Essential 1

bovine

(adj.) resembling a cow or ox; sluggish, unresponsive If something is bovine, it has to do with cows or cattle, or it reminds you of the slow and seemingly unintelligent ways of cows and cattle. Someone's glacial pace and dull comments might contribute to his thoroughly bovine impression. The adjective bovine is used for anything that has to do with animals from the genus "Bos," which classifies wild and domestic cattle. Mad Cow Disease is technically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, and it can be said to have bovine origins. What are known as cow pies are, in fact, bovine droppings. People can be described as bovine if they are intellectually dull, slow-moving, or somewhat cow-like in their appearance. Following the slow-moving group of students up the long path to the school's entrance, the word "bovine" popped into the English teacher's mind. Over time mutation lets animal diseases jump to people: avian influenza becomes human influenza, bovine rinderpest becomes human measles, horsepox becomes human smallpox. When its call goes out, every bovine within hearing distance raises its head from grazing and moves toward the sound. She felt it her bovine duty to make up for each and every one of Plug's kindnesses. In front of it, in a leather armchair, dozed the head counsellor for Cabin Fifteen - a pot-bellied guy with unruly blond hair and a gentle bovine face.

blasé

(adj.) indifferent, bored as a result of having enjoyed many pleasures; apathetic bored because of frequent indulgence; unconcerned If the thrill is gone, you are blasé. If you yawn on a roller coaster, then maybe you've had one too many rides. The adjective blase (most often spelled blasé), describes someone who is bored with the pleasures of life because of frequent indulgence or exposure. When asked what she thought of the award ceremony, the actress yawned and replied, "It was blasé. It was just like the last 15 award ceremonies I had attended." We were amazed by John's blasé attitude toward school; he seems to have made it a rule never to open a book. General Peckem drifted toward the window, laughing quietly again, and settled back against the sill with his arms folded, greatly satisfied by his own wit and by his knowledgeable, blase impudence. He shrugged, looking infuriatingly blase about the whole thing. If that wasn't enough, I later pierced my tongue and had the very blase "I don't care about life" attitude. Besides, Milton had had enough of cops and their blase attitude.

austere

(adj.) severe or stern in manner; without adornment or luxury, simple, plain; harsh or sour in flavor stern; unadorned The adjective austere is used to describe something or someone stern or without any decoration. You wouldn't want someone to describe you or your home as austere. Austere is not usually a positive word because it means that a person or a thing isn't pleasurable. For example, if you go on an austere diet, it's likely you wouldn't ever get to have candy. The adjective comes into English by way of French, Latin, and Greek, meaning "harsh" and "dry." It's pronounced as "ah-STEER," with an emphasis on the second syllable. Her dedicated, austere life could not be thus explained—she was the daughter of a solidly comfortable, erudite banking family. "Quick, quick, through the barrier," said Mrs. Weasley, who seemed a little flustered by this austere efficiency. Repetitive, rhythmic, regular, austere, this was a conveyer belt of a chemical, the nylon of the biochemical world. And they took an austere view of the visual.

avarice

(n.) a greedy desire, particularly for wealth reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins) extreme greed for material wealth synonyms: avariciousness, covetousness, cupidity Avarice is a fancy word for good old-fashioned greed. It's one of what some call "the seven deadly sins." Do you want more and more money? Or cookies? Or video games? Or anything? Then your heart is full of avarice, which you probably know better as greed. When people talk about greed, it's clearly not a good thing, but avarice has an even worse flavor to it. Avarice is often looked upon as a sin, and it's always considered despicable and evil. Successful investment bankers are sometimes accused of avarice; their defenders, however, say that they are simply very good at what they do and should be rewarded accordingly. He did not behave this way out of avarice; it was simply that his family no longer interested him. "Our only chance is clever bargaining. Cliff trolls are cunning and ruthless, but their avarice can be a weakness." The plaque read: "This species became extinct through the avarice and thoughtlessness of man." They wanted him to exercise such qualities on the people, so that they might double their salary and give vent to their avarice and cruelty.

aver

(v.) to affirm, declare confidently synonyms: affirm, assert, avow, swan, swear, verify To aver is to state something or declare something is true. This verb has a serious tone, so you might aver something on a witness stand or you might aver that you won't back down to a challenge. The verb aver comes to English via the Latin root words ad, meaning "to," and verus, meaning "true." The word can have the sense of formally declaring something is true, but it can also mean to report positively: "The grandmother averred that her granddaughter would make a fine veterinarian because of her love and caring for animals." Yogis aver that everyone has a guru, whether it be a person, God, or the experiences of the world, that helps him or her practice the yoga that is in accordance with his or her nature, and assists on the path toward enlightenment.

antecedent

An antecedent is a thing that comes before something else. You might think rap music has no historical antecedent, but earlier forms of African-American spoken verse go back for centuries. In logic, mathematics, and grammar, the word antecedent (from Latin ante-, "before" + cedere, "to yield") has the meaning "the first part of a statement." More generally, it means "something that came before, and perhaps caused, something else." The word is also an adjective: a lawyer or judge might talk about the "antecedent events" leading up to someone committing a crime. a preceding occurrence or cause or event ancestor, ascendant, ascendent, root Historical factors, such as the increased emphasis on the individual, the invention of printing, and the rise of the bourgeoisie, con- tributed to make the Reformation, which had its antecedents in the reform movement within the Roman Catholic Church, into a much broader phenomenon that created powerful churches that grew to rival the original church.

antipathy

An antipathy is a deep-seated dislike of something or someone. Usually it's a condition that is long-term, innate, and pretty unlikely to change — like your antipathy for the Red Sox. If you look at the Greek roots of this word — anti- ("against") and pathos ("feeling") — you can see that antipathy is a feeling against someone or something. In general, antipathies are feelings that are kept at least somewhat under wraps and are not out in the open a feeling of intense dislike dislike; hostility Heathcliff, the protagonist of Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights, feels great antipathy for Edgar Linton, the man who marries the woman he loves.

apothegm

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." terse, witty saying (pronounced AP-uh-them and also spelled apophthegm) One of the best-known political apothegms was written by the British historian Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

arabesque

An arabesque is a position in which a ballerina stands on one leg with the other stretched out behind her. The back leg in an arabesque might be just touching the floor or extended straight up in the air. A ballet dancer in an arabesque position is familiar — many ballets include arabesques or arabesques penchée, when the ballerina's legs are at an angle greater than ninety degrees. Another kind of arabesque is a graceful design originally found in Islamic art and later in European art and design. This kind of arabesque resembles vines and leaves, rendered in metal, ceramic, or stone. The word arabesque comes from the Italian Arabo, or "Arab," used to describe Moorish architecture. ornate design featuring intertwined curves; a ballet position in which one leg is extended in the back while the other supports the weight of the body The ballerina stunned the audience with her perfectly executed arabesque.

malapropism

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." the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar Ironically, Nicholas, by not paying attention, you have stumbled upon another literary device called a malapropism.* Winnifred, the girl who beat you in the elementary school spelling bee, raises her hand: Ms. Hardwick, wasn't Nick supposed to present a malapropism to us today? she whines. Were you able to find a malapropism in Huckleberry Finn? There's a revealing logic within her characters' ostensibly irrational arguments and a surprising accuracy in their malapropisms.

abjure

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. formally reject or disavow a formerly held belief, usually under pressure forswear, recant, resile, retract to reject; abandon formally I 'abjure, curse and detest my errors,' he said. Perhaps at this critical juncture he missed the artificial stimulus of whiskey, which formerly had been part of his daily ration but which he had abjured on taking command. In a sober ceremony, the Mexica abjured their old religion and embraced Christianity. Those that succeeded did so by offering apt substitutions for in-person performance or by abjuring it completely in favor of a frankly virtual experience.

abscission

Abscission means the cutting off or removal of something, like an unsightly mole on the chin. You can remember that abscission is all about cutting when you see how close it looks to the word scissors. If you are a public speaker who habitually cuts yourself off, your speeches may suffer from abscission. If you're wounded in the leg in battle and gangrene sets in, you will be faced with the abscission of a limb. Layoffs at work are the abscission of workers. the act of cutting something off cutting off the act of cutting; the natural separation of a leaf or other part of a plant shedding of flowers and leaves and fruit following formation of scar tissue in a plant Not abscisic acid, the one that "abscission zone" would seem to imply. The plant may activate abscission of injured tissue if it is damaged beyond repair. When days shorten, the leaves begin to accumulate more of this chemical during the night, stimulating the formation of an abscission layer. Additional insights important to TAG biosynthesis, fruit ripening and abscission are provided in .

abscond

Abscond is to escape, often taking something along. As a kid, you may have absconded from your lemonade stand — with the coffee can of cash in hand, and your bewildered sister still filling cups for your customers. Abscond is generally used to describe someone running from law or capture, and the word abscond has been in use since the early 16th century — running away and hiding being nothing new. Dogs who get off the leash and dart into the woods are not necessarily absconding; they are simply making a break for it. On the other hand, the Ponzi schemer who went to live in the South of France with his client's money? He absconded. run away; usually includes taking something or somebody along absquatulate, bolt, decamp, go off, make off, run off A first-rate Russian might easily abscond to the more affluent West. It is with regret that I confirm the report that has come to your ears: The experimental subject has indeed absconded from the property, and, at present, has not been located. Cora spoke of her mother, Mabel, who absconded one day and left her to the inconstant mercy of the world. Shackles to prevent a person from absconding, from moving their hands, or to suspend a body in the air for a beating.

aspersion

An aspersion is a disparaging remark. It almost invariably appears as a plural, following the word "cast" — when you cast aspersions on someone, you are questioning their abilities or doubting them. Finding out that a field-hockey coach had never played the sport might cast aspersions on her ability to coach it. Wendy's ads don't come out and say that McDonald's hamburgers are made out of cardboard, but through shot after shot of their own thick and juicy and oddly square offering, they cast aspersions on the quarter-pounder. slander; false rumor The Republic of Singapore is a young democracy, and its leaders often respond strongly to journalists and others who cast aspersions on their integrity توهین، افترا

adjunct

Adjunct means something added on, but not part of the whole. An adjunct professor is someone who is hired by a college to teach but isn't a full member of the faculty. This is a word you can figure out by taking it apart. From ad- "to" and -junct "join" (think "junction"), you can see that this is about joining something to another. "During lunch, Tim always sat at the girls' lacrosse-team lunch table, and they joked that he was an adjunct member of the team." something added to another thing but not an essential part of it accompaniment, complement something added, attached, or joined Speed walking, cross-country running, and marathons are normally regarded as adjuncts of track and field athletics since races in these sports are not normally held on a track. At home in Berkeley, he spent a weekend scouting locations for a heavy-water reactor, convinced that he was on the verge of securing the project as an adjunct to the Rad Lab. "Yes. She is now teaching in America. She shares a cramped office with another adjunct professor, but she says at least teachers are paid there." Barack had moved from an adjunct position to a senior lecturer at the law school, which gave us a tuition break at the university's Lab School, where Malia was soon to start preschool. Over time, observation became an adjunct to experiment, both producing reliable facts in place of the unreliable, unspecific 'experience' which underlay so much classical and medieval discussion.

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! something out of the proper time the act of locating something at a time when it could not have existed or occurred misdating, mistiming an artifact that belongs to another time Some experts regard the retirement age of 65 as an anachronism at a time when people in the developed world have much longer life expectancies than previously If the Adams brand of statesmanship was now an anachronism—and it was—then the Adams presidency would serve as a fitting monument to its passing. The young, even those who felt that the African-American apostle of nonviolence was an anachronism, reacted with anger. "That is what it is, a beastly anachronism." But already it was something of an anachronism.

abeyance

An abeyance is a temporary halt to something, with the emphasis on "temporary." It is usually used with the word "in" or "into"; "in abeyance" suggests a state of waiting or holding. The word abeyance has a legal ring to it, and for a good reason — appearing in English in the 16th century, it comes from the Anglo-French word abeiance, a legal term for waiting or hoping to receive property. Nowadays, the word is used in a similar way. Different legal rights, like property rights, can be held in abeyance until matters are resolved. temporary cessation or suspension temporary suppression or suspension Such an agreement, called a plea in abeyance, would allow for his record to be wiped clean, should he meet all the conditions. Unfortunately, he died suddenly in 1916, at least partly exhausted by his quest and the search fell into abeyance while Lowell's heirs squabbled over his estate. All their natural behavior was held in abeyance. He'd been holding his whole life in abeyance pending a decision, and they owed him an answer, at least.

analgesic

An analgesic is a medicine that takes away physical pain. If you ask for pain relief, and the nurse says "Here's an analgesic," she's not trying to worsen your headache with a difficult word; she's just giving you a painkiller. Breaking apart the word analgesic helps with pronunciation, ann-ull-JEE-zick. This isn't a proper root-word study, but the last three letters of the word look like "sick." If you're sick and have some pain and discomfort, you might get relief from an analgesic. As a noun, analgesic is the actual medicine, and as an adjective, it describes the effect of the medicine — a pill will have an analgesic effect, relieving the pain — unless it's really bad pain, in which case you'll need two. medication that reduces or eliminates pain Aspirin (the trademark of the drug acetylsalicylic acid) is a power- ful analgesic that was introduced in 1899 and is still one of the most effective medicines available to alleviate pain, fever, and inflammation. analgetic, anodyne, moderating

antediluvian

Antediluvian means "before the flood" — that is, the Biblical flood with Noah's ark. Generally, though, the word is used — often humorously — to describe something really, really old. In popular language, antediluvian is almost always used to exaggerate how comically, ridiculously old and out-of-date something is. You may laugh at your parents' antediluvian ideas of what's proper for going out on a date. And how about those antediluvian computers they still insist are fine! When the word was coined in the seventeenth century, however, it was meant literally. Back then, the science of reconstructing the Earth's history used the Bible as a frame of reference. of or relating to the period before the biblical flood so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period antiquated, archaic Most of our knowledge of antediluvian times has been built up as a result of one of humanity's grandest collaborative endeavors—the gathering, identification, dating, and categorization of fossils as they are discovered.

approbation

Approbation is a formal word for approval or praise. Approbation is like getting the nod in a big way. Politicians rely on the public's approbation to get elected. How is it possible that approbation means approval when probation is a form of being in trouble? Probation is a testing period, to see if you can be good. Approbation means it's all good. Or you can remember this rhyme: "Filled with approbation, the audience gave a standing ovation." praise; approval official recognition or approval Antonyms: condemnation, disapprobation The Congressional Medal of Honor is the highest approbation an American soldier can receive.

apropos

Apropos means regarding or appropriate to, as in: Apropos of your interest in fishing, your grandfather gave you his set of championship lures, rods, reels and lucky tackle box. Apropos is a useful word to learn. But first you have to know how to pronounce it: AP-rə-pō. Then you can conveniently change the subject of a conversation by using the expression "Apropos of nothing," which is a glib way of saying, "Oh, and by the way..." If someone's remarks are suitable and appropriate to the occasion, you can get on their good side by saying: How apropos! of an appropriate or pertinent nature Synonyms: appropriate, suitable for a particular person or place or condition etc apposite, apt, pertinent being of striking appropriateness and pertinence

ardor

Are you inspired to write love poems to your crush? Sprinkle rose petals in her path? Then you're feeling ardor — an intense kind of warmth and fervor most often associated with love. The Brits spell ardor with an extra vowel, so you'll often see this word written as ardour. But on either side of the pond it's a noun that brings to mind Pepe Le Pew and his fervent pursuit of the female species. But ardor isn't always about love. It's perfectly platonic to be "an ardent supporter" of a certain cause or show eagerness and ardor in your approach to anything. great emotion or passion ardour, fervency, fervidness, fervor, fervour, fire The twentieth-century American poet Wallace Stevens said, "It is the unknown that excites the ardor of scholars, who, in the known alone, would shrivel up with boredom."

argot

Argot is language particular to a specific group. It can mean a kind of slang, a technical language or a code. In high school, only those who spend their time studying computer manuals could understand the argot of the computer lab kids. The word argot was originally used to describe the slang of thieves and rogues, who spoke in sneaky ways that the upright citizen couldn't understand. We can also use argot to describe less criminal kinds of vocabularies. Any specialized practice can create an argot: boxers talk of bodyshots and jabs, just as grammar teachers complain of split infinitives and dangling participles. a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves) cant, jargon, lingo, patois, slang, vernacular a specialized vocabulary used by a group Writers of crime fiction often use the argot of criminals and detectives to create a realistic atmosphere. More important and more central in any discussion of smarm even than "Black Swan" is Upworthy, the website that's amassed huge traffic with a maddening, strange house argot that aggregates "uplifting" or "inspiring" news-ish stories. We read somewhere that before Koreless, Roberts recorded under the name Nadsat Beats - Nadsat was the street argot made up by Anthony Burgess for the teenage characters in A Clockwork Orange. But even here — under a tangle of rope and lace, designed by Rajha Shakiry, that seems to literalize the World Wide Web — the argot of social media invades. The writer developed a distinctive theatrical argot â€" an earthy, allusive, profuse expression that flows in banter, pensive monologues, storytelling sessions.

asperity

Asperity is the harsh tone or behavior people exhibit when they're angry, impatient, or just miserable. Did your supervisor snap "Late again!" when you showed up 20 minutes after your shift was supposed to start? She's speaking with asperity. The harshness that asperity implies can also apply to conditions, like "the asperities of life in a bomb shelter." The word can be used even more literally to refer to surfaces, as in "the asperity of an unfinished edge." But, most often, you will see asperity used in reference to grumpy voices or irritable behavior. harshness of manner synonyms: sharpness severity; harshness; irritability In his autobiography Gerald Trywhitt, the British writer, composer, artist, and aesthete, recounts a humorous incident: "Many years later, when I was sketching in Rome, a grim-looking Englishwoman came up to me and said with some asperity, 'I see you are painting MY view.'" تلخی و خشونت

beneficent

Beneficent is the type of act that helps others. If you're a beneficent person, you probably spend a lot of your time volunteering at soup kitchens or homeless shelters, helping people who are less fortunate than you are. Beneficent shares the same root and sentiment with its fellow adjective, benevolent, which also means something that is good. The two words are so closely related that they also share the same Latin origin. Another related word, benefactor, is someone who gives support to an organization or institution or someone who takes care of another person. Kind, generous, and giving are all synonyms of beneficent. generous in assistance to the poor synonyms: benevolent, eleemosynary, philanthropic kindly; do good The theologian discussed the question of why a beneficent and omnipotent God allows bad things to happen to good people. Presumably, they belonged to venerated ancestors whose beneficent presence was thus assured. "Daniel Burnham was obsessed with the feudal idea of power. Louis Sullivan was equally obsessed with the beneficent idea of Democratic power." The beneficent snowfall and kroxet—windless weather 0°F and 20°—that had seen us through Tarrenpeth and out of range of probable pursuit, now dissolved wretchedly into above-freezing temperatures and rain. It was beneficent, this attention—"Come to Columbia, Malia!" people were shouting—but it was not especially useful for a girl who was trying quietly to imagine her own future.

apogee

For an object in orbit around the earth, the apogee is the point that is highest or farthest 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." the point in an orbit most distant from the body being orbited; the highest point The Ottoman Empire reached its apogee in the seventeenth century when it controlled a territory running from Budapest to North Africa.

abject

If it reeks of humiliation or looks like the lowest of lows, then you can safely describe it as abject. The pronunciation of abject is up for debate: you can decide whether to stress the first or the second syllable. But what's more important is understanding how extreme this adjective is. Abject means absolutely miserable, the most unfortunate, with utter humiliation. You might have heard the phrase abject poverty, which is the absolute worst, most hopeless level of poverty you've ever seen. miserable; pitiful of the most contemptible kind low, low-down, miserable, scummy, scurvy, contemptible, misbegotten showing utter resignation or hopelessness "Oh, God," Ben said, his voice dripping abject misery. It's impossible to be cute or aloof while thrashing around in abject fear of drowning. Her scream is short but deafening, and in its wake I am aware for the first time of Agloe's abject silence. All I wanted was to remember those hours forever, remember the sight of the once proud soldiers straggling past us in abject defeat.

adulterate

If you adulterate something, you mess it up. You may not want to adulterate the beauty of freshly fallen snow by shoveling it, but how else are you going to get to work? The verb adulterate comes from the Latin word adulterare, which means "to falsify," or "to corrupt." Whenever something original, pure, fresh, or wholesome is marred, polluted, defaced, or otherwise made inferior, it has been adulterated. A vitamin company might issue a recall if they learn that one of their products was adulterated during production. And if you hate dried fruit, you might complain that your grandma adulterates her oatmeal cookies with raisins. to corrupt or make impure corrupt, debase, or make impure by adding a foreign or inferior substance; often by replacing valuable ingredients with inferior ones The unscrupulous company sells an adulterated version of the drug, and doesn't inform consumers that they are getting a less effi- cacious drug than they think they are getting. The short businesslike sentences became interlarded and adulterated with screaming and emphatic profanity, but the cold, calling voice repeated and repeated and repeated unwearyingly. If the car hadn't been adulterated for the mysterious and missing goats, it would hold thirty-two horses. Cato and Pliny had said that a bottle made of ivy could be used to establish whether wine had been adulterated with water, as the wine would be expelled, leaving the water behind. "It comes down to the quality of the vanilla. I don't like my crème brûlée adulterated, because then you can't taste through to the quality of the ingredients."

abstinence

If you are a chocolate lover, you'll have to show great restraint when the dessert cart rolls over if you are practicing abstinence, another word for "refraining." It might take a lot of willpower not to throw yourself at the cart. Abstinence is the opposite of indulgence. People who practice abstinence deny themselves something, often something they really want. Regardless of whether people are abstaining from food, alcohol, or sex, they have to practice self-control. In fact, the word is derived from the Latin term for "to hold back." The word abstinence is often used in reference to sex education courses that teach kids to hold themselves back from having sex. the giving up of certain pleasures the trait of abstaining (especially from alcohol) self-denial, self-discipline act or practice of refraining from indulging an appetite He spoke to Abra of the necessity for abstinence and decided that he would live a life of celibacy. Naomi's English was getting better, but she did not know what was meant by "abstinence," "substitution," "self-care," or "prophylactics." I knew that drugs existed that could reduce or virtually eliminate the potency phase of the Gethenian sexual cycle; they were used when convenience, medicine, or morality dictated abstinence. This abstinence does not result from unique environmental conditions such as a severe lack of food or want of potential mates.

aggrandize

If you are a window washer, but you refer to yourself as a "vista enhancement specialist," then you are aggrandizing your job title — that is, making it sound greater than it is. The verb aggrandize not only means "to make appear greater"; it can also be used to mean simply "to make greater." If you buy an estate and sink millions of dollars into its improvement, then you are actually aggrandizing the estate. If you are making yourself seem greater, then people may say you are "self-aggrandizing." to make larger or greater One of the concerns of the framers of the U.S. Constitution was that one branch of government would try to aggrandize itself at the expense of the others. The fathers whose sons had played merited a more aggrandized status in the fraternity of older men who queued along the passageway. Trump's goal was to rid the place of Obama supporters and climate change analysts, and to aggrandize the oil and coal sectors. In choosing bronze, Crosher evokes a long history of aggrandizing and memorializing statuary. Of course, they were these aggrandized descriptions of "Caroline."

assuage

If you assuage an unpleasant feeling, you make it go away. Assuaging your hunger by eating a bag of marshmallows may cause you other unpleasant feelings. The most common things that we assuage are fears, concerns, guilt, grief, anxiety, and anger. That makes a lot of sense — these are all things we seek relief from. The word comes from Old French assouagier, from the Latin root suavis, "sweet" — think of adding a bit of honey to something unpleasant. A word with a similar meaning is mollify. provide physical relief, as from pain synonyms: alleviate, palliate, relieve to make less severe On November 21, 1864, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln wrote the following in a letter to Mrs. Bixby of Boston, who had lost five sons in battle: "I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." This was a tribulation; Isaac wanted sorely the camaraderie of his heretic congregation, their sweet witness; he missed the singing and tears, the prayers of love and fellow-feeling, the entreaties of sorrow assuaged. Harry felt that nothing but action would assuage his feelings of guilt and grief and that he ought to set out on his mission to find and destroy Horcruxes as soon as possible. Her fears were not fully assuaged until she became pregnant early in the new year and delivered a healthy boy, John Eric Perhaps, she said, there is something else she can tell you to assuage your curiosity.

assiduous

If you call someone assiduous, it's a compliment. It means they're careful, methodical and very persistent. Good detectives are classically assiduous types. Assiduous comes from two Latin words: assiduus, meaning "busy incessant, continual or constant," and assidere, meaning "to sit down to" something. (Funnily enough, we also get the word sedentary, meaning someone who doesn't move around much, a lazy couch potato, from this same last word.) Although we tend to think of sedentary types as being the very opposite of assiduous ones, many assiduous activities (like writing, thinking, or detective work) are best done sitting in a chair. diligent; hard-working synonyms: sedulous, diligent The assiduous people of Hong Kong live in a territory with one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. Mary would sit and watch me by the hour together: then she would take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made. Jane EyreShe hastened to ring the bell; and when the tray came, she proceeded to arrange the cups, spoons, &c., with assiduous celerity. In his final years, the old man, a teacher of mathematics in our elementary schools, had kept assiduous track of Bibi's illness in hopes of determining some logic to her condition. "I stand corrected, my sweetling. Our Yunkish friends were kind enough to provide us with a chart. I must strive to be more assiduous about consulting it."

affinity

If you get along with someone very well, you have an affinity with them. Sometimes opposites attract, so you might feel a strange affinity to someone who is seemingly very different from you. When you are attracted to someone or something a great deal, we say that you have an affinity, a natural connection. Likewise, scientists use affinity to describe organisms that are alike or resemble each other. Interestingly, the Middle English word, affinite, originally applied to people who were connected or related by marriage, rather than by biology. a natural attraction or feeling of kinship fondness; liking; similarity The female students in the class felt an affinity for the ancient Greek playwright Euripides because he sympathized with women, slaves, and other despised members of his society. On the other hand, Adams possessed a congenital affinity for deconstructed interpretations of history, of his own life, indeed of practically everything. A cup of coffee, a free meal in his restaurant, a fine black cigar—policemen valued these gestures of affinity and grace. Certain chemicals, again reminding us of radiation products like Strontium 90, have a peculiar affinity for the bone marrow. The origins of their language are among the most disputed questions of linguistics: for not a single other one of the world's major languages are the affinities to other languages still in doubt.

amulet

If you rub your pendant while praying to your gods, it sounds like you have an amulet, a necklace, or similar item attributed with magical powers. An amulet is something that wards off evil spells and all manner of bad luck. Often found in undeveloped societies — or Brady Bunch episodes — an amulet acts as a charm to protect its wearer from evil. Often worn close to the heart as a necklace, the word amulet can refer to any piece of jewelry or other trinket that is kept close to the body and believed to keep evil and danger at bay. a trinket or piece of jewelry usually hung about the neck and thought to be a magical protection against evil or disease ornament worn as a charm against evil spirits The early Christian Church forbade the use of amulets, which had become common in the Roman Empire at the time the Christian Church began to develop. Both also wore amulets dangling from one wrist, to protect them from khefts. She clutched her amulet, running a thumb across the stone in the center. A tarnished amulet hung from a cord around her neck, though it was too dark to distinguish its details. Five amulets turned the bright aqua color of her parents' coven.

sententious

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. concise and full of meaning abounding in or given to pompous or aphoristic moralizing pretentious "Do you mind if I'm sententious for a second?" he says to an interviewer. Rather than highlighting the perversity of slavery, his sententious prose strains to upstage it. Bening's performance is a different story altogether—she virtually makes the movie, sending even simple lines from its often sententious script deftly spinning and leaping in surprising flourishes. The dialogue is rarely more than functional and occasionally sententious, the lapses into sentimentality are rare, but the coda of the elderly Janusz returning to Poland is probably a mistake.

adamant

If you stubbornly refuse to change your mind about something, you are adamant about it. This word's story begins in ancient Greece, where philosophers spoke about a legendary unbreakable stone or metal they called adamas (literally, "invincible"). In English, people began to use the word to refer to something that cannot be altered, and then in the twentieth century — after adamant had been in English for about a thousand years — it came to be used as an adjective to mean "unyielding as stone." If you're adamant about something, no amount of persuasion is going to convince you otherwise. uncompromising; unyielding, impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, or reason adamantine, inexorable, intransigent inflexible Despite widespread opposition to his plan, the political party's leader is adamant that the party must move to the center to appeal to moderate voters. Kate and Sticky had their doubts, but they were less adamant now. She refuses to remove her coat despite the warmth of the theater, giving only an adamant shake of her head when he asks her why. Mr. Quisling had been adamant that Emily give up the book, that it was returned to Mr. Remora ASAP. Mrs. Colbey rejected the State's offer of a plea agreement, pursuant to which she would have gone to prison for eighteen years, because she was adamant that she had done nothing wrong.

alchemy

If your favorite but perpetually losing team picks up a couple of new players and the result is suddenly an unbeatable combo, that's alchemy — any seemingly magical act involving the combining of elements into something new. In medieval times, alchemy meant the mysterious science of trying to convert one form of matter into another using fire, potions, spells, and all kinds of other tricks. Alchemists often got a bad rap for their obsession with trying to turn base metals into gold, but in fact true alchemy was concerned with a far loftier ideal — that of finding a "universal elixir" that could overcome death. a pseudoscientific forerunner of chemistry in medieval times medieval chemical philosophy based on changing metal into gold; a seemingly magical power or process of transmutation. Alchemy was the forerunner of the modern science of chemistry. None of their friends could understand the mysterious alchemy that caused two people as different from one another as Rob and Barbara to fall in love. Even the level-headed James Chadwick recalled experiments at the Cavendish "so desperate, so far-fetched as to belong to the days of alchemy." He had always eschewed the mystical side of alchemy and focused on pure science. Having heard that, the boy became even more interested in alchemy. I'm convinced it was the product of a subtle magic, the alchemy of moonlight; the school a flower-studded wasteland, the rocks sunken, the dry winds hidden, the lost crickets chirping to yellow butterflies.

amenable

If your friends want to try sky diving and you're amenable to the idea, sounds like you're going to be jumping out of a plane. If a person or thing is amenable to something, they are ready, willing, or responsive. Note that amenable is often followed by the preposition to, which makes amenable mean "able to be controlled or affected by something," as in: "They are usually amenable to our wishes" or "Her heart condition is not amenable to treatment." An amenable personality is open to influence or control and is willing to agree or yield. agreeable; cooperative; suited The young writer is amenable to suggestions for improving her prose style to make it more interesting.

apotheosis

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. model of excellence or perfection of a kind; one having no equal synonyms: ideal, nonesuch, nonpareil, nonsuch, paragon, saint the elevation of a person (as to the status of a god) synonyms: deification, exaltation Once the apotheosis of suburban constancy, Levittown is now an example of those same suburbs coming apart at the seams. Gray-faced and fiftyish, she must be the apotheosis of "servant leadership" or, in more secular terms, the vaunted "feminine" style of management. After several rounds of refinement in the Langley wind tunnels, the Mustang achieved its apotheosis with the P-51D. Ironically, this disenchantment with Durham's black elite among poor blacks came just as the former group realized its apotheosis.

ambrosia

In Greek mythology, ambrosia was the food of the gods. At a picnic, ambrosia is a dessert made with oranges and shredded coconut. While the former bestowed immortality on all who ate it, the latter tastes very refreshing after fried chicken and potato salad. In the Odyssey and the Iliad, Homer uses the word ambrosia for three things: the food of the Olympians, a salve used to treat corpses, and as a perfume to cover up the smell of uncured seal skins. Some scholars have identified ambrosia as honey while others feel that a type of hallucinogenic mushroom was meant in the myths. Regardless of all this confusion, the word is now used metaphorically to mean anything so fragrant, so delicious that it seems divine — including a popular orange-and-coconut confection. (classical mythology) the food and drink of the gods; mortals who ate it became immortal something delicious; the food of the gods The combination of flavors in the Moroccan baked eggplant was pure ambrosia. The adjective is ambrosial. The food critic praised the chef for preparing what he called an "ambrosial meal." He gave Annabeth and me each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies if we were seriously hurt. People drank Coca-Cola like ambrosia and ate candy bars like Christmas. The ambrosia she'd eaten in the tunnels under Rome must have finally mended her bones. One carried a box of ambrosia up the stairs.

abstemious

Reserve abstemious for someone who exercises restraint, especially with regard to alcohol. A rock musician may sing about enjoying wine and women, but in his private life he may be abstemious. You might get the idea that abstemious is a relative of abstain with a change of consonant, but in fact the two words only share the abs- prefix, meaning "away." The -temious bit in this adjective is from Latin temetum, "intoxicating drink," so it came to refer to someone who keeps alcohol (or other temptations) at arm's length. This word has the vowels a, e, i, o and u in alphabetical order; the adverb abstemiously adds the y! marked by temperance in indulgence sparing in consumption of especially food and drink abstentious, abstinent moderate in appetite Martin told Cora later that this was Judge Tennyson, a respected figure in town when abstemious. An ardent Methodist, he was an abstemious, plain-spoken man, tall and muscular, with a dry sense of humor. The advice to omit needless words should not be confused with the puritanical edict that all writers must pare every sentence down to the shortest, leanest, most abstemious version possible. "I should have guessed. Too opulent for your abstemious revolutionary and yourself, I take it?"

apposite

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! strikingly appropriate and relevant synonyms: apt, pertinent, apropos The writer searched two dictionaries and a thesaurus before finding the perfectly apposite word he was looking for.

abate

Something that abates becomes fewer or less intense. Your enthusiasm for skiing might abate after falling off a ski lift and getting a mouthful of snow. Abate comes from the Old French verb abattre, "to beat down," and means to reduce or become less intense or numerous. As an intransitive verb, it is often used with something physically, emotionally, or figuratively violent, as in "the flood of fan mail began to abate." Using it transitively, if you take measures to abate pollution or noise, you reduce them. Pronounce abate with the stress on the second syllable (uh-BATE). become less in amount or intensity die away, let up, slack, slack off decrease, diminish, fall, lessen decrease in size, extent, or range He stared at the glass ball till the snowstorm had abated somewhat. The pain in her hands was abated, and it seemed to her that her fingers were straighter, the knuckles not so swollen. But the unnerving stillness in her eyes abated, at least. Key teammates rallied around him, and in time, the harassment abated.

allure

Something that has allure is powerfully attractive and tempting. A career in Hollywood might have great allure to a teenager who loves acting. You've probably noticed that allure contains lure, from the German word luder meaning "bait." A well-made lure is so alluring to a fish that it won't notice the hook. First used in the 15th century, this word has even landed its own fashion magazine — Allure, which tries to tempt people to buy it by putting powerfully attractive people on the cover and hoping you'll believe that if you buy it, you'll have some allure as well. the power to entice or attract through personal charm allurement, temptingness Political groups in the United States often lobby Congress to use the allure of America's vast market as an incentive for countries to pursue policies in accordance with American policies. A piece of pork or a foamy beer would be more alluring to men. Death was alluring, seductive, and Celia longed to die in the thrill of it over and over again. I tried to make my smile alluring, wondering if I was laying it on too thick. I haven't really gotten the chance to touch any girl's thigh, and Nia's beige ones seem just about as alluring as thighs get.

abdicate

Sometimes someone in power might decide to give up that power and step down from his or her position. When they do that, they abdicate their authority, giving up all duties and perks of the job. The original meaning of the verb abdicate came from the combination of the Latin ab- "away" and dicare "proclaim." (Note that in the charming relationships between languages with common roots, the Spanish word for "he says" is dice, which comes directly from dicare.) The word came to refer to disowning one's children, and it wasn't until the 17th century that the first use of the word relating to giving up power or public office was recorded. give up, such as power, as of monarchs and emperors, or duties and obligations to give up a position, right, or power give up, renounce, resign, vacate Seven years and Cardan can step down, abdicate in Oak's favor and do whatever he wants. Yet, in Florence's heart tonight hatred and bitterness weighed like granite, pride refused to abdicate from the throne it had held so long. "You should know that the king will soon abdicate his throne in favor of one of his children," Madoc says, looking at all of us. By March 1917, Czar Nicholas II had been forced to abdicate the throne.

mulct

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. the money extracted as a penalty To defraud or swindle "Existing at the pleasure of the advertisers, to mulct the public, gratifying their stupidity, and render some small advance on investment to the owners, offering putative employment to their etiolated, wastrel sons." Time Warner figured it could mulct the other pay-TV companies for every last dime because, really, what TV service would dare not carry the Dodgers, whatever the price? Any contravention of the edict shall entail a mulct of one hundred marks, one half payable to the fisc and one half to the party injured. The infliction of a penalty at the discretion of the court; also, a mulct or penalty thus imposed.

blandishment

The noun blandishment is related to the old-fashioned verb blandish meaning "to coax with flattery, or kind words." flattery intended to persuade synonyms: cajolery, palaver When you hear a blandishment come your way, you may feel flattered, as that's what a blandisher intends to do. However, beware because that flattery may come with the underlying intention of persuading you to do something! The noun blandishment is related to the old-fashioned verb blandish meaning "to coax with flattery, or kind words." A blandishment is often teasing in tone, and the intention to persuade is usually thinly veiled. Your brother may use a blandishment or two to get you to do his chores, and you're going to know exactly what he's after. But the saying "You get more flies with honey" just might hold true if you find yourself taking out the trash when it's not your turn. Despite the salesperson's blandishments, Donna did not buy the car. For months, he would resist Berkeley's blandishments to leave Yale, despite the obvious benefits associated with writing his own ticket. No amount of wheedling and blandishment would cause the cynical badger to change her mind. I did not want to take it but she insisted: if I had known it was her last I would have resisted her blandishments. Writers live with blandishments of great failure running through daydreams. You're a terrible writer.

accretion

The process of increasing can be called accretion. Although you may say that stalactites "grow" from the ceilings of caves, they actually form from an accretion of limestone and other minerals. So what's the difference between an addition and an accretion? Addition implies adding to something that already exists, such as an addition to the cast (when a new actor joins an existing show). The noun accretion, on the other hand, implies an accumulation that causes an increase, such as "an accretion of frost on the windows" or "an accretion of plaque on your teeth." The latter, of course, is why the dentist always begs you to floss and brush. growth in size or increase in amount an increase by natural growth or addition accumulation, growth, increase, increment In the 1960s, the American geophysicist Harry Hess conceived the idea of sea-floor spreading, a process in which the new crust in the ocean is continually generated by igneous processes at the crests of the mid-oceanic ridges, causing a steady accretion of the crust. If his face was a supernova before, it became an accretion disc—one of the brightest objects in the universe—as soon as he tasted his lettuce. Most of them are in the ancient lunar highlands and date from the time of the final accretion of the Moon from interplanetary debris. Supernova shock waves may have contributed to accretions of matter at every scale. Two wings had been added to accommodate the yearly accretions of Marine children who came into town as Ravenel Air Base expanded.

allay

The verb allay is used when you want to make something better or eliminate fears and concerns. When you allay something, you are calming it or reducing difficulties. It is used commonly in the context of to allay concerns and to comfort and some of its many synonyms are alleviate, decrease, mitigate, assuage and mollify. Allay comes from the Old English word alecgan, which means "to put down," as in literally "to lighten." So, if you can allay someone's fears, you are lightening their mood! to lessen; ease; soothe ease, relieve, still During the last day and night new fears had come, but new feelings had helped to allay those fears. In order to allay any fears his clients might have about his political leanings, he had altered his name slightly. The tumult of Elizabeth's mind was allayed by this conversation. On my affording an opportunity, through the medium of the currency of the realm, of the allaying, at a later period, this beneficial evil, one of the men remarked:—

audacious

This adjective is very bold — if you are audacious, you are daring and unconventional! The adjective audacious comes from the Latin word audacia and means "daring, boldness, courage," and often gets applied in situations where someone does something pretty unusual, like becoming an astronaut and going to the moon. It can also mean challenging conventions and doing things that most people don't do, such as when Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in the United States to become a doctor. Blackwell then inspired Elizabeth Garrett Anderson to become the first female doctor in England. And the rest is history! bold; daring disposed to venture or take risks synonyms: daring, venturesome, venturous, adventuresome, adventurous The German army commander Erwin Rommel was known as the "Desert Fox" as a result of his audacious surprise attacks on Allied forces in World War II. Bantu Education had come back to haunt its creators, for these angry and audacious young people were its progeny. Quirin had proved to be intelligent, audacious, and loyal to the Nazi Party. "Ah, that depends on who wears the apron!" and Laurie gave an audacious tweak at the tassel. It was an audacious crime, a troubling sign of the violence that felt like it was closing in on her no matter how far she moved away from the center of the city.

apprise

To apprise someone about something is to fill them in, to give them the scoop. If someone in your immediate family wins the mega-bucks lottery, you want to be the first one to be apprised of that event! Don't confuse the verbs apprise and appraise. Appraise means to determine the value of something — either its quality or its monetary worth. Apprise, on the other hand, means to inform or make aware. This word has a rather formal, weighty tone. Presidents get apprised of foreign affairs, but you will most likely not get apprised of weather conditions or dinner plans. to inform Nadine Cohodas's biography of the blues singer Dinah Washington keeps the reader apprised of the racism black Americans had to endure.

accrue

To accrue is to accumulate or to keep growing in value or size. If you can accrue enough extra credit to build up your grade, you won't have to take the final exam. Early forms of the word accrue were used as early as the 15th century with the meaning "to increase" or "to grow." Many modern uses for accrue involve money or finances, as when you accrue, or earn, interest on a bank account. You can accrue debt too, as interest grows on top of money owed until you pay it back. It's possible to accrue benefits over the time you work somewhere, or you can accrue demerits while you're misbehaving somewhere. to accumulate; grow by additions Regulating the growth of large companies when they begin to become monopolistic is a difficult task for the government in a capitalist country; if it limits monopolies too much, the nation's firms could become less competitive than foreign companies that enjoy the advantages accruing from greater monopolies. (Essential) The more time we spent at church, she reckoned, the more blessings we accrued, like a Starbucks Rewards Card. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood He walked to the top of a rise and crouched and watched the day accrue. For some students perhaps these ideas provided a way of accepting benefits suddenly theirs, accruing simply to race. He knew the praise was premature, but the banquet hinted at the greater glory that would accrue to him at fair's end, provided of course the exposition met the world's elaborate expectations.

admonish

To admonish is to scold. If you want to show someone you're not happy with his behavior, admonish him. Coming to English through Old French from the Latin admonere, "to advise, remind," admonish is always used with an eye on improving someone's behavior. The exact meaning of this formal verb varies in intensity depending generally on who is being corrected. If a child or subordinate is being admonished, it means "scold" or "rebuke" whereas if someone admonishes a person with equal standing, warn or advise are closer synonyms. to caution or reprimand criticise, criticize, knock, pick apart The judge admonished the jury to discount testimony that had been ruled inadmissible. "Bake these," she said, "but eat no more," she admonished before hurrying out. "Breaded veal cutlets are very nutritious," Milo admonished him piously. The man in the grey suit does not admonish him for calling. "Heart attack. His second," Tariq's mother said, giving her husband an admonishing look.

aggregate

To aggregate is to collect many units into one. If you're writing a novel, you might create a character who is an aggregate of five or six real people. Aggregate comes from the Latin verb aggregare, which means to add to. As a verb it means to collect into a mass or whole. You can also use it as an adjective, as in your aggregate sales for February, March and April. It can also be a noun. The mountain of foam in bubble bath is an aggregate of small bubbles. If you plan to work in economics or business, expect to see the word aggregate quite a lot. a sum total of many heterogenous things taken together congeries, conglomeration amounting to a whole; total The aggregate wealth of a country includes private as well as public resources and possessions. Aggregate is also a verb meaning to collect into a mass. Portals are Web sites designed to aggregate information and are used as a starting point on the Web. Aggregate is also a noun meaning collective mass or sum. Leukocytes become more actively phagocytic, release lysosomal enzymes, turn sticky, and aggregate together in dense masses, occluding capillaries and shutting off the blood supply. Politics is a hard and narrow game; its policies represent the aggregate desires and aspirations of millions of people. This changed the volume ratio of solid to liquid dramatically, which in turn made the aggregate act as a liquid. Of course, the Americas in aggregate are anything but small: their combined area is fully 76 percent that of Eurasia, and their human population as of A.D.

quixotic

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. not sensible about practical matters; idealistic and unrealistic synonyms: romantic, wild-eyed, impractical "It seems quixotic today, with jet airplanes and overdoses of Nembutal, that a man would go through a war for something so insignificant as his state." He describes Kelling, in fact, as his intellectual mentor, and so his first step as police chief was as seemingly quixotic as Gunn's. Knowing Juanita and her quixotic ways, this could turn into one of her many harebrained schemes. As a form of protest, they did not have a high success rate and the rationale behind them always struck me as quixotic.

aberrant

Use the adjective aberrant to describe unusual conduct. Sitting in a bathtub and singing show tunes all day long might be considered aberrant behavior. For conduct that departs from the norm, aberrant is at hand to describe it if you want to set a formal, or even scientific tone to the discussion. You can put the accent on either the first syllable (AB-er-ent) or the second (uh-BER-ent); both pronunciations are acceptable. The Latin root aberrare means "to go astray," from the prefix ab- "off, away" plus errare "to wander." Other descendants of errare in English, like error and errant, have that double -r- and also refer to something that's either not wanted or not expected. markedly different from an accepted norm deviant, deviate, abnormal, unnatural, deviating from what is normal one whose behavior departs substantially from the norm of a group anomaly, unusual person On a world level, the eruption at the Norte Chico was improbable, even aberrant. "If we don't distinguish our heartache—don't at least attempt to work through it, you understand—it tends to pop up later. In different ways, aberrant ways." At first, Galileo assumed that Jupiter must be moving aberrantly and the stars must be fixed. A crime is a relatively rare and aberrant event.

apathy

Use the noun apathy when someone isn't interested in the important things that are happening. You might feel apathy for the political process after watching candidates bicker tediously with one another. Although apathy is a lazy-sounding word indicating a lack of interest, action, or emotion, it has traveled through many languages to arrive in English. From the Greek apatheia, "freedom from suffering" or "impassibility," apathy has existed in English since the 17th century. Not just one person, but a whole segment of the population can be accused of inaction or emotional detachment: the expressions voter apathy, student apathy, and consumer apathy show just how unenthusiastic groups of people can be. indifference languor, lassitude, listlessness a feeling of lack of interest or energy the trait of lacking enthusiasm for or interest in things generally synonyms: indifference, numbness, spiritlessness Apathy was high in the election because there was no major controversy or issue to arouse voter interest. The adjective is apathetic. One criticism of the welfare state is that it makes people overly reliant on government, with the result that democracy is gradually weak- ened as citizens take a more apathetic and detached view of politics.

ascetic

Want to live an ascetic lifestyle? Then you better ditch the flat-panel TV and fuzzy slippers. To be ascetic, you learn to live without; it's all about self-denial. Ascetic is derived from the Greek asketes, meaning "monk," or "hermit." Later that became asketikos, meaning "rigorously self-disciplined," which gives us the Modern English ascetic. Ascetic can be a noun: a person with incredible self-discipline and the ability to deprive herself, or an adjective that describes such a people or their lifestyle. someone who practices self denial as a spiritual discipline synonyms: abstainer one who practices self-denial Muslim ascetics consider the internal battle against human passions a greater jihad than the struggle against infidels. Most of it he contributed anonymously to the monks of a local monastery—humble ascetics who had dedicated their lives to raising German police dogs. He dreamt that Govinda stood before him, in the yellow robe of the ascetic. Siddhartha now also realized why he had struggled in vain with this Self when he was a Brahmin and an ascetic. He remembered how once, as a youth, he had compelled his father to let him go and join the ascetics, how he had taken leave of him, how he had gone and never returned. The noun is asceticism. One tradition of asceticism derives from the belief that the body is fundamentally bad and must be subjugated to the soul.

apex

When there's no mountain left to climb and nothing but blue sky above, you know you've reached the highest peak — the apex. Apex can mean the highest point in a literal sense, like climbing to the apex of the Eiffel Tower for a fabulous view of Paris. It also can be used to mean the highest point in a figurative sense. An actor who wins an Oscar can say she's reached the apex of her career. If you're describing more than one high point, you could add an -es to form the plural apexes, but apices would also be correct. And if you're a botanist, you'd probably use apex to describe the tip of a flower or leaf. the highest point In English literature, classicism reached its apex in the poetry of Alexander Pope and the other Augustans.

anodyne

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. something that calms or soothes pain Some people use alcohol as an anodyne to numb their emotional pain. Anodyne is an adjective that means relaxing, or capable of soothing pain. The public relations officer is remarkably anodyne; all he does is mouth comforting, politically correct platitudes, saying nothing of substance. They provided us deep pleasure, an anodyne to the squalor and clutter of the street. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. It was one anodyne sentence that caught her attention now—not for what it said, but for what it blandly tried to conceal. They exchanged a few anodyne words—"it certainly was not unpleasant," recalled Oppenheimer, who stayed only briefly and left first.

astringent

You know that vinegar-like liquid teens put on their faces in order to tighten their pores and dry up their pimples? That's astringent. An astringent personality, on the other hand, is perceived as bitter and perhaps even a bit toxic. Astringent may be a lifesaver for an acne-prone teen, but when the term is used as an adjective and applied to you personally, it's less positive. Since astringents are acid-based, an astringent personality can also be corrosive. If someone is prone to biting sarcasm and cynicism, he probably has an astringent view of the world. tending to draw together or constrict soft organic tissue Synonyms: hemostatic, styptic harsh; severe Bob tends to nick himself when he shaves, so he uses an astringent aftershave to stop the bleeding. The kitchen was sweet with tarts, and some of the berries had boiled over in the oven and burned, making the sharp, bitter-sweet smell pleasant and astringent. Ama could smell the astringent flavors as they drifted out with the steam. As Dill hurried to class, he caught a whiff of some astringent industrial cleaning chemical. Shouldn't sailed astringently into the air, the speaker an African-American girl wearing bamboo hoop earrings. تند و تیز

alloy

You may have heard of aluminum alloy on a car. What that means is that there is another metal mixed in with the aluminum, to save money and/or to strengthen the wheels. The wheels are an alloy (a mix), rather than pure. In addition to indicating a dilution of one metal with another, alloy can refer to the dilution of a feeling or a quality. Knowing that you look awesome in your Halloween costume would be an alloy to the embarrassment of showing up to a party where you are the only one in a costume. a mixture containing two or more metallic elements or metallic and nonmetallic elements usually fused together or dissolving into each other when molten the state of impairing the quality or reducing the value of something Metal a combination; a mixture of two or more metals Scientists formulate alloys to create properties that are not possessed by natural metals or other substances. Little metal was used in our straps and fittings, but the harnesses had buckles of aluminum alloy, too fine to fasten with mittens on, which burned in that cold exactly as if they were red-hot. I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but in the tranquillity she imparted there was an alloy of inexpressible sadness. "I think parts of it are made of an alloy that can't be made anymore. Perhaps the metal's very rare—I don't know. Anyway, nobody has." "She'll sail into the lobby and detonate. The casing and firing mechanism are plastic alloy and will completely disintegrate. Clean as a whistle."

caucus n.

a smaller group within an organization Causus vs Fraction vs Faction The noun caucus is a closed meeting of members from the same political party. The Iowa caucuses get a lot of attention during the presidential primary season. Who knows how we got the noun caucus? One theory is that it comes from an Algonquin word that means an elder or leader of the tribe. Another theory is that the word comes from a social and political club in Boston in the 1700s that was perhaps named for the Greek word for drinking cup. However the word slipped into American English, today it refers to a closed political meeting, often used to choose party leaders. The workers formed an informal caucus to discuss their difficulties. کمیته های پارامانی، فراکسیون،

cataclysm n.

a violent upheaval that causes great destruction and change a sudden violent change in the earth's surface synonyms: calamity, catastrophe, disaster, tragedy 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. The French Revolution of 1789 was a cataclysm whose effects are still felt today.

categorical adj.

absolute; without exception If someone accuses you of stealing their lunch and you give a categorical denial, it means that you absolutely deny having anything to do with the theft. Categorical means absolute, unqualified, and unconditional. If you ask someone to marry you and she says maybe, you might be able to persuade her. If it's no, you might still have a chance. But if she gives you a categorical no, she will never change her mind. Less often, categorical is used to describe something that is part of a certain category or group. A Doberman at the Westminster Dog Show might be the categorical winner, meaning it is the best Doberman but not the winner of the show. Although incest is categorically forbidden by every state, recent evidence that marriage between cousins is no more likely to produce abnormal offspring than "normal" marriages may allow the constitutionality of bans on marriage between cousins to be challenged. صریح، قاطع

canon n.

an established principle; a basis or standard for judgment; a group of literary works Canon (one "n") refers to a collection of rules or texts that are considered to be authoritative. Shakespeare and Chaucer are part of the canon of Western literature, so you might read their work in an English class. A canon can also be a body of work, like the Shakespeare canon, which includes all of the Bard's plays and poems. These days, many schools and colleges include more diverse and underrepresented authors in literature classes and encourage students to read works not included in the standard literary canon. The literary canon can change with time, and so can the cultural canon. Don't confuse this word with cannon with two n's, the big gun that shoots bowling-size balls at the enemy. Canons of aesthetic taste vary over the years; the Rococo period, for example, valued ornate art. It was, at the time, the classic American canon, but also what Volpe felt like teaching and what he thought we would like. The canon of black autobiography sensibly includes scores of books about resistance to the American system. The Catholic Church has survived for centuries, not by passing on a 'celibacy gene' from one pope to the next, but by passing on the stories of the New Testament and of Catholic canon law. His lyric, among the most famous in the Nahuatl canon, answers its own question: Not forever on earth; only a little while here.

brazen

bold and without shame With brazen disregard for the sign that said "No Cellphones," the woman took a long call in the dentist's waiting room, irritating the other patients. Brazen describes something shocking or done shamelessly. The Middle English word was brasen, "made of brass," from Old English bræs, "brass." In its literal sense, this word can mean "made of or resembling brass," as in a brazen drinking cup from a medieval castle. It can also mean overly or disrespectfully bold. A near synonym of brazen is our English word brassy, which has the additional meaning of being loud and showy. bold; shameless unrestrained by convention or propriety synonyms: audacious, bald-faced, barefaced, bodacious, brassy, brazen-faced, insolent The brazen student irritated his teacher by saying that he could learn more from a day spent "surfing" the World Wide Web than a day spent in school. A brazen feeling had broken loose in me, a daring rorwething that had been locked up in my chest. They walked the streets both day and night, in dark hoods and brazen masks. Rae doesn't understand the purpose of such brazen self-exposure, but it does bring another question to the tip of her tongue.... Then all those curved or toothed beaks opened in their hoods to a brazen unison, and this is what they chanted: Life is blood, shed and offered.

banal

common, ordinary If something is boring and unoriginal, it's banal. Banal things are dull as dishwater. Ever notice how some TV shows, songs, and even phrases are boring and unoriginal? It's like you've seen or heard the same thing a million times. Anything that's unoriginal and dull is banal — a fancy word for things that bore you to tears. When you're writing, try not to be banal. Clichés and dull topics are banal. New ideas, fresh language, and unusual subject matter can keep your writing from being dreary and banal. repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse synonyms: commonplace, hackneyed, old-hat, shopworn, stock, threadbare, timeworn, tired, trite, well-worn The writer has a gift for making even the most banal observation seem important and original. Effie makes me say a hundred banal phrases starting with a smile, while smiling, or ending with a smile. Thus there was seldom chance for anything but banal remarks. This banal fact used to be one of history's most closely guarded secrets. The first thing she told Odenigbo when he got home was how banal the word kill had sounded from the child's mouth and how guilty she had felt.

celestial adj.

concerning the sky or heavens; sublime What is the difference between a celestial being and a celestial body? The first is something living such as an alien or an angel, whereas the latter is an inanimate object such as a star or a planet. Both, however, are from the sky. The word celestial is primarily used to describe things that have to do with the heavens such as angels, spirits, stars and planets. It does not come from words meaning God or soul though, but from the Latin word for sky caelestis, which also gave rise to the word ceiling. So really, all you have to do is look up and you'll remember what celestial means — whether you're inside or outside. relating to or inhabiting a divine heaven synonyms: heavenly Astronomers use the Doppler effect to measure the velocities and distance from Earth of stars and other celestial objects. With a clatter of hooves and paws and claws, the celestial mounts shot straight into the sky, carrying Aru and Mini with them. Backbiter's double edge glowed wickedly—half steel, half celestial bronze. If Aru and Mini could cross that, they'd be well on their way to the place where the celestial weapons were kept. "So the last ones, in World War II...did they make it through the Kingdom of Death and get to the celestial weapons?"

calumny n.

false and malicious accusation; slander Use the noun calumny to characterize verbal attacks that are meant to destroy reputations or friendships. You've probably seen political ads during election time that rely on calumny to move voters. Calumny comes from the Latin word calvi, meaning "to trick, deceive," which is why it can also describe falsely accusing someone or quoting them out of context with the intent to do them harm. Some political candidates use this tactic against opponents in the hope that voters will be tricked into thinking that the accusations are true. a false accusation of an offense or a malicious misrepresentation of someone's words or actions synonyms: calumniation, defamation, hatchet job, obloquy, traducement "Be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny." Jefferson was guilty of "the blackest calumny and foulest falsehoods" during that bitter campaign.

canard n.

false, deliberately misleading story 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. Most politicians do not want to be associated with the old canard that big government in Washington can solve all of America's problems.

captious adj.

faultfinding; intended to entrap, as in an argument tending to find and call attention to faults If someone tends to be hypercritical and finds fault with everything, you can describe that person as captious. Try not to be described as a captious person yourself, however. No one likes a carping individual! Captious comes from the Middle French word captieux, which is from the Latin word captiosus meaning "fallacious or deceiving." This is, in fact, another meaning for the adjective captious, something calculated to confuse or deceive — such as a captious explanation of the facts. When a person is described as captious, the sense is usually of nitpicking at faults or raising petty objections. It is usually used to imply a permanent character or personality flaw, as opposed to a momentary lapse in understanding. The pedantic and captious critic seems incapable of appreciating the merits of even the most highly regarded books. the most captious, malignant, irrelevant compositions that have ever been seen. From Tennessee to Birmingham, their captious free-for-all Suggests that I am riding on the Squabash Cannonball. ایرادگیر، فریبنده، عیب جو، حیله گر

capricious adj.

fickle determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason Capricious is an adjective to describe a person or thing that's impulsive and unpredictable, like a bride who suddenly leaves her groom standing at the wedding altar. You can criticize a fickle-minded person as capricious, but it could just as well describe quickly changing weather, as in "capricious spring storms." It's the adjective form of the noun caprice, which means a sudden change of mood. Caprice might come from capra, the Italian word for "goat" (because goats are frisky), or from capo, "head" + riccio, "hedgehog." Why bring hedgehogs into it? If you have a "hedgehog head," you are so scared that your hair is standing straight on end. A scared person makes sudden starts this way and that, just as a capricious person does. The rule of law is regarded by many historians as one of human- city's great achievements because since its inception citizens are no longer subject to capricious decisions and penalties of rulers. Caprice is a noun meaning an inclination to change one's mind compulsively. Styles in high fashion seem governed by caprice as much as anything else. Yossarian was never lonely with Nurse Duckett, who really did know how to keep her mouth shut and was just capricious enough. Storms are less fickle than they are, and seas less capricious. هوس باز، دمدمی مزاج

behemoth

huge creature; anything very large and powerful a person of exceptional importance and reputation You can call both a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a massive telecommunications company a behemoth. The word means something big and powerful. Behemoth comes from the Hebrew word b'hemah meaning beast. You can use it to describe large animals or large entities that make you feel small and powerless when you have to confront them. If a behemoth of a moose charges your car, you deal with it, and then with a behemoth of an insurance company, where just finding who to talk to is nearly impossible. In the 1980s and 1990s, the trend in American business was toward increased privatization of government industries (such as power generation), partly because it was believed that private industry is more efficient and partly because foreign private companies were becoming commercial behemoths, outstripping government-owned companies in competitiveness. And in speaking on these topics from the White House, I'd be offering an implicit challenge to the behemoth corporations in the food and beverage industry and the way they'd been doing business for decades. He points at the light-gray behemoth of a building that squats in the center of camp. The flight engineer latched the door and handed out wads of cotton to stuff in our ears, and the behemoth chopper lumbered into the air with a head-splitting roar. This was especially true of the cases against Conexco—a shadowy behemoth that controlled the rumrunning traffic on the West and Gulf Coasts.

atavism

in biology, the reappearance of a characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence; individual or a part that exhibits atavism; return of a trait after a period of absence 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. Some modern political theorists reject nationalism as a tribal atavism. So, yeah, Annie and I pretty much shut it all out, scooted our desks close together, held hands on my lap—score one for atavism!—and whispered and mouthed our own unobserved conversation. As if it came from an atavism deeper than fear, I used to add "brother" silently to boys' names. They pick up a female Native American auto mechanic along the way, but her survival smarts, and her ethics, run up against the increasing atavism they encounter. We conclude that Ballard is quite unstimulated by human interaction - unless it takes the form of something inherently weird, like mob atavism or mass hysteria.

bawdy

indecent; humorously obscene Bawdy describes humor that is vulgar or off-color. Things that are bawdy are a little inappropriate, intended to be funny, and definitely not the kind of things you want to say in school. Bawdy jokes are inappropriate, but they're not totally explicit or graphic — a movie with a little bit of bawdy humor might be rated PG-13, rather than R. Still, you probably don't want to recite bawdy poems in front of your fussy Aunt Irma, your clergyperson, or your math teacher. The exact etymology of this word is uncertain, but it is formed from the Middle English noun bawd, meaning "a lewd or licentious person." off-color, ribald Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is the story of a group of Christian pilgrims who entertain one another with stories, ranging from the holy to the bawdy, on their journey to Canterbury Cathedral. bawdy song bawdy boy

cant

insincere talk; language of a particular group Cant is language repeated so often and so mechanically that it's essentially empty of meaning. Cant can also mean the specialized jargon of a particular group — like the "cant of piracy" (e.g., Ahoy! Lubber! Arrr!). Possible sources for cant exist in both Irish Gaelic and Latin, and the meanings of both are similar: caint is "speech," while cantare is "to sing." In broader English, the word was first used to mock the singing of monks. As it evolved, cant became the whining of beggars and then the secret language of thieves, and the negative connotations persist in modern usage. As a verb, cant has a completely different meaning: it means to lean or tilt to one side. a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves) synonyms: argot, jargon, lingo, patois, slang, vernacular Many of the beat artists of the 1950s reacted against what they regarded as the cant of bourgeois society.

cantankerous adj.

irritable; ill-humored If someone is cantankerous he has a difficult disposition. Take care not to throw your ball into the yard of the cantankerous old man down the street — he'll cuss you out and keep your ball. The origin of cantankerous is unclear (it may be at least partly from Middle English contek 'dissension'), but ever since it first appeared in plays from the 1770s, it's been a popular way to describe someone who is quarrelsome and disagreeable. It is usually applied to people, but stubborn animals like mules are also described as cantankerous. Events can be cantankerous too, like a cantankerous debate. Some synonyms are cranky, bad-tempered, irritable, and irascible. stubbornly obstructive and unwilling to cooperate synonyms: bloody-minded Many of us have in our minds the stereotype of the cantankerous old man who is constantly complaining about something or other. It was the cantankerous, curmudgeonly talk show humorist Jean Shepherd who entranced him. cantankerous connection I'm getting old and cantankerous That made me a bit cantankerous چموش، بدخلق، بداخم

avuncular

like an uncle, benevolent and tolerant Everyone likes an avuncular guy, that is someone who is kind and patient and generally indulgent with people younger than he is. The Dalai Lama is an avuncular fellow. So is Santa Claus. Unless you haven't been good. The word avuncular originally comes from the Latin avunculus, meaning "maternal uncle," and strictly speaking the term describes the relationship between an uncle and his nephew. Uncles, by their very definition, are supposed to be avuncular to their nephews. For many uncles though, Santa Claus is pretty hard to compete with. Walter Cronkite, who was the anchorman of CBS News during much of the 1970s and 1980s, had an avuncular manner that made him one of America's most trusted personalities

centrifugal adj.

moving away from a center The physics principle whereby objects are forced to move out from the center is called centrifugal force. This apparent force is activated by something moving in a curved direction; the heavier the object the stronger the force. The word centrifugal is from the Latin centrum, "center," and fugere, "to flee," so the word means "center-fleeing." Centrifugal force was studied by physicists as far back as 1629, and the term itself was used by Sir Isaac Newton, in its Latin guise vis centrifuga, in 1687. Synonyms: outward-developing As the empire expanded, there was ever-increasing centrifugal stress as remote colonies sought autonomy. centrifugal force

cardinal adj.

of foremost importance A cardinal is a bright red songbird, and the word also refers to the bird's crimson color. In Catholicism, a cardinal is a high-ranking bishop. In math, you use cardinal numbers to count. A cardinal rule is one that is central and should not be broken. Okay, that's a lot of definitions. How exactly are they related? In most cases, cardinal means central or essential. It's a cardinal principle that you use it to describe words of behavior like rule or sin. In the Church, cardinals form the central governing body, and in math the cardinal numbers (one, two, three) are the numbers you learn and use first. serving as an essential component synonyms: central, fundamental, key, primal, important, of import The cardinal rule of any weight-loss diet must be limiting the intake of calories. اصلی، عدد اصلی، کاکل قرمز امریکایی

carnal adj.

of the flesh or body; related to physical appetites sexual, erotic, lascivious, Carnal is an adjective meaning "of the flesh." This makes carnal relations a subject that kids want to know more about, but one that both kids and parents may be embarrassed to talk about with each other. Carnal can be used to refer literally to flesh: after lions are done feasting on a downed zebra, vultures might pick over its carnal remains. Another use for carnal is to describe something that is worldly (as opposed to spiritual) — "He didn't have much use for religion, preferring to spend his time on more carnal pursuits." The yogi's goal is to achieve nirvana through, among other things, the overcoming of carnal desires. carnal desires carnal therapy جسمانی، شهوانی، جسمی

bacchanalian

pertaining to riotous or drunken festivity; pertaining to revelry The ancient Roman god Bacchus was no teetotaler. A bacchanalian party is a wild, wine-soaked, rowdy affair. Bacchanalian is used to describe any event that Bacchus would have enjoyed. The Romans celebrated Bacchus with wine, songs, dances and more wine — not the kind of behavior you would expect from self-respecting adults (and probably not the kind of thing they would tell their kids about). Another word for bacchanalian is Dionysian, in honor of the Greek god of wine and crazy parties. Any kind of wild revelry can be described as bacchanalian. For some people, New Year's Eve is an occasion for bacchanalian revelry. "I Melt With You": Mark Pellington's drama is about a group of four college friends who gather for a bacchanalian reunion. If on the scale of child-friendliness, the bacchanalian Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is a 1 and the Kids Corner Music Festival in Philadelphia scores a 10, what is a 5? Much has been made of your period of bacchanalian excess. In 1687, the minister Increase Mather, who believed that Christmas celebrations derived from the bacchanalian excesses of the Roman holiday Saturnalia, decried those consumed "in Revellings, in excess of wine, in mad mirth."

bucolic

pertaining to the countryside; rural; rustic As an adjective, bucolic refers to an ideal country life that many yearn for. If your parents wanted to raise you in a bucolic environment, you may find yourself living 45 minutes away from the nearest movie theater or person your age. Not ideal. You wouldn't know it to look at it, but bucolic is a distant relation of cow, and all bucolic's meanings can be connected to the bovine creature. Bucolic ultimately comes from the Greek boukolos, cowherd or herdsman. A bucolic could be a short poem about pastoral (cow) life or a country person, who is stereotyped as a cowherd. Used as an adjective, bucolic can refer to an idealized rural life (think life with cows) or to herdsmen (more cows). And that's no bull. synonyms: pastoral The south end of Toronto's beautiful High Park is a bucolic expanse of land that is perfect for anyone wanting a quiet walk. a bucolic waterfall that fed into a turquoise pond. the bucolic surroundings of Columbia, Seabiscuit could not escape the carnival atmosphere. a strange and bucolic calm, as if it were just another summer day

bard

poet If you've heard the word bard, it was probably in English class. William Shakespeare has been known as "The Bard" since the nineteenth century, but the word has a much older history, and, when it's not capitalized, it simply means "lyric poet." In civilizations without written histories, poets and singers were the ones to spread the word from place to place and across generations. In ancient and medieval Gaelic societies, the professional storytellers were called bards (or bardds, in Wales). Irish bards were part of a chieftain's household, and their job was to record and proclaim the exploits of their lord — although a bard might also compose blistering satires if he was displeased with his employer. The great bards of English literature have all been masters of the techniques of verse.

boorish

rude; insensitive If your cousin tells revolting jokes, belches, and smells like he spent the winter in a cave, he could be described as boorish — an adjective used for people with bad manners and a sloppy appearance. We almost always use the word boorish for men. This may be because it can be traced back to a 13th century word for "herdsman." Herdsmen spent a lot of time alone with their sheep, sleeping in tents, and cooking over open fires, so it was no wonder that they didn't have the same refined manners as city folk. If someone offends you by acting boorishly — say, by cutting you off in traffic — you could exclaim, "What a boor!" Just don't confuse boor with bore: bad manners may be offensive, but they're rarely boring. synonyms: loutish, neandertal, neanderthal, oafish, swinish, unrefined "To begin with, I could teach these boorish ogres how to eat properly." One imagines a lot of guffawing from his drunken, boorish guests. This action on my part led to a rather loud and defiantly boorish roar of protest from the collective workers, who began to regard me with sullen eves. We became particularly hot upon some boorish sneer of Drummle's, to the effect that we were too free with our money.

caustic adj.

sarcastically biting; burning Use the adjective caustic to describe any chemical that is able to burn living tissue or other substances, or, figuratively, a statement that has a similarly burning effect. Caustic in this sense means harshly critical. In the chemical sense, a near synonym is corrosive. In the figurative sense, near synonyms are biting, scathing, and sarcastic. The source of the word caustic is Latin causticus, from Greek kaustikos, from kaiein "to burn." of a substance, especially a strong acid; capable of destroying or eating away by chemical action synonyms: corrosive, erosive, mordant, vitriolic, destructive The columnist's caustic comments on government policy did not win her any friends among government officials. "It's caustic. Spill it on your arm and it'll eat through to the bone in about ten seconds." On Rack 10 rows of next generation chemical workers were being trained in the toleration of lead, caustic soda, tar, and chlorine.

avocation

secondary occupation An avocation is an activity that you pursue when you're not at work — a hobby. Pretty much anything can be an avocation: tennis, sudoku, writing poetry. If you're the journalist Clark Kent, your avocation is changing into a skintight red and blue jumpsuit and fighting crime. A vocation is the work you do because you have to; an avocation is what you do for pleasure, not pay. The ancient Latin root is a vocare a calling away from one's work, or a distraction. Today we use the word more to refer to a serious hobby. If you like knitting beautiful sweaters, then you, my friend, have an avocation — as long as you're not making your living from it. an auxiliary activity synonyms: by-line, hobby, pursuit, sideline, spare-time activity Dan became so proficient at his avocation—computer programming—that he is thinking of giving up his job as a teacher to do it full time.

banter

teasing; playful conversation Good friends usually banter back and forth easily, like they're trying to keep a step ahead of each other in witty responses. This type of banter is their special language of friendship. Banter is both a noun and a verb about talking. It comes from unknown origins, but even as a word, it seems to be playful and teasing. You can engage in banter with friends, siblings, parents, and even good-natured strangers. Banter usually ends with everyone feeling better for the talk and verbal play. Joking, joshing, and teasing are all related to banter. light teasing repartee synonyms: backchat, give-and-take, raillery The governor engaged in some banter with reporters before getting to the serious business of the news conference. The labored banter of his friends was only making his head ache. In fact, it is possible my bench companion of a while ago expected me to banter with him - in which case, I suppose I was something of a sorry disappointment. Now he had a tone of unwilling banter, but still banter. For all the banter that flies back and forth between Volpe and his students, it is a collaboration that seems based on respect.

callous adj.

thick-skinned; insensitive A callous person is insensitive or emotionally hardened. If you laugh at your little sister while she's trying to show you her poetry, you're being callous. Callous comes from the Latin root callum for hard skin. If you walk barefoot a lot, your feet will become calloused. We often use callous, as an adjective or a verb, in the metaphorical sense for emotionally hardened. If someone is unmoved by other people's problems, you might say he shows a callous indifference to human suffering or that his heart has been calloused by his own problems. synonyms: indurate, pachydermatous, insensitive Jim's terrible experiences in the war have made him callous about the suffering of others. numb and callous An image of him with his greasy hair and wiry black beard and blue calloused fingers fills my head. The creature stuck out a long black tongue and slapped the glass with calloused hands.

cadge v.

to beg; sponge To cadge is to plead or beg for something. A hungry child might cadge an extra cookie from her dad while he's baking. When you cadge something, you wheedle or plead for it, manipulating someone into giving it to you. If you forget your lunch, you might have to cadge parts of your friend's meal, and if you don't have change for a parking meter, you might try to cadge some from a person walking by. Since the early 1800s, to cadge has meant "to beg," and while its origin is uncertain, it may come from cadger, "itinerant dealer" or "peddler." An enduring image of the Great Depression in America is the out-of-work man cadging money with the line, "Hey, mister, can you spare a dime for a cup of coffee?" cadging cigarettes cadge a beer funding cadged from the Soviet regime

bifurcate

to divide into two parts When you're walking through the woods, you sometimes see the path bifurcate, or split in two directions, and have to choose which way to continue. Bifurcate means "to divide into two branches." If you want to impress your friend (or annoy them) with your knowledge of big words, you can point out the place where "the river bifurcates", or the way tree branches "bifurcate again and again". Really what you're describing is anything that splits into forks or branches. The Latin root of bifurcate adds the prefix bi, or "two", to the word "furca", or fork. Contemporary physicists generally bifurcate their discipline into two parts—classical physics and modern physics; the former are the fields of study that were already well developed before the momen- tous breakthroughs of the early twentieth century by scientists such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and Werner Heisenberg, which inaugu- rated the age of modern physics.

bedizen

to dress in a vulgar, showy manner Bedizen means to decorate yourself or something else to the max — in an over-the-top flashy style. Picture big jewels and gold bling. Bedizen is used only in written form now, though because so few people know what it actually means you might well get away with saying, "Oh, I like the way you've bedizened yourself today," without getting a slap in the face. In fact, they'll probably take it as a compliment. However, people rarely use bedizen in a complimentary way. From the old Dutch word dizen, meaning "to deck out." Paul went to the costume party bedizened as a seventeenth- century French aristocrat. bedizening silks bedizened with fury. bedizened robes The bedizened little girl

carping v.

to find fault; to complain persistent petty and unjustified criticism synonyms:faultfinding Carping is petty and unjustified criticism that just won't stop. People who find fault with you at every turn, who appreciate nothing and complain, complain, complain, are carping. Enough already! Your annoying aunt Mildred who constantly picks on you, listing all the things she thinks are wrong about the way you dress, the style of your hair, who you're dating, and where you're working? She's carping. Carping can also be used as an adjective, to describe someone who is overly critical and impossible to please — like that carping food critic who ruined the debut of your new restaurant. Cost-benefit analysis owes much of its origin to utilitarian thought; despite the carping of critics that such analysis is based on faulty premises, the technique has proved useful in many areas. "In these woods and cottages, there are no envious eyes, no carping tongues, no gossip or lies," The Morrison children, coming home from school, would find no aches, no carping, no headache. When I persisted in my carping to the economists, they generally backed down a bit, conceding that while wages at the bottom are going up, they're not going up very briskly. عیب جو، عیب جویانه

broach

to mention for the first time bring up a topic for discussion Broach means to bring up or introduce a sensitive issue. If your best friend has severe phobia of spiders, you might want to delicately broach the topic of your new pet tarantula, Mr. Fuzzy. Let's say you want to go on vacation with a friend and you ask your dad because he is more likely to say yes. He will probably tell you that he will broach the subject with your mom and let you know. In a less common (and older) usage of broach, if you put a hole in something in order to get out what's inside you broach it. The piercing tool you use is also called a broach. Think of piercing someone with your idea the next time you broach a touchy issue. Steve's boss knew that she couldn't put off warning him about his poor performance and decided to broach the subject the next time she saw him. They conveyed their support of our struggle, but they were wary and cautious when he broached the idea of an armed struggle. Only after exhausting all the other stories of the wedding did they broach the topic that occupied both of their minds. The dead woman was nobody I knew personally, and this would free my audience from having to feel awkward or embarrassed for having broached the subject in the first place. A few days after he had broached his plan to Tessie, Milton came home one evening with a present.

buttress

to reinforce; support a support usually of stone or brick; supports the wall of a building You can buttress an argument with solid facts or your financial portfolio with safe investments. You may find that giving compliments to everyone you meet buttresses your popularity. To buttress is to sustain or reinforce. A buttress is a structure that adds stability to a wall or building, and this innovation played a significant role in the evolution of architecture. Think of a medieval cathedral. It's an incredibly tall, open building filled with light from vast windows. Without buttresses supporting the walls and carrying the weight of the ceiling away from the building and down to the ground, this cathedral would be impossible. Picture this when you use buttress figuratively as a verb meaning to strengthen and support. Sagrada Familia's Structure Some critics of the American legal system argue that the requirement of proving guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt" is too difficult a criterion to use, and buttress their case by citing the fact that objective studies suggest that only a very small number of criminals are successfully prosecuted. Windblown drifts buttressed the house—something moved on the second floor—a hand holding back the edge of a drape.

arrest

to stop; to seize Temporary arrest of the patient's respiration made it easier for the doctor to perform surgery on him.

appropriate

to take possession of for one's own use; confiscate synonyms: capture, conquer, seize arrogate, assume, seize, take over, usurp seize and take control without authority and possibly with force; take as one's right or possession The pronunciation is uh-PROH-preeayt. The adjective appropriate is pronounced uh-PROH-pree-it. The invading army appropriated supplies from the houses of the local people.

cacophonous adj.

unpleasant or harsh-sounding The adjective cacophonous describes loud, harsh sounds, like the cacophonous racket your brother and his band mates make while trying to learn how to play their instruments. To correctly pronounce cacophonous, accent the second syllable: "cuh-CAW-fuh-nus." It is related to the Greek words kakos, meaning "bad, evil," and phone, or "voice." You may feel like you're facing something evil if you're bombarded by the cacophonous sounds of, say, political pundits yelling at one another, or the chaotic sounds of traffic and voices on a busy urban street. Cacophonous is the opposite of harmonious. A cacophony is a jarring, unpleasant noise. synonyms: cacophonic, cackly, squawky The dissonant harmonies of the great jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk might seem cacophonous to some listeners, but to many jazz aficionados, they are sublime. cacophonous sleeper Maybe she had sat here in the cacophonous darkness and felt some kind of desperation take her over, and maybe she found it impossible to unthink the thought of death.