#37 elicit ~ empirical

Question 1

elicit

/ɪˈlɪsɪt/

Answer 1

v. to bring out; to call forth
- The interviewer skillfully elicited our true feelings by asking us questions that got to the heart of the matter.
- The defendant tried to elicit the sympathy of the jury by appearing at the trial in a wheelchair, but the jury convicted him anyway.

Question 2

elliptical

/ɪˈlɪptɪkəl/

Answer 2

adj. oval; missing a word or words; obscure
- The orbit of the earth is not perfectly round; it is elliptical.
An egg may have an elliptical shape.
An elliptical statement is one that is hard or impossible to understand, either because sth. is missing from it or because the speaker or writer is trying to be hard to understand.
- The announcement from the State Department was purposely elliptical - the government didn’t really want reporters to know what was going on.

Question 3

elude

/ɪˈlud/

Answer 3

v. to avoid, evade, or escape.
- The answer to the problem eluded the mathematician.
- The criminal eluded the police.
- Victory eluded the hard-playing team.

Question 4

elusive

/ɪˈlusɪv/

Answer 4

adj. hard to pin down; evasive
To be elusive is to elude.
- The answer to the problem was elusive; every time the mathematician thought he was close, he discovered another error.
- The elusive criminal was next to impossible for the police to catch.
- The team played hard, but victory was elusive and they suffered another defeat.

Question 5

emigrate

/ˈɛmɪˌgreɪt/

Answer 5

v. to leave a country permanently; to expatriate
- Pierre emigrated from France because he had grown tired of speaking French. Pierre became an émigré.
- The Soviet dissidents were persecuted by the secret police, so they sought permission to emigrate.

Question 6

eminent

/ˈɛmənənt/

Answer 6

adj. well-known and respected; standing out from all others in quality or accomplishment; outstanding
- The visiting poet was so eminent that our English teacher asked the poet for his autograph. Our English teacher thought the poet was preeminent in his field.
- The entire audience fell silent when the eminent musician walked onto the stage and picked up his banjo and bongo drums.

Question 7

empirical

/ɛmˈpɪrɪkəl/

Answer 7

adj. relying on experience or observation; not merely theoretical
- The apple-dropping experiment gave the scientists empirical evidence that gravity exists.
- Nicky’s idea about the moon being made of pizza dough was not empirical.
- We proved the pie’s deliciousness empirically, by eating it.