English

Question 1

What does “melancholy” mean?

Answer 1

Melancholy is beyond sad: as a noun or an adjective, it’s a word for the gloomiest of spirits.

Question 2

What does “ergo” mean?

Answer 2

It means “therefore.”

Question 3

What does “vis-a-vis” mean?

Answer 3

It means “face-to-face.”

Question 4

What does “posit” mean?

Answer 4

To posit something is to assume or suggest that it is true. You can posit an idea or opinion.

Question 5

What does “scruples” mean?

Answer 5

Having scruples is kind of like having a conscience: your morals or scruples cause you to act in ways you think are right.

Question 6

What does “nonplus” mean?

Answer 6

To nonplus is to baffle or confuse someone to the point that they have nothing to say. Something weird and mysterious can nonplus you, like a play that is performed entirely by chickens.

Question 7

What does “bemused” mean?

Answer 7

If you’re bemused, you’re muddled or preoccupied. It happens when you’re lost in thought, dazed, or overwhelmed (say, on the first day of high school).

Question 8

What does “plethora” mean?

Answer 8

Plethora means an abundance or excess of something. If you have 15 different people who want to take you on a date, you have a plethora of romantic possibilities.

Question 9

What does “fulsome” mean?

Answer 9

Compliments usually make you feel pretty good, but fulsome compliments, which are exaggerated and usually insincere, may have the opposite effect.

Question 10

What does “literal” mean?

Answer 10

The adverb literally means “actually,” and we use it when we want others to know we’re serious, not exaggerating or being metaphorical.

Question 11

What does “unique” mean?

Answer 11

If something is unique, it’s the only one around. You might think getting a nose ring would make you unique, until you see five other people on the street with the same piercing.

Question 12

What does “idiom” mean?

Answer 12

An idiom is a form of expression that is particular to a certain person or group of people. If your friend always says, “squirrelly nuteriffic!” when she means something is great, she’s using her own idiom.

Question 13

What does “oxymoron” mean?

Answer 13

Jumbo shrimp? Open secret? Use oxymoron to refer to a word or phrase that contradicts itself, usually to create some rhetorical effect.

Question 14

What does “enormity” mean?

Answer 14

An enormity is something extreme or huge, almost beyond comprehension. If you call having to paint the house all by yourself an enormity, your friends might take pity on you and show up with brushes and rollers.

Question 15

What does “fiscal” mean?

Answer 15

The word fiscal resembles the word financial, which makes sense because both involve money.

Question 16

What does “psychosomatic” mean?

Answer 16

Psychosomatic describes a physical illness that results at least in part from mental causes. If you are under a lot of stress, the strain can trigger a psychosomatic condition like a stomach ulcer.

Question 17

What does “psychologist” mean?

Answer 17

A psychologist is a scientist who studies the mind. Unless specified, you should assume the psychologist studies the human mind — as opposed to, for example, a pet psychologist.

Question 18

What does “psychiatrist” mean?

Answer 18

A psychiatrist is a doctor who specializes in emotional, behavioral, or mental disorders. Sigmund Freud is the founder of the field of psychiatry, pioneering psychoanalytic treatment.

Question 19

What does “physiology” mean?

Answer 19

Physiology is the branch of biology that deals with the functions and processes of living organisms, both animals and plants. It’s biology in motion.

Question 20

What does “pious” mean?

Answer 20

If someone is deeply religious and visibly follows all the moral and ethical codes of his religion, he is pious. Don’t become a priest if you’re not prepared to live a pious life.

Question 21

What does “platonic” mean?

Answer 21

Platonic describes a relationship that is purely spiritual and not physical. If a guy and a girl hang out all the time but aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, they’d describe their friendship as platonic.

Question 22

What does “fiat” mean?

Answer 22

You might think a fiat is just an Italian car, but it actually means a legal, authoritative decision that has absolute sanction. From the Latin for “let it be done,” the word fiat is a binding edict issued by a person in command. It can gain an almost Biblical aura of authority, like a movie Pharaoh saying, “So let it be written, so let it be done.” So let it be a fiat.

Question 23

What does “alma mater” mean?

Answer 23

Your alma mater is your old school, college or university. It’s generally used as a positive term, implying reverence and loyalty for the nurturing qualities of the institution.

Question 24

What does “edict” mean?

Answer 24

If your mom orders you to clean your room, that’s an order. If the king asks you to do it, that’s an edict — an official order from some higher up.

Question 25

What does “figurative” mean?

Answer 25

When speech or writing is not literal, it is figurative, like when you say you have a ton of homework. You don’t really have 2000 pounds of homework, do you? Also, when art depicts a figure from life it is figurative, like a figurative drawing of a dancer.

Question 26

What does “sanction” mean?

Answer 26

Sanction has two nearly opposite meanings: to sanction can be to approve of something, but it can also mean to punish, or speak harshly to. Likewise, a sanction can be a punishment or approval. Very confusing––the person who invented this word should be publicly sanctioned!

Question 27

What does “myth” mean?

Answer 27

A myth is a story that’s told again and again and serves to explain why something is the way it is. A creation myth, for example, is a story that tells how the world came into being.You may have studied Greek or Roman myths in which gods and goddesses wage war and play tricks on each other. These myths are not necessarily true stories from the past — the main idea is that they explain certain ideas about the world and how people act. The story might be accepted as true and serve to explain some fact about the world, or it might be known to be made-up but nevertheless illustrates something about people or history.

Question 28

What does “embargo” mean?

Answer 28

An embargo is an order stopping the movement of trade ships into or out of a country. If you can’t get those yummy Swedish fish, perhaps there has been an embargo on trade with Sweden!

Question 29

What does “exonerate” mean?

Answer 29

To exonerate someone is to declare him not guilty of criminal charges. This word is pretty much only used in reference to proceedings in a court of law. A word with a similar meaning that might be familiar is “acquit.”

Question 30

What does “prosecute” mean?

Answer 30

To prosecute is to participate in or pursue something to completion, like a government’s intention to prosecute a war. Prosecute is most often used for bringing legal action against an accused person or group.

Question 31

What does “tort” mean?

Answer 31

If you sue a surgeon for operating on your left foot instead of the right one, you are filing a tort suit. Hopefully, you’ll walk out of court victorious (on both feet).Tort comes from the Latin word tortum, meaning “wrong.” When someone has done some wrong to you, you can seek justice (in the form of payment) by taking them to court.

Question 32

What does “liability” mean?

Answer 32

A liability is a debt or obligation or a personal flaw that stands in your way. A company’s liabilities are simply the debts on its ledger, but a personal liability might be your grandfather’s membership in the Ku Klux Klan.

Question 33

What does “incarnate” mean?

Answer 33

Incarnate means “having a bodily form.” If you encounter someone who pulls off butterflies’ wings for fun, you might describe that person as “evil incarnate.”

Question 34

What does “torque” mean?

Answer 34

If you have ever tightened a bolt with a wrench, or tried to get the lid off a jar of strawberry jam, then you have dealt with the concept of torque — a twisting action or a turning force.

Question 35

What does “horsepower” mean?

Answer 35

A foot-pound-second unit of power, equivalent to 550 foot-pounds per second, or 745.7 watts.

Question 36

What does “ecstasy” mean?

Answer 36

If you’ve ever been so happy that the rest of the world seemed to disappear, you’ve felt ecstasy — a feeling or state of intensely beautiful bliss.

Question 37

What does “sarcasm” mean?

Answer 37

Irony employed in the service of mocking or attacking someone is sarcasm. Saying “Oh, you’re soooo clever!” with sarcasm means the target is really just a dunderhead.

Question 38

What does “guile” mean?

Answer 38

Use the noun guile for cunning, craftiness, and artful duplicity. Acting like you have a job on Wall Street when you’re actually unemployed would take a lot of guile.

Question 39

What does “wit” mean?

Answer 39

Wit is brainpower or mental ability, or the person who possesses such ability, especially when it’s used humorously. When we are scared out of our wits, we — figuratively, anyway — lose for a moment our mental faculties. When we are at our wits’ end, we have run out of ideas or possible solutions to a frustrating situation.

Question 40

What does “edify” mean?

Answer 40

To edify is to help someone understand, whether it is books that edify those who want to learn a new language, or the explanations that hang beside paintings at a museum that edify visitors who aren’t familiar with the artist.

Question 41

What does “bigot” mean?

Answer 41

A bigot is someone who doesn’t tolerate people of different races or religions. If you have an uncle who is a bigot and tells racist jokes at Thanksgiving, you may need to talk to him and tell him it’s not okay.

Question 42

What does “due process” mean?

Answer 42

Due process is an American term for the correct way of legally dealing with an individual that does not violate his constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Question 43

What does “generate” mean?

Answer 43

Generate means produce or create. A good stock pick might generate cash, and a good idea might generate the basis for an Oscar-winning film.

Question 44

What does “vested interest” mean?

Answer 44

Groups that seek to control a social system or activity from which they derive private benefit.

Question 45

What does “constituent” mean?

Answer 45

Constituent means part of a whole, as in “we’ll break this down into its constituent parts.” The word comes up often in political contexts: constituents are the people politicians have been elected to represent.

Question 46

What does “ignorant” mean?

Answer 46

If you make an ignorant comment, your listeners might laugh at you, might get mad at you, or they might patiently instruct you in the ways that you are uninformed.People can be generally ignorant, meaning that they are uneducated and lacking in sophistication. Or people can be ignorant of specific types of information.

Question 47

What does “arrogance” mean?

Answer 47

Arrogance is proud’s meaner cousin. It suggests a selfishness and blindness to others. If you think your tennis game is so good that you don’t practice, your arrogance might cause you a loss to a newer player.Arrogance comes from the Latin arrogans which means overbearing.

Question 48

What does “colloquial” mean?

Answer 48

Colloquial language is casual and conversational: it’s the difference between “What are you going to do?” and “Whatchagonnado?” The word colloquial comes from the Latin word colloquium, which means “speaking together.”

Question 49

What does “sanctimonious” mean?

Answer 49

The sanctimonious person sounds like a hypocrite when he preaches to a friend about the evils of drugs, while he drinks one beer after another. Sanctimonious is a twist on the words sanctity and sacred, which mean holy or religious. A sanctimonious person might think he’s holy, but their attitude comes across more like “holier-than-thou.”

Question 50

What does “absurd” mean?

Answer 50

Something absurd is really silly, absolutely ridiculous, or total nonsense. Thinking you can wear flip flops and a bikini to the North Pole is an absurd idea, for example. If you run into someone dressed in an absurd outfit or watch a movie full of absurd jokes, you’ll probably have a good laugh. But find yourself dealing with the absurd; you’ll likely be stuck in a depressing existential crisis. The absurd describes a state of being where human life has no purpose and everything is completely irrational.

Question 51

Metaphor, Simile, and Analogy: What’s the difference?

Answer 51

Metaphor: A metaphor is a figure of speech that uses one thing to mean another and makes a comparison between the two. The key words here are “one thing to mean another.” So, when someone says “He’s become a shell of a man,” we know not to take this literally. Simile: A simile compares two different things in order to create a new meaning. In this case, we are made explicitly aware that a comparison is being made due to the use of “like” or “as” (He’s like a shell of a man).Analogy: An analogy is comparable to metaphor and simile in that it shows how two different things are similar, but it’s a bit more complex. Rather than a figure of speech, an analogy is more of a logical argument. The presenter of an analogy will often demonstrate how two things are alike with the goal of showing that if two things are similar in some ways, they are similar in other ways as well.

Question 52

What does “metaphor” mean?

Answer 52

If you brag that “the world’s your oyster,” you’re using a metaphor from Shakespeare, who knew a thing or two about figures of speech. Good writers know their way around a metaphor, where you make an analogy between two things to show how one resembles the other in some way. When a character from Shakespeare calls the world his oyster, that’s his boastful way of saying that all the riches of the world are his for the taking, like plucking a pearl from an oyster shell. Shakespeare also wrote, “All the world’s a stage.” Oyster? Stage? Come on, Will, get your metaphors straight!

Question 53

What does “simile” mean?

Answer 53

Use the noun simile when describing a comparison between two fundamentally different things, such as: “His voice was smooth, like butter in a warm pan.”A simile (pronounced SIM-uh-lee) is a comparison that usually uses the words “like” or “as”: “Me without a mic is like a beat without a snare,” rapped Lauryn Hill in the song “How Many Mics.” The word comes from similus, a Latin word meaning “the same.” A simile is different from a metaphor, in which the comparison is less explicit, as in Shakespeare’s line “All the world’s a stage.”

Question 54

What does “analogy” mean?

Answer 54

When you draw an analogy between two things, you compare them for the purpose of explanation. The movie character Forest Gump made a silly analogy famous: “Life is like a box of chocolates.” It’s a useful way of speaking — if a scientist explains that the earth’s forests function as its lungs, we understand the analogy to mean that both trees and lungs take in important elements from the air. But when Forrest Gump says life is like a box of chocolates because you never know what you’re going to get, that’s a pretty brainless analogy.

Question 55

What does “sympathy” mean?

Answer 55

Sympathy is a feeling of pity or sense of compassion — it’s when you feel bad for someone else who’s going through something hard. The ability to feel sympathy for others is a great part of what make us human, and it’s what compels us to reach out and offer help. So have sympathy for people who confuse this word with empathy — they’re awfully close in meaning. Feeling sympathy means you feel sorry for someone’s situation, even if you’ve never been there yourself. Empathy is when you truly understand and can feel what another person is going though.

Question 56

What does “empathy” mean?

Answer 56

Use empathy if you’re looking for a noun meaning “the ability to identify with another’s feelings.” When Bill Clinton famously told people “I feel your pain” during his 1992 election campaign, some praised and others ridiculed him for displaying empathy, the sharing or understanding of feelings. Empathy is different from sympathy, which is pity or sorrow for others’ misfortunes. They share a common root in -pathy, from the Greek pathos, “feeling.” Where they differ is in their prefixes: sym- means “with,” while em- means “in.” If you can empathize with someone, it’s because you have been in their place: you’ve “walked a mile in their shoes,” as the saying goes.

Question 57

What does “confluence” mean?

Answer 57

Confluence means a flowing together. In a literal sense, it’s about rivers. But it’s more often used to talk about the coming together of factors or ideas, or of cultures in a diverse city. When things come together like rivers do, flowing from entirely different places, you call that a confluence. If the senior class needs to raise money for a class trip, and the drama club is looking for someone to do concessions during intermission at the school play, that’s a confluence of factors.