings. In either case, you are imploring, asking sincerely for something you want. Many dogs are skilled at this, and will beg by sitting beside you while you eat, looking adorable. Another way to beg is to ask for desperately needed charity — to solicit money or food from strangers.

impugn

verb: attack as false or wrong Though many initially tried to impugn Darwin's theory, in scientific circles today, the idea is taken as truth./To impugn means to call into question or attack as wrong. If your usually grumpy brother is suddenly nice and sweet, you'll impugn his motives if you're smart — he probably just wants something from you. The root of impugn is the Latin pugnare which means "to fight," so when you impugn, you are fighting or attacking, but by saying that something is false or wrong. If a candidate has a record that cannot be impugned, his or her opponent might go for a character attack. If you take pride in your work, you will be especially insulted if someone impugns your professionalism or integrity.

impute

verb: attribute (responsibility or fault) to something He imputed his subpar performance on the test to a combination of stress and poor sleep./The verb impute can be used to blame someone for doing something bad, give credit for good work, or just tell it like it is, like when you impute your lateness to my not telling you where to meet me. When you impute something, you name the cause of something that has happened. For example, you might impute your ability to sing well to the thousands of dollars your parents spent in voice lessons. In other words, you name the source. You can also impute a person, like imputing to a teacher your love of learning — he or she helped you become more interested in school and your classes.

flummox

verb: be a mystery or bewildering to Mary's behavior completely flummoxes me: I never have any idea what her motivations might be./Does the word flummox bewilder, confound, dumbfound and generally mystify you? Well, fear no more, because flummox means all of these things! Things that flummox you are probably not that serious, and often pretty amusing and informal: a TV remote or a crossword puzzle, for example, rather than something major like why your boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with you. (Now that's unfathomable.) Get this: linguists are actually mystified as to where the word flummox comes from — they're flummoxed, in other words. It may come from an old English word, flummock, meaning "to make untidy or confuse," but no one is really sure. Now, what could be more suitable?

browbeat

verb: be bossy towards; discourage or frighten with threats or a domineering manner During the interrogation, the suspect was browbeaten into signing a false confessio/To browbeat is to intimidate with language. Picture yourself in a police station. The cops are trying to get you to talk by using tough, even abusive, language. They are browbeating you. When someone browbeats you, they're giving you a beating with their mouth and their mind. If your parents have to browbeat you into cleaning your room, they nag you, yell at you and they may even make fun of you and your bad cleaning habits. While the word brow means forehead, think that they're using their head, or brow, to beat you down. It's a figurative, rather than a literal, beating.

obtain

verb: be valid, applicable, or true The custom of waiting your turn in line does not obtain in some countries, in which many people try to rush to front of the line at the same time./Obtain means to get something that is not so easy to come by such as knowledge, rights, or a large amount of money. You wouldn't say you obtained a pair of pants, unless they were one of a kind. At times in its history, obtain has meant to be victorious or to succeed. Today, it mostly means to acquire, but keeping its prior meanings in mind helps you to use it in the right way. College degrees are something that you obtain as is permission from your parents to go to a party. When you obtain something, you have worked hard to get it, so you are pretty happy to have it.

importune

verb: beg persistently and urgently After weeks of importuning the star to meet for a five-minute interview, the journalist finally got what she wanted./Sure, to importune is to beg, but use it only when you're talking about going beyond mere begging into more urgent territory. The woman importuned the judge to release her innocent brother from jail./The original Latin term actually meant something closer to "to bother." Bear that in mind when you're deciding whether to use importune, because that's the kind of begging you'd want to be talking about when you do. Imagine needing something so badly that you cannot stop asking for it: then you might importune someone to get it. After a year of being importuned, dad let me have the car.

stultify

verb: cause one, through routine, to lose energy and enthusiasm As an undergraduate Mark felt stultified by classes outside his area of study; only in grad school, in which he could focus solely on literary analysis, did he regain his scholarly edge./When something stultifies you, it drains you of your energy, enthusiasm, or pleasure. A well-acted Shakespeare play can be a thrill. A poorly-acted one can stultify like nothing else. The verb stultify is sometimes used in place of "bore" or "exhaust," but only if something is so boring or exhausting that it makes you feel as though you might just die. It's a very negative word. If you're in a relationship that's stultifying, you should find a way out. Relationships should make you feel more alive, not less. Constant construction noise can have a stultifying effect, leaving a person almost unable to function.

crystallize

verb: cause to take on a definite and clear shape Only after fifteen minutes of brainstorming did Samantha's ideas for the essay crystallize. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study

transmute

verb: change or alter in form, appearance, or nature One of the goals of alchemy was to find the substance or process that would transmute lead into gold./Transmute is a verb meaning to change in appearance or form. For example, magical creatures can transmute into other beings. When you slay a dragon, don't be surprised if changes into a small, winged insect. More realistically, you, too, can transmute your appearance — by dying your hair, piercing your nose, or changing your style of dress. Transmute often describes physical change — like when alchemists tried to transmute lead into gold — but it can also be used more figuratively to describe anything that's transformed. For example, you might transmute your sketchy memories of growing up in Boston into the Great American Novel.

proscribe

verb: command against My doctor proscribed my habit of eating donuts with chocolate sauce and hamburger patties for breakfast./To proscribe something is to forbid or prohibit it, as a school principal might proscribe the use of cell phones in class. Proscribe sounds similar to the word prescribe, but be careful: these words are essentially opposite in meaning. While proscribe means forbid, prescribe is used when a doctor recommends a medicine or remedy. Of course, if you want an excuse for not following your doctor's orders, you could say you were confused about the meaning of these two words — but that would be lying, which is proscribed by most people's value systems. And it would also be bad for your health.

dissemble

verb: conceal one's true motives, usually through deceit To get close to the senator, the assassin dissembled his intentions, convincing many people that he was a reporter for a well-known newspaper./To dissemble is to hide under a false appearance, to deceive. "When confronted about their human rights record, the Chinese government typically dissembles."Dissemble is a little more complicated than a straight lie or denial. When you dissemble, you disguise your true intentions or feelings behind a false appearance. To dissemble is to pretend that you don't know something, to pretend that you think one way when you act another way. "My boyfriend was dissembling the whole time. He was a married father of two."/disassemble / dissemble Disassemble is to take something apart, like an old car motor, but dissemble is sneaky — it means to hide your true self, like the guy who said he was a mechanic but had never actually seen a motor, much less put one back together.

proselytize

verb: convert (someone) to another religion, philosophy, or perspective Lisa loves her Mac but says little about it; by contrast, Jake will proselytize, interrogating anyone with an Android about why she didn't purchase an iPhone./To proselytize is to try to persuade someone to switch to your religious beliefs or your way of living. If you are going to proselytize, try not to be too pushy! The word proselytize can specifically refer to religious evangelism, as in: "Proselytizing is a fundamental component of Mormonism." Proselytize, however, can also be used for any situation when people are trying to convince others to try something or to join something. TV ads proselytize about the pleasures of life with mouthwash, friends proselytize about how great their favorite video games are, and moms proselytize about the benefits of eating vegetables.

lacerate

verb: deeply hurt the feelings of; distress The teacher was fired for lacerating a student who wrote a poor essay. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/The verb lacerate means to cut or tear. So the envelope that gave you that nasty paper cut? It lacerated your finger. Something usually needs to be sharp or jagged to lacerate you, like broken glass or a sharp stick. You won't be getting lacerated anytime soon by lace or cotton balls, that's for sure. But watch out for sharp-tongued people hurling hateful words your way; those snide remarks and personal digs can lacerate feelings like a knife slicing through butter.

deign

verb: do something that one considers to be below one's dignity The master of the house never deigned to answer questions from the servants./Deign means to reluctantly agree to do something you consider beneath you. When threatened with the loss of her fortune, an heiress might deign to get a job, but she might look down her nose at the people she'd have to work with. Deign has the same origins as dignity. Both descend from the Latin word, dignare, meaning "to deem worthy." If you deign to do something, you don't feel it's worthy of your lofty stature, but you do it anyway — it's like you're doing someone a really big favor. Instead of admitting his wrongdoing, the politician who is accused of taking bribes might indignantly declare, "I won't deign to dignify your ridiculous accusations with a response!"

quail

verb: draw back, as with fear or pain Craig always claimed to be a fearless outdoorsman, but when the thunderstorm engulfed the valley, he quailed at the thought of leaving the safety of his cabin. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/Smaller than the chicken and not as well known as the pigeon, quail is like the often-overlooked middle child of the ground-dwelling bird family. Quail can also mean to cringe in fear or pain. So if you are a quail, you might quail at the thought of quail-hunting season. Quail is a broad, catchall word; it can refer to any one of many small domestic game birds. So if you're bragging about the quail you shot on a hunting trip to your uptight, bird-obsessed pals, they might demand to know if it was the Bobwhite quail, the Valley quail or the Scaled quail, to name just a few. If you use this word as a verb, it means to draw back in fear or pain. You might quail in fear at the sight of a playground bully. A good way to remember this verb meaning is to think of how the word chicken is also associated with fear.

flag

verb: droop, sink, or settle from or as if from pressure or loss of tautness; become less intense After the three crushing defeats in the last three games, the team's enthusiasm began to flag. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/Stopping for a snack may help when your energy or attention begin to flag, meaning you are getting tired or losing your focus. Flag describes a person's waning energy level after a sustained effort. For example, you may begin to flag after a long afternoon sightseeing in a strange city. It can also be used to describe diminishing success, such as a movie career that seems to flag after the actor stops landing big roles, flag can also refer to something that seems to drop off, like gym attendance that flags — along with those New Year's resolutions.

bowdlerize

verb: edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate To receive an R rating, the entire movie was bowdlerized because it contained so much violence and grotesque subject matter./To bowdlerize means edit offensive parts out of something. If the hero in an R-rated movie adapted for TV exclaims, "Oh shoot fudge darn!" but his lips seem to be saying something else, that movie has been bowdlerized. The word bowdlerized comes from the name of Dr. T. Bowdler, who decided to publish an edition of Shakespeare without sexual references or double-entendres (which is when a word has two meanings, one of them cheeky). Mr. Bowdler thought he was performing a great service for humanity, but generally if we call something bowdlerized, we're implying that it was edited in a prudish way.

machinate

verb: engage in plotting or enter into a conspiracy, swear together The rebels met at night in an abandoned barn to machinate./To machinate is to scheme or plan something. You might, for example, machinate a way to defeat the more popular candidate in an election for school president. You can use the verb machinate in two ways: to arrange or plan in a carefully detailed way, or to plot in an equally careful but somewhat sneaky or underhanded way. While a teacher might machinate to best organize and inspire her class, a movie villain also machinates in order to defeat the hero. Both meanings come from the same root, the noun machination, "plotting or intrigue," which is ultimately rooted in the Latin machina, "device or machine."

hail

verb: enthusiastically acclaim or celebrate something Many college superstar athletes are hailed as the next big thing, but then flop at the professional level. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/Hail is when chunks of ice fall from the sky. Also, to hail someone is to greet them or say good things about them. Or it can be a way to tell people of your homeland, as in: "I hail from the Moon." If twenty third-graders all sent spit-balls up in the air at once, the spit-balls would then hail down on the class. If a presidential candidate has an idea for fixing the nation's woes, many people will hail that idea as the next great panacea. If you see your former prom date walking down the street, you may want to hail him to say hello or, perhaps, you will want to hail a cab and get out of there as fast as you can.

bemoan

verb: express discontent or a strong regret While the CFO carefully explained all the reasons for the cuts in benefits, after the meeting employees bemoaned the cuts as further evidence that management was against them./Some people love to complain, don't they? Complainers also tend to bemoan things, which can be translated to "Oh no! Why me?" A more casual expression for bemoan is to moan and groan. If you step in a puddle and get your shoes wet, you might moan and groan about, or bemoan, your bad luck to whoever will listen. Just about any bad or annoying thing can be bemoaned. In fact, people love to bemoan how much other people are moaning and groaning about things!

decry

verb: express strong disapproval of The entire audience erupted in shouts and curses, decrying the penalty card issued by the referee./When you dye your hair pink and orange, your mother decries your act as a horror and bursts into tears. She criticizes your choice of colors, stating that pink and purple would have looked better. You might decry learning French, declaring it as a waste of time. Yet many English words come from French. When the French conquered England in 1066, they brought with them their language as well as their social system. Because French was spoken mostly by the ruling class, many of the loan words are formal. Decry comes from the Old French descrier, to cry out or announce. When you decry something, you simultaneously condemn it and discredit it, a formal act.

objurgate

verb: express strong disapproval of;censure severely The manager spent an hour objurgating the employee in the hopes that he would not make these mistakes again.

dovetail

verb: fit together tightly, as if by means of an interlocking joint Although Darwin's evolution and Mendel's genetics were developed in isolation from one another, they dovetail very well.

abjure

verb: formally reject or give up (as a belief) While the church believed that Galileo abjured the heliocentric theory under threat of torture, he later wrote a book clearly supporting the theory./Abjure means to swear off, and it applies to something you once believed. You can abjure a religious faith, you can abjure your love of another person, and you can abjure the practice of using excessive force in interrogation. Abjure is a more dramatic way to declare your rejection of something you once felt or believed. When you see its Latin roots, it makes sense: from ab- (meaning "away") and jurare ("to swear"). When you abjure something, you swear it away and dissociate yourself with it. You might abjure the field of astrology after receiving a bad fortune, or you might abjure marriage after a bitter divorce.

enjoin

verb: give instructions to or direct somebody to do something with authority The government agency enjoined the chemical company to clean up the hazardous dump it had created over the years./To enjoin is to issue an urgent and official order. If the government tells loggers to stop cutting down trees, they are enjoining the loggers to stop. Enjoin looks like it should mean bring together, and at one time, it did have that meaning. But in current usage, the only thing enjoin brings together is a command and the person on the receiving end of that order. If your doctor enjoins you to stop smoking, he is suggesting strongly that you quit.

encumber

verb: hold back The costume encumbered all my movements and caused me to sweat profusely./To encumber is to weigh someone or something down with a physical or psychological burden. You may find yourself encumbered by a heavy backpack or with anxieties. Either way, it's a heavy load to bear! You can also use encumber to describe something that restricts you in some way: you're so encumbered by your homework load you can't go to the concert Saturday night. The root, cumber, has several shades of meaning — including "to burden" and "to be overwhelmed."

enthrall

verb: hold spellbound She was so enthralled by the movie that she never heard people screaming, "Fire! Fire!" in the neighboring theater./You are enthralled when filled with delight and wonder at something, to the point where time seems to stand still. Creators of day time soap operas count on viewers being enthralled to make their money. There's a transporting quality to the act of being enthralled, as though you have been, quite literally, whisked away. This is not surprising, given the origin of the word, which comes from two Latin words, en, "to make" or "put in," and thrall, "to hold in mental or moral bondage." So the next time a movie or book (or daytime soap) enthralls you, remember you are indeed being kidnapped in some way.

ossify

verb: make rigid and set into a conventional pattern Even as a young man, Bob had some bias against poor people, but during his years in social services, his bad opinions ossified into unshiftable views. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/Ossify means to become bony. When a baby is born, some of their "bones" are actually soft cartilage, which allows for growth. As the child grows, these soft areas ossify into actual bone. The knee cap, for example, begins to ossify between ages 3 and 6. From the literal "to become bony" meaning of ossify, we get the more figurative meaning: to become rigid or hardened. Although you and other young people may be willing to effect social changes, many older voters have ossified in their opinions. Convincing these rigid thinkers that these changes are good for the country will be quite the challenge. If your kids sneak food to their rooms, you may find ossified cheese under the beds. Even mice won't touch that!

conflate

verb: mix together different elements or concepts In her recent book, the author conflates several genres--the detective story, the teen thriller, and the vampire romance--to create a memorable read./Conflate is a more formal way to say "mix together." You probably wouldn't say you conflated the ingredients for a cake, but if you blended two different stories together to make a new one, conflate would work. The verb conflate comes to us from the Latin word conflare, which literally means "to blow together." So think of using this word when you want to talk about two things getting thrown together and combined. Things that have been conflated often seem mixed up or confused, as when you conflate two different ideas, taking parts of one and parts of another to build your own Frankenstein version of things.

afford

verb: provide with an opportunity The summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro affords a panoramic view that encompasses both Tanzania and Kenya. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/To afford means you have enough money or time for something. If you only have ten dollars on you, you can't afford to buy a twenty dollar hat. Afford is a verb that has to do with means. You either have a surplus and therefore can afford something, or else you have a deficit and can't. It can be in the monetary sense: "$100 for cashmere socks? I can't afford that!" It can also refer to time: "Since my train wasn't scheduled leave for another hour, I could afford to wait for my sister ten more minutes." Or even access: "The castle walls afforded a wonderful view of the moat."

brook

verb: put up with something or somebody unpleasant While she was at the chalkboard, the teacher did not brook any form of talking--even a tiny peep resulted in afternoon detention. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/A brook is a small stream, as in "burbling brook." It also a stuffy way of saying "put up with." The lord of the manor might say, "I will brook no trespassing on my land." Brook is tailor-made for talking about what you won't stand for—it's always "brook no..." If you brook no criticism of your friend, it means you won't let people speak ill of her. If you brook no brooks, it means you've developed a bizarre stream-hating fetish and will spend the rest of your days trying to stop their flow.

bristle

verb: react in an offended or angry manner As we discussed the painting, I noticed the artist's wife bristling at our criticisms, ready to defend her husband's work./A bristle is a stiff hair — the kind men shave off their face or the kind badgers have all over. Bristle also means to get angry. Tell an animal rights activist you use a badger's bristle shaving brush and you'll get the idea. The emotional meaning of to bristle comes from the fact that most animal bristles used by man are so-called erectile hairs — the ones that stand up on the neck or along the back of animal when it's angry or surprised. A common word associated with bristle is hackle, another name for such erectile animal hairs. Thus the saying "to get one's hackles up," which is pretty much identical to bristling.

cede

verb: relinquish possession or control over Eventually, all parents must cede control of their growing childrens' educations and allow their offspring some autonomy./To cede is to give up or surrender land, position, or authority. "She reluctantly ceded the coveted position as the baby of the family to her brother when he was born. She would not, however, cede her bedroom to him." Cede is a word often used in discussing diplomatic issues. It is more commonly used in reference to actual physical things, like geographic areas or objects, but can also be used in reference to attitudes or opinions. "The rebels ceded territory after the siege failed." "Dad tried but finally ceded control and let me have my own Facebook account."

abrogate

verb: revoke or relinquish formally; do away with As part of the agreement between the labor union and the company, the workers abrogated their right to strike for four years in exchange for better health insurance./Abrogate means to abolish or avoid. When someone cuts in front of you in line, they are abrogating your right to be the next one served. When you cut in line, you are abrogating your responsibility to those who were in line before you. The Latin root of this word is made up of the prefix ab- "away" and rogare "to propose a law." What does it mean if you propose a law away? You repeal it, of course, so abrogate means to officially revoke, cancel or abolish. The meaning of this word has expanded a bit since its earliest usage, but it still appears most often in a legal or political context, or when serious rights and responsibilities are being discussed.

pillory

verb: ridicule or expose to public scorn After the candidate confessed, the press of the opposing party took the opportunity to pillory him, printing editorials with the most blatantly exaggerated accusations. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/A pillory is a wooden frame with cutouts for someone's head and hands. Long ago, people found guilty of a crime could be sentenced to be locked in a pillory for a certain amount of time for punishment but also for public humiliation. The verb pillory means to be punished by being locked in a pillory, but references to this form of punishment are historic and it is no longer used — you might see references today to someone in a pillory in a cartoon. As a modern verb, pillory means both to criticize harshly and to expose to public ridicule. Someone who is caught doing something immoral may be pilloried and people who believe they have been unfairly criticized say they have been pilloried, but often only after they've been exposed!

lampoon

verb: ridicule with satire Mark Twain understood that lampooning a bad idea with humor was the most effective criticism./When you make fun of something by imitating it in a humorous way, you're lampooning it. The writers at The Onion, Saturday Night Live and FunnyOrDie.com are all experts in the art of the lampoon. Lampoon can be both a verb and a noun. To lampoon is ridicule. A lampoon is a parody or satire. Imagine you were frustrated by having your allowance reduced, so you wrote a funny play portraying mom and dad as dictators extracting lots of unfair taxes from their people. That's lampooning. And it probably won't help your allowance situation.

arrogate

verb: seize and control without authority Arriving at the small town, the outlaw arrogated the privileges of a lord, asking the frightened citizens to provide food, drink, and entertainment./To arrogate is to take over. When the teacher steps out of the classroom and some bossy girl marches up to the front chalkboard? What she's trying to do is arrogate the teacher's authority to herself. When someone takes control of something, often without permission, such as when a military general assumes the power of a country's government after getting rid of the previous leader, they arrogate power or control to themselves. Occasionally the verb arrogate means something like "assert one's right to," or take something that is deserved, but more often it implies a taking by force.

palaver

verb: speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly During the rain delay, many who had come to see the game palavered, probably hoping that idle chatter would make the time go by faster. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/Palaver is a type of empty nonsense. In other words, a more refined way of saying "BS." Whether you call it malarkey, hokum, mumbo-jumbo, or truthiness, there are a lot of words for talk that cannot be trusted or believed. Palaver is part of this club. Specifically, palaver tends to be hot air — empty words from a blowhard. Palaver can also be sweet talk — a type of flattery. You can use this word as a verb too: by palavering, you might try to impress someone or get someone to do you a favor.

dissipate

verb: squander or spend money frivolously The recent graduates dissipated their earnings on trips to Las Vegas and cruises in Mexico. verb: to disperse or scatter Kathleen's perfume was overwhelming in the cramped apartment, but once we stepped outside the smell dissipated and we could breathe once again./Dissipate means "disperse" or "fade away" — as a bad smell will dissipate (usually) if you wait long enough. Dissipate can also mean "spend or use wastefully." If you win the lottery, you might suddenly find yourself with a group of new friends encouraging you to dissipate your money (on them). Note that dissipate can be used with or without an object: "Once you dissipate your wealth, your new group of friends will dissipate without a trace."

promulgate

verb: state or announce The President wanted to promulgate the success of the treaty negotiations, but he had to wait until Congress formally approved the agreement./To promulgate is to officially put a law into effect. Your state may announce a plan to promulgate a new traffic law on January 1st. Laws aren't the only things you can promulgate. The word promulgate comes from the Latin word promulgatus, meaning "make publicly known." Someone can promulgate values, belief systems, and philosophies — it just means they're promoted or made public. For example, you might write an article to promulgate the benefits of eating only organic foods.

squelch

verb: suppress or crush completely After the dictator consolidated his power, he took steps to squelch all criticism, often arresting any journalist who said anything that could be interpreted as negative about his regime./When you squelch something, you're putting an end to it. You can squelch an idea or a rebellion. This word has several meanings, but it's usually a verb for crushing things. A mean remark could squelch your self-confidence, and a powerful military could squelch an invading country. Squelching can also mean to make a squelch-like sucking sound — or to slop, slosh, splash, and squish through the mud. There's also a type of electric circuit that cuts off when the signal is weak: that's a squelch circuit, which squelches the connection.

pontificate

verb: talk in a dogmatic and pompous manner The vice-president would often pontificate about economic theory, as if no one else in the room were qualified to speak on the topic. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/To pontificate is to talk in a dogmatic and pompous manner. To pontificate properly, you need to be a know-it-all with very strong opinions and the urge to share them. Pontificate comes from the French word pontiff, another word for the Pope, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. As a verb (pronounced pon-TIF-i-kate), it meant "to perform the functions of the Pope or other high official in the Church." The noun pontificate (pronounced pon-TIF-i-kit) refers to the government of the Roman Catholic Church. Another word for this is the papacy.

bridle

verb: the act of restraining power or action or limiting excess New curfew laws have bridled people's tendency to go out at night. verb: to react with anger or to take offense The hostess bridled at the tactless dinner guests who insisted on eating before everybody had gotten their food./When you're riding a horse and scream "Whoa!" to make it stop, you're pulling on the reins, which are attached to a thing called the bridle, the buckled straps around a horse's head that help you control its movements./The word bridle comes from the Old English bridel meaning "rein, curb, restraint," which is precisely what the purpose of a bridle is — to help restrain a horse's movements when necessary. You can bridle a horse, which is the act of putting a bridle on it. If you yank too hard on the reins, your horse might bridle, or take offense to your aggressiveness, just like you might bridle if someone insulted you./Bridal is related to a bride, but bridle refers to a part of a horse's harness and what you do with it. Although the words sound the same, they run in different circles unless you're getting a horse ready for he

kowtow

verb: to bow or act in a subservient manner Paul kowtowed to his boss so often the boss herself became nauseated by his sycophancy./Kowtow, which describes the act of kneeling and touching one's head to the ground to show respect, used to be a custom in Chinese culture. Now it refers to acting like you're doing that, whether you actually bow or not. Kowtow is derived from the Chinese word k'o-t'ou, which literally means "knock the head." As a verb, kowtow has the sense of "sucking up" or "flattering." Maybe you're wondering when it would be appropriate to kowtow. The answer? When you want to worship, show respect, gain favor, or flatter. You might need to kowtow to your teacher if you failed a test, but if you kowtow to all your neighbor's requests, you might wind up mowing his lawn all summer.

recrudesce

verb: to break out or happen again After years of gamblers anonymous, Tony thought he'd broken his compulsive slot machine playing, but it took only one trip to the Atlantic City for a full recrudescence--he lost $5k on the one armed bandit./When something that's bad comes back to haunt you, call it a recrudescence. It's not a word you'll hear often, but it's useful. As a bonus, it lets you say "crud" while sounding really smart.Don't confuse recrudescence with resurgence, which is neutral and could be used just as easily to describe a new growth of pimples as to describe the return of warm weather in the spring. is bad. Use it to talk about those pimples, the return of the symptoms of a disease, or an underground crime ring./

hector

verb: to bully or intimidate The boss's hectoring manner put off many employees, some of whom quit as soon as they found new jobs./To hector is to boss around or verbally bully someone. An older brother might hector his little sister until she hands over part of her Halloween candy. When you bombard someone with words, nagging and badgering until you get what you want, you hector. A teacher might feel the need to hector a class that consistently forgets to hand in homework assignments, and a playground bully might hector another child to give him her lunch money. The verb hector comes from the character in Greek mythology — Hector — who rallied the Trojans to keep fighting.

vituperate

verb: to criticize harshly; to berate Jason had dealt with disciplinarians before, but nothing prepared him for the first week of boot camp, as drill sergeants vituperated him for petty oversights such as forgetting to double knot the laces on his boots./To vituperate is to speak or write in an extremely negative way about someone. Just as vituperation consists of negative, explosive, malicious outbursts, to vituperate is to communicate in this way. Negative political ads vituperate against opponents. When you insult someone and swear at them, you vituperate. People with a short temper tend to vituperate often — it's similar to railing, vilifying, and reviling. The root word is the Latin vituperationem, "blame or censuring," from vitium, "fault or defect."

excoriate

verb: to criticize very harshly Entrusted with the prototype to his company's latest smartphone, Larry, during a late night karaoke bout, let the prototype slip into the hands of a rival company—the next day Larry was excoriated, and then fired./When it comes to "telling someone off," excoriate is reserved for the most severe cases. So, before you excoriate your little sister for borrowing your favorite jacket without permission, consider whether she truly deserves such harsh treatment. If you excoriate someone, you let that person know that you really, really disagree with them. This verb goes beyond mere criticism; it implies anger, a harsh and insulting tone, and even a scathing attack. Synonyms of excoriate include denounce, decry, and condemn. In a medical sense, excoriate means "to tear skin off by chafing." A bad rug burn can excoriate your skin. If someone excoriates you verbally, it might make you feel like you've been physically excoriated.

execrate

verb: to curse and hiss at. Do not confuse with Excoriate meaning to tell someone off. Though the new sitcom did decently in the ratings, Nelson railed against the show, saying that it was nothing more than an execrable pastiche of tired cliché's and canned laughter./Just when you thought you knew every word in the book for hate, here's a new one: execrate. The word means to despise or also to curse. Broken down to its Latin root, the word execrate means the opposite of being sacred or devoted to. When you execrate something you, are cursing it instead of making it holy. The word is not used all that often. If you say to someone, "I execrate you!" they might think you're casting an evil spell on them. Which in a way, by cursing them, you are.

hoodwink

verb: to deceive or trick someone Someone tried to hoodwink Marty with an email telling him that his uncle had just passed away, and to collect the inheritance he should send his credit card information./To hoodwink someone means to trick or mislead them. Beware of fake ATMs that try to hoodwink you into giving over your bank card and your code, only to keep them both and steal all your money. An excellent, old-fashioned word is hoodwink, and you'll be happy you know it when you have to read Victorian novels in which characters are repeatedly hoodwinked. It is an Old English compound which meant "to blindfold" 600 years ago but quickly began to be used figuratively. Think about the expression, to pull the wool over someone's eyes, as having the same image and meaning. Has your big sister ever hoodwinked you into doing her chores for her?

mulct

verb: to defraud or swindle The so-called magical diet cure simply ended up mulcting Maria out of hundreds of dollars, but did nothing for her weight./The meaning of mulct is as nasty as it sounds; it means to fine someone or the money you collect as a result of a fine. No one wants to pay an extra mulct to the city, when it's the city who mismanaged the budget. Got mulct? Then somebody took your money. They "milked" you by mulcting you. And the money that they took? That's called mulct, too. Some people believe that there's no difference between being mulcted by the state and being shaken down by the mob. In fact, the word mulct is often used to mean having your money taken unfairly or as a kind of punishment or as extortion.

imbibe

verb: to drink or absorb as if drinking Plato imbibed Socrates' teachings to such an extent that he was able to write volumes of work that he directly attributed, sometimes word for word, to Socrates./Imbibe is a fancy word for "drink." If you need to imbibe ten cups of coffee just to get out of the house, you might have a caffeine problem. Although the verb imbibe means to take in liquids of any sort, if you don't specify the liquid, people are likely to infer you mean an alcoholic beverage. You can also use it figuratively. If you have imbibed every detail about every battle of the U.S. Civil War, you must find the subject interesting.

expunge

verb: to eliminate completely When I turned 18, all of the shoplifting and jaywalking charges were expunged from my criminal record./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.

immure

verb: to enclose, usually in walls The modern supermarket experience makes many feel claustrophobic, as they are immured in walls upon walls of products./When you immure someone or something, you put it behind a wall, as in a jail or some other kind of confining space. You may recognize the -mur- in immure as the root for "wall," as in mural, which is a painting on a wall, or intramural, literally "inside the walls," as, for instance, the walls of a school — intramural sports are played among teams from the same school. You don't need a jail to immure someone. Rapunzel was immured in her tower. At the end of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the lovers are immured in the tomb.

appropriate

verb: to give or take something by force The government appropriated land that was occupied by squatters, sending them scurrying for another place to live. verb: to allocate The committe appropriated the funds to its various members. This word has other definitions, but these are the most important ones to study

defray

verb: to help pay the cost of, either in part or full In order for Sean to attend the prestigious college, his generous uncle helped defray the excessive tuition with a monthly donation./If your mother says she will defray the cost of your next move, say thank you. She means she will take on some of the expenses for you. Your school band might hold a bake sale fundraiser to defray the cost of new band uniforms. When they do this, the amount raised will be taken off the total cost of the uniforms so that each individual band member has to pay less. If you live in New York and are invited for a job interview in California, the company may defray the expenses of your plane ticket and hotel, especially if they really want to hire you.

hobble

verb: to hold back the progress of something Bad weather has hobbled rescue efforts, making it difficult for crews to find bodies in the wreckage./When you hobble, you walk awkwardly or unsteadily because you're in pain. You might wipe out on your bike and then hobble back home, pushing it in front of you. People who hobble, walking with a limp or a shuffle, have most often been injured in some way, though a disabled or elderly person might hobble as well. You can call the walk itself a hobble as well: "I knew that football tackle hurt when I saw your hobble as you left the field." The root of hobble is Old English — it's related to the Dutch hobbelen, "rock from side to side."

cow

verb: to intimidate Do not be cowed by a 3,000-word vocabulary list: turn that list into a deck of flashcards! This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study

hedge

verb: to limit or qualify a statement; to avoid making a direct statement When asked why he had decided to buy millions of shares at the very moment the tech companies stock soared, the CEO hedged, mentioning something vague about gut instinct. This word has other definitions but this is the most important one to study/A hedge is a living fence made of closely planted bushes, which, as they grow and get trimmed and shaped, form a wall of green. Hedge can also be used as a verb. If you someone asks you a question and you hedge, you're avoiding a straight answer. If you hedge your bets, you're trying to minimize risk or loss — that is, you're trying to cover yourself no matter what happens. If you're not sure, for instance, what your boss's political views are, you can hedge your bets by not revealing yours.

inure

verb: to make accustomed to something unpleasant Three years of Manhattan living has inured her to the sound of wailing sirens; she could probably sleep through the apocalypse./To inure is to get used to something difficult or unpleasant. If after spending an hour in your brother's room, you stop noticing the stinky-sock smell, you have become inured to the odor. Although the Latin roots of inure mean "in work," it may be easier to think of "in use" when you see inure. Got new shoes that give you blisters? When they are "in use" long enough, your feet will become inured to the spots that rub, and while you may have calluses, you will not be in pain. You can be inured to more abstract things too. When weathermen constantly play up the next big snowstorm or blizzard, you become inured to it and stop paying attention to them.

remonstrate

verb: to make objections while pleading The mothers of the kidnapped victims remonstrated to the rogue government to release their children, claiming that the detention violated human rights./Remonstrate means to call someone on something that's wrong. If your mother yells at you in public, you might call this getting chewed out. She might call it remonstrating. Either way, it's embarrassing. Remonstrate has its roots in a Latin verb meaning "to show," and it used to mean "to make plain." Which is why remonstrate is a word that puts the glow of respectability on the action of yelling at someone or telling them that they're wrong. The sense is that the person remonstrating is the victim — they're just making the injustice plain.

conciliate

verb: to make peace with His opponents believed his gesture to be conciliatory, yet as soon as they put down their weapons, he unsheathed a hidden sword./The verb conciliate means to placate, appease, or pacify. If you are eating at a restaurant and the waiter accidentally spills a drink on you, the manager may try to conciliate you by picking up the tab for your meal. You may be more familiar with the term conciliation --it can mean the flowers you bring to conciliate your girlfriend after a fight, or a politician's conciliatory offer to fund a new playground to a community that's just lost its school. Conciliate comes from the Latin word conciliare, meaning "to unite." Conciliare in turn comes from the Latin word concilium, meaning "council." If you remember their common etymology, you can remember that, like council, conciliate is spelled with only one l.

gerrymander

verb: to manipulate voting districts in order to favor a particular political party Years ago, savvy politicians had gerrymandered the city center to ensure their re-election./Some politicians change the boundaries of their voting districts in order to benefit themselves or their political party. To manipulate the boundaries like this — often viewed as unfair — is to gerrymander. The verb gerrymander first appeared in 1812 when Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry redrew district boundaries, hoping it would help his party in an upcoming senate election. Then somebody noticed that the new district looked like a salamander, so they combined Gerry and -mander to create the new word gerrymander. And then a newspaper printed a cartoon with a giant salamander making fun of Gerry, which is what happens to politicians who don't behave.

disabuse

verb: to persuade somebody that his/her belief is not valid As a child, I was quickly disabused of the notion that Santa Claus was a rotund benefactor of infinite largess—one night I saw my mother diligently wrapping presents and storing them under our Christmas tree./Disabuse means to free someone of a belief that is not true. Many teachers of health find that when they teach, they spend as much energy disabusing kids of false beliefs as they do giving them the facts. Disabuse is often connected to the word notion or idea. In singing lessons, you must disabuse young singers of the idea that they can sing better by singing louder. In the first year of college, many people are disabused of the idea that the way they are is "normal," by meeting so many people who represent other ways to be.

propitiate

verb: to placate or appease The two sons, plying their angry father with cheesy neckties for Christmas, were hardly able to propitiate him - the father already had a drawer full of ones he had never worn before or ever planned to/If you forgot flowers on your Mom's birthday, you can still propitiate her by sending a bouquet the next day. Propitiate means to appease someone or make them happy by doing a particular thing. Handy strategy for lovers, too. One of the most common uses of propitiate historically was in the sense of appeasing the Gods, often with a gift in the form of an animal or human sacrifice. Fortunately, for most people today flowers and candy will do the trick. But then again, some Moms can be tough to appease.

expurgate

verb: to remove objectionable material The censor expurgated every reference to sex and drugs, converting the rapper's raunchy flow into a series of bleeps./To expurgate is to censor. Usually, people talk about expurgating bad words from something written or on TV. On TV, if you hear some words bleeped out, those words have been expurgated. In print, we can expurgate by using dashes ( — — ) or random characters like %&$#. Sometimes we can expurgate just by rewriting something so that the entire sentence with the naughty parts is gone, or by putting it into mild words. When it comes to things children read or watch, there's often the difficult question of what to expurgate and what to leave alone.

adjudicate

verb: to serve as a judge in a competition; to arrive at a judgment or conclusion Only those with the most refined palates were able to adjudicate during the barbeque competition./To adjudicate is to act like a judge. A judge might adjudicate a case in court, and you may have to adjudicate in the local talent show. Do you see a similarity between judge and adjudicate? When you add the common Latin prefix ad meaning "to" or "toward," you have a pretty good idea what the word means. But a judge isn't the only person who can adjudicate. If you're fighting with your little brother or sister and make them cry, your parents may adjudicate and send you to your room.

equivocate

verb: to speak vaguely, usually with the intention to mislead or deceive After Sharon brought the car home an hour after her curfew, she equivocated when her parents pointedly asked her where she had been./When you are unwilling to make a decision and almost intentionally go back and forth between two choices, you are equivocating. When politicians equivocate, they are often afraid of upsetting, and thus alienating, voters with their decisions.A key part of equivocate is the root vocate which come from the Latin vocare or "voice." When you give your voice to two opposing views in order to mislead or keep your options open, you're equivocating. Think of the expression, to talk out of both sides of your mouth. If you want to go to a party and your parents keep saying "maybe, it depends," tell them to stop equivocating and give you a straight answer.

capitulate

verb: to surrender (usually under agreed conditions) Paul, losing 19-0 in a ping-pong match against his nimble friend, basically capitulated when he played the last two points with his eyes closed./Capitulate means to give in to something. "The teachers didn't want to have class outside, but the students begged so hard, she capitulated." Because capitulate relates to the military, and Romans were all about their military, Latin has a lot to say about this word. In Latin, caput means head, capitulum little head. Think with this word how, at the end of a battle, someone bows their head in defeat, and often that is when heads roll.

attenuate

verb: to weaken (in terms of intensity); to taper off/become thinner. Her animosity towards Bob attenuated over the years, and she even went so far as to invite him to her party./Attenuate is a verb that means to make or become weaker. The effects of aging may be attenuated by exercise. (Or by drinking from the fountain of youth.) The versatile word attenuate denotes a weakening in amount, intensity, or value. As a verb, attenuate is usually transitive, meaning it needs an object to be complete, such as in the sentence: "This tanning process tends to attenuate the deer hide, making it softer." The word can be intransitive in past tense, as in "The rain attenuated, ending the storm." And it can even be used as an adjective to describe something weakened: "Even an attenuated solution will remove the stain."

cosset

verb: treat with excessive indulgence The king and queen cosseted the young prince, giving him a prized miniature pony for his fifth birthday./To cosset is to pamper or spoil. Your mom might cosset her beloved lap dog, feeding him homemade meals and singing him to sleep. If your parents used to cosset you when you were little, they may have protected you from injury and indulged your every whim. Your temptation might be to cosset small children or elderly relatives, pampering them and shielding them from difficulty. In the 17th century, cosset had the additional sense of "fondle and caress," as you might cuddle a baby or a puppy. Earlier, the word was a noun meaning "a lamb raised as a pet."

maunder

verb: wander aimlessly Max liked to maunder down by the seaside and pick up whatever sea shells he would stumble upon. verb: speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly After drinking two espressos each, the animated couple would maunder loudly, annoying the other patrons in the coffee shop.