#7 ameliorate ~ analogy Flashcards
ameliorate
/əˈmilyəˌreɪt, əˈmiliə-/
v. to make better or more tolerable
- The mood of the prisoners was ameliorated when the warden gave them extra free time outside.
- My great-uncle’s gift of several million dollars considerably ameliorated my financial condition.
amenable
/əˈminəbəl, əˈmɛnə-/
adj. obedient; willing to give in to the wishes of another; agreeable
- I suggested that Brad pay for my lunch as well as for his own; to my surprise, he was amenable.
- The plumber was amenable to my paying my bill with jelly beans, which was lucky, because I had more jelly beans than money.
amenity
/əˈmɛnɪti, əˈminɪ-/
n. pleasantness; attractive or comfortable feature
- The amenities at the local club include a swimming pool, a golf course and a tennis court.
- If an older guest at your house asks you where the amenities are, he or she is probably asking for directions to the bathroom.
- Those little bars of soap and bottles of shampoo found in hotel rooms are known in the hotel business as amenities. They are meant to increase your comfort.
amiable
/ˈeɪmiəbəl/
adj. friendly; agreeable
- Our amiable guide made us feel right at home in what would otherwise have been a cold and forbidding museum.
- The drama critic was so amiable that even the subjects of negative reviews found it impossible not to like her.
amicable
/ˈæmɪkəbəl/
adj. politely friendly or not hostile
- Two not very amiable people might nonetheless make an amicable agreement.
- Two countries might trade amicably with each other even while technically remaining enemies.
- Julio and Clarissa had a surprisingly amicable divorce and remained good friends even after paying their lawyers’ fees.
amnesty
/ˈæmnəsti/
n. an official pardon for a group of people who have violated a law or policy
- An amnesty is an official forgetting.
- When a state government declares a tax amnesty, it is saying that if people pay the taxes they owe, the government will officially “forget” that they broke the law by not paying them in the first place.
- The word amnesty always refers to a pardon given to a group or class of people. A pardon granted to a single person is simply a pardon.
amnesia
/æmˈniʒə/
n. the condition that causes characters in movies to forget everything except how to speak English and drive their cars.
amoral
/eɪˈmɔrəl, æˈmɔr-, eɪˈmɒr-, æˈmɒr-/
adj. lacking a sense of right and wrong; neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral; without moral feelings
- Very young children are amoral; when they cry, they aren’t being bad or good - they’re merely doing what they have to do.
A moral person does right; an immoral person does wrong; an amoral person simply does.
amorous
/ˈæmərəs/
adj. feeling loving, esp. in a sexual sense; in love; relating to love.
- The amorous couple made quite a scene at the movie. The movie they were watching, Love Story, was pretty amorous itself. It was about an amorous couple, one of whom died.
amorphous
/əˈmɔrfəs/
adj. shapeless; without a regular or stable shape; bloblike
- Ed’s teacher said that his term paper was amorphous; it was as shapeless and disorganized as a cloud.
- The sleepy little town was engulfed by an amorphous blob of glowing protoplasm - a higher intelligence from outer space.
anachronism
/əˈnækrəˌnɪzəm/
n. sth. out of place in time or history; an incongruity
- In this day of impersonal hospitals, a doctor who remembers your name seems like an anachronism.
analogy
/əˈnælədʒi/
n. a comparison of one thing to another; similarity
- To say having an allergy feels like being bitten by an alligator would be to make or draw an analogy between an allergy and an alligator bite.
- Analogy usually refers to similarities between things that are not otherwise very similar.
- If you don’t think an allergy is at all like an alligator bite, you might say, “That analogy doesn’t hold up.”
- To say that there is no analogy between an allergy and an alligator bite is to say that they are not analogous.
analog
/ˈænlˌɔg, -ˌɒg/
n. Sth. similar in a particular respect to sth. else is its analog, sometimes spelled analogue.
