Majortest + Vocabulary.com Flashcards
Metaphorically
Metaphorically
symbolically; figuratively
Conventional
Conventional
usual; customary; common
Conventional is an adjective for things that are normal, ordinary, and following the accepted way. Ho-hum.
This word describes what is typical and ordinary and that which follows accepted standards of behavior or taste. This is a word that’s current definition is still very similar to its Latin root, conventionalis, which is “pertaining to an agreement.” One way this word is used is with respect to conventional weapons, as in those “not using, making, or involving nuclear weapons or energy; nonnuclear.”
Titter
Titter
giggle quietly
A titter is an awkward laugh at something that you shouldn’t be laughing at, like during dinner when Uncle Marvin makes a joke about your mother’s new hairstyle. If you try to hide your laugh, it’s probably a titter.
A laugh that you can’t keep in but also can’t let out, that’s a titter. It usually happens in situations where you shouldn’t be laughing, like listening to your English teacher talk about a date he went on the night before, or when someone tells you a joke in a library. A titter is kinder than a snicker, less noticeable than a giggle, quieter than a chuckle, and way less fun than a chortle. Life’s a joke, laugh it up!
Instigate
Instigate
to start; provoke
When you instigate something, you start it, but the word carries conflict with it. If you are suspended for wearing a political t-shirt, the incident might instigate days of protest by students and faculty.
Instigate comes from the Latin word instigare “to incite.” People who are instigators often begin trouble but then back off and let others break the rules. If you instigate a food fight in the cafeteria, you might throw the first spoonful of mashed potatoes, but then you stop and let all the other students carry on the chaos. When something is instigated, the outcome tends to be unknown. The plan you instigate might not lead to the desired result.
Whet
Whet
sharpen
To whet is to sharpen. You could whet a knife’s blade with a whetting stone, or you could whet your appetite by having some Doritos.
The verb whet can mean “to stimulate or make more acute,” and the word is often used in the phrase “whet [your] appetite,” which can be used literally or figuratively. You could serve light appetizers to whet everyone’s appetite for dinner or you could whet an actor’s appetite by giving him a small role that inspires him for greater roles. You can whet other things in this sense as well — such as curiosity, fear, or pleasure.
Ambiguity
Ambiguity
uncertainty; vagueness
Something with ambiguity is unclear. Think about the sentence, “Jill saw the man with binoculars.” If you are wondering whether Jill or the man had the binoculars, you are noticing the ambiguity, or the double meaning, of this sentence.
Lawyers word contracts to avoid ambiguity, but in doing so prevent anyone who is not a lawyer from understanding what they have written! If you can’t choose between two decisions because both seem somehow wrong, you are dealing with moral ambiguity. Imagine if a friend who has helped you out many times asks you to cheat. It’s wrong to cheat but it also seems wrong not to help someone who has been there for you.
Mire
Mire
swamp; muddy ground
A mire is mushy ground like quicksand, so if you feel yourself trapped in a sticky situation, consider yourself mired. One gets mired IN something — like in a dispute or in a love triangle.
Mire still has its original, though less-used, sense of a slushy, muddy bit of land that gives way underfoot, also known as a quagmire. One of the most famous mires in literary history was the one haunted by the Hound of the Baskervilles in Conan Doyle’s classic. Have the fibs you told your beloved come back to haunt you? You’re stuck in a mire then, a treacherous situation it’s going to be pretty hard to squirm out of.
Anecdote
Anecdote
a brief amusing story
A short, amusing true story is an anecdote. You might come back from a crazy spring break with a lot of anecdotes to tell.
The roots of anecdote lie in the Greek word anekdota, meaning “unpublished.” The word’s original sense in English was “secret or private stories” — tales not fit for print, so to speak. It can still have connotations of unreliability, as in the phrase “anecdotal information.” But the most common sense today is that of “a funny story about something that happened.”
Clairvoyant
Clairvoyant
psychic; mystic
If you can predict the future, you may want to keep your clairvoyant powers to yourself. Otherwise everyone will be knocking down your door asking for the next winning lotto numbers.
A clairvoyant individual is believed to possess psychic abilities or a higher level of insight than other humans who can only use the regular old five senses. Through dreams, visions, Ouija boards and crystal balls, they can see what happens in the future. But before 1851, clairvoyant didn’t have the same mystical meaning that it does today — it merely meant a “clear-sighted person.”
Conspicuous
Conspicuous
easily seen; prominent
Keep your eye on the adjective conspicuous for something that stands out so much you notice it right away — like that zit in the center of your friend’s forehead.
Conspicuous is the adjectival form of the Latin verb, conspicere, meaning “to look at.” Conspicuous can mean either very obvious to the eye (like something that is conspicuous from a distance) or attracting attention (like conspicuous consumption). If you are doing something wrong, it’s wise not to be conspicuous about it!
Circumvent
Circumvent
avoid
To circumvent is to avoid. Someone who trains elephants but somehow gets out of picking up after them has found a way to circumvent the cleaning of the circus tent.
Circum in Latin means “around” or “round about,” and vent- comes from venire, “to come,” but painting a picture from these two parts of the word helps. Picture someone circling around a barrier instead of climbing over it. That’s what you do when you circumvent. You find a smart way around rules or barriers, or avoid doing something unpleasant altogether.
Strut
Strut
swagger; show off
When you strut, you walk with a proud swagger that has a little arrogance thrown in, like the prance of a running back who has just flown past the 250-pound linebackers and planted the ball in the end zone.
You can’t strut and be shy about it — when you strut, you know people are watching you. The big boss in a gangster film, a model on the runway, and the rap artist whose album has just gone platinum all know how to strut. The noun form of strut has a little less flash and refers to a vertical or horizontal support that holds something up, like the long steel bars holding up a building.
Regale
Regale
entertain
You may have heard it said that the fastest way to a person’s heart is through his stomach. So, if you need to please or impress someone, regale them — that is, treat them to lavish food and drink.
While food is reliable way to regale someone, regale can also involve providing forms of entertainment such as music or storytelling. Regale is akin to the word gala, meaning “a festive party,” and gallant, which can mean “spirited and adventurous” (though gallant can also mean “noble and brave”). If you regale someone with a gala attended by partygoers who are gallant, in either sense of the word, everyone should have a pretty good time.
Novel
Novel
new; unusual
If something is so new and original that it’s never been seen, used or even thought of before, call it novel.
New and novel come from the same Indo-European source but by different paths. Whereas new is a Germanic word coming from Old English, novel is based on Latin novellus “new, young, fresh.” If something is novel, it is new but also original, fresh and unique. Companies are always looking for that novel idea that will earn them millions and skydiving is a novel experience, especially if you’re not adventurous.
Hallowed
Hallowed
worshipped; consecrated
The adjective hallowed is used to describe something that is sacred and revered, usually something old and steeped in tradition.
The word hallowed often has a religious connotation, but it can also be used playfully to convey a sense of reverence about something that isn’t religious in nature but that nonetheless inspires worship. A football fan, for example, may talk about the hallowed tradition of tailgating on a game day Saturday, or an avid shopper may describe the hallowed grounds of the Macy’s shoe department. In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln used the word with its more traditional sense to ponder man’s inability to show the proper reverence to those men who died in battle: “But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate…we cannot consecrate…we cannot hallow…this ground.”
Precedent
Precedent
a previous occurrence used as a guide
A precedent is something that sets a standard for future events. It’s hard to say what the legal community would do without the word precedent, since so many legal judgments and decisions are based on what came before.
Lawyers and judges often look for a precedent can be used as a guide for a similar case. This word is used elsewhere too. Your mom might not let you stay up late because it would set a bad precedent for future bedtimes. A teacher who lets kids chew gum is setting a precedent that gum-chewing will be OK in the future. People often refer to a precedent later on as a reference point for how things should be.
Furrow
Furrow
groove
A furrow is a groove or a depression. Originally, furrows were created in soil for water to flow. Now, its most common meaning is of a deep line or wrinkle on the face, as in a “furrowed brow.”
Furrow is related to the old English word farrow, meaning “to root like a swine,” which makes sense, seeing as both acts create trenches in the earth. Sometimes a furrow simply means the impression left by a cart wheel or tire track in the mud. In a non-agricultural sense, a furrow is also simply a slight groove or depression or series of indentations in the surface of any object.
Pious
Pious
very religious
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.
Pious comes from the Latin pius, which means dutiful. It doesn’t always have to be used to talk about organized religion. If someone believes deeply in something, and lets everyone see it through their behavior, then they are pious, whether they’re pious Christians or pious environmentalists. It differs from its synonym devout, which implies deep religious sentiment, whereas pious emphasizes the public display of feeling.
Serrated
Serrated
jagged; saw-like
A serrated edge is jagged. When a knife is described as having a serrated blade, its edge is lined with small teeth, similar to a saw’s. It will cut tomatoes, bread, and meat more effectively than a smooth-edged blade.
The adjective serrated comes from the Latin word serratus, meaning “notched like a saw.” Most often, it is swords and knives that are described as serrated, but some leaves, like those of the Ash and Maple trees, as well as certain flower petals, like carnations and some tulips, also have serrated edges. Great White sharks have serrated teeth so they can more easily rip the flesh of their prey. Yum.
Commandeer
Commandeer
take possession of
What is that person doing, interrupting everyone and changing the subject every minute? He is trying to commandeer, or take control, of the conversation.
You can probably tell from the look of the word that commandeer is somehow related to commander in meaning. A commander is someone who is officially in charge, giving orders and making decisions for a group such as a nation or a military. Many groups don’t have a commander, but this doesn’t stop some people from trying to take charge. If you commandeer something — whether it’s a car or a conversation — you use force to try to take over.
Virulent
Virulent
dangerous; harmful
A virulent disease is one that’s infectious, spreading and making lots of people sick, while a virulent rant is just a verbal attack, causing sickness of the emotional kind. Either way, something virulent puts a strain on the people who get it.
Two meanings come out of the roots for virulent: one being “poisonous” and the other, “spiteful.” The virus-carrying meaning of virulent often gets combined with strain, such as in a “virulent strain of the flu.” Those who aren’t carrying disease but are still considered virulent most likely lash out at others with a biting tone. Unleashing acid-tongued words on someone would be considered a virulent attack.
Bombast
Bombast
“arrogant, pompous language”
Bombast is a noun meaning pretentious or boastful talk. If your football coach is known for his bombast, he probably gives a pompous speech before each game about the greatness of the team and, of course, his coaching.
Originally, bombast was cotton padding used to stuff or pad things like seat cushions. The meaning was extended to include padded and overstuffed speaking or writing, especially speech that’s pretentious and showy. Other words with bombast at their roots include the adjective bombastic and the adverb bombastically. For all your coach’s bluster and bombast, he’s a pretty nice guy — too bad his overblown rhetoric turns people off before they get to know him.
Blighted
Blighted
damaged; destroyed; ruined
Use the adjective blighted to describe something that has a condition that makes it weak or unable to grow, like a blighted lawn with more brown patches than green.
Language experts can’t agree on the exact origins of the word blighted, but when it entered English in the sixteenth century it was used to describe a skin condition. Today, you’ll hear the word applied to plants that are affected by a condition that causes them to wither and die, like a blighted tomato crop, or to describe the neglect and decay of places, such as blighted buildings that pose safety hazards.
Obsolete
Obsolete
no longer valid
Use the adjective obsolete for something that is out of date. As the Rolling Stones song “Out of Time” goes, “You’re obsolete, my baby, my poor old-fashioned baby.”
Obsolete is from the Latin obsolescere “to fall into disuse,” and it is a very handy adjective for anything that is no longer used, from words to factories to computer software to ways of thinking. Something that is obsolete has usually been displaced by a newer, shinier innovation. Compact discs made records and cassettes obsolete, and then downloadable digital music files made compact discs obsolete.
Stereotype
Stereotype
fixed image
A stereotype is a preconceived notion, especially about a group of people. Many stereotypes are racist, sexist, or homophobic.
Have you ever heard someone say Irish people are all drunks, or African-American people are always late, or women are bad drivers? Those are stereotypes: commonly held ideas about specific groups. You most often hear about negative stereotypes, but some are positive. For example, there’s a stereotype that Asian people do better in school. One of many problems with any stereotype is that even if it’s true in some cases, it’s certainly not true in all cases.
Myriad
Myriad
in large numbers
If you’ve got myriad problems it doesn’t mean you should call a myriad exterminator, it means you’ve got countless problems; loads of them; too many to count. Welcome to the club.
Myriad is one of those words rarely used in speech but only in written form. You would usually use a phrase like “lots of” or “loads of” instead. I mean, you could say “I’ve got myriad problems,” but everyone would probably just laugh at you, and rightly so. Originally from ancient Latin and Greek words meaning “ten thousand” — so perhaps you can put a number on myriad, after all.
Maelstrom
Maelstrom
whirlpool; storm in the ocean
A maelstrom is a powerful whirlpool. A luckless ship might go down in one, conflicting ocean currents might cause one. You hear it more often metaphorically, to describe disasters where many competing forces are at play.
When an economy or a government fails, the situation is often described as a maelstrom. Following some precipitous event, all the forces at play––banks, governments, consumers––are trying as hard as they can to protect themselves. This creates a maelstrom — a perfect storm, so to speak — that drags any potential for rescue down with it. Maelstrom comes from an obsolete Dutch phrase meaning “whirling stream.”
Pejorative
Pejorative
derogatory
Call a word or phrase pejorative if it is used as a disapproving expression or a term of abuse. Tree-hugger is a pejorative term for an environmentalist.
Coming from the Latin word for “worse,” pejorative is both an adjective and a noun. As an adjective, it means disapproving or disparaging. Hack is a pejorative term for a bad writer. If you call someone a politician in the pejorative sense, you mean that they are scheming and out for personal gain. Terms of abuse such as jerk and negative euphemisms such as bottom feeder are pejoratives, words you use when you want to call someone a bad name.
Confound
Confound
confuse
If you have an identical twin, you’ve probably tried dressing alike so that people confound you with, or mistake you for, one another. You’ve also probably learned that, unfortunately, this trick doesn’t work on your mom.
The verb confound means both “to mistake” and “to confuse.” If you decide to treat yourself to a delicious dessert, you might find yourself confounded by the overwhelming number of choices. If you end up ordering the chocolate cake but the waiter brings you chocolate mousse, the waiter has somehow confounded those two options. Another meaning you may come across in literature is “to damn,” as in “Confound it! You are the most exasperating person on the planet.”
Innovate
Innovate
create; introduce something new
Innovate means to bring something new to something. If you love cranberry seltzers, you might innovate by adding limeade or by making the drink with cran-raspberry juice instead.
In our culture obsessed with finding the next new thing, the word innovate is very popular––behind every “new and improved” label slapped onto the packaging of some perfectly useful product is some eager beaver buried in the ranks of a company, scheming ways to innovate.
Nefarious
Nefarious
wicked; immoral; disreputable
Describe a person’s actions as nefarious if they are evil or wicked. Batman and Superman are always fighting evildoers and stopping their nefarious plots.
Nefarious comes from the Latin nefas “crime, impiety.” If something is nefarious, it is criminal, evil, malicious and wicked. Thinking of superheroes can help you remember the meaning of the word, but it is often used in much less exciting circumstances. News reporters investigate corrupt politicians in order to uncover the nefarious activities. And, if you don’t pay for your downloaded music, you have gotten it by nefarious means.
Exacerbate
Exacerbate
make worse
For a formal-sounding verb that means to make worse, try exacerbate. If you’re in trouble, complaining about it will only exacerbate the problem.
Exacerbate is related to the adjective acrid, often used to describe sharp-smelling smoke. Think of exacerbate then as a sharp or bitter thing that makes something worse. A drought will exacerbate a country’s food shortage. Worsen, intensify, aggravate and compound are similar, but exacerbate has the sense of an irritant being added in to make something bad even worse.
Tangible
Tangible
can be touched
When you can touch something, it’s tangible: “I need tangible proof that aliens exist — I want to shake their little green hands!”
Tangible is from Latin tangere “to touch,” and it simply means something that can be touched or felt, though it can be used in metaphorical senses: “tangible assets” have a value that can be precisely measured, and “tangible grief” can be clearly sensed by an onlooker. So you might not need to physically touch something for it to be tangible, but it has to be grounded in the real world of facts: “Has the teen pop star demonstrated any tangible ability to sing?”
Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism
putting man at the center of one’s philosophy
Soporific
Soporific
inducing sleep
Something that is soporific is sleep-inducing. Certain medicines, but also extreme coziness, can have a soporific effect.
In the 1680’s, soporific, which doubles as both adjective and noun, was formed from the French soporifique. That word, in turn, came from the Latin sopor “deep sleep.” Beloved Peter Rabbit author Beatrix Potter once noted that, “It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is ‘soporific’.”
Receptacle
Receptacle
container; vessel; holder
A receptacle is a container that’s used for holding or storing things. If you are having a party on a rainy day, you can put a receptacle outside your door for your guests’ umbrellas.
The noun receptacle means any kind of container. For example, a trash receptacle holds your garbage and a receptacle for loose change can keep you from scattering coins all over your house. In botany, receptacle refers to the part of a stem that holds a plant’s organs. The word receptacle comes from the Latin root word receptaculum, which describes a place to receive and store things.
Hinder
Hinder
obstruct
The verb hinder means to block or put something in the way of, so if you’re in a high-speed car chase with the police, they might put up a blockade to hinder your progress.
The word hinder came from the Old English hindrian, which means to “injure or damage.” That’s a little more extreme than what it means today, because, now it just means to get in the way of something or someone. People might not like you too much if you make it a practice to hinder their progress or get in the way of things they want, even it’s a small hindrance like blocking someone from getting to the cookie jar.
Dubious
Dubious
doubtful
Choose the adjective dubious for something you have doubts about or you suspect is not true. That bridge you just “bought” might be of dubious value.
Dubious stems from Latin dubiosus “doubtful” or “uncertain” and contains the Latin root duo in this case meaning “of two minds.” This is apparent in that dubious generally describes something that appears one way but is truly another. A dubious claim is probably not true, whereas a dubious website or character is of questionable quality. Dubious can also be synonymous with doubtful when referring to a person as in “she was dubious about the idea.”
Malady
Malady
illness
A malady is an illness, like a malady that keeps you home, sick in bed for days, or something that causes you to have trouble or to suffer, like jet lag — a malady that affects travelers.
Malady, pronounced “MAL-uh-dee,” comes from the Latin words male, meaning “bad or ill” and habitus for “have, hold.” When you have a malady, it is like something bad is holding you, such as an illness — the common cold: a malady of winter. Some bad habits cause maladies, such as never having any money — the malady of people who spend freely, not thinking of the future.
Incipient
Incipient
just beginning
- Incipient* means something is in an early stage of existence. In its incipient form, basketball was played with a soccer ball and peach baskets for goals. Bouncy orange balls and nets came later.
- Incipient* comes from the Latin incipere “to begin.” The related, and more commonly used, word inception means the beginning or the start. It is important to note that when something is in an incipient stage, there is a chance it will never come to completion. So be on the lookout for incipient trouble or an incipient crisis — you might be able to prevent it from happening.
Equivocate
Equivocate
speak ambiguously; avoid telling the truth
When you are unwilling to make a decision and almost intentionally go back and forth between two choices, you are equivocating. When politicians equivocate, they are often afraid of upsetting, and thus alienating, voters with their decisions.
A key part of equivocate is the root vocate which come from the Latin vocare or “voice.” When you give your voice to two opposing views in order to mislead or keep your options open, you’re equivocating. Think of the expression, to talk out of both sides of your mouth. If you want to go to a party and your parents keep saying “maybe, it depends,” tell them to stop equivocating and give you a straight answer.
Impecunious
Impecunious
having no money
If you are hard up, broke, penniless, or strapped for cash, you could describe yourself as impecunious. Then maybe you could make some money teaching vocabulary words.
Impecunious comes from the old Latin word for money, pecunia, combined with the prefix im, meaning not or without. But impecunious doesn’t just mean having no money. It means that you almost never have any money. If you go into the arts, you are most likely facing an impecunious future. If you gamble away your cash instead of saving it for rent, your landlord might throw you out for being impecunious.
Lamentation
Lamentation
expression of regret or sorrow
Lamentation usually occurs when someone dies or a tragedy occurs. At the funeral, you could hardly hear the speaker above the wails of lamentation.
From the Latin lamenta, meaning “weeping” or “wailing,” lamentation means more than just shedding a few tears. Lamentation is when grief pours out. If you lose a nice pencil that’s no cause for lamentation, but if you lose all your money in a stock market crash, that might be. If someone tells you you’ll be late to your own funeral, you can always say: “At least I’ll get to enjoy the lamentation!”
Lavish
Lavish
on a grand scale; wasteful
Lavish means generous and extravagant as an adjective and to give generously as a verb. If you don’t like it when people lavish you with attention, you might appreciate a lavish spread of excellent food instead.
Lavish comes from the Old French lavache meaning “deluge, torrent” referring to rain. When you see it, think of a shower of good things coming down on you as you never use lavish with something bad. Didn’t your parents lavish you with praise and love when you were small? With lavish as an adjective, you can rephrase that question like this: Didn’t your parents offer you lavish praise and love when you were little?
Merge
Merge
come together
The verb merge means to seamlessly join something. For example, when you merge onto the highway, you need to smoothly join the traffic, forgetting everything you learned riding the bumper cars at the fair.
If two or more things become one, they merge. If your favorite deli, The Cheese Stop, merges with a sandwich shop called Chez Lui, the two restaurants might also merge their names, becoming Chez Cheese. You can also use merge when things only appear to blend. You know it’s time to go to sleep when the words in your book begin to merge together.
Proscribe
Proscribe
forbid
To proscribe something is to forbid or prohibit it, as a school principal might proscribe the use of cell phones in class.
Proscribe sounds similar to the word prescribe, but be careful: these words are essentially opposite in meaning. While proscribe means forbid, prescribe is used when a doctor recommends a medicine or remedy. Of course, if you want an excuse for not following your doctor’s orders, you could say you were confused about the meaning of these two words — but that would be lying, which is proscribed by most people’s value systems. And it would also be bad for your health.
Obscured
Obscured
hidden; covered; buried
If something is obscure, it’s vague and hard to see. Be careful if you’re driving in heavy rain — the painted lines can be obscure.
Obscure comes from Latin obscurus, which can mean “dark, dim,” “unclear, hard to understand,” or “insignificant, humble.” We tend to use obscure in the metaphorical senses: an obscure sound is unclear, an obscure village is hidden away in the countryside, and an obscure poet is little known and probably insignificant. Obscure can also be used as a verb. If you get really nervous when you speak during a debate, your embarrassing twitches and shaking hands can obscure your argument.
Malingerer
Malingerer
person who deliberately tries to avoid work
Have you ever pretended to be sick or hurt to get out of taking a test or doing a chore? Then you, my dear, are a malingerer, and should be ashamed of yourself. Shape up!
Knowing that the prefix mal is from the Latin for “bad,” we can tell right off that being a malingerer is not a good thing. This noun form of the verb malinger comes from the French malingre which means “sickly.” (Obviously, it’s bad to pretend to be sick.) In Jack London’s Call of the Wild, the new dog, Pike, is referred to as “a clever malingerer and thief,” giving a clear negative context to the word.
Libertarian
Libertarian
someone who opposes tyranny
Someone who is a libertarian advocates the importance of the individual over government control — libertarians believe strongly in freedom.
A libertarian holds onto the idea of a person’s free will and individualism, with the word based on the Latin root liber, meaning “free.” In the U.S., libertarians can be to the left or the right of the political spectrum. A libertarian believes that someone should make his or her own decisions rather than rely on a political party line. If you think the government should keep its nose out of your business, then you might be a libertarian.
Red tape
Red tape
formalities; paperwork; official procedure
Use the phrase red tape when you’re talking about something that takes much longer than it should and involves more procedures, forms, or rules than make sense.
Applying for a passport or a driver’s licence is well known for the amount of red tape involved. In other words, there are lines to stand in, forms to fill out and sign, and various proofs of identity required. Most people complain about the red tape they deal with when they’re registering a car or buying a house, working with an impersonal business or government branch. The term comes from the actual red tape that was used to bind documents in colonial America and in Great Britain.
Catharsis
Catharsis
purging of pent-up emotions
Use the noun, catharsis, to refer to the experience a person can have of releasing emotional tension and feeling refreshed afterwards.
Conceived by Aristotle as the cleansing effect of emotional release that tragic drama has on its audience, catharsis stems from a Greek verb meaning “to purify, purge.” Today, it can be used to describe any emotional release, including a good long laugh or cry that is followed by a sense of balance and freshness afterwards.
Devoured
Devoured
greedily eaten/consumed
Proper ladies poke at a meal, gentlemen eat a meal, and teenagers devour a meal like ravenous cowhands who haven’t seen the inside of a bowl since Christmas, and here it is July. Devour means to eat greedily.
The meaning of devour has grown to include the consumption of things other than food. If sit down to start a book, and look up ten hours later having turned the last page, you have devoured that book. If your after school job is devouring all your free time, chances are your grades are going to drop.
Atheist
Atheist
person who does not believe in God
An atheist believes there is no such thing as god, or any other deity.
The root -theist means “belief in a god.” The prefixes mono-, poly-, and a-, mean “one,” “many,” and “no,” respectively. So a monotheist is someone who believes in a single god, a polytheist is someone who believes in many gods, and an atheist is someone who believes there is no god at all.
Irksome
Irksome
annoying; infuriating
If your little brother keeps saying the same phrase over and over again, you might find it irksome — that is, annoying in a tiresome way.
If you are a person who likes to know exactly where words come from, you might find it irksome that the etymology of irksome’s 15th century ancestor irken is unknown. If you complain about this to all of your friends, they might start to find you irksome also.
Pedestrian
Pedestrian
common; mundane; banal
A pedestrian is someone traveling by foot. If you’re walking, you might get angry at the drivers who don’t stop so you can cross the street. But if you’re driving, you might fight the urge to run those annoying pedestrians over!
Pedestrian comes from the Latin pedester meaning “going on foot” but also “plain.” As a noun, it’s someone walking around — sidewalks are for pedestrians. As an adjective it means “lacking wit or imagination.” If someone calls your new poem pedestrian, they mean it’s dull. If you want to impress your friends while also making them feel worthless, mutter “these people are SO pedestrian,” at a party, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Aesthetic
Aesthetic
concerning art or beauty
The adjective aesthetic comes in handy when the subject at hand is beauty or the arts. A velvet painting of dogs playing poker might have minimal aesthetic appeal.
Aesthetic, from a Greek word meaning “perception,” comes to us from German philosophers who used it for a theory of the beautiful. From this technical sense, it soon came to refer to good taste and to artistry in general; if something has “aesthetic value,” it has value as a work of art (even if nobody will pay much for it). It does not, however, refer to the objects themselves; do not talk about an “aesthetic painting.”
Tractable
Tractable
obedient; dutiful; polite
If your little brother quietly obeys your instructions and waits for you at the food court while you and your friends wander around the mall, he’s probably a tractable child, meaning he’s obedient, flexible, and responds well to directions.
Note the similarity between tractable and tractor. Both come from the Latin word tractare, which originally meant “to drag about.” You can think of a tractable person as someone who can be dragged about easily, like a plow being dragged by a tractor.
Mettle
Mettle
courage; bravery; valor
Mettle is the courage to carry on. If someone wants to “test your mettle,” they want to see if you have the heart to follow through when the going gets tough.
Having the mettle to do something means you have guts. In short, you’re a pretty impressive person. If you have the intellectual mettle to enter a political debate, not only do you know a lot about politics, but you have the spunk to show it off. Metal and mettle were used interchangeably meaning a solid material like gold, and the “stuff a person is made of” until everyone got confused and the words went their separate ways.
Fervor
Fervor
passion; enthusiasm
Use fervor to describe an intensity of emotion or expression. Fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers show so much fervor that they “bleed Dodger blue.”
This noun comes to us from Latin fervere, meaning “to boil, glow.” In the English word fervor, the suffix –or means “a condition or property of something.” There is another –or suffix that means “a person or thing that does the thing expressed by the verb.” A corresponding adjective is fervent; synonyms of the noun and adjective are ardor and ardent.
Sybarite
Sybarite
lover of luxury
If you know someone who’s totally addicted to luxurious things and all of life’s pleasures, call them a sybarite. Unless she’s inviting you over for champagne brunches and showering you with gifts — in which case you should keep your mouth shut.
Sybarite was first recorded in the 1600s, meaning a “person devoted to pleasure.” The literal translation of this noun is “inhabitant of Sybaris,” which was an ancient Greek town full of citizens who loved nice things. Today, the word still has the same two meanings: it’s either a person who could be described as addicted to pleasures and luxury (like a hedonist), or an actual person who lives in Sybaris.
Laconic
Laconic
using few words; brief; to the point
Laconic is an adjective that describes a style of speaking or writing that uses only a few words, often to express complex thoughts and ideas. A more laconic way to write that last sentence might be this: laconic means brief.
There’s a friend of yours who doesn’t talk very much, and when he does, he says maybe three words and then becomes quiet again. You could describe that friend as laconic. The word comes from Laconia, a region in ancient Greece where the local Spartan rulers gave very short speeches. Being laconic can be bad when it sounds rude to be so brief, but it can be good if you’re in a rush to get somewhere.
Blunderbuss
Blunderbuss
- ancient weapon (type of gun); 2. a clumsy person
Prosaic
Prosaic
dull; boring; ordinary
Prosaic means ordinary or dull. Most of us lead a prosaic everyday life, sometimes interrupted by some drama or crisis.
This adjective is from Latin prosa “prose,” which is ordinary writing intended to communicate ideas and information. Prose is often contrasted with poetry, which usually has a more imaginative and original style.
Articulate
Articulate
clear; lucid; eloquent
To articulate is to say something. And, if you say it well, someone might praise you by saying you are articulate. Confused yet? It’s all in the pronunciation.
Reach for articulate when you need an adjective meaning “well-spoken” (pronounced ar-TIC-yuh-lit) or a verb (ar-TIC-yuh-late) meaning “to speak or express yourself clearly.” The key to understanding articulate’s many uses is to think of the related noun article: an articulate person clearly pronounces each article of his or her speech (that is, each word and syllable), and an articulated joint is divided up into distinct articles, or parts.
Dynamic
Dynamic
lively; vibrant; energetic
If a person, place, or thing is energetic and active, then it’s dynamic. When things are dynamic, there’s a lot going on.
Even the most exciting rural town won’t be as dynamic as a big city: there are just more things happening in a city. Someone with a dynamic personality is probably funny, loud, and excitable; a quiet, mousy person isn’t dynamic. You can also talk about the dynamic aspect of music, which has to do with how the music uses dynamics, which means “changes in volume.” When things are dynamic, changes and energy are in the air.
Endurance
Endurance
staying power; patience; stamina
Endurance is the power to withstand something challenging. If you decide to run a marathon, you will need lots of endurance to run over 26 miles.
The noun endurance contains endure means “suffer or undergo” and the suffix -ance means “the state of.” It can be used to describe the physical strength to keep going, as in a marathon or giving birth, but it can also be used when discussing a exhausting mental situation or stressful time — the endurance to bounce back from heartbreak, perhaps.
Renown
Renown
fame
Renown is fame and acclaim — the kind of celebrity that most people only dream about. Renown is not only about celebrity, though, it also means to be highly respected in one’s field.
Actors, musicians, and artists practice their art, sometimes for many years, to gain the kind of renown, or fame, that will launch their faces onto the covers of magazines and make their name known in every household. Greta Garbo, Luciano Pavarotti, and Salvador Dali all became renowned in their respective fields. They won numerous awards, and who isn’t familiar with their names? Even things or places can achieve renown if they offer something worth celebrating. An ice cream parlor can become renowned for its incredible mint chip ice cream, or a bank can be renowned for its excellent customer service.
Disapprobation
Disapprobation
disapproval
If you show up for Thanksgiving dinner an hour late and covered in mud from a tag football game, your parents will give you a look of disapprobation. This means they seriously disapprove of your actions, despite the fact that you scored the winning touchdown.
Disapprobation is a noun for the state of total disapproval and condemnation. It is often used in conjunction with a moral or social offense. Acts such as stealing an old lady’s purse, defying your teachers or parents, vandalizing, or being a lying sneak are all things that are going to earn you disapprobation. But if you decide to change your evil ways and do something wonderful to earn praise, you’ll find yourself back on the side of approbation.
Soothsayer
Soothsayer
fortuneteller
A soothsayer is someone who can foretell the future. If the convincing soothsayer at the state fair tells you you’ll soon meet someone tall, dark, and handsome, you’ll probably keep your eye out for someone who fits that description.
A fortune teller is also known as a soothsayer, or someone who claims to be able to predict the future. Long ago, a soothsayer might have been considered a useful consultant, even for a government, but today soothsayers are more likely to be scoffed at. Still, there are many soothsayers who have successful businesses telling people’s fortunes and giving advice. Soothsayer comes from the Old English word for “truth,” combined with “say,” together meaning “an act of speaking the truth.”
Bellicose
Bellicose
war-like; aggressive
If you walk into a high school where you know no one, find the toughest looking girl in the halls and tell her she’s ugly, them’s fighting words. Or bellicose ones. Bellicose means eager for war.
Bellicose is from Latin bellum “war.” A near synonym is belligerent, from the same Latin noun. You may wonder if they’re connected to the Latin bellus “pretty, handsome,” which gives us the names Bella or Isabella, as well as belle “a beautiful woman.” They’re not. War and beauty are not related, except in the case of Helen of Troy.
Plausible
Plausible
can be believed; reasonable
If something is plausible, it’s reasonable or believable. Things that are plausible could easily happen. A woman becoming President is very plausible. A giraffe becoming President is not.
Plausible things are not far-fetched at all. Things in fantasy stories — such as wizards, dragons, and unicorns — are not plausible. On the other hand, some things in science fiction stories might be plausible: who knows where spaceships will eventually go? If something really seems like it could happen, then it’s plausible. One of the many tricky parts of life is figuring out what’s plausible and what’s not.
Oust
Oust
push out of a position
A teacher may oust you from class if you are being disruptive, or you might oust your class president from her position if you beat her in the election. To oust is to “expel,” “kick out,” or “remove and replace.”
When you oust someone, you are “giving them the boot.” A sports team is ousted from a tournament if they lose an elimination round. Oust often implies both removal and replacement. The automobile, for instance, ousted the horse as the preferred means of travel. Likewise, when a politician ousts someone from office they are taking that person’s place in office. And if you beat the all-time record in a hot-dog eating tournament, then you oust the previous record holder from their position.
Profundity
Profundity
depth
- Profundity* describes being thoughtful, deep, and wise. Your profundity might inspire friends to come to you for advice.
- Profundity* comes from the word profound and it means a quality of depth or wisdom that is meaningful or even transformational. The profundity of a piece of music might move you to tears, and the profundity of certain philosophies can be deep — and a bit confusing. Profundity can describe something that’s intense, like the profundity of the silence in the room following the announcement of bad news.
Recluse
Recluse
someone who cuts himself off from life
A recluse lives alone, works alone, eats alone, and generally stays away from other people. Anti-social old hermits are recluses, as are a lot of students during exam time.
In the early 13th century, a recluse was a person who shut out the world to go meditate on religious issues. But nowadays recluses can think about whatever they want while they’re sitting in solitude — they’re simply people who shy away from social interaction and live secluded lives. Or think of the Brown Recluse spider, who likes to hide out in dark old boots or undisturbed corners of the basement.
Zenith
Zenith
summit
- Zenith* means the high point––it comes from astronomy, where it describes the highest point in an arc traveled by a star or a planet or another celestial body. The sun reaches its zenith when it is as high in the sky as it is going to go on that day.
- Zenith* — and it’s opposite, “nadir” — have been appropriated by non-astronomers and are used to describe high and low points in non-astronomical contexts. “The party lasted all night, but the zenith was definitely the moment when we climbed up onto the roof deck and watched the fireworks. It was all downhill from there.”
Cower
Cower
recoil in fear or servility; shrink away from
To cower is to shrink in fear. Whether they live in the country or city, any mouse will cower when a huge, hungry cat approaches.
When you cower, you’re not just afraid. You’re so terrified that your whole body cringes, crouches, and shrinks in on itself to hide from the source of your fear. Victims of a school bully cower whenever he comes near. They’re in no rush to have their lunch money stolen again, or to get another wedgie, so they cower to avoid being seen. Although a coward might cower in fear, the two words aren’t related.
Revere
Revere
worship
Tentative
Tentative
not certain
Choose the adjective, tentative to describe something you are unsure or hesitant about. On Monday, you can make tentative plans for the weekend but it’s too early to commit to one party or another.
Tentative, from the Latin tentātīvus “testing, trying,” always describes something that is uncertain. If you make a tentative appointment, write it down in pencil, not pen, because it might have to be changed. Here the opposite of tentative is definite or set. If someone gives you a tentative smile or nod, the person feels hesitant or unsure about something. In this case, its opposite is confident.
Collusion
Collusion
plotting and planning
If you are making secret agreements with someone, then you are in collusion with them. Every time gas prices jump, consumers suspect the gas station owners of collusion and price fixing.
The noun collusion almost always implies that plans are being made because of some nefarious, most likely illegal, purpose. An art thief could be in collusion with a museum director to steal a famous painting from an art museum. Things get sticky when there is collusion between government and business, between union and management, or between your siblings.
Smorgasbord
Smorgasbord
a Swedish buffet of cold dishes
A smorgasbord is an assortment of different things — a magazine might feature a smorgasbord of stories on a wide variety of subjects.
Use the noun smorgasbord when you’re talking about a selection of things, like a fabulous breakfast buffet, a long list of college classes you could take, or a motley group of camping companions. In Swedish, a smörgåsbord is a table full of different sandwich offerings. It literally means “butter goose table,” from smörgås, which alternately means “bread and butter,” and “bread and goose,” plus bord, or “table.”
Gravity
Gravity
seriousness
The noun gravity means being grave or very serious. In physics, gravity is the natural force that causes things to fall toward the earth.
Someone who conducts themselves with an air of gravity is someone who takes what they are doing seriously. You might be amused to see a three year old serving her dolls tea with an air of gravity appropriate to the Queen of England. Gravity was borrowed through French from Latin gravitās, from gravis “heavy.”
Expatriate
Expatriate
refugee; emigrant; someone living away from his own country
An expatriate is someone who lives in another country by choice. If you leave your split-level ranch in Ohio and move to a writers’ commune in Paris for good, you’ve become an expatriate.
Expatriate can also be a verb, so that American in Paris has expatriated. There was a scene of expatriates, or expats, living in Paris in the roaring ’20s that included writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. The word used to mean to get kicked out of your native country — it’s from the French word expatrier which means “banish.” The prefix ex means “out of” and the Latin patria “one’s native country,” but the word took a turn and now refers to people who left without getting shoved out.
Exposition
Exposition
clear explanation
An exposition takes place when you “expose” something — like at a fair or convention for showing off goods, art, or similar wares. An exposition can also be the section of a story that explains the basics of the tale.
In classical music, the first part of a piece is often an exposition, in which the composer lets you hear the tunes and themes that will get worked over during the rest of the piece. Most movies spend a lot of time at the beginning on exposition, as well. The director wants you to know where the story is set, who the characters are, and what it is they want. Exposition is important to set the scene, so the rest of the story makes sense. Exposition can also mean a big fair, often called an “expo.” ComicCon is a famous exposition.
Amiable
Amiable
friendly
A friendly, pleasant person could be described as amiable. Airline flight attendants tend to be amiable. The people monitoring the school’s cafeteria? Maybe not.
An amiable person is good-natured and easy to get along with. Add one letter and you get amicable, a word with a common ancestor (Latin amicabilis) and a similar meaning. But while amiable refers to friendly people, amicable refers to friendly relations between them; two amiable people who no longer want to be married to one another might have an amicable divorce.
Clandestine
Clandestine
secret; covert; stealthy
Pick the adjective, clandestine, to describe something that is done in secret, like your clandestine attempts to steal your brother’s Halloween candy.
Clandestine, an adjective imported from Latin, describes a secret, usually illegal activity. Often these things have to do with political and spy organizations. The CIA might run a clandestine operation to infiltrate terrorist organizations. Words with similar meanings include secret; covert, used especially for military matters; undercover, common in espionage; and surreptitious which emphasizes a person’s efforts to keep something secret.
Parochial
Parochial
narrow-minded; concerned only with local matters
If an issue or a matter is parochial, it is trivial or only concerns a local area. Likewise, a person with a parochial mentality is narrow-minded, or not open to new ideas.
Parochial comes to English from Greek through Latin with the meaning “of a parish.” As a parochial school is a school that is affiliated with a particular church, the connection is easy to see. In general though, parochial refers to a narrow or limited point of view — that is, an outlook that extends no further than the limits of the parish. You may feel that there is no room in your life for the parochial attitudes of the older generation. Let’s hope you remain open-minded as you age!
Discern
Discern
to distinguish one thing from another
If you can make out, pick out, or distinguish something, you can discern it. This is a word for recognizing and perceiving things.
Discerning has to do with being able to see or hear something. In a loud room, it can be hard to discern one person’s voice. If there’s not much light, you’ll have trouble discerning the words on a page well enough to read. If you have sloppy handwriting, then it’s hard to discern what you wrote. When you can discern something, you can tell what it is; you can identify it.
Stagnant
Stagnant
still; not moving
There is a tone to the word stagnant that sounds like what it is: lacking movement, stale, and inactive, especially with exaggerated pronunciation, “staaaagnant.”
Stagnant came into use in the 17th century as a description for water or air that wasn’t moving or circulating, like in a scum-covered pond or a closed-off room. Often things that are stagnant also have a smell from sitting too long in one place. Not that this happens to everyone, but sitting in front of a TV playing video games without moving more than the fingers can make a person stagnant, sometimes with an accompanying odor.
Raucous
Raucous
rough and unpleasant (of sounds)
- Raucous* means unpleasantly loud, or behaving in a noisy and disorderly way. It can be hard to give an oral report in the front of a classroom when the kids in the back are being raucous.
- Raucous* is often used to refer to loud laughter, loud voices, or a loud party, all of which can be harsh or unpleasant. Near synonyms are strident and rowdy. This adjective is from Latin raucus “hoarse.” Think of raucous as people whose hoarseness can’t come on too soon.
Hypochondriac
Hypochondriac
a person obsessed with health; having imaginary illnesses
If you obsess about your health and imagine you have the symptoms of a disease (or diseases), you may well be a hypochondriac and should seek therapy.
The original Greek hypochondriakos referred to the region of the abdomen, an area that ancient doctors believed to be the seat of misery or melancholia. It stands to reason, then, that hypochondriacs are usually unhappy, simply because they always imagine they’re sick.
Labyrinth
Labyrinth
a maze
A labyrinth is a structure with many connected paths or passages in which it is hard to find your way. In figurative use, a labyrinth is a complicated situation: our tax code is a labyrinth of rules and regulations.
In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was the structure built for King Minos of Crete to confine the Minotaur, a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man. The word maze is a near synonym for labyrinth, and is also used figuratively, as in, “After war broke out, trying to figure out how to get a visa to leave the country was like navigating a maze, a veritable labyrinth of wrong turns and false hope.”
Mercenary
Mercenary
concerned only with money
You might not want to call a mercenary a “hireling” to his face, but a mercenary is, after all, a soldier who gets paid to fight where needed, sometimes taking a heroic stand and other times just wanting payment for fighting.
The word mercenary comes from the Latin mercēnārius, “hireling,” which defines someone who will do anything in exchange for money. In history, a mercenary was often a fighter who followed the next paycheck, but in recent decades it’s also been used for fighters who pursue a good cause in areas where soldiers are in short supply. A synonym for mercenary is “soldier of fortune,” and this phrase sometimes glorifies the mercenary, turning the meaning of “fortune” from “cash” to “luck in battle.”
Coalesce
Coalesce
come together; merge
Waiting for a plan to come together? You’re waiting for it to coalesce. Coalesce is when different elements of something join together and become one.
In coalesce, you see co-, which should tell you the word means “together.” The other half of the word, alesce, appears in expressions having to do with growth. So if you are trying to start up a photography club at school, once you have an advisor, some interested students and support from the administration, things will be coalescing or growing together. Another way to remember that? An adolescent is one who is growing. A lot!
Callow
Callow
immature
If you’re a rookie or new to something, you could be described as callow — like callow freshmen in high school or the callow receptionist who can’t figure out how to transfer a call.
The word callow comes from the Old English word calu, which meant “bald or featherless.” It was used to describe young, fledgling birds. Over time, the meaning expanded to include young, inexperienced people. You’ll most often see the adjective paired with the noun youth. Think of the callow youth as people who haven’t tested their wings yet.
Patron
Patron
one who give support (usually financial)
A patron supports someone or something. A patron of a business supports the business by being a loyal customer. A patron of the arts helps support starving artists — financially, not with food rations.
The word patron comes from the Latin pater or patr- meaning “father.” Think of how a father is supposed to financially support his kids. A patron of the arts is someone who shows his appreciation or support for the arts by donating money to arts organizations. And a patron of the Red Lobster is a frequent customer who can be seen in the same corner booth every Sunday night, noshing on cheddar biscuits.
Insurgent
Insurgent
a rebel
An insurgent is a rebel or a revolutionary, someone who takes up arms against the authorities.
Insurgent is from the Latin word “insurgentem,” literally meaning “to rise against,” so think of an insurgent as a fighter who rises against the people in power. Often insurgents are considered terrorists because they use violence to intimidate people.
Larceny
Larceny
theft; robbery; stealing
- Larceny* is the legal term for stealing. Grand larceny is when you take something worth a lot of money, petty larceny when the stolen item is worth relatively little.
- Larceny* is used when talking about stealing someone’s property in regards to the law. If you illegally download music or plagiarize a text, that may be theft, but it is not larceny because there was no physical property involved. If you take a friend’s yoyo and don’t give it back, it’s stealing — unless your friend calls the police and has you arrested on charges of larceny.
Marred
Marred
damaged; spoiled
If something is marred, it’s damaged due to a flaw. If the big football game on Sunday ends with a fight among fans of the opposing teams, commentators will say that the game was marred by violence.
The verb marred can be traced back to the Old English word merran, meaning “to waste or spoil.” Marred often carries with it the sense of spoiling perfection. It can be a flaw that makes something outstanding less than perfect, such as a movie star’s face marred by a scar or a career marred by controversy.
Debility
Debility
weakness; incapacity
Recapitulate
Recapitulate
summarize
To recapitulate means to go back and summarize. At the end of an oral report, you might say, “So, to recapitulate, I’ve made three points,” and then you name them.
Recapitulate is a long, scary-looking word that actually means something simple and easy. It comes from the Latin re- “again” and capitulum “chapter,” which comes from the word caput “head.” Think of recapitulating––or recapping, for short––as putting nice little caps on all the bottles you’ve opened up––tightening everything up.
Impartial
Impartial
unbiased; neutral
If you’re in a contest you’d better hope the judges are impartial, that is, that they aren’t biased toward one competitor over another.
When someone’s partial to something they take its part. Impartial means no part has yet been taken. In most high school elections, teachers strive to create an impartial atmosphere, to keep it from appearing to be a popularity contest.
Undermined
Undermined
damaged; attacked
To undermine literally means to dig a hole underneath something, making it likely to collapse. But we more often use the word to describe sabotage or the act of weakening someone else’s efforts.
Originally spelled with a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i’, undermine has Germanic roots and means to weaken, hinder, or impair. Accidentally undermine the foundation of a house by digging a tunnel to China beneath it and you might be forgiven. Undermine your teacher’s authority by speaking out of turn and throwing spitballs and odds are you’ll get in trouble.
Maladroit
Maladroit
clumsy; unskillful
If you are clumsy, you are maladroit. But the word can mean all kinds of clumsy. Trip over your words? You are verbally maladroit. Stumble in social situations? You’re socially maladroit.
When someone is adroit, they are graceful and nimble; they show a lot of dexterity. Maladroit is the opposite of that. It means clumsy, but with a hint of overall incompetence. If someone calls you maladroit, or says that you are a maladroit, they’re not being the least bit nice. They mean that you’ve bungled something up with your fumbling.
Disinterested
Disinterested
unbiased
If you can’t decide whether to purchase the shirt with orange polka dots or the purple paisley-patterned one, you might seek input from a disinterested, or unbiased, party (who will probably tell you not to buy either one).
Depending on whom you ask, disinterested is either one of the most commonly misused words in the English language, or a perfect example of usage experts and English teachers being way too uptight. While everyone agrees that disinterested can mean “unbiased,” the debate rages on as to whether it can also mean “uninterested” or “indifferent.” Sticklers are vehemently opposed to this secondary meaning. (Of course, you’ll also find the disinterested — or uninterested? — folks who couldn’t care less.)
Contemporary
Contemporary
living or happening at the same time
Things that are contemporary are either happening at the same time or happening now. Contemporary art is recent art.
In history class, if you hear that one famous person was a contemporary of another, that means they lived at the same time. Contemporaries are people and things from the same time period. Contemporary can also describe things happening now or recently. It’s common to speak of contemporary music or contemporary furniture, for example. Those things are new, not old. Anything characteristic of the present day can be called contemporary.
Corrugated
Corrugated
highly folded
Corrugated means molded into tight ridges and valleys. You’ve probably seen corrugated cardboard, or corrugated metal roofs.
Materials are put into a corrugated shape to ensure elasticity and strength––cardboard boxes hold their shape because the cardboard is reinforced with a corrugated layer inside the two flat pieces. To remember corrugated, think about corduroy pants––which also have ridges and valleys. If you’re lucky enough to have had ribbon candy, that’s corrugated as well.
Palliative
Palliative
a remedy that improves but doesn’t cure
That which is palliative relieves and soothes, but isn’t expected to cure. A heating pack is a commonly employed palliative for temporarily reducing the pain of strained muscles.
From the French palliatif, which in turn came from the Middle Latin palliates, palliative was first recorded as an adjective in the 1540’s, and then later as a noun in 1724. To palliate is to alleviate without curing, so it makes sense that a palliative is the agent for this type of relief. “Life as we find it, is too hard for us: it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks,” said the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud. “In order to bear it, we cannot dispense with palliative measures…”
Fortitude
Fortitude
bravery
Fortitude refers to strength in the face of adversity or difficulty. Eating fried worms might require a lot of intestinal fortitude.
When someone has fortitude it means that they have emotional power or reserves and the ability to withstand adversity. People who have fortitude are described in an admiring way for their courage and this word comes from the Latin word fortitudo, meaning “strength.” Jacueline Bisset, someone who knows about beauty, said, “Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful.”
Apathetic
Apathetic
indifferent; uninterested; lethargic
Apathetic is an adjective that describes the feeling of being bored with what’s going on around you. If you don’t care one way or another, you’re apathetic.
The Greek word pathos describes a type of emotional suffering that afflicts people who are super sensitive to their environment. Pathos is a root word of apathetic, but the prefix a- turns it into the opposite: emotional boredom, insensitivity, and a lack of enthusiasm. Maybe you feel apathetic because nothing around you stirs your interest, or maybe it’s because you need some coffee.
Therapeutic
Therapeutic
medicinal; curative
Whether you’re talking about a therapeutic drug or a therapeutic exercise plan, something that is therapeutic helps to heal or to restore health.
The adjective therapeutic can be traced all the way back to the Greek word therapeutikos (from therapeuein, meaning “to attend” or “to treat”). Although the word relates to healing or soothing, therapeutic isn’t reserved only for drugs or medical treatments. You’ve probably heard particular activities referred to as therapeutic, which just means that doing that activity makes you feel rejuvenated. You might consider shopping for shoes, for example, to be a therapeutic activity — at least until the credit card bill arrives.
Aloof
Aloof
distant; detached; cold
That emotionally cold and detached fellow who keeps to himself, smoking clove cigarettes and reading French philosophy, would best be described as aloof.
In Middle English, aloof was originally a nautical term; the loof (now spelled luff) is the windward side of a ship. Smart sailors wanting to avoid a hazard on the leeward side would give the order, “A loof!” From this command we get the idea of steering clear of something (or someone). In modern usage the word has taken on a negative connotation: an aloof person is certainly not one most of us want to associate with.
Abrasive
Abrasive
rough; coarse; harsh
What does an obnoxious person have in common with sandpaper? Both are abrasive. Anything that grates or irritates — physically or metaphorically — can be described using this adjective.
The history of the word abrasive illustrates how a word typically enters the English language and then changes with time. The English verb abrade “to wear down by scraping” entered the language from Latin abradere “to scrape off” in the late 1600s. Some 200 years later, the adjective form of the word — abrasive — came into use to describe a type of grinding tool. By the 1920s, abrasive had acquired the more figurative sense of annoying and infuriating. If you find someone abrasive, he or she grinds away at your nerves.
Paragon
Paragon
a perfect example
Paragon applies to someone who is a model of perfection in some quality or trait. We link paragon with other words that follow it, such as “paragon of virtue” or “paragon of patience.”
A paragon means someone or something that is the very best. The English noun paragon comes from the Italian word paragone, which is a touchstone, a black stone that is used to tell the quality of gold. You rub the gold on the touchstone and you can find out how good the gold is. You are hoping that it is the paragon of “goldness.”
Redundant
Redundant
unnecessary; superfluous
The word redundant applies to things that are unnecessary or could be left out. Calling a blank sheet of paper empty is redundant.
Teachers often tell students to avoid being redundant — meaning avoid saying something twice or more. Have you ever heard someone tell a story and repeat the same thing over and over? The repeated parts are redundant. Sometimes being redundant can make things clear, but it can also be annoying. Redundant can apply to anything that’s overflowing or unnecessary. If a business has two stores on the same street, one is redundant. When you hear redundant, think “Too much!”
Begrudge
Begrudge
resent
To begrudge someone something is to wish them ill for it or to envy them. Try not to begrudge his getting the promotion over you — he’s been at the company longer.
An understudy might begrudge the lead her role and even go so far as to put glass in her shoes so she can’t perform. An easy way to remember the meaning of this verb is to note the noun grudge lurking inside it. A grudge is ill will that you hold toward someone: to begrudge is to hold that grudge. If you begrudge your friend his happiness because he got the nicer car, your friendship will suffer.
Knotty
Knotty
complex; difficult to solve
Whether it’s pine or problems, sometimes the word knotty can apply to both. Knotty can describe something that has a lot of knots, either literally or figuratively.
The adjective knotty is a way to describe something that’s covered in knots. It can be used in a literal sense to refer to wood that is covered in hard, irregular knots — you’ve probably seen these circular, knobby imperfections that sometime appear on wood. The word can also be used figuratively to describe something that is intricate and difficult to solve, such as a knotty political problem involving two warring nations or a knotty legal issue involving complicated constitutional issues.
Lummox
Lummox
clumsy person
Coddle
Coddle
pamper; fuss over; indulge
While it is okay for parents to coddle, spoil, or pamper a young child, it’s a little unnerving when parents coddle, or pamper adult children. And downright weird when adult children wear Pampers.
Coddle is an old word. Originally, it meant to cook gently in water that is near boiling, as in coddling an egg. It most likely gained its association with pampering and taking care of someone via a drink made for invalids that was prepared by coddling. “Mollycoddle,” a synonym for coddle, originally meant a person who coddles himself, or an effeminate man.
Indulgent
Indulgent
pampering; satisfying desires
Someone who is self-indulgent gives themselves a lot of treats. Parents who are indulgent cave to ever desire their child expresses. Indulgent means lenient, or overly generous.
Indulgent is a word that, here in Puritanical North America, is hard to know how to take. Is it okay to “indulge yourself” as so many spa advertisements suggest? Or is indulgent always associated with excess? You can indulge fantasies of figuring out the answer, or you can give in to an indulgent shrug and move on to another word.
Ogle
Ogle
stare at; observe in an obvious manner
When you ogle someone, you look at them with love or desire in mind. And if you’re a cartoon character, you might also be drooling.
Though it’s most often used to refer to the way people gaze at each other, the verb ogle can also be used when talking about any object of desire — like when you ogle those designer jeans or that red Ferrari. The word comes from the 1680s German word oeglen, meaning “look at.” Men are known to ogle women much more frequently than women ogle men. Ever seen a scene in a movie where a pretty lady walks into a bar and all the men turn on their bar stools to watch her pass by? That’s classic ogling.
Certitude
Certitude
certainty
If you’re absolutely convinced your team is going to the Super Bowl, you state it with certitude or confidence.
Your team didn’t make it? Oh dear, you were guilty of certitude — an absolute conviction that the outcome of the game did not support. In other words, you were a tad cocky. Certitude is very similar to certainty, and often used interchangeably, but there’s a hint of danger about certitude; someone who displays it may well be overconfident. Certainty is more certain.
Congenital
Congenital
present from birth
- Congenital* refers to something present at birth but not necessarily inherited from the parents. Babies with heart disorders developed in utero can live long and productive lives, in spite of their congenital birth defect.
- Congenital* derives from the Latin genus, to beget. Something that is present at one’s begetting, during fetal development, or at birth is congenital. Fetal alcohol syndrome, which develops in fetuses if their mothers are drinking heavily while pregnant, is a congenital disorder. You might also use congenital to describe something seemingly inborn “a congenital sense of humor,” or a “congenital faith.”
Solace
Solace
comfort for grief
If something eases your disappointment or grief, consider it a solace. If you’re sad, you might find solace in music or in talking to your friends.
It is no surprise that consolation and solace are similar in meaning as they share a root in the Latin verb sōlārī “to comfort.” In fact, solace, consolation and comfort are synonyms meaning relief from grief or disappointment. When you go to sleepover camp, your parents will miss you, but they’ll find solace in knowing that you are having fun.
Collage
Collage
picture made from fragments of other pictures
Have you ever cut out a bunch of pictures from magazines and pasted them together to make a big picture? If you have, you have made a collage.
Collage came to English through French from the Greek word for glue, kolla, about 100 years ago. A collage is not only made from magazine pictures. In the world of fine art, it refers to a work made with various small objects sometimes with paint sometimes without. The word can also be used to mean a collection of different things. If it’s very loud in your house, you might come home to a collage of sounds from the dog, the TV, your mom on the phone and your brother on the guitar. Years after you graduate, high school might just seem like a collage of memories.
Adulation
Adulation
strong admiration; worship
If you’ve ever been to a pop concert filled with screaming fans you’ve probably been exposed to adulation — praise so over-the-top it’s almost embarrassing.
The Latin word adulatio means “flattery.” It’s made up of the roots ad (“to”) and ulos (“tail”), and if you’re thinking of a dog wagging its tail to and fro to get a treat from its owner, you’re on the right track. As anyone who’s seen a crazed fan drooling over a celebrity knows, adulation is one of the more doglike of human behaviors.
Bulwark
Bulwark
fortification; barricade; wall
A bulwark is a wall built for protection or defense. If you and your pals build a secret fort for girls only, you might want to build a bulwark to surround it — with a “No Boys Allowed” sign posted prominently.
A seawall that runs perpendicular to the shore is sometimes called a bulwark, because it defends the beach, not against invaders, but against beach erosion. Although the noun bulwark can refer to any fortified wall, it often specifically refers to an earthen wall, like a rampart. As a verb, bulwark means to fortify with a wall or to provide protection: “The volunteers used sandbags to bulwark the levee in an attempt to prevent the flooded river from overflowing its banks.”
Puerile
Puerile
childish
Some people like their movies to have sophisticated humor and others prefer the more puerile humor of pratfalls or jokes about smelly underwear, inappropriate belching, and passing gas.
Although the adjective, puerile can be used to describe anything related to childhood, more often than not, it is used in a derisive manner to comment on the immaturity, silliness, or juvenile nature of something or someone. So if you hear someone talk about puerile toys, they may merely be remarking on the toys of childhood, but it is more likely they are discussing whoopee cushions, fake dog poo, and the like.
Kindle
Kindle
to start a fire
When you start a fire burning, you can say you kindle the fire. Knowing how to kindle a campfire is an important survival skill. It can help keep you warm at night, and keep you from eating cold beans for dinner.
The verb kindle not only means to start a fire, but also to catch fire. Another meaning for kindle is to arouse interest or passion. A dynamic music teacher could kindle the students’ interest in learning an instrument. Or, romance can also be kindled: “As they danced together, a spark of romance kindled between them.”
Lithe
Lithe
flexible; supple
Have you ever seen people who can bend so easily, they can touch their heels to the back of their heads? That person is, in a word, lithe.
Lithe comes to us from Old English and originally meant “mild, meek.” As a meek person bends to the will of others, the meaning of lithe has broadened to flexible and even graceful. Think of a dancer or the ease of a sleek cat when you think of lithe. You can use it to describe a person or the way someone moves.
Hasten
Hasten
hurry; accelerate; rush
The verb hasten means to move at a high speed. If you hasten to your room, no one will know that you came in late.
Hasten comes from the word haste, which means “excessive speed or urgency.” The words hurry and hasten are synonyms. Hasten can also mean “to make happen quickly,” like when you open a window in the kitchen when you are cooking to hasten the room’s cooling down. Hasten also means “to be quick,” like when you hasten to tell everyone that the rumor going around about you isn’t true.
Deprecate
Deprecate
criticize; denounce; opposite of appreciate
To deprecate is to show disapproval or to make someone feel unimportant by speaking to them disrespectfully, like seniors who deprecate younger students just for fun.
To deprecate is to diminish, or to oppose, like when someone deprecates your dream of climbing Mt. Everest by calling it “a little walk up a hill.” Some people deprecate themselves, which is called being self-deprecating. People who do are self-deprecating play down their abilities because they are humble — or want to appear that way. So if you do climb Everest and you are self-deprecating, you’ll say it wasn’t such a big deal, even if it was the proudest moment of your life.
Fatuous
Fatuous
silly; foolish
- Fatuous* means lacking intelligence. When your mother outlaws calling your brother stupid, use fatuous instead.
- Fatuous* derives from the Latin fatuus meaning “foolish.” It sounds like it should have something to do with being fat, but it actually has no relation to size. Back in Old English times, when the word fat was emerging, food was a lot more scarce than it is today, and the word fat meant simply plump or well-fed. Times have changed, and now that we have more food than we know what to do with, fat people are thought to lack self control, which makes them seem foolish, or even fatuous, which is hardly the case.
Galleon
Galleon
ancient type of sailing ship
Though a galleon was a large ship with multiple decks, it was no cruise liner and probably didn’t offer round-the-clock buffets.
A galleon refers to a type of sailboat used in the 15th to 18th centuries mostly for battles and carrying consumer goods. Galleons had big square sails rigged onto several masts. They were built and sailed by many Europeans, but they are most commonly associated with the Spanish. In fact, this word is derived from the Spanish word galeón, which means “armed merchant ship.”
Indelible
Indelible
cannot be wiped out
If something is indelible, you better hope you never regret it, like the indelible tattoo of the name of your favorite band or the indelible first impression it might give people you meet years from now, especially if your taste in music changes.
The adjective indelible describes something that can’t be erased or removed, like marks made by an indelible marker, or an indelible moment you will never forget, like your first day of kindergarten or the first time you visit a new, exotic place. It comes from the Latin word indelebilis, meaning “not able to be destroyed.”
Quarantine
Quarantine
isolation to prevent the spread of disease
If you contract something highly infectious, such as pinkeye, please quarantine yourself so that you don’t infect others with it. This means you’ll have to stay in isolation and avoid contact with other people.
Starting in the 16th century, a quarantine lasted specifically 40 days. The word is in fact derived from the Latin quadraginta, which means “forty.” Originally, this referred to the amount of time a widow could remain in her deceased husband’s house, then referred to the period of time a ship had to wait off a country’s port if its passengers were disease-stricken. Now, it can mean a period of isolation of any length, and can be used as both a verb and a noun.
Incessant
Incessant
without stopping
Something incessant continues without interruption. When you’re on a cross country flight, it’s tough to tolerate the incessant crying of a baby.
In Latin, cessare means ‘to stop,’ so when you add the negative prefix in- you get a word meaning never stopping. A near synonym is continual, but something incessant is more relentless; ceaseless is a closer synonym. It’s rare to find incessant used in a positive way. Even incessant sunshine would grow boring.
Peripheral
Peripheral
on the edge; not important
Scanners, printers, and speakers are peripheral devices for a computer because they aren’t central to the working of the computer itself. Anything peripheral is on the margin, or outside, while main things, like a computer’s processor, are not peripheral.
Outside of computer jargon, peripheral is a common term in eye exams, which measure peripheral vision to see how far toward the outer right and left edges you can see. Peripheral also describes nerves from the body’s peripheral system, which are secondary to the main system but branch off of it — like the wires between peripheral devices and a computer.
Overt
Overt
obvious; not hidden
Overt means open and done in plain sight. An overt attempt to get your teacher off-track might fail. Instead, try asking subtle questions about her kids, and she’ll stay off topic all class.
If you speak French, remember that overt is the same as the French ouvert “open.” If you don’t speak French, give up all hope of ever learning this word. Just kidding –– forgive the overt attempt at humor. English speakers, here’s your trick for remembering the difference between overt and covert: overt = “open,” covert = “covered.”
Clientele
Clientele
customers
Your customers are your clientele. If you own a pet food store, your clientele might be two-footed and four-pawed.
The noun clientele is often preceded by an adjective to describe the exact type of customer. Little boutiques in upscale neighborhoods probably cater to an exclusive clientele, while the kids’ hair salon might have Barney on video to keep the young clientele motionless in their chairs. Regardless of business type, you are always trying to please the clientele.
Discordancy
Discordancy
cacophony; harshness; jarring
Pyromania
Pyromania
compulsion to start fires
It is never a good idea to leave a person who suffers from pyromania alone with a box of matches, since pyromania is a strong urge to start fires.
Manias, compulsions or obsessions, are rarely good things, and this one is especially undesirable: an uncontrollable impulse to set fires. The pyr- part, from Greek for “fire,” appears in pyramid, pyrotechnic, and empyreal; the English word fire is also distantly related. The mania part means “madness” in Greek, and “fire madness” is a good way to think of pyromania.
Drone
Drone
- monotonous noise?(n); 2. to speak with no emotion?(v); 3.male bee
A drone is a male bee whose only job — and only purpose in life — is to fertilize the queen bee’s eggs. That’s why some workers who do their jobs robotically, not trying to innovate but just get through each day, are sometimes, and negatively, called drones.
Drone can be a noun and a verb: it is both a low, monotonous sound, like the drone of a boring teacher that makes students struggle to stay awake, and the act of making that sound — that teacher drones on and on, never noticing that everyone is staring out the window. Drone can also refer to a worker whose low level of ambition suggests he or she will never rise through the ranks to become a top decision-maker at the company.
Malediction
Malediction
a curse
“Darn you!” “Go bury your head in the sand.” “You ugly nincompoop!” Each of those nasty curses is a malediction (and, I’m sure, nothing you would ever say to another human being).
A malediction is a curse. Not like the kind a witch puts on someone, but close. More like what the schoolyard bully says to hurt someone’s feelings. On purpose. Malediction has male in it, but it’s not a slur against men or boys. Mal comes from the Latin for “evil” and “diction,” and as you may remember, has to do with what we say. So a malediction is an evil statement directed at someone else. Pretty nasty, if you ask me.
Drivel
Drivel
nonsense
Drivel is useless, boring information. If you drivel, you talk stupidly or actually drool. Your parent might think the articles in your favorite fashion magazine are drivel.
Etymologists suspect drivel comes to us from the Old Norse word draf, meaning “malt dregs.” This would make sense, given that drivel is usually talk or writing about as useless as dregs. If you don’t prepare for an oral report, the unfortunate result may be that your teacher finds your disorganized ramblings to be pure drivel. Drivel also means to dribble saliva. If a friendly dog licks your hand, leaving it wet and gooey, you can assume he driveled on it.
Gibbering
Gibbering
making meaningless noises
Diffident
Diffident
lacking confidence
The adjective diffident describes someone who is shy and lacking in self-confidence. If you are shy and have a diffident manner, you should probably not choose one of these professions: substitute teacher, stand-up comic, or lion-tamer.
Diffident can describe someone who is reserved and restrained. Some may mistake your diffident manner for coolness or aloofness. Although it may be in your nature to be diffident, you will find it impossible to remain so when you visit my family. They are a big, noisy, outgoing bunch and they will make you join in the fun until you let loose and open up. Don’t say you weren’t warned!
Infallible
Infallible
perfect; flawless; cannot make mistakes
“Fallible” means capable of making mistakes — or, easier to remember — capable of failing. Infallible means exactly the opposite — incapable of failing.
This word is often used to describe human capacity for error — no one is infallible. And yet, we are able to be infallible in certain ways: children are infallibly curious, teenagers infallibly hungry. Interestingly, infallible derives from the Latin in- “not” + fallere “deceive.” When did making a mistake and deception become the same thing?
Hidebound
Hidebound
rigid in opinions
Pernicious
Pernicious
destructive; harmful
- Pernicious* means harmful and subtle, such as a poison gas that causes cancer in those exposed to it over the course of years.
- Pernicious* comes from the Latin perniciosus, for destructive, which in turn comes from pernicies, for death or ruin. You might have heard your parents and teachers talk about the pernicious effects of watching too much TV and playing video games all day––they’ll turn your brain to mush.
Paradox
Paradox
apparently contradictory statement
Here’s a mind-bender: “This statement is false.” If you think it’s true, then it must be false, but if you think it’s false, it must be true. Now, that’s a paradox!
A paradox is a logical puzzler that contradicts itself in a baffling way. “This statement is false” is a classic example, known to logicians as “the liar’s paradox.” Paradoxical statements may seem completely self-contradictory, but they can be used to reveal deeper truths. When Oscar Wilde said, “I can resist anything except temptation,” he used a paradox to point to our fundamental weakness to give in to tempting things (like chocolate or a pretty smile), all the while imagining that we can hold firm and resist them.
Mallet
Mallet
- wooden hammer; 2. stick used for polo
A mallet is a tool with a large, barrel-shaped, head — used to pound on something. You might use a mallet to strike an instrument or in playing croquet. Yeah, right.
A mallet is a long-handled implement with a barrel-shaped head used in games like croquet or polo. In music, a mallet is a stick with a rounded end that is sometimes padded, used to strike percussion instruments like timpani, bells, or a marimba. Use your yarn or rubber mallets to play the marimba, and use your wooden mallets to play the xylophone.
Austere
Austere
severely plain
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 “o-stir,” with an emphasis on the second syllable.
Vapid
Vapid
dull; uninspiring
Reserve the adjective vapid for the airhead in your office that brings nothing to the table, except maybe the doughnuts. Vapid is an adjective to describe someone or something that is dull or uninspiring.
“We prefer not to consider the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews,” David Foster Wallace wrote. The word was originally used in English in a much more literal sense, describing beverages that lacked flavor. It comes from the Latin word vapidus, literally “having exhaled its vapor.”
Usurp
Usurp
take someone’s position (usually by force)
If you take over your neighbor’s backyard and claim his in-ground swimming pool as your own, you might seize control of, or usurp his yard, but he’ll probably call the cops on you.
Leaders who usurp power don’t ask for permission to take control of their country. They seize power, often with the help of a large army of followers. A usurper doesn’t have to be human. A brand-new radio station can usurp the most popular station in town by playing a better mix of music.
Fitful
Fitful
not continuous; stopping and starting
An adjective that sounds a little like what it means, fitful means stopping and starting, on-again off-again, switching suddenly. I had a fitful night’s sleep: I woke up several times throughout the night.
A fit is a disturbance that happens without warning, like a tantrum, tremor, or spasm. If something is fitful, it’s “full of fits.” A night at the opera is a night of fitful pleasures: the arias are cool, but the rest of the show is boring. I’ve made only fitful progress trying to lose weight, because I lose only a few pounds at a time, and they almost always come right back: my progress is fitful because it comes in “fits and starts.”
Parsimony
Parsimony
stinginess; frugality; cost-cutting
Parsimony is a noun to use when you are watching your money very carefully. So you’re not just saving your pennies for a rainy day — you’re clipping coupons, re-using dryer sheets, and refusing to pay full price for anything.
It’s not a bad thing to engage in a little parsimony. Related to an ancient Latin word meaning “to spare,” parsimony keeps your checking account in the black and your retirement plan well funded. But get a little too parsimonious and you might start to look like Uncle Scrooge — an old miser who learned the hard way that practicing extreme parsimony doesn’t win you love and admiration.
Contrite
Contrite
sorry
We are sorry to inform you that the adjective contrite means to feel regret, remorse, or even guilt.
Someone who feels remorse or guilt is contrite and in addition to feeling sorry, part of the definition includes wanting to atone for a having done something wrong. The word comes from the Latin roots com- meaning “together” and terere which means “to rub.” It’s also related to the Latin word conterere and is defined as “to bruise.” In the field of theology being contrite is “being remorseful for past sin and resolved to avoid future sin.”
Timorous
Timorous
cowardly; fearful
A timorous person is timid or shy, like your timorous friend who likes to hang out with close pals but gets nervous around big groups of new people.
The adjective timorous is actually the Latin word for “fearful.” But timorous is a specific kind of fearfulness — the kind that strikes people before giving a speech, or walking into a crowded place where people are socializing. Also called “shy” or “timid,” timorous people often become more comfortable when they see a familiar face in the crowd.
Eccentric
Eccentric
unusual; quirky; odd
You’re most likely to encounter the adjective eccentric in a description of an unusual or quirky person — like a scatter-brained aunt who leaves her life savings to her cat.
From the Greek ekkentros, “out of the center,” this word originally had to do with the orbits of planets that were observed to be slightly out of whack. Eventually it came to describe people who were a little kooky, both as an adjective and as a noun, too: an eccentric is an unconventional, odd person. Think of them as following a slightly different orbit from the rest of society.
Acuity
Acuity
sharpness (mental or visual)
Acuity has to do with sharpness and smartness. Do you always get A’s in math? Then you have an acuity for numbers.
People often talk about “mental acuity,” which is a fancy way of saying intelligence, brains, or smartness. There are specific kinds of acuity, too. As people become very old, they tend to lose their acuity in many areas, including their vision, which is one reason very old people don’t drive as well. A 40-year-old quarterback isn’t going to have the same acuity for seeing receivers and throwing the ball as a 25-year-old quarterback.
Ominous
Ominous
threatening
If something looks or sounds ominous, be careful, a threat or an unpleasant event is at hand. If you see an ominous frown on your boss’s face, you’re in trouble!
Ominous, and the related word omen both come from the 16th century Latin word ōmen “foreboding.” However, unlike omen, which is a sign of something good or bad to come, ominous always describes something unpleasant or threatening. If the future looks ominous, you’ve got nothing to look forward to. Figuratively, an ominous sky or ominous clouds promise rain or a storm.
Anarchy
Anarchy
chaos; lack of government
Use the noun anarchy to describe a complete lack of government — or the chaotic state of affairs created by such an absence. A substitute teacher might worry that an unruly classroom will descend into anarchy.
From the Greek for “without a ruler” we get this word for the political philosophy that the best government is no government at all — a movement that enjoyed surprising success worldwide in the early and middle parts of the twentieth century. Today, the word is more commonly used to describe not a political ideal but a state of total disorder, chaos and even violence: “A type of bloody anarchy is beginning to reign.” A good synonym would be “lawlessness.”
Perpetuity
Perpetuity
eternity
The word perpetuity means the property of being perpetual, or lasting forever. The perpetuity of an eternal flame means that it will burn forever, while an ordinary candle flame will eventually extinguish.
First appearing in the 15th century, the noun perpetuity derives from the Latin word perpetuus meaning “continuing throughout.” It can mean the quality of being perpetual, continuing forever, or everlasting. If a person sent into exile from their native country is never allowed to return, they have been banished “in perpetuity.”
Lynch
Lynch
assassinate; kill; illegal hanging
Nondescript
Nondescript
having no special features; dull and ordinary
Nondescript is a word used to describe something that isn’t special or unusual in any way. You might have trouble finding a nondescript apartment building because it looks exactly like every other apartment building around it.
You could use the word nondescript to describe your blind date if she was completely uninteresting and dull, both in looks and personality. Some houses are so nondescript that you have to drive by several times just to make sure it’s the right one.
Byline
Byline
the line that tells you who wrote an article
Eclectic
Eclectic
taking things from different sources
She listens to hip-hop, Gregorian chant, and folk music from the ’60s. He’s been seen wearing a handmade tuxedo jacket over a thrift-store flannel shirt. They both have eclectic tastes.
The English word eclectic first appeared in the seventeenth century to describe philosophers who did not belong to a particular school of thought, but instead assembled their doctrines by picking and choosing from a variety of philosophical systems. Today, the word can refer to any assemblage of varied parts. You can have an eclectic group of friends (friends from diverse groups), eclectic taste in furniture (a mixture of 18th-century French chairs, Andy Warhol paintings, and Persian rugs), or enjoy eclectic cuisine (fusion cooking that uses ingredients from different national cuisines).
Discord
Discord
disagreement
- Discord* is the strife and tension that arises when two sides disagree on something, like the high pitched screaming of two kids fighting over the front seat of the car.
- Discord* can be broken down into the prefix dis, meaning “different,” and cord, which stems from an old word for “heart.” So that leaves us with “different hearts.” So if we’re talking about music, discord means a lack of harmony — tones that clash so badly your ears bleed. But when there’s discord between people, their hearts are in different places — which usually results in more than a few raised voices clashing disharmoniously.
Quirk
Quirk
oddity
A quirk is a unique, odd, and sometimes charming trait that makes a person stand out from the crowd. Country comedian Minnie Pearl was known for her quirk of wearing a $1.98 price tag dangling from her hat.
A quirk can be an adorable little habit, like wearing flowery dresses and big sun bonnets or bow ties every day. Someone who has one or many quirks is said to be quirky — a little odd, but usually in a fun way. When it’s not being used to describe people’s unusual traits, quirk can mean a quick curve, or a groove, that runs along or separates the molding in a building.
Gullibility
Gullibility
unwariness; trustfulness; being easily fooled
Gullibility is the quality of believing in things too quickly. Someone with a lot of gullibility can be easily tricked.
There’s an old joke: “Did you know gullible isn’t in the dictionary?” If you say “Really?” in response, then you are proving to be gullible: a little too ready to believe what you hear. The word for this quality or tendency is gullibility. Being superstitious shows gullibility. Believing tabloid newspapers shows gullibility. Falling easily for jokes and pranks shows gullibility. People with high gullibility are a little too trusting: they’re not suspicious of anyone.
Pristine
Pristine
unspoiled
If something is pristine it’s immaculately clean or has never been used. So please check your shoes before walking on a pristine white carpet.
A long, long time ago pristine was used to describe primitive or ancient things. It wasn’t until 1899 that the word grew to mean “unspoiled” or “pure.” Ecologists strive to preserve pristine rain forests, just as vacationers are always looking for a pristine strip of beach to lounge on. A new car should arrive to you in pristine condition, and hopefully you’ll do your best to keep it that way.
Objective
Objective
unbiased; not subjective
If a police officer falls in love with a witness in a case, it might be hard for him to stay objective — that is, looking at things in a detached, impartial, fact-based way.
The opposite of objective is subjective, “influenced by personal feelings or opinions.” Of course, an objective view isn’t always preferable to a subjective one; it would be hard to imagine an art critic who stayed objective. The word comes from the Latin ob “against” + jacere “to throw”; an objective view is one that considers only things that have been “thrown against” your eyes, so to speak. Objective has also been used as a noun meaning “a goal,” as in “military objectives.”
Trinket
Trinket
something of little value; knick-knack
The word trinket refers to an inexpensive, flashy ornament or piece of jewelry. A rhinestone brooch to pin to your jacket is a showy trinket that won’t break the bank.
Trinkets aren’t always made to be worn like jewelry. The word trinket can also refer to novelty items such as silly magnets with sayings on them or keepsake spoons. If you’ve ever stopped into a store at the airport that sells goods like keychains, mugs, and buttons, then you’ve seen trinkets. Trinkets are often purchased on a vacation — they’re small enough to stick into your pockets before you board the plane home.
Tyro
Tyro
novice; beginner
A tyro is a beginner, a new recruit, or someone who is just learning something. If you are the new guy at the job and you’re wearing a big dorky badge that says “Trainee” on it, you are a tyro.
Tyro isn’t used much these days but it’s similar to newbie, novice, or recruit. We have all been tyros at some point, but it doesn’t necessarily prevent us from hazing the new kid, the next-generation tyro. Tyro can also be used as an adjective to describe someone new to a particular scene — such as “the tyro congressman” or “the tyro quarterback.”
Profound
Profound
having deep meaning
When you need a word that’s deeper than “deep,” consider profound.
Profundus meant literally “deep” in Latin, and profound had the same meaning when it entered English in the 14th century. But even then, it also meant “figuratively deep” — that is, very great or intense: “The new laws have had a profound impact.” Of people, it means “very knowledgeable or insightful,” but sometimes if a person tries to sound profound they’re really just giving you superficial knowledge dressed up with big words.
Vehement
Vehement
forceful
You can use the adjective vehement to describe an extremely strong, powerful, or intense emotion or force. The teenager argued for a much later curfew in a vehement speech to her parents; her parents responded with an equally vehement “No way!”
Vehement is from Latin and was originally applied to intense natural phenomena: pain, heat, wind, etc. It is now more commonly used for intense emotions or beliefs. With the adverb form, people can be vehemently in favor of something, but the more common usage is for people to be vehemently opposed to something. Many people, for example, are vehemently opposed to politicians they didn’t vote for, other people spoiling the endings of movies or books, or someone else taking the last piece of chocolate. The stress is on the first syllable (VEE-uh-ment).
Garrulous
Garrulous
talkative
A garrulous person just won’t stop talking (and talking, and talking, and talking…).
Garrulous comes from the Latin word garrire for “chattering or prattling.” If someone is garrulous, he doesn’t just like to talk; he indulges in talking for talking’s sake — whether or not there’s a real conversation going on. If you discover that you have a garrulous neighbor sitting next to you on the plane, you might just want to feign sleep, unless you really want to hear everything going through his mind for the entire trip.
Underscore
Underscore
emphasize
To underscore is to draw special attention to a fact, idea, or situation. When you’re involved in a debate, it’s wise to underscore the points that best support your argument.
Literally, underscore means “to underline,” or draw a line beneath a word to emphasize it. In common speech, to underscore something is to call attention to it. If a worker sustained an injury on the job, for instance, the event would underscore the need for workplace safety. Underscore is also used to mean “emphasize.” During a job interview, you want to underscore any experience that relates to the job you are applying for.
Annex
Annex
take possession of; seize; capture
An annex is an extension of, or an addition to a building. A small room off of a main room is an annex, and attics are another type of annex.
As a noun, an annex is part of a building or an addition to a main structure, or it can be an attachment, as in “an annex to the current plans.” When used as a verb, the word means something a little different. Sometimes annex is used as a nice word for “take” or “grab,” as when Nazi Germany took the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia in 1938 and added it to their own territory. In order to annex something to what is yours, you have to take it away from someone else.
Counterfeit
Counterfeit
fake; false
A counterfeit is a fake or a forgery. If you painted an uncanny copy of the “Mona Lisa” and tried to pass it off as the original, you’d have a counterfeit on your hands.
An exact imitation of anything — a work of art, a ten dollar bill — is a counterfeit, and the act of creating the fake copy is the verb to counterfeit. You can also describe the forgery using the adjective form of counterfeit: a counterfeit Rolex watch. In Old French, the word contre, “counter or against”, together with the word faire, “to make,” joined together to mean “to make in imitation,” which led to our counterfeit.
Exemplify
Exemplify
to serve as a good example
If you exemplify something, you’re the perfect example of it. Say you wear frilly shirts, knee-high boots, and black eye-make-up — you exemplify the fashion world’s obsession with pirates.
Exemplifying something can also mean make it clearer by offering an illustration or an example. If you want to exemplify your argument that, say, pirate gear is fashionable, you might want to show your friends some pictures of celebrities wearing eye patches.
Largess
Largess
generosity
Effigy
Effigy
a model of a person
In modern usage, effigy most often refers to a likeness, such as a dummy, that is hanged, burned, or otherwise abused when protesting the despised person’s actions.
If you’ve encountered the phrase “in effigy,” it’s probably been in a news report about protesters burning a stuffed figure made to look like a loathed corporate leader or head of state. Since the 18th century or longer, effigies have been destroyed in place of individuals who, as far as the angry crowd is concerned, have escaped justice. Effigy can also refer to a sculptural portrait of the deceased reclining upon a burial monument.
Wily
Wily
cunning
Did you fall for that wily door to door salesman’s pitch? He must be very slick and tricky to have convinced you to buy a set of new tires, considering you don’t have a car.
How can you remember the meaning of the adjective wily? Just think about the old Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoons. Their aptly named cartoon character, Wile E. Coyote, got his name from a clever play on words. Wile E. is supposed to be cunning, crafty, and clever — in other words, wily. Wile E. is all those things, but unfortunately he was usually bested by that pesky roadrunner anyway. Meep. Meep.
Saccharin
Saccharin
falsely sweet
Scrupulous
Scrupulous
careful; diligent; painstaking
Scrupulous means very careful to do things properly and correctly, such as paying friends back for money borrowed right away, or not returning a pair of shoes after they’ve been worn outdoors.
A scrupulous person is full of scruples, which are concerns about doing things that are morally right. Such a person is hesitant or doubtful, and might have trouble deciding what is morally right or wrong. The adjective scrupulous is from Latin scrūpulōsus, from scrūpulus “scruple.” A near synonym is punctilious.
Itinerant
Itinerant
nomadic; wandering from place to place
An itinerant is a person who moves from place to place, typically for work, like the itinerant preacher who moves to a new community every few years.
Itinerant is pronounced “eye-TIN-er-ant.” It might remind you of itinerary, the traveler’s schedule that lists flights, hotel check-in times, and other plans. It’s no surprise that both words come from the Latin word itinerare, meaning “to travel.” Itinerant was first used in the 16th century to describe circuit judges who traveled to faraway courtrooms. Today, almost anyone can be an itinerant.
Repudiate
Repudiate
shun; eschew
To repudiate something is to reject it, or to refuse to accept or support it. If you grow up religious, but repudiate all organized religion as an adult, you might start spending holidays at the movies, or just going to work.
This verb usually refers to rejecting something that has authority, such as a legal contract, doctrine, or claim. In connection with debts or other obligations, repudiate is used in the specialized sense “to refuse to recognize or pay.” If referring to a child or a lover, repudiate is used in the sense “to disown, cast off.” This verb is derived from Latin repudiare “to put away, divorce.”
Ephemeral
Ephemeral
short-lived
Something that is fleeting or short-lived is ephemeral, like a fly that lives for one day or text messages flitting from cellphone to cellphone.
Ephemeral (ə-FEM-ər-əl) was originally a medical term with the specific meaning “lasting only one day,” as a fever or sickness (Hemera means “day” in Greek.) The word became more general, coming to mean “lasting a short time,” covering the life spans of plants or insects and then eventually anything that is fleeting or transitory. A related word is the plural noun ephemera, meaning “things that are meant to last for only a short time.” Posters for a rock concert are often ephemera, unless the band is so famous that they get saved and sold on eBay.
Quaint
Quaint
picturesque
Quaint means strange and unusual in an old-fashioned and charming way. It’s a word you’d use to describe a little store that sells tea cozies and antique tea services, or your grandmother’s habit of calling the radio the “wireless.”
There is a commonly used sarcastic sense of quaint––when something is run down or shabby and you’re trying to say something positive, you might substitute “How…quaint” for “How…interesting.” In Middle English, this adjective meant clever or cunning. Its origin is Old French queinte, cointe, from Latin cognitus “known,” from cognōscere “to learn.”
Vehemence
Vehemence
violence; fervor; forcefulness
Something with vehemence is forceful and energetic. If you passionately believe that your neighbor is mistreating his dog, speak to him with vehemence.
Vehemence is the quality of being vehement, or powerful. We often describe passionate speeches as having vehemence. You could also describe a violent natural event as vehement. A hurricane sweeps onto coastal land with destructive vehemence. If your dancing style is wild and involves throwing your limbs every which way as fast as possible, then you dance with vehemence.
Extrapolate
Extrapolate
extend; predict on the basis of known data
When you extrapolate, you use specific details to make a general comment. For example, if you travel to Canada and encounter only friendly, kind natives, you might extrapolate that all Canadians are friendly.
The verb extrapolate can mean “to predict future outcomes based on known facts.” For example, looking at your current grade report for math and how you are doing in class now, you could extrapolate that you’ll likely earn a solid B for the year. Another meaning of extrapolate is “estimate the value of.” You could extrapolate how much your antique watch is worth by finding how much similar watches sold for at recent auctions.
Preclude
Preclude
prevent or make impossible
To preclude something is to prevent it from happening. A muzzle precludes a dog from biting.
This is a very formal word, but it has a simple meaning: when something is precluded, it can’t happen. See the prefix pre in preclude and in prevent? It is signaling that these words are all about things done before another action would happen — to make it impossible. Staying away from water precludes the possibility of drowning, though it also precludes any chance of having fun swimming.
Epistolary
Epistolary
concerned with letters; through correspondence
Any correspondence or communication written in the form of a letter or series of letters is said to be epistolary.
They’ve gone out of fashion now, but in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the “epistolary novel,” written in the form of fictional letters to and from various corespondents, was all the rage. One of the most famous such novels (or at least part epistolary) is Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” Epistolary is related to the word epistle, a fancy term for “letter.”
Cacophony
Cacophony
discordant loud noises
A cacophony is a mishmash of unpleasant sounds, often at loud volume. It’s what you’d hear if you gave instruments to a group of four-year olds and asked them to play one of Beethoven’s symphonies.
A cacophony is a jarring, discordant mix of sounds that have no business being played together. When the orchestra tunes up before a show, it sounds like a cacophony because each musician is playing a completely different tune, at different times, and at different volumes. Once the show begins, that cacophony had better turn into a melody, or audiences will demand a refund. This allegedly occurred during the first time Igor Stravinsky’s score for the ballet “The Rite of Spring” was performed because its difficult composition and discordant tone was shocking.
Prot�g�
Prot�g�
“person under protection of, or guided by another”
Tactile
Tactile
concerned with the sense of touch
Tactile has to do with the sense of touch. There’s a huge tactile difference between smooth glass and rough sandpaper.
Anything to do with touch can be described as tactile. Even notice how a dog would rather sleep on a soft blanket than a rubbery leather couch? That’s because dogs have tactile preferences: the softer the better. Different textures of food are tactile — they feel different in your mouth, aside from how they taste. You deal with the world of tactile things every day — you use your tactile sense whenever you touch anything.
Digress
Digress
wander off the subject
If we’re talking about science fiction, and you suddenly go off on a long tangent about the cost of grape soda, you digress. When a person digresses, they stray from the topic.
It’s easy to understand why you digressed from the main topic. You were incredibly excited, speeding on caffeine, and, let’s face it, you’ve never been at a loss for words. Don’t get me wrong: I love your wanderings — how you drift from one topic to the next, letting your mind explore. The problem was that the meeting was running late and there was no time to let you digress. I had to pull you back to the main topic. I didn’t want our potential new partners to get the idea that these digressions were typical.
Benignity
Benignity
compassion; gentleness; fondness
Castigate
Castigate
scold strongly
Use castigate when you mean reprimand but in an especially harsh way. If you take a mean teacher’s books, even accidently, you might worry that she’s going to castigate you as soon as she finds out.
Castigate means punish, and punish harshly, but the punishment is always a severe scolding. Sometimes it means criticize severely. Politicians in the Senate are always castigating each other for their alliances and opinions. Castigate and chasten, which also means “to reprimand” but is less severe, share the Latin root castus which means “pure.” Ideally, if you castigate someone, you mean to guide someone away from the wrong path and toward a more pure one. But it sure doesn’t feel like that when you’re being castigated!
Redress
Redress
put right something that was wrong
The verb redress is used when you are supposed to fix a problem and make amends. You want your parents to redress the fact that you don’t have a pet. Your parents offer to get a hamster, but instead, you say you want a monkey.
Redress can be used as both a noun and a verb. In the noun form, it is the compensation for setting something right. As a verb it means to correct, right a wrong, or make restitution for something. The union organizers wanted the company to redress the fact that workers weren’t getting lunch breaks.
Quaff
Quaff
drink down quickly
To quaff is to gulp. You’re in a desert; you haven’t had water in days; you’re wicked thirsty. Then you find an oasis! You lean over and quaff the water.
If you’re in a room with your favorite foods, you might stuff the food into your mouth. Quaffing is the same fun, but with beverages instead of foods. But just like with stuffing food, quaffing means you drink a little too much. Often, quaffing refers to alcoholic drinks, but it can mean any beverage in general, like milkshakes. Quaff a milkshake and you’ll get a headache, but you’ll have fun doing it.
Enshroud
Enshroud
cover
Protagonist
Protagonist
“main character in film, book, play etc.”
A protagonist is the central character in a story: the protagonist of Huckleberry Finn is — guess who? — Huckleberry Finn.
A novel, movie, or play might have many main characters, but it can really only have one protagonist — or maybe two in the case of, say, Romeo and Juliet. That’s because protos means “first” in Greek, and agonistes means “competitor” or “actor.” It can also mean a leading figure in a real-life situation: “Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were the protagonists of the U.S. Civil War.” Don’t use it to mean “a supporter of an idea or cause”; the word you’re looking for in that situation is proponent.
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism
belief in equality
Egalitarianism is the belief that all people are created equal. Remember the Reverend Martin Luther King? He was a fervent believer in egalitarianism.
Egalitarianism is a set of beliefs that generally promote equality for all mankind — regardless of gender, race, religious orientation, etc. An egalitarian is someone who practices egalitarianism, perhaps by promoting laws giving equal protection to women in the workplace or by advocating for illegal immigrants to have the same rights as citizens. The opposite of egalitarianism is elitism, which is the belief that certain people have a right to have their opinions heard more than others.
Jocular
Jocular
in a joking manner
Do you like to make a lot of jokes? Are you often silly? Are you usually happy? If so, then you are a jocular person.
Being jocular has to do with being both jokey and fun. A jocular suggestion is not a serious suggestion — it’s a joke. Some people are more jocular than others: anyone who is ultra-serious and always frowning is not jocular. A comedian makes a job of being jocular. Class clowns can’t stop being jocular, though the teacher might just see them as obnoxious. Being jocular is usually considered a good thing: it’s not just about making a lot of jokes; it’s about being happy and pleasant to be around.
Subtle
Subtle
not obvious
Something that is subtle is not obvious: a professional food taster might be able to perceive subtle differences of flavor that most people don’t notice.
Subtle is used for things that are hard to describe because of their complexity or delicacy: a way of thinking, arguing, or creating a work of art. The word is pronounced like “suttle” and it was originally spelled that way when it was borrowed from Old French, but the b got imported to make the word look more like its ultimate source, the Latin adjective subtilis. If you try to pronounce the b, your ignorance of how to say the word properly won’t be very subtle!
Ruse
Ruse
trick; stratagem
Movie bank robbers always seem to pull some kind of ruse, a deceptive trick or tactic like hiding the money underneath the bank while they drive off in the getaway car to avoid capture by the police.
You’d use a ruse if you were up to something sneaky and were trying to get away with it without being discovered. The wife planning a surprise birthday party for her husband could send him out to the supermarket as a ruse, a trick so she could sneak one hundred of his closest friends into the house without him noticing.
Inertia
Inertia
inactivity; lethargy
- Inertia* is resistance to change. You hate looking at people’s feet and yet you stay in your job as a shoe salesman year after year. Why? Inertia.
- Inertia* is a physics term. Isaac Newtown discovered that a body at rest would stay at rest and a body moving through space would continue moving through space unless an external force (like friction or gravity) caused it to slow down or stop. Sometimes we need an external force to help us get going or to change direction, too, like a friend to tell us to get off the couch or to quit that job at the shoe store.
Verbosity
Verbosity
using too many words
Verbosity is a quality possessed by people who talk a lot while saying very little at all.
The root verb — also seen in verbal — is a clue this word has to do with talking. Specifically, verbosity is the quality of gabbing and blabbing at length. That might sound like a talent, and it sort of is, but usually the words are a bit empty. You could be accused of verbosity if you like to exaggerate or wax poetic. Most of the time, verbosity is empty talk — a whole lot of nothing dressed up in too many words.
Furtive
Furtive
hidden and secret
If you’re looking for a formal adjective to describe something sly or secret, sneak in furtive. Let’s hope the teacher doesn’t see your furtive attempts to pass notes in class!
The adjective, furtive, is related to fūrtum, the Latin word for theft or robbery. This is apparent as the expressions “to give someone a furtive glance” and “to steal a glance at someone” mean the same thing. If a person’s manner is furtive, he or she is acting suspiciously. Secret, stealthy and sly are all similar in meaning, but they lack this image of a thief’s actions.
Pivotal
Pivotal
of central importance
High school graduation is a pivotal moment in most people’s lives — an important point that signifies a shift in direction.
You see the word pivot in pivotal. That is because when something is pivotal, it is central, and everything related to the topic turns or depends on it. An election can be a pivotal moment in a nation’s history if the direction the country takes depends on it. Your belief in reincarnation may be pivotal to how you treat animals. Pivotal means important, but it has the sense of centrality and turning.
Lofty
Lofty
snooty; arrogant; haughty
Lofty is a good word for describing something that’s high above the ground, or someone who acts like she’s high above everyone else.
Dating from the 15th century, lofty originally meant “exalted,” or spiritually high, but soon came to mean physically high as well. A towering mountain can be called “lofty.” So can someone who walks around with her nose in the air and speaks in a fake English accent. Even if she’s only five-foot-two.
Deplete
Deplete
use up; lessen
To deplete is to use up or consume a limited resource. Visiting relatives might deplete your refrigerator of food, or a pestering friend might deplete your patience.
The verb deplete is used like “to drain.” A long, exhausting day can deplete your body of energy and a summer drought can deplete a region’s water supply. If you deplete your body of hydration after a lot of exercise, be sure to replete yourself with a nice glass of water.
Maverick
Maverick
a loner
A maverick is a rebel, someone who shows a lot of independence. A maverick on a motorcycle might blaze his own trail, or show a maverick touch in a rough sport by wearing a helmet with the word “Mom” inside a heart.
Samuel A. Maverick owned a lot of cattle, and he let them roam around Texas without a brand, or identification mark, seared into their skins. Samuel was a maverick for going against the common practice of tracking his animals, and his last name became part of the English language as both an adjective and a noun in the 19th century. Someone who acts very independently is a maverick, and individual actions that stand out are maverick, as in “her maverick jumping style on the ice was both wild and delicate.”
Intermittent
Intermittent
sporadic; irregular
Reach for the adjective intermittent to describe periodic movement and stopping and starting over a period of time.
The adjective intermittent modifies things that work or stop and start at periodic intervals. An interesting use of something intermittent is a metronome, a device that marks off time in music by making a sound in a regular pattern. It provides structure for musicians, especially when there are several instruments all playing different melodies at the same time. Other intermittent things are the windshield wipers on your car and thank goodness for them when it rains!
Deteriorate
Deteriorate
worsen; decline
When something gets worse due to neglect or an unfortunate health problem, stuff starts to deteriorate — or fall apart.
The word deteriorate describes anytime something gets worse. Due to neglect, a relationship can deteriorate but so can the American highway system. Sadly, there seems to be no end to applications for the word deteriorate. And, the truth is at a certain age we all start deteriorating too.
Relegate
Relegate
dismiss to a lower position
- Relegate* means assign to a lower position. If the quarterback of the football team stops making decent throws he might be relegated to the position of benchwarmer, while another kid is given the chance to play.
- Relegate* rhymes with delegate––both words derive from the Latin legare “send.” Relegate means to send someone down in rank. Delegate means to send someone in your place to complete a task. In the workplace, managers who can’t figure out how to delegate may get relegated to a lesser rank.
Lukewarm
Lukewarm
- unenthusiastic; 2. neither hot nor cold
Something lukewarm is just a teeny bit warm. Lukewarm feelings are also not very strong.
Lukewarm is a word for things that are warm, but only barely. A forgotten cup of hot coffee will get lukewarm before it eventually gets cold. It’s disappointing when food at a restaurant is served lukewarm; most people like their food hot. Also, people can have lukewarm feelings and reactions. If someone asks you out to lunch and you say, “Well, I guess that would be OK,” that’s a lukewarm response.
Fractious
Fractious
irritable; difficult to control
If you’re prone to picking fights, making snarky comments, and being frustratingly stubborn, you’re fractious. And odds are you’re not invited to too many parties.
Someone who is fractious is cranky, rebellious and inclined to cause problems. Tempers and children are commonly described as such. In To Kill A Mockingbird, author Harper Lee uses the word to describe the trouble-making Calpurnia: “She had always been too hard on me, she had at last seen the error of her fractious ways, she was sorry and too stubborn to say so.”
Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphics
- picture writing; 2. writing which is difficult to read or enigmatic
If your written language consists of pictures rather than letters and words, your written communication would be hieroglyphic in nature. Ancient Egyptian writing was hieroglyphic.
The pictures that make up hieroglyphic language are called hieroglyphs. The word descended from the Greek hierogluphikos which could be translated to mean “sacred carvings.” Back when written communication was literally carved in stone, most of what was written was important, or “sacred.” Today if someone describes your handwriting as hieroglyphic, they mean something quite different - your writing is awful and illegible.
Servile
Servile
overly submissive; groveling
If you want to get someone to like you, don’t offer to fetch them a Coke, rub their feet, or do their homework. They won’t like you any better, and your servile attitude will only cost you their respect.
To remember servile, just think of the word servant––they both derive from the Latin servus “slave.” In fact, servile also means anything characteristic of a slave. “After winning the lottery, the ex-slave shed first his servile clothes, later his servile manner. The transformation was complete.”
Cringe
Cringe
recoil; flinch; shy away
When you cringe, your body language shows you don’t like what you see and hear. You close your eyes and grimace. You may even jerk your body away from the offensive sight or sound, like the old picture of you in an “awkward stage” that makes you cringe whenever you see it.
Whether it’s a song you hate or someone mentioning an embarrassing moment from the past, you cringe at things that are unpleasant. If you think about the way your body involuntarily flinches or bends in those situations, you won’t be surprised to learn that the word cringe can be traced back to the Old English word cringan, meaning “give way, fall (in battle), become bent.” That’s exactly what your body does when you cringe!
Hedonist
Hedonist
a pleasure seeker
Your parents might want to visit the museum while you want to hike in the forest, but your brother, the hedonist, just wants to lounge by the hotel pool and eat cake. A hedonist values sensual pleasure above all else.
Hedonist comes from the Greek word hedone “pleasure” and is related to hedys, which means “sweet.” Although this noun did not make its first appearance until 1822, the word was created as a reference to an ancient Greek philosophical system known as the Cyrenaic school. The Cyrenaics taught that pleasure — particularly physical pleasure — is the greatest good. If you need some examples of modern day hedonists, think the many celebrities today who are only famous for going to parties.
Arable
Arable
can be cultivated
If you describe land as arable, it means that something can grow there. If you’re looking to raise crops, you better find yourself a patch of arable land.
Arable has its Latin roots in the word arare, which means “to plow.” Arable soil is ground that can be plowed and cultivated. Chances are — if you are using the word arable, then either the word land or the word soil is following it; however, you might also see the phrase “arable crops” — meaning those crops that are able to be grown on arable land.
Philistine
Philistine
uncultured person
Tirade
Tirade
stream of verbal abuse
A tirade is a speech, usually consisting of a long string of violent, emotionally charged words. Borrow and lose your roommate’s clothes one too many times, and you can bet you’ll be treated to a heated tirade.
The noun tirade is related to the Italian word tirata, which means “volley.” So imagine a very angry person lobbing harsh words and strings of profanity in your direction when you want to remember what tirade means. Although, tirades don’t necessarily have to include bad words — any long, drawn out speech or epic declaration can be called a tirade.
Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
officialdom
A bureaucracy is an organization made up of many departments and divisions that are administered by lots of people. If you’ve ever had to deal with health insurance or financial aid, you’re familiar with the dark side of bureaucracy.
Bureaucracy has a bad reputation because it has come to mean an organization or government that is chin-deep in red tape and unnecessary procedures. When dealing with a bureaucracy, expect to fill out lots of forms and wait. Bureaucracies are mocked in the hilarious film “Brazil,” where people have mind-numbing jobs they do while sitting at desks. Bureaucracy is an organization administered by people behind desks, or bureaus. Bureaus, get it?
Pathos
Pathos
evoking sadness or pity
Pathos is a quality that stirs emotions. A song with a lot of pathos hits you right in the heart.
You ever notice how some songs or movies appeal to your brains, while others appeal to your feelings? The ones that are all about feeling are full of pathos, an appeal to emotions that originally meant “suffering” in Greek. Often, this word has to do specifically with pity and sympathy: when someone tells a story about people suffering that makes you feel for them, that’s pathos.
Glacial
Glacial
hostile; unfriendly; cold; icy
Things that are glacial are super cold. A place can be glacial — like the South Pole — but a person can be glacial, too, like that unfriendly girl who gave you a glacial stare.
The word glacial is related to the word glacier, which is a huge piece of ice. If something or someone is glacial, that thing or person is icy. You can give someone you don’t like a glacial look, or you can go skiing on a glacial morning. Glacial comes from the Latin glacies, which sounds like the name of a frozen dessert, but which actually just means “ice.”
Adamant
Adamant
forceful; inflexible
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 adamos (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.
Vivify
Vivify
enliven
When you vivify something, you bring new excitement or life to it. If you decide to liven up your boring apartment by painting the walls every color of the rainbow, you can say that you’re trying to vivify your home.
You might vivify your family’s meals by experimenting with exotic spices or vivify your school by hiring circus performers to ride unicycles up and down the halls. The Latin root word of vivify is vivus, or “alive,” which is also the origin of the closely related word vivid.
Inevitable
Inevitable
cannot be avoided
If something is inevitable, it will definitely happen, like death or tax season.
Inevitable comes from the Latin word inevitabilis, which means unavoidable. If you say something is inevitable, you give the sense that no matter what scheme you come with to get around it, it’s going to happen sooner or later. You can use all the skin products you want, but wrinkles are inevitable.
Coercion
Coercion
force
- Coercion* is making something happen by force, like when bullies use coercion to make kids give them their lunch money.
- Coercion* can be a threat, “The shady lawyer uses coercion when he threatens to get the waiter fired if he doesn’t rat out his boss,” or it can be actual brute force, as when the gangster breaks the messenger’s leg to keep her from talking to the police. The police might use coercion, too, to get a confession. The prefix co- is derived from the Latin word for “together.” So you can’t use coercion on yourself; you need someone else to force into doing something.
Modicum
Modicum
small amount
If you want to describe a small amount of something, try modicum. If you have a modicum of interest in something, you are a little bit interested.
Modicum comes from the Latin modicus, for moderate, and modus, for measure. We often use it to mean “any at all,” as if “If you had a modicum of sense (i.e. any sense at all), you’d be able to see that the pencil you’ve spent the last five minutes looking for is tucked behind your ear.”
Advocate
Advocate
support
You can refer to a person who’s a public supporter of a cause as an advocate.
As a noun, advocate (AD-və-kit) can mean a person who represents someone’s interests, such as a lawyer. It can also mean someone who supports or works toward a particular course of action, as in “an advocate for civil rights.” The verb advocate (AD-və-kate) means “to argue for” or “to publicly recommend”: “I advocate stricter standards of online safety.” The word comes from Latin advocare, “to call,” as a witness in court.
Tranquil
Tranquil
peaceful
When a place or your state of mind is peaceful, quiet and serene, it is tranquil.
Like a pond with no ripples, tranquil means calm and placid. A pleasant state of mind, with nothing to agitate or cause anxiety, can also be considered tranquil. As you struggle through your yoga poses, the teacher might annoyingly exclaim how tranquil you should be feeling, and when you and your siblings bicker over every little thing, your parents are wishing the house were more tranquil.
Droll
Droll
dryly amusing
Need a mental picture for the word droll? Think of one of those cute-homely troll dolls — blend those two words together — “doll” and “troll” — and you get droll, a description of a figure that is adorably strange and whimsically cute.
The word droll comes from the archaic French word drolle, referring to a jolly good fellow. The French word comes perhaps from the Middle Dutch drolle, or “imp.” The word came into English as both noun (“funny person, buffoon”) and adjective (“funny, quaint, strange”) in the 17th century.
Cerebral
Cerebral
intellectual
If you are a cerebral person, no one would ever call you a drama queen. You make decisions using your intelligence and cold, hard facts, instead of your emotions.
The word cerebral gets its meaning from cerebrum, which is Latin for brain. Cerebral people use their brains instead of their hearts. The cerebrum is a particular section of the brain, and anything related to that part is also cerebral, like in medicine. A cerebral hemorrhage, for example, means a hemorrhage has occurred in the brain — a phrase you’d never want to hear coming from a doctor.
Truant
Truant
shirker; someone absent without permission
A truant is a student who is out of school without permission. If you skip school to go shopping with your friends, you are a truant.
A person can be a truant, and behavior can be described as truant too, since it’s both a noun and an adjective. Your teacher might call you a truant if you skip school and if you didn’t show up at your donut shop job, you would also be a truant donut slinger. In fact, anyone who’s unexpectedly absent can be described as truant. The Old French truant describes a beggar, especially one who lives this way by choice.
Intransigence
Intransigence
stubbornness
If you refuse to compromise with your sister about whose turn it is to do the dishes, your mother might accuse you both of intransigence. Intransigence is a stubborn refusal to change your views.
Inside of intransigence you see the Latin transigere which means to come to an understanding. People who show intransigence refuse to do this. Nations are often accused of intransigence when they refuse to comply with international standards or will.
Trepidation
Trepidation
fear
When plain old “fear” isn’t enough to get across a deep feeling of dread about something on the horizon, use the more formal word trepidation.
“It was with a certain trepidation that I attended an advance screening of Rob Zombie’s Halloween in Hollywood last night,” wrote a film reviewer. Some dictionaries note that trepidation carries connotations of apprehension about an upcoming threat. In most cases, though, you can get by with the simpler word fear — why use three syllables when you could make do with one? The word comes from the Latin verb trepidare, “to tremble.”
Impious
Impious
wicked; profane
To be impious is to be disrespectful of god or duty. When someone is being impious they are doing things that their church, synagogue, temple, mosque, school principal, government or parents would find unacceptable.
When you don’t show reverence for religion or god, you are impious. The adjective impious is related to the word piety, which means religious reverence. To be impious is to be without piety. Being impious is similar to being blasphemous, but it’s a little more passive to be impious, while blasphemy is more actively insulting. Also, when you act out against tradition or dutifulness, you could be considered impious. If you dodge a military draft, you will likely be considered impious.
Frugal
Frugal
economical; not wasting anything
A person who lives simply and economically can be called frugal. Buying clothes at a consignment shop would be considered frugal. Not getting your mom a gift for her birthday — that’s just cheap.
Thrifty, spartan, and prudent are synonyms for frugal, a word that often has positive connotations when used to describe a person who lives a simple life. “The question for retailers is whether shoppers will remain frugal or slowly resume their old spending habits whenever they get more money in their pockets,” wrote The Wall Street Journal. You might also speak of “a frugal meal” — a very plain, cheap one. The word is from Latin frux, meaning “fruit” (in the sense of “profit”).
Gritty
Gritty
coarse; granular
Subpoena
Subpoena
summons to court
A subpoena is a document that requires its recipient to appear in court as a witness. If you receive a subpoena, it doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong; it just means you may have information that’s needed by the court.
Subpoena can also be a verb: You can subpoena someone by giving them a subpoena. If you receive a subpoena but fail to carry out its instructions, you’re in big trouble. This fact is suggested by the Latin roots of this word: the prefix sub- means “under” and poena means “penalty.” One nice thing about a subpoena is that it’s not a summons; if you get one of those, it means you’re being sued.
Scale
Scale
to climb
How much do you love pizza? Rate it on a scale of one to ten, with one being blech and ten being amazing. A scale is a series that climbs up or down in a step-wise fashion. To scale something is to climb it, as in “scale a ladder,” where you work your way up step by step.
Think of a musical scale: do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do, and then think of a scale you weigh yourself on––it counts up the pounds one after another after another. Scale can be a ratio too––when maps are drawn “to scale,” that means one mile of real road might translate to one inch of road on the map. Even fish scales can be understood this way––they repeat the same shape row after row after row.
Acquiesce
Acquiesce
to agree to; give in to
To acquiesce is to agree to something or to give in. If your kid sister is refusing to hand over the television remote, you hope she acquiesces before your favorite show comes on.
The verb acquiesce comes from the Latin word acquiescere, meaning “to rest.” If you “rest” or become passive in the face of something to which you object, you are giving tacit agreement, you acquiesce. If you want to go hiking with your family and your children are not interested, it will be a very tough day on the trail until they acquiesce.
Frivolous
Frivolous
not serious
Frivolous things are silly or unnecessary. If something is frivolous, then you don’t need it.
Frivolous things are goofy, useless, or just plain dumb. The word is often used to describe lawsuits. A frivolous lawsuit has no value and will be a waste of the court’s time, like someone suing McDonald’s for making the coffee too hot (which actually happened). If someone is frivolous, that person shouldn’t be taken seriously because he’s always fooling around and never gets anything done. Frivolous is pretty much the opposite of essential.
Plumage
Plumage
feathers of a bird
If you like the looks of the color and pattern formed by a bird’s feathers, then you like its plumage.
The word plumage traces back to the French word plume, meaning feather, and it’s a way of referring to all the feathers that form the color and patterns of a particular bird. For example, birdwatchers study illustrations of birds so that they can recognize, say, a golden hawk in flight by its plumage.
Profanity
Profanity
swearing; cursing
Profanity is a type of language that includes dirty words and ideas. Swear words, obscene gestures, and naughty jokes are all considered profanity.
You know those four-letter words you’re not supposed to say? They’re profanity: language that’s vulgar and obscene. R-rated movies and cable stations like HBO have a lot of profanity, but you won’t hear it on a station like NBC or ABC. Profanity tends to be about off-color subjects, like sex and going to the bathroom. Everyone probably spews some profanity at some point, but you better be careful about who’s listening.
Proponents
Proponents
promoters; supporters
Proponent means someone who is in favor of something. You might be a proponent of longer vacations, but your parents are proponents of a longer school year.
If you’re in favor of long school vacations, you’re pro or “for” long vacations. The prefix pro- also carries the meaning of “forward,” “ahead,” or “before.” All of these senses are at work in proponent: someone who suggests (puts forward) an idea or who is in favor of an idea. A proponent proposes an idea or advocates for a proposal or a proposition.
Derogatory
Derogatory
uncomplimentary
Something that’s derogatory is insulting or disrespectful. If you make derogatory comments, that means you say things that are unflattering, unkind, or demeaning.
Derogatory means about the same as insulting. Derogatory language is meant to hurt, and it usually does. If you feel offended or insulted by what someone says, the person probably said something derogatory. Racial, sexist, and homophobic slurs are all derogatory. Insults that mean someone is stupid or crazy are derogatory. Making a joke about someone’s mother is derogatory.
Emulate
Emulate
to imitate something admired
When you emulate someone, you imitate them, especially with the idea of matching their success.
When someone is impressive because of their great skills, brains, strength, or accomplishments, other will emulate. To emulate is to imitate and model yourself after someone. People emulate role models — people they want to be like. After Michael Jordan retired from the NBA, player after player tried to emulate Jordan’s game and success. It’s hard to be as good as someone like that, but having a hero to emulate can be helpful in many areas of life.
Desecration
Desecration
spoiling something holy
Desecration is a type of behavior that disrespects the sacredness or holiness of something. Words and actions that are offensive to a religion could be considered acts of desecration.
Swearing is church is a type of desecration. Destroying a tombstone is a type of desecration. Depending on the religion, taking God’s name in vain could be considered desecration. This word means something close to blasphemy or sacrilege. Sometimes, desecration is used in non-religious contexts, when an idea people care about is treated disrespectfully.
Appease
Appease
pacify; soothe; calm down; make peace with
Appease means to make or preserve peace with a nation, group, or person by giving in to their demands, or to relieve a problem, as in “the cold drink appeased his thirst.”
The word often implies abandoning your moral principles to satisfy the demands of someone who is greedy for power: Think of British Prime Minister Chamberlain’s attempt to appease the Nazis at Munich. The cold drink appeased his thirst. Appease is from Middle English apaisen, from apaisier, formed from the prefix a- “to” plus pais “peace,” from Latin pax.
Gratis
Gratis
free of charge; without payment
When there’s a concert you want to go to and your best friend gets tickets and takes you gratis, be grateful: that means you’re going for free.
You can use gratis as a synonym for “free” or “without payment” as either an adjective or an adverb. For example, you buy a new smart phone and immediately download several free apps. You get your first bill, and see you’ve been charged for all those apps. When you call the phone company, you can say, “Those apps were labeled as gratis. I downloaded them gratis. Why are you charging me?”
Indolence
Indolence
laziness
If your boss catches you sleeping with your head on your desk, she’s likely to comment on your indolence. Indolence is another word for laziness.
The noun indolence means a habit of laziness, especially when avoiding work. In the 1600s, indolence was mostly used to mean “insensitivity to pain,” from the Latin indolentia, “freedom from pain.” About 100 years later, indolence came to have its current meaning, possibly because of the phrase “taking pains,” which means “being careful.” If you are so careful that you never leave the house, people might think of you as lazy.
Potable
Potable
suitable for drinking
If something is potable that means it’s safe to drink. In developed countries, tap water is usually potable. Puddle water is not. I know you want to take a sip of that puddle water, but please, restrain yourself.
Potable can also be a noun, meaning any drinkable liquid. The word comes from the Latin potare, meaning “to drink.” Not only did the Romans come up with that word; they built some of the world’s first aqueducts, above-ground channels that brought potable water from the mountains to the cities. Potable water is often in short supply after natural catastrophes like earthquakes and hurricanes, and its availability is often discussed on the news.
Omnipotent
Omnipotent
all-powerful
If you want to describe someone who can do absolutely anything, reach for the adjective omnipotent.
Omnipotent comes from the Latin words for total (omni) and power (potent). Omnipotent is frequently used for deities, but can apply to any exaggerated description of power. If you think that love rules the world, then to you, love is omnipotent. On the other hand, if you think that brute force wins, then maybe your idea of an omnipotent person is a mob boss. The stress is on the second syllable: om-NIP-uh-tent.
Quarry
Quarry
- something that is hunted; 2. mine for stone
Both meanings of quarry have to do with going after something. An animal being hunted is called quarry, and when you dig a hole in the earth looking for rocks, both the digging and the hole are called quarry as well.
Gross fact: Quarry derives from the Latin cor “heart,” because hunters used to drape the entrails of their chosen quarry on their dogs’ backs. The origin in a word for “heart” can help you remember both quarries: a rock quarry is searching down toward the heart of the earth; a stag’s heart is considered a hunter’s greatest prize.
Rescind
Rescind
retract; repeal
If get a call saying a company has decided to rescind your job offer, it’s back to the classifieds for you. Rescind is an official reversal.
Things that are rescinded: policies, court decisions, regulations, and official statements. What all these examples have in common is that they are on the record. Also, rescind usually refers to promises instead of tangible objects. You can’t rescind a shirt a friend has borrowed from you, but you can rescind your offer to loan them your jeans.
Misogynist
Misogynist
hater of women
If you’re someone who believes women belong in the kitchen and shouldn’t be accorded the same respect as men, you might be a misogynist. A misogynist is a person who hates or doesn’t trust women.
Misogynist is from Greek misogynḗs, from the prefix miso- “hatred” plus gynḗ “a woman.” The English suffix -ist means “person who does something.” The prefix mis-, a variant of miso- before a vowel, appears in the opposite term misandrist, which is a person who hates or doesn’t trust men. The corresponding nouns are mysogyny and misandry.
Sallow
Sallow
yellowish
Sallow means unhealthy in appearance––often yellow in color––and is almost invariably used to describe someone’s complexion. His smile was as engaging as ever, but from his sallow complexion, I knew he was sick.
Usually we say that when someone is sick they turn “green.” You could also say their skin takes on a sallow look, and you’d mean the same thing. Sallow also describes the way someone looks if they have lost blood or are pale from fever.
Cogitate
Cogitate
think over something; ponder
- Cogitate* is a fancy was of saying think hard on. If you spend a lot of time figuring out exactly how your French teacher does her hair, you are cogitating in order to avoid conjugating.
- Cogitate* can be used both transitively or intransitively, which means you can cogitate on something, like your history project or your why your computer never seems to work the way you want it to. Or you can simply sit in your room and cogitate.
Err
Err
make a mistake
Err is just a formal way of saying you’ve made a mistake or done something wrong. A married man might err by going on a date with another woman, but he will surely feel the repercussions of his wrongdoing when he gets home!
By itself, err means to make a mistake. The old proverb “To err is human, to forgive divine,” is an old-fashioned way of saying, “Hey, everyone makes mistakes. Why don’t you be the bigger person and let it go?” Err can also mean to go in a certain direction, as in another common saying, “Err on the side of caution,” which just means, “Play it safe.”
Lobbyist
Lobbyist
person who tries to persuade someone to support a particular cause
A lobbyist is someone hired by a business or a cause to persuade legislators to support that business or cause.
Lobbyists get paid to win favor from politicians. For example, oil companies send lobbyists to Washington to try to make life easier for oil companies. Sometimes they do it by making a great case for their cause, but often it involves fancy dinners and golf outings. If that sounds kind of shady, it is. But remember that women’s rights groups and cancer research foundations have lobbyists, too — it’s just one way to get your voice heard on the Hill.
Personable
Personable
attractive
If you’re personable, you’re friendly and get along well with other people. Being personable is part of what makes you the star of the sales team — people just seem to like you.
Someone who’s personable can be outgoing, charming, nice, bubbly, amiable, pleasing, or generous, but he doesn’t have to be all of those things — it just all needs to add up to being pleasant. You may be pleasant but not bubbly, and that’s personable. In fact, if you’re too bubbly, you might stop being personable and become annoying, which is not personable.
Exasperated
Exasperated
frustrated; annoyed
It’s understandable if you get exasperated, or really frustrated, if you’re standing in the supermarket’s express lane and everyone in front of you has way more than the 10-item maximum.
Over the centuries, nothing much has happened to the definition of this word — the Latin original means “irritated to anger.” Speaking of which, let’s get back to the supermarket, a veritable hotbed of exasperated people pushing wobbly-wheeled shopping carts their children try to fill with cartoon-branded junk food, brushing past unstable store displays that come tumbling down, enduring inoffensive but flavorless supermarket music, and emerging into the cold light of day unable to remember where they parked the car.
Ambulatory
Ambulatory
able to walk around (used of hospital patients)
An ambulatory surgery is the kind of procedure where the patient walks in and walks out. Ambulatory means able to walk, or related to walking.
To remember ambulatory, think of ambulance, which essentially means a walking hospital. (Its meaning derives from the time when it was pulled by horses, which would be walking.) You can also think of the old fashioned word for baby carriage, perambulator (it’s been shorted to “pram”) which means a carriage you push by walking.
Negate
Negate
cancel; deny
If something neutralizes the effect of something else, then you can say the effect is negated. Hanging a disco ball from your living room ceiling negates the sleek modern effect created by the contemporary furniture.
If something is proved false or untrue, it has been negated. The discovery of one dinosaur jaw negated the conventional wisdom that all dinosaurs were vegetarians, since the tooth structure proved that guy definitely ate meat. The verb negate can also mean to counteract or counterbalance — so a really strong serve can negate your other weaknesses on the tennis court.
Bestial
Bestial
behaving like a beast; brutal
- Bestial* sounds like beast, and that is precisely what it means, beast-like. When a human acts like an animal, their behavior is called bestial.
- Bestial* is often used to describe behavior that is primitive or uncivilized. If someone living on a desert island took to grunting and crawling on all fours searching for bugs in dirt, you could say she had descended to the bestial.
Euphemism
Euphemism
a polite phrase to cover something unpleasant
Pardon me, but when a polite term is substituted for a blunt, offensive one, you should call it a euphemism.
Euphemism is from Greek euphemismos, meaning “good speech,” and it’s a way that we paper over uncomfortable things with more pleasant-sounding words. These days we tend to use euphemisms when talking about anything having to do with elimination of bodily waste: toilet, bathroom, and water closet were all originally euphemisms. The military is also notorious for using euphemisms, like saying “neutralizing the target” instead of “killing someone.”
Prodigious
Prodigious
very large
Something exceptional, substantial, or great is prodigious. A blizzard includes prodigious wind and snow. A prodigious writer is one who can write a lot and do it well.
Prodigious is a word for things that are impressive. If you have prodigious strength, you’re very strong. If your cat had a prodigious litter of kittens, then you’ve got a houseful of kittens. This is a strong word that’s also kind of formal. Save it for things that really blow you away because of their quality or quantity. A little drizzle isn’t a prodigious rain, but a storm that floods a whole city certainly is.
Consecrate
Consecrate
dedicate
Consecrate means to make holy or to dedicate to a higher purpose. You need to consecrate a building to turn it into a church, but you can also consecrate a week in New York City to the pursuit of the perfect bagel.
The secr part of consecrate comes from the Latin sacer “sacred.” Remember that something consecrated is dedicated to God and thus sacred. And then remember that the meanings of words tend to stretch; over time this one moved from “dedicated to God” to “dedicated to whatever”: jelly donuts, the perfect tan, finding a solution to Rubik’s Cube.
Wax
Wax
to increase; to grow
The verb wax is most often found in the company of its opposite, “wane.” To wax is to grow larger or increase, whereas wane means to grow smaller or decrease.
As the moon grows towards fullness, it waxes. It wanes, or diminishes in size, as the new moon approaches. This is the most common context for the verb wax, but it is also used to describe other phenomena that grow or increase, particularly those that are cyclical. Figuratively, if you wax eloquent, lyrical or poetic about something, you talk about it at great length and with growing enthusiasm. The noun wax refers to chemical compounds that can be shaped and molded, for example into candles, when warm.
Hangar
Hangar
storage area (like garage) for a plane
Use the word hangar to describe a structure used to house or a repair an aircraft. Think of it as a hangout for your Learjet.
If you need to hang up a shirt, you’ll want to use the word hanger (a device used for hanging clothing). If you want to park your jet plane, the word hangar is more appropriate. The two words are homophones, which means they’re pronounced the same way but have different spellings and meanings.
Succinct
Succinct
concise
Something that is succinct is short and clear. If you’re going to be interviewed on television about your new book and only have a five minute slot, you’ll need to come up with a succinct version of your story.
Succinct, meaning “short and to the point,” is from the Latin succingere, “to tuck up.” Often after you write a long essay, you realize you probably could have said the same thing in one or two succinct pages. If something is too succinct, we might call it terse. Another synonym is concise, which implies that unnecessary material has been removed. It’s the opposite of wordy.
Onerous
Onerous
burdensome; hard to undertake
If one teacher gives you three hours of homework a night, that’s rough. But if all of your teachers do it, that makes the task of completing your homework an onerous one, to say the least. If something is onerous, it is very difficult to deal with or do.
A near synonym is burdensome. In legal usage, onerous describes a contract or lease that has more obligations than advantages. Onerous derives from Middle English, from Old French onereus, from Latin onerōsus, from onus “burden.” In English, an onus is a task or duty that is onerous, or very difficult.
Fly-by-night
Fly-by-night
unreliable; disreputable
Labyrinthine
Labyrinthine
complicated; highly convoluted
Labyrinthine is a good word to describe a place that feels like an enormous maze. A new student at a huge, sprawling high school is likely to find the building labyrinthine as he wanders the halls looking for his math class.
If you’ve ever been lost in a hedge maze, you know what a labyrinth is. The adjective labyrinthine describes something that is as confusing, complex, or maze-like as a labyrinth. This could be an actual maze, a city, or even a convoluted idea. The word comes from the Greek labyrinthos, the structure built to contain the mythological Minotaur. In the story, Daedalus did such a good job making the building labyrinthine that he nearly couldn’t find his way out.
Voluminous
Voluminous
very large; spacious
Consider that volume is a measure of size. That will help you understand that voluminous refers to something very large in size or extent.
Suppose instead of calling a book a book, you called it a volume. Suddenly, it seems to be part of a much bigger thing. And what if it were only Volume I, with 23 more volumes to go? Even bigger, right? In fact, it’s more than big; it’s voluminous. Voluminous describes very large things. The flouncy skirt of a wedding dress? Voluminous. Media coverage of some movie star’s divorce? Also voluminous. The word voluminous describes something ample, extensive, and just plain huge.
Neologism
Neologism
newly coined word
A neologism is a made-up or new word. Neologisms can be fun-ti-ful, but the problem is making sure others understand what you mean.
The word neologism was once a neologism itself. It was created by gluing the French prefix neo- onto the Greek logos or “word.” People coin neologisms all the time, linguists track which ones stick, and eventually, we all feel they’re old friends. Or maybe not: random samples from words coined in 2003 include: adultolescence, pastability, pre-zactly, and neomaxizoomdweebie.
Dilatory
Dilatory
slow; falling behind with one’s work
Something dilatory creates a delay. If you are a high school student, once in a while you might have used dilatory tactics if you forgot to do your homework.
The adjective dilatory comes from the Latin root word dilator, a noun that means someone who puts off things, or a procrastinator. If you are always late to appointments, people may accuse you of being dilatory, especially if they think you don’t have a good excuse.
Asylum
Asylum
place of refuge or safety
Any mom taking care of the kids day in and day out is probably more than ready to seek asylum, or refuge, at a local spa.
You may have heard asylum used to describe an institution where insane people are housed, but did you know that an asylum can also be somewhere you’d happily and willingly go? An asylum offers shelter and protection, like the awning of a building in a downpour. Or a country that takes in refugees in danger of persecution — otherwise known as “political asylum.”
Stupefying
Stupefying
astonishing; shocking; stunning into silence
Deride
Deride
ridicule; make fun of; mock
The verb deride means to show a low opinion of someone or something. The jerk would deride the other kids on the bus by calling them names or pulling their hair until the driver decided to de-ride him by kicking him off the bus.
To “ride” people is to get on their case or give them a hard time, and to deride is to do the same with insulting language or poor treatment. Deride comes from the Latin root dērīdēre, meaning “to ridicule, to scorn,” and it’s often used to express dislike or even hatred. Criticizing something with words is a common way to deride, and politicians often deride each other in their speeches during election campaigns.
Credulous
Credulous
gullible; ready to believe anything
People who believe things easily without having to be convinced are credulous. Sales people are always hoping that someone credulous picks up the phone during a sales call.
Credulous comes from the 16th-century Latin credulus, or “easily believes.” A synonym for credulous is gullible, and both terms describe a person who accepts something willingly without a lot of supporting facts. Calling someone credulous can imply that the person is naive and simple. An individual isn’t necessarily insulted by being called credulous, though, because some objects of belief, like religions and unicorns, come with a willing leap of faith for believing in what is unseen.
Persnickety
Persnickety
fastidious; fussy
Persnickety is a lively, fancy word for “fussy.” If you’ve sent your salad back to the kitchen three times, you might be a persnickety eater.
The adjective persnickety sounds prickly like a porcupine, and persnickety people can indeed be sharp and prickly when they don’t get things precisely as they wish. I don’t mean to be persnickety about grammar, but you shouldn’t use “ain’t” in an academic paper. If you’re persnickety about your coffee, you’ll probably want to put the cream and sugar in yourself.
Flippant
Flippant
making jokes about serious matters
When a parent scolds a teenager for missing a curfew or blowing off a test and the teen snaps back, “Whatever,” you could say the teen is being flippant. His reply was casual to the point of sarcasm and disrespect.
When it first showed up in the English language around the 17th century, flippant meant glib and talkative. But over the years it has developed a more negative connotation. Today flippant is used to describe a blasé attitude or comment in a situation that calls for seriousness. Make a flippant comment about your friend’s mother and the odds are good that they’ll be offended.
Peripatetic
Peripatetic
nomadic; moving from place to place
Infer
Infer
deduce; conclude
When you infer something, you read between the lines. To infer is to make a well informed guess — if you see your mom’s bag on the table, you might infer that she’s home.
When you infer, you listen closely to someone and guess at things they mean but haven’t actually said. It’s like guessing, but not making wild guesses. You’re making deductions — guesses based on logic. Another kind of inferring is more scientific, like when a scientist has part of a dinosaur fossil and can infer what the rest of the dinosaur looked like. When you see the word infer, think “educated guess.”
Ramble
Ramble
wander aimlessly
You ramble when your talking or your walking goes on and on and on. And on. You’re in no hurry to make a point or get to your destination — if there is one at all.
The word ramble comes from similar roots as roam. They both mean wander, but they’re often used a little differently. You might roam around on vacation to relax or find adventure. If you’re a shark, you roam the deep sea for food. On the other hand, if the person on the plane next to you chatters nervously and can’t stop, you wish they wouldn’t ramble on like that.
Suspect
Suspect
doubtful
A suspect is a person who is believed to be guilty of a crime. If you leave the scene of a murder with blood on your hands and a weapon in your pocket, you’re likely to become a prime suspect.
If others believe you have committed a crime, you are a suspect. The word can also be used as a verb and an adjective. To suspect someone of something is to believe that they probably did it. Do you ever suspect your parents of taking some of your Halloween candy? If something such as someone’s excuse or motive is suspect, it seems a bit off. That bad-smelling piece of fish is suspect — you’d better not eat it.
Astute
Astute
perceptive; sharp-witted
Someone who is astute is clever and has good judgment. The kid running around with a bucket stuck on his head? Not so astute.
Astute (from Latin) is a formal and flattering adjective for someone with a good head on their shoulders. It differs from its synonym shrewd in placing less emphasis on hardheadedness than on sensitivity: we talk about a shrewd bargainer but an astute interpretation. Other synonyms are perceptive (emphasizing insight) and discerning (emphasizing an ability to distinguish).
Archives
Archives
collections of old records; place of storage of old documents
- Archives*, a noun, refers to records or historical documents, or the place where those records are kept, like the famous writer’s archives that scholars can see by visiting the library archives.
- Archives* are typically records or documents used when researching an event, a person, or even a building. Use archives to research your family tree, which might include birth, marriage, and death certificates, immigration records, tax files, and so on. The noun is also used to describe where historical documents and records are kept, like the National Archives and Record Administration, which holds important records of the Federal government.
Dupe
Dupe
to fool someone
A dupe is a furry, ceremonial hat occasionally worn during ancient pagan rituals… or not. Dupe actually means “trick or deceive.” We’re sorry we tried to dupe you into believing the wrong definition.
Dupe can also refer to the victim of a trick or hoax, and — used in this sense — it sometimes conveys the idea that the victim is easily fooled. Dupe comes from the French word for a type of bird called the hoopoe, which has an extravagant crest and a reputation for being dim-witted. (And no, that’s not another attempt to dupe you; it’s the truth!)
Burgeon
Burgeon
grow; flourish; put forth new shoots
Use the verb burgeon to describe something that is growing, expanding, and flourishing. If you have a green thumb, in the spring your flower gardens will burgeon in a cacophony of color. If you don’t have a green thumb, your collection of plastic plants will burgeon.
Although burgeon means to grow and flourish, it doesn’t necessarily have to apply only to plants. Your town can have burgeoning downtown development. Your tiny retirement account can burgeon into an excellent emergency fund if you invest even a small amount each month. You may have a burgeoning career as a villain if you overthrow a planet by using your mind-controlling ray gun on the populace.
Superlative
Superlative
extremely good; the best
A superlative is the highest attainable level or degree of something. As an adjective superlative means highest in quality.
When your history test results are superlative, it means you’ve gotten a perfect score — you’ve done as well as can be done, if not better than everyone else. There are times, however, when a superlative is an exaggerated expression of praise, as when a movie reviewer gets carried away with compliments and says in January that this is “the best film of the year.”
Luscious
Luscious
juicy; moist; succulent
Calling something luscious means it’s juicy, delicious and otherwise incredibly pleasing to the senses. That goes for good looking people as well as a fine piece of chocolate cake.
An adjective meaning richly appealing or scrumptious, luscious is actually believed to be a shortened version of delicious. Synonyms include succulent, savory and enticing — all words that can also be used to either describe a perfectly cooked steak or your crush’s unbelievable, irresistible lips.
Skeptical
Skeptical
doubting; not gullible
If a friend told you that her family was perfect and they never had any problems, would you believe her? If not, you may be skeptical. Skeptical people look at the world with a certain amount of doubt.
This word comes from ancient Greece, where a philosopher named Pyrrho taught his followers that we can never really understand the true nature of things, only how they appear to us. (So basically, we should stop searching for the meaning of life and just relax.) In Pyrrho’s view, the true sage was someone who realized that it was impossible to be certain about anything. His followers were called Skeptikoi, or Skeptics; the Greek word skeptikos means “given to asking questions.”
Pliable
Pliable
flexible; not stubborn
Pliable means bendable but not breakable. Wax is pliable, good leather is pliable. If you describe a person as pliable, it usually means that he’s easily influenced, like a nightclub owner who takes orders from a crime boss.
When Madame barks “Plier!” (rhymes with “okay”) in ballet class, all the students obediently bend their knees into a graceful semi-crouch. Plier is French for bend and it’s the root of the word pliable. The word pliable itself is quite pliable, an apt description for everything from building materials to a person’s character.
Unalloyed
Unalloyed
undiluted; total
Parry
Parry
ward off; avoid
Here comes someone who only ever talks to you when he needs a favor. Quick, parry! When you parry, you avoid doing things. As the needy friend approaches, say, “I wish I had time to catch up!” and hurry off. Or, hide under a table.
The word parry is often used to describe blocking or evading a movement, like parrying a punch, but it can also refer to an evasion that is verbal rather than physical. For example, if you are put on the spot and asked about something you’d rather avoid, you can parry to get out of it — change the subject or ask a question in return. When used in this way parry retains its sense of defending yourself through evasion.
Dilemma
Dilemma
puzzling situation
A dilemma is a tough choice. When you’re in a difficult situation and each option looks equally bad, you’re in a dilemma.
Dilemma is from a Greek for “double proposition.” It was originally a technical term of logic, but we use it now for any time you have a problem with no satisfactory solution. If you’re at the mall choosing between red or blue socks, that’s not really a dilemma. But if you have to choose whether to save your cat or your dog from a burning building, that’s an awful dilemma.
Vilification
Vilification
blackening someone’s name
Credible
Credible
believable
Someone who’s credible is honest and believable. A pathological liar, for example, might not be the most credible witness for your case against the bank robber.
Similar to words like reliable and plausible, credible is an adjective that comes to us from the Latin credibilis, meaning “worthy to be believed.” A credible reputation is often earned through consistent good behavior and an overall trustworthy personality. Spill a secret you promised to keep, or lie under oath in a courtroom, and you lose all credibility.
Insentient
Insentient
unfeeling
Stoic
Stoic
known for fortitude; indifferent to pleasure or pain
In Athens around 300 BC, Zeno of Citium founded a school of philosophy called Stoicism, and a person who followed the idea was called a Stoic. The main goal of a Stoic was to avoid unnecessary emotions.
Stoics believed that certain feelings, like joy and sorrow, were destructive to people and should be avoided and that a virtuous life could result in peace and harmony with nature. The adjective Stoic describes something that relates to this particular school of philosophy. Major Stoic philosophers included Marcus Aurelius and Seneca the Younger. Stoic is always capitalized.
Odious
Odious
hateful
If something is odious it’s hateful. If you become a historian of slavery, you’ll learn all the details of that odious trade.
Odious is from the Latin noun odium, which means hatred. It is a strong word, so don’t call someone odious unless you want to accuse someone of being loathsome or vile. Actions can also be called odious. A typical use is Shakespeare’s in Othello: “You told a lie, an odious damned lie.” Some synonyms are hateful, contemptible, detestable, and abominable.
Sparse
Sparse
spare; bare; meager
Something that’s sparse is thin, not dense. If you’re looking for the perfect place to build a tree house, a sparse forest is probably not your best bet.
From the Latin sparsus, meaning “scattered,” we get the adjective sparse, which means “few and scattered.” Thinning hair is sparse, as is the population of an endangered species. Or a small and scattered crowd for an unpopular band. Synonyms include dispersed, infrequent, and scanty. Antonyms, on the other hand, include full, lush, and plentiful.
Extraneous
Extraneous
irrelevant
Extraneous means coming from or belonging to the outside—extraneous noise is what you hear when you’re in a theater and a train passes by, extraneous wires bring your cable connection into the house.
In Latin, extra means outside, as in extraordinary “outside the ordinary,” or extraterrestrial ‘coming from outside earth.’ (Bonus points––ding! ding!––if you knew that terra is Latin for “earth.”) The meaning of extraneous also extends to more abstract things that come from the outside: extraneous details are ones that don’t matter.
Subterfuge
Subterfuge
a trick
If you want to surprise your mom with a sweatshirt, but don’t know her size, it might take an act of subterfuge, like going through her closet, to find it out. Subterfuge is the use of tricky actions to hide, or get something.
It’s pronounced “SUB-ter-fyooj.” As a countable noun, a subterfuge is a tricky action or device: She employed a very clever subterfuge to get the information she needed. Subterfuge is from French, from Old French suterfuge, from Late Latin subterfugium, from Latin subterfugere “to escape,” from subter “secretly, under” plus fugere “to flee.”
Transcribe
Transcribe
copy
If someone asks you to transcribe something, they want you to listen to it and write down what was said, word for word. Speeches, interviews, and trials are often transcribed for records.
From the Latin transcribere, which means “to copy, write over, or transfer,” the verb transcribe means just that: to write out a copy. You might want to transcribe a recording of an interview onto paper, or maybe you need to transcribe all the notes you collected from an important meeting. If you can remember that trans means “over” and that a scribe is a writer, you shouldn’t forget this word. Fun fact: to transcribe poorly is to transcribble.
Germane
Germane
relevant
Germane means relevant; it fits in. If you are giving a speech on dog training, stick to the germane, canine stuff. Topics that would not be germane? Catnip toys, hamster wheels, and the use of a saddle.
You can thank Shakespeare for the modern meaning of the adjective germane. The word originally referred to people who have the same parents. Shakespeare added the word’s figurative meaning of objects being closely related or relevant when he used it in the play Hamlet. You might want to bring up all sorts of complaints during an argument with your best friend, but she says the two of you should only discuss issues that are germane to the current fight.
Sophomoric
Sophomoric
juvenile; immature
Stevedore
Stevedore
dockworker
You can call a dock worker who loads cargo onto boats a stevedore.
You don’t have to be named Steve to be one (the word means docker or longshoreman), but the spelling of the English given name probably influenced the modern appearance of this word, from the Spanish estivar, “to stow cargo.” The ultimate root is the Latin word stipare , “pack down or press,” and the archaic English verb steeve, or stow, is a relative.
Staunch
Staunch
loyal; faithful; dependable
As an adjective, staunch means firm. You might want to go to that concert Friday night, but your parents’ staunch opposition prevents you.
Staunch is sometimes used as a verb to mean “to stop the flow of a liquid,” but most usage books will tell you it’s better to use the word stanch for the verb. Think of a soldier stopping and standing still, and you will understand the connection between the two meanings. The adjectival form should make you think of “stand,” as in “stand firm,” or “take a stand.” It comes from the French estanche meaning “watertight” and the Latin stanticare, which is probably from stans for “stand.”
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence
science or study of law
You want a word that’s a whole mouthful? Try jurisprudence, the study and philosophy of law. You want to study jurisprudence? Get ready for law school, where you’ll find even longer, more troubling words.
The Latin-based word jurisprudence is made up of two parts, juris “of law” and prudence which goes back to mean “knowledge.” If you study law, you study jurisprudence. You can modify it to show a specific type of law, so you will find terms such as medical, human rights, Islamic or American jurisprudence. Sometimes the word is used as a collective to mean the legal world. This is a new issue that jurisprudence will have to deal with.
Manipulatable
Manipulatable
influencable; controllable
Banality
Banality
ordinariness; dullness
A banality is a trite, boring, or overused remark. That includes clichés like “life is short” and your basic small talk about the weather.
Banalities are sayings that almost everyone uses, and because they’re so well-known, they’ve lost all their power. These expressions are clichéd and many people find them annoying. “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade” is one good example. When you’re writing or speaking, you’re much better off trying to find fresh language because one needs to hear the same old banalities again and again.
Felicitous
Felicitous
apt
- Felicitous* describes something that’s really pleasant. If someone behaves in a felicitous manner, she’s being agreeable and appropriate. You know, the way you should behave when your great aunt offers you those stale candies.
- Felicitous* also describes something that’s happy or lucky. When you plan a trip to the amusement park and it turns out that the sun is shining, that’s felicitous. If you need to mail a package by a certain date and you make it to the post office just in time, that’s also felicitous. Felicitous can also describe something that’s well chosen. Planning an outdoor wedding for the dead of winter would not be felicitous.
Irrevocable
Irrevocable
cannot be cancelled; unchangeable
If you’re on a diet but eat one tiny piece of chocolate, it might start an irrevocable slide into bad eating. Describe something as irrevocable if it cannot be undone or taken back.
If you break down irrevocable, you wind up with ir “not,” re “back” and vocable from the Latin vocare “to call.” So if something is irrevocable, you cannot call it back — it is permanent. You must fulfill an irrevocable promise and live with an irrevocable decision. A law is irrevocable if it states within the law that it cannot be nullified. Now that’s final!
Nonchalance
Nonchalance
an appearance of indifference; calm and composed
Nonchalance is a casual lack of concern, a relaxed state without anxiety or enthusiasm. Like how you’d act if the girl you’ve had a secret crush on since grade school asks you to the prom. (Or maybe not.)
It’s hard to achieve nonchalance. If you’re like most people, there’s always going to be something that will rattle you. And you can forget about behaving with chalance, because chalance isn’t a word. Sometimes you hear people say that so-and-so acted with “studied nonchalance,” which means to sort of fake it. Oddly, the word’s origins go back to the Latin calere, which is the same word as the root of calorie. A calorie is a unit of energy, and to act with nonchalance is to refrain from showing too much energy or excitement, so actually, it makes sense.
Exorcism
Exorcism
getting free/rid of; eliminating (especially demons)
A kid who’s having an hour-long screaming temper tantrum probably needs either an exorcism or a nap. You can use the noun exorcism to describe getting rid of evil spirits.
Exorcism, when it’s used literally to mean evicting bad spirits, is a religious term. Plenty of horror movies feature a priest performing the ritual of exorcism on a demonically possessed person, and some version of exorcism really does exist in Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish traditions. The word can also be used as a metaphor for getting rid of something negative: “Finally telling you the truth felt like an exorcism.”
Dotard
Dotard
foolish old man
Garner
Garner
gather; collect
To garner means to gather or earn. If you want to run for office without belonging to a political party, you must garner enough signatures — usually a few thousand — to get onto the ballot.
The word garner comes from the Latin granarium which means “store-house,” usually for grain. The current use of the word carries with it the sense of something being stored up. It’s not only that you can gather enough yes-votes to overcome the opposition, there is the sense that all the things you have garnered have some weight of their own. In its other use, garner means “earn” or “merit.” Think of movie stars garnering Oscar nominations for their excellent work.
Voluble
Voluble
talkative
Voluble describes someone who talks a lot, like your aunt who can’t stop telling you to cut your hair or a political candidate who makes twenty speeches on the day before the election.
Have you ever found it especially hard to interrupt someone who talks a lot when he or she gets on a roll? If so, it won’t surprise you that the adjective voluble traces back to the Latin word volvere, meaning “to roll.” The word voluble describes talking continuously, fluently, at great length, in a steady flow. You’ll know it when you meet voluble talkers: they just keep rolling on and on.
Conciliate
Conciliate
to bring together; end a dispute
The verb conciliate means to placate, appease, or pacify. If you are eating at a restaurant and the waiter accidentally spills a drink on you, the manager may try to conciliate you by picking up the tab for your meal.
You may be more familiar with the term conciliation––it can mean the flowers you bring to conciliate your girlfriend after a fight, or a politician’s conciliatory offer a new playground to a community that’s just lost its school. Conciliate comes from the Latin word conciliare, meaning to unite. Conciliare in turn comes from the Latin word concilium, meaning council. If you remember their common etymology, you can remember that, like council, conciliate is spelled with only has one L.
Lucid
Lucid
clear
Something that’s lucid is clear and understandable. Lucid writing is important in journalism, so that readers easily get the point of the article they’re reading.
When what you write or say is lucid, it’s straightforward and its meaning is crystal clear. You can also use the adjective lucid to describe your mind or thoughts when you’re thinking in a rational, sensible way: “I was worried about my grandmother’s confusion yesterday, but she seems really lucid today.” Another meaning is “translucent,” or letting light shine through — which makes sense since lucid comes from the Latin lucidus, “light or clear,” with its root of lux, “light.”
Sanguinary
Sanguinary
bloodthirsty; bloody
When something is sanguinary it involves a lot of blood or, at least, the pursuit of blood. Vampire movies are sanguinary: Romper Room is not.
If you’re familiar with French, then you’ll recognize the French word for “blood,” sang, in sanguinary. And if you do, then you’ll have no trouble remembering the meaning, “having a bloodthirsty quality.” Movies have become increasingly sanguinary. Why all the blood and gore? What happened to good old-fashioned suspense?
Sycophant
Sycophant
bootlicker; flatterer
A sycophant is a person who tries to win favor from wealthy or influential people by flattering them. Also known as brown-nosers, teacher’s pets or suck-ups.
Sycophant is from Latin sycophanta, from Greek sykophantēs, from sykon “fig” and phainein “to show, make known.” The original sense was that of an informer, a person who gives information about criminal activities. “Showing the fig” was a vulgar gesture made by sticking the thumb between two fingers. The gesture was used to taunt an opponent or to make an accusation against someone.
Mendacious
Mendacious
given to lying
A mendacious person is one who tells lies habitually and intentionally. Don’t get stuck at the water cooler or bus stop next to someone you consider mendacious!
People may tell “white lies” if they forgot your birthday or really don’t like your new haircut, but if you catch someone intentionally manipulating you with a falsehood, that person is just plain mendacious. So think of the most deceptive, insincere, perfidious, duplicitous, false person you’ve ever met, and then add the word mendacious to that list.
Matriarchy
Matriarchy
society governed by women
If you ever heard “Just wait until your mother gets home!” when you did something wrong as a child, you may have grown up in a matriarchy. In a matriarchy, women call the shots.
The word matriarchy, pronounced “MAY-tree-ar-kee,” derives from the Latin word mater, meaning “mother,” and archein, or “to rule.” A matriarchy is a social system is which women have more power in the community than men. Matriarchy can also be used more broadly to describe a family that is ruled by a powerful woman. The opposite of matriarchy is patriarchy, a system in which men are the ones holding the power.
Elusive
Elusive
hard to pin down
Things that are elusive hard to find, pin down, or remember. They slip right out of your grasp.
Ever try to catch a mouse? It’s not easy, because mice are quick and elusive — they’re tough to catch. Rabbits are speedy, so they’re elusive too. Also, things that are tough to understand or describe are elusive — like the concepts of love and beauty. If you had an idea and then forgot it, the idea is elusive: it slipped away. Anything you can’t get hold of, with your hands or with your brain, is elusive.
Refute
Refute
disprove
The verb refute is to prove that something is wrong. When the kids you’re babysitting swear they brushed their teeth, you can refute their claim by presenting the dry toothbrushes.
Evidence and arguments are used to refute something. So are facts. For example, if children who eat chocolate before going to bed go straight to sleep, that refutes the idea that sugar keeps them up. Refute comes from the Latin refutare for “to check, suppress.” A near synonym is confute, but save refute as an everyday word for proving something is false.
Tardy
Tardy
slow; late; overdue; delayed
When you’re tardy, you’re late. If you’ve ever been late for school, you know about tardy, and you may have a stash of notes your teacher has sent home to your parents, informing them of your tardiness.
You may be tardy for an appointment because you got stuck in traffic, or maybe you just slept late and you don’t have good time management skills. Whatever the excuse, being tardy almost always annoys whoever’s waiting for you. As a reality TV star once crooned, “Don’t be tardy for the party.” The word comes from the Latin tardus, meaning “slow.”
Banal
Banal
common; dull
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.
Predicament
Predicament
dilemma; difficult situation
If you’re engaged to get married, but suddenly fall in love with someone else, you have got yourself in quite a predicament. A predicament is a difficult, confusing, and unpleasant situation.
The Greek word that predicament originally descends from means “a state of being.” Which makes sense considering the words that sound like predicate are all about states of being––predict, or say what’s going to happen in the future, and predicate the second part of a sentence that’s led by the verb. Think of predicament as an unpleasant state of being.
Ornate
Ornate
highly decorated
If something is ornate — whether it’s a ball gown, a set of dishes, or a poem — it seems to be covered in ornaments. It’s lavish, flowery, or heavily adorned.
Look at the first four letters of ornate, and you’ll spot the beginning of its close relative ornament. Ornate most often describes how something looks, but it doesn’t have to be visual. The prose in Victorian love letters was more ornate than the email messages people send today. The ornate gilded mirrors and enormous chandeliers in the palace at Versailles were the height of fashion in Marie Antoinette’s time, but home decor is simpler today. Now, it seems too ornate.
Animosity
Animosity
hatred; antagonism
- Animosity* is hatred. If your (supposed) best buddy embarrasses you in front of a big crowd, your friendship could turn into animosity.
- Animosity* comes from the Latin word animus, meaning “spirit” or “mind.” That’s also the root of the word animated — literally, “full of spirit.” So how did animosity get so negative? Over the centuries, the original meaning of “high spirits” soured into “hatred.” Today we most often speak of animosity toward, between, among, or against people. Keeping your animosity in check might make steam come out your ears.
Precipice
Precipice
steep slope
Cartoon characters often end up on a precipice, the edge of a steep cliff, where their chubby toes curl and cling as they totter and eventually fall, making a hole in the ground below and getting up again. Most real people avoid precipices.
Unless you’re a skilled climber or mountain-sport enthusiast, a precipice is a scary thing. Some imagine falling off and making the sharp drop, while others get dizzy just thinking about looking down. This makes sense, considering that the 17th-century English word precipice comes, through French, from Latin words meaning “headlong” and even “abrupt descent.” In modern use, precipice also describes how it feels to fall, or fail, in areas of life that don’t involve mountains, such as being “on the precipice of losing everything.”
Caucus
Caucus
type of private political meeting
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.
Remorse
Remorse
regret; sorrow; contrition
Remorse, a noun, is what you feel if you regret your actions or wish for another outcome.
The noun remorse has a very vivid origin. It comes from the Latin roots re for “again” and mordere “to bite.” So, if you feel remorse, it means that your conscience is working on you, your past actions are biting you back, and making you feel very regretful. Synonyms for this word are “penitence,” “rue,” and “contrition.” If you took a cookie from the cookie jar and ate it you can’t return it; all you can feel is remorse for what you did!
Fortuitous
Fortuitous
happening by chance
Fortuitous means by chance, like a lucky accident. If you and your best friend’s families happen to go on vacation to the same place at the same time, that’s a fortuitous coincidence!
Something fortuitous is random like an accident, but there’s no downside. A rock falling on your head is an accident, dollar bills falling on your head is fortuitous. The meaning of fortuitous is changing from “happening by chance” to “lucky chance” because people get it mixed up with fortunate. But watch out: If you say fortuitous to mean just plain lucky without the element of chance –– that’s a usage error.
Brevity
Brevity
being brief
The noun brevity means shortness or conciseness. If you give a report on agriculture in the northern hemisphere in 3 minutes, you have done it with incredible brevity.
Brevity comes from brevis, which means “brief” in Latin. You can use brevity for things that are literally short, like the brevity of an elevator meeting, or the quality of fleetingness, like the brevity of youth. Brevity is also a style of speaking or writing with economy. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” remarks Polonius in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” suggesting that witty people know how to make a point without unnecessary words.
Cavalcade
Cavalcade
procession of vehicles
If you are traveling with a procession of people on horseback, you are part of a cavalcade.
The word cavalcade comes from the Latin word for horse, caballus. The word cavalry, which means soldiers on horseback, comes from the same Latin root. So strictly speaking, a cavalcade is group of people on horseback or in horse-drawn carriages, moving together in some kind of ceremony or parade. But cavalcades can include vehicles or people walking, like the motorcycle cavalcades that sometimes accompany a funeral procession.
Precipitous
Precipitous
done in a hurry
A sharp, steep drop — whether it’s in a stock price, a roller coaster, or a star’s popularity — could be described as a precipitous one. Put simply, Precipitous means perilously steep.
Look closely and you’ll spot most of the word precipice (a sheer, almost vertical cliff) in precipitous. Now imagine how you’d feel standing at the edge peering over, and you’ll grasp the sense of impending danger that precipitous tends to imply. Precipitous declines in sales lead to bankruptcy. Precipitous mountainside hiking trails are not for the acrophobic. It can describe an ascent, but precipitous is most often used for things going literally or figuratively downhill.
Infamous
Infamous
famous for something bad
Someone who is infamous has a very bad reputation. If you become a Hollywood star and find yourself on the pages of gossip magazines for your affairs and addictions, you will have succeeded in becoming infamous.
Infamous is from Latin infamis, for negative fame. If you’re bad but unknown, then you’re not infamous — it’s reserved for those wicked and well-known people that capture our collective imagination. It is a strong and resonant term. Some synonyms are notorious, disgraceful, and odious. The stress is on the first syllable.
Belabor
Belabor
explain in unnecessary detail
- Belabor* means to go at something with everything you’ve got. When you say, “Don’t belabor or agonize over the decision,” it means, “Move on.”
- Belabor* is made up of the Latin roots be and labor meaning “to exert one’s strength upon.” You can belabor a point by using excessive detail, or you could belabor the obvious by stating over and over what everyone already knows. Belaboring can be a physical attack as well. A person can belabor or beat the living daylights out of you with a club.
Perfunctory
Perfunctory
superficial; cursory
Perfunctory means done as part of a routine or duty. If you give someone a gift and they look at it like it’s roadkill and say nothing about it but a perfunctory “thank you,” you might not be giving them another one anytime soon.
A person who does something in a perfunctory way shows little enthusiasm or interest in what they are doing. Many of our everyday greetings are perfunctory. For example, when we say hello and how are you, it’s usually done out of habit. Perfunctory is from Latin perfunctus, from perfungi “to get through with, perform,” formed from the Latin prefix per- “completely” plus fungi “to perform.”
Totter
Totter
walk unsteadily
If you spin yourself around until you are dizzy, you will likely totter if you try to step forward. Totter is a verb that means “move unsteadily, as though you are about to fall down.”
To totter is to move in a wobbly, unsteady manner. When a person totters, they look like they are going to fall down. In a boxing match, a boxer might totter after taking a blow to the head. During an earthquake, buildings may totter, or sway, appearing as though they may fall down. Totter can also imply a rocking motion; a playground seesaw, for instance, is sometimes called “a teeter-totter.”
Evacuate
Evacuate
vacate; empty; abandon
To evacuate is to flee, like how people leave an area when a hurricane is coming. It also means to empty something completely.
If you have to evacuate your home, something horrible is probably happening, like a natural disaster. People evacuate when something like a tornado or act of terrorism makes their homes unsafe. To evacuate also means to empty completely, in the bathroom-oriented sense of evacuating (emptying) your bowels. Similarly, if a chemist empties and therefore creates a vacuum in a flask, she has evacuated the flask. When you evacuate, you clear out.
Alibi
Alibi
an excuse that shows someone was not at a crime scene
Your alibi is evidence that proves your innocence. If you were making cookies with your mom when someone raided your sister’s piggy bank, your mom is your alibi, since she knows you were with her when the crime was committed.
The noun alibi is the same word as its Latin root, alibi, which means “excuse.” When you provide an alibi, you are giving proof — a certified excuse — that you could not have committed a crime. Alibi is easy to confuse with alias, which means “an assumed, or false, name.”
Emaciated
Emaciated
very thin; withered
Someone who is dangerously skinny and skeletal-looking can be described as emaciated. It’s probably how you’d start to look after a few weeks in the wilderness with only berries and bugs for dinner.
The adjective emaciated evolved from the Latin emaciatus, meaning to “make lean, waste away.” An emaciated person or animal isn’t just thin. They’re bony, gaunt, and most likely undernourished, often from illness. So if an emaciated stray cat shows up on your doorstep, give it a bowl of milk and maybe pay a visit to the vet.
Flagrant
Flagrant
clearly wrong
Something flagrant is bad — so bad you can’t ignore it. A flagrant foul in sports might send you to the bench, and a flagrant violation of the law might send you to the slammer.
The current meaning of the adjective flagrant — “obviously offensive or disgraceful” — is thought to derive from the Latin legal term in flagrante delicto, which literally meant “with fire still blazing” and is used figuratively to describe a situation in which the criminal is caught red handed. Aside from a flagrant abuse of the law, the word can also be used to describe anything that is obviously bad — like flagrant bad taste or flagrant abuse of the rules of grammar.
Surreptitious
Surreptitious
secret; sneaky; stealthy
When someone behaves in a surreptitious way, they’re being secretive. They’re doing something that they don’t want to be seen doing.
While surreptitious means secret, it has the added sense of “sneaky” or “hidden.” During the Jewish Passover meal of Seder, an adult will surreptitiously place a piece of matzoh somewhere in the house for the children to hunt for later in the meal. You’ll see surreptitious applied mostly to actions, rather than to things or ideas. We do things surreptitiously. The members of the secret society hold surreptitious meetings because, well, they’re a secret society. I was very surreptitious in how I organized the surprise party: she never knew!
Eloquent
Eloquent
fluent and persuasive in speech
When you’re eloquent, you have a way with words. An eloquent speaker expresses herself clearly and powerfully. Even though eloquent usually describes oral speech, it can also be used to describe powerful writing.
Being eloquent is about using words well. All the great writers from English class — such as Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, and Virginia Woolf — were eloquent. A great orator or speaker like Martin Luther King was eloquent. When something is beautifully, gorgeously, perfect said (or written), it’s eloquent. Being eloquent requires your words to be smooth, clear, powerful, and interesting. To write or speak in an eloquent way takes a lot of work.
Peccadillo
Peccadillo
minor weakness; trivial offence
A peccadillo is a minor offense or sin. Parents recognize that their kids have a few peccadilloes: they don’t always remember to say please and thank you, don’t put their dirty clothes in the hamper, and worst of all, they keeping finding the chocolate stash!
Peccadillo is based on the Spanish word peccado, meaning “sin,” with a diminutive added, making peccadillo a small sin. How big a sin is a peccadillo? Well, that depends on who you ask. The person committing the offense is likely to try to pass off any number of transgressions and mistakes as peccadilloes. If you apologize and are forgiven, it’s probably a peccadillo. If your transgression could get you fired, it’s probably not!
Decoy
Decoy
lure; trap; trick
A decoy is a fake version of something used to play a trick or lead you into danger, like the cork duck decoys hunters put on the pond to make the real ducks think it’s safe to stop by.
Decoy most often refers to bait used for trapping or killing an animal, but it can be any object or plan used to lead someone or something into trouble. Fisherman use worm decoys on their lures to catch fish, just like police use people as undercover decoys to catch criminals. While etymologists aren’t positive, they suspect decoy comes from the Dutch kooi, which means “a cage.” So think of luring a mouse into a cage with a big slice of decoy cheese.
Gullible
Gullible
easily fooled
If you are gullible, the joke is on you because you are easily fooled.
It is thought that gullible might be derived from the verb gull, meaning “to swallow.” This would be a funny coincidence as gullible describes an overly trusting person who tends to swallow the stories he hears whole. The related word, gull, can be used as a noun “don’t be such a gull!” or as a verb “you can’t gull me into believing that!”
Peerless
Peerless
without equal
Do you ever feel like one of a kind? Then maybe you are peerless, a word for someone (or something) unique, excellent, and superior.
Peerless is a variation of peer — a word for folks in the same boat as you, or at least the same class. A teacher’s peers are other teachers, but if she’s a much better teacher than anyone, you could call her a peerless teacher. One of the many compliments given to Michael Jordan is that he was peerless. Amazing, one-of-a-kind people like Picasso, Gandhi, and Shakespeare are considered peerless. The rest of us have a lot of peers.
Plethora
Plethora
an excess
- 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.
- Plethora* comes from the Greek for “fullness.” Although it was originally used only in old-fashioned medicine to describe the condition of having too much blood, we use it to talk about any excessive supply. If you run a theater and all the seats are taken, that’s a full house. But if the seats are full and people are standing in the aisles, you have a plethora of patrons. The stress is on the first syllable: PLETH-uh-ruh.
Candor
Candor
frankness; openness
Candor usually means the quality of being open, honest, and sincere. If someone tells you they think you are dumb, you might reply with, “While I appreciate your candor, I don’t think we need to be friends anymore.”
The corresponding adjective is candid, as in “I want you to be candid. Do these pants make me look fat?” Candor is from French candeur, from Latin candor, from candēre “to shine, be white.” The color white is associated with purity, which is a now obsolete meaning of candor.
Pallid
Pallid
pale
Santa looks a little pallid, meaning that he has a pale complexion, from spending too much time at the North Pole. A few days in Hawaii might do wonders to add color to his pale, bearded face.
Pallid means pale, or lacking color. It’s often used together with complexion to describe someone who has a pale face, either due to a lack of sunshine or some kind of emotional distress. A reclusive author could be pallid from spending too much time indoors. His books can also be called pallid if they’re lacking in color and excitement.
Circumlocution
Circumlocution
using too many words; long-windedness
- Circumlocution* is a long, complicated word which means a long, complicated way of expressing something. To cut to the chase, circumlocution means to beat around the bush.
- Circumlocution* comes from the Latin words circum, “circle,” and loqui, “to speak.” So circumlocution is speaking in circles, going round and round in a wordy way without ever getting to the heart of the matter. It’s an evasive style of argument, best employed when you really don’t want to say what’s on your mind.
Chimerical
Chimerical
changeable; unstable
Use the adjective chimerical to describe something that is wildly fanciful or imaginative — like the chimerical illustrations of unicorns in a children’s book.
A chimera was a fire-breathing monster from Greek mythology made from three different animals: a lion at its head, a goat in the middle, and a serpent at the end. The first surviving mention of the beast is in Homer’s The Iliad. From this fantastical creature, English created the adjective chimerical to describe wild figments of the imagination.
Alleviate
Alleviate
make less severe
Do all these words make your head ache? If so, take an aspirin to alleviate, or relieve, your pain.
The verb, alleviate, stems from the Latin root, levis “light” and is related to modern English words such as elevator and levitate — both words implying a lightening of one’s load. Alleviate also has this sense of lightening a burden such as physical pain or emotional duress. You can take medicine to alleviate symptoms or do exercise to alleviate stress. Or if you want a bigger challenge: try alleviating traffic congestion or world hunger.
Verbose
Verbose
talkative; long-winded; rambling
Verbose describes a person, speech, or piece of writing that uses many words, usually more words than necessary. If you talk too much, you can be described as verbose, and so can your history paper if you didn’t do the research and are just tried to take up space with words.
Near synonyms are wordy and prolix. Verbose is from Latin verbosus “full of words,” from verbum “word, verb.” As you can guess from the spelling, English verb was borrowed from Latin verbum. And English word happens to be related to Latin verbum, though it dates back to Old English and was not borrowed from Latin.
Palatable
Palatable
good to eat; agreeable
Something that is palatable is acceptable to one’s sense of taste—literally or figuratively. If it’s palatable, then you can put up with it — whether it’s leftovers or a mediocre made-for-TV movie.
The palate is the roof of the mouth, the combination of structures that separates the mouth from the nose. Early anatomists believed that the sense of taste was located in the palate, and, just as taste is metaphorically expanded to include sensibilities beyond the experience of food and drink, so palatable can be used to describe phenomena beyond the culinary. And, while palatable can mean pleasing or agreeable, it generally means merely tolerable—edible, rather than delicious.
Flamboyant
Flamboyant
showy; ornate
Flamboyant means elaborate and ostentatious. When you think of flamboyant, think of Las Vegas showgirls: feathers, sequins, three-inch heels, enough make-up to disguise any irregularity.
Flamboyant means showy, and though we often roll our eyes at it, it’s not a hateful thing. Liberace was flamboyant. So was Elvis. The word comes from the French flamboyer, to flame. Think of passion and pageantry all rolled into one, and you’ll have a good idea what flamboyant should mean at its best. If that doesn’t do it for you, think of a man playing a shiny white grand piano at a rock concert, wearing a white satin jump suit and 8-foot wide, fully-feathered wings. See? Flamboyant.
Enduring
Enduring
lasting
Many people have an enduring love for ice cream, that is, they have loved it for a long time and will continue to love it into the future. Enduring means long-lasting.
Enduring has roots that go back about 1,500 years to the Late Latin period. It is quite an enduring word! The original root meant hard, so your enduring friendship or your enduring interest in sports is solid enough to stand the test of time. Besides meaning long-lasting, enduring sometimes means long-suffering as when someone has an enduring disposition, but this meaning is found in the verb more than in the adjective.
Endorse
Endorse
give support or approval to
To endorse is to give support to someone or something. “I endorse this!” means “I think this is a good thing, and so should you.”
People endorse in many ways. When someone endorses a politician, it means “You should vote for this person, and I’m putting my reputation on the line to say so.” When someone endorses a product in a commercial, it means “Go buy this! You’ll like it.” To endorse is to give support. You can also endorse a check, which means writing your name or someone else’s on the back so that you or the other person can cash or deposit it.
Specious
Specious
FALSE
Use specious to describe an argument that seems to be good, correct, or logical, but is not so. We live on the earth, therefore the earth must be the center of the universe has been proven to be a specious theory of the solar system.
Specious is pronounced “SPEE-shuhs.” Something that is specious is attractive in a deceptive way, and if you follow the word’s etymology, you’ll see why. In Middle English, this adjective meant “attractive,” from Latin speciōsus “showy, beautiful,” from speciēs “appearance, kind, sort.” Latin speciēs is also the source of English species.
Obdurate
Obdurate
stubborn
Obdurate is a formal word meaning stubborn. If you want to major in English, but your parents are obdurate that you should go premed, they might go so far as to threaten not to pay your tuition.
This adjective descends from Latin obdurare “to harden.” A near synonym is adamant, from Latin adamas “hard metal, diamond.” So both of these synonyms derive from the quality of hardness being associated with a stubborn personality.
Ambiguous
Ambiguous
unclear in meaning; can be interpreted in different ways
Look to the adjective ambiguous when you need to describe something that’s open to more than one interpretation, like the headline “Squad helps dog bite victim.”
Newspaper headlines can be unintentionally funny when they’re ambiguous. In “Squad helps dog bite victim,” is the squad helping a victim of a dog bite or helping a dog bite a victim? The ambi- prefix means “both ways,” while the guous part is from the Latin verb agere, “to lead or drive.” Thus an ambiguous sentence or situation drives us in two different directions at once. The accent is on the second syllable, “big,” which you can remember since something that’s ambiguous can lead to big misunderstandings.
Meager
Meager
in short supply
- Meager* means small and often applies to portions. Meager is the serving of chocolate cake your mother will allows you––or the amount of vegetables you actually want to eat before getting to that cake.
- Meager* doesn’t mean adequate––it means not enough. People with a limited supply of food may try to subsist on meager portions. People who make a meager amount of money probably have a hard time making rent. Meager and emaciated both derive from the Old French maigre. If you can remember that you will look emaciated if your diet is meager, you’ll use the word correctly.
Conundrum
Conundrum
a puzzle
The tricky word conundrum is used to describe a riddle or puzzle, sometimes including a play on words or pun.
One of the most famous conundrums is the riddle of the Sphinx, famously in the play Oedipus the King by Sophocles. Oedipus encounters the Sphinx, a mythical beast, who asks him, “What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?” The answer is “A person”: crawling as a child, walking as an adult, and using a cane in old age. The scary thing is that if the Sphinx asked you the riddle and you didn’t know, she’d eat you!
Abstain
Abstain
desist; go without; withdraw
If you abstain from something, you restrain yourself from consuming it. People usually abstain from things that are considered vices — like drinking alcohol or eating chocolate.
Roots of the word abstain are from the 14th-century French, “to withhold oneself,” and the word often refers to people who abstain or keep themselves from drinking liquor. The noun form abstinence also pops up often in reference to abstinence programs that urge teens to abstain from premarital sex. Abstain can also mean to withhold a vote, and sometimes a difficult decision is held up when government representatives abstain from voting one way or another.
Annex
Annex
a building which is an addition to an existing building
An annex is an extension of, or an addition to a building. A small room off of a main room is an annex, and attics are another type of annex.
As a noun, an annex is part of a building or an addition to a main structure, or it can be an attachment, as in “an annex to the current plans.” When used as a verb, the word means something a little different. Sometimes annex is used as a nice word for “take” or “grab,” as when Nazi Germany took the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia in 1938 and added it to their own territory. In order to annex something to what is yours, you have to take it away from someone else.
Abstemious
Abstemious
self denying; refraining from indulging
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!
Cryptic
Cryptic
puzzling; enigmatic
“White bunny. Moon. Square.” Do you understand what that means? Of course not! It’s totally cryptic. Cryptic comments or messages are hard to understand because they seem to have a hidden meaning.
Cryptic is from Late Latin crypticus, from Greek kryptikos, from kryptos “hidden.” This Greek adjective is the source of our English word crypt, referring to a room under a church in which dead people are buried. That might account for why the word cryptic has an eerie tone to it.
Rigor
Rigor
thoroughness
When a private school boasts of its academic rigor, it means its students learn a lot and work really hard. Rigor means thoroughness and exhaustiveness––the gold standard for a good teacher.
You may have heard of “rigor mortis”––which is a medical term describing the stiffness of a body after death. Rigor used to mean stiffness outside of the corpse context, i.e., sternness. The word changes meaning along with our changing standards for what we want teachers to be.
Condone
Condone
tacitly support; overlook
If you condone something, you allow it, approve of it, or at least can live with it. Some teachers condone chewing gum, and some don’t.
Things that are condoned are allowed, even if everyone isn’t exactly thrilled about it. People often say, “I don’t condone what he did, but I understand it.” Condoning is like excusing something. People seem to talk more about things they don’t condone than things they do condone. Your mom might say, “I don’t condone you staying up till 10, but I know you need to read.” That’s a way of giving approval and not giving approval at the same time.
Adversity
Adversity
hardship
When circumstances or a situation works against you, you face adversity.
Adversity, a noun which has been part of the English language for over 800 years, comes from the Latin adversitatem “opposition” and is related to the preposition, versus, a word common in legal or battle language meaning “against.” When things seem against you — circumstances or a stoke of bad luck — you are facing adversity. Sometimes people use a form of the phrase, “turning adversity into opportunity/advantage.” This refers to the ability some people or companies have to take a bad situation and make it into a successful one.
Caustic
Caustic
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.”
Exculpate
Exculpate
free someone from blame; pardon; acquit
To exculpate means to find someone not guilty of criminal charges. If you’ve been wrongly convicted of robbery, you better hope a judge will exculpate you, unless you want to go to jail because you’ve heard prison food is amazing.
Exculpate comes from two Latin words: ex-, meaning “from,” and culpa, meaning “blame.” Exculpate is similar in meaning to exonerate. When you exonerate someone, you clear a person of an accusation and any suspicion that goes along with it. Exculpate usually refers more directly to clearing the charges against someone. So if that judge exculpates you from the robbery charge, everyone in town might still think you did it. Get him to exculpate and exonerate you.
Cajole
Cajole
coax
To cajole someone is to persuade them by using insincere compliments or promises. If you say “Please, pretty-please, I’ll be your best friend,” when asking for a stick of gum, you are cajoling the gum holder.
The origin of this word is probably a blend of two French words meaning “to chatter like a jaybird” and “to lure into a cage.” When you cajole that guy into lending you some money, picture him as the bird going into the cage. In fact, the word cajole may be associated with another French word meaning “to put in jail.”
Palpable
Palpable
easily felt; easily perceived
When something is palpable, you can touch or handle it, even though the word is often used to describe things that usually can’t be handled or touched, such as emotions or sensations.
You probably won’t see palpable used to describe, say, an egg or a doorknob or a motorcycle. Palpable is usually reserved for situations in which something invisible becomes so intense that it feels as though it has substance or weight. When the towers came down, the sense of sadness was so great, it was palpable.
Finesse
Finesse
skill
Having finesse means you can handle difficult situations with diplomacy and tact, like the finesse it takes to help two friends work out their differences — without taking sides or alienating either one.
Finesse is having grace under pressure. It’s handling the rantings of an angry customer with a smile and a calm tone. Someone who has finesse says the right thing at the right time — or knows when to say nothing at all. Finesse looks like fineness and in fact comes from the Middle French word that means exactly that — delicate in nature. People with finesse can handle anything — with a delicate approach that really works.
Talisman
Talisman
lucky charm
A talisman is a charm that is supposed to ward off evil or illness. Your rabbit’s foot key chain may be your lucky talisman, but it wasn’t so lucky for that rabbit, of course.
The word talisman has been around in English since the 1630s and it has roots in both Arabic and Greek words. A talisman is usually worn around the neck but could exist in other forms, like a ring or inscribed stone. You can think of a talisman as a good luck charm, but people tend to take talismans more seriously — as if they are empowered with magic to ward off evil spirits.
Loquacious
Loquacious
talkative
A loquacious person talks a lot, often about stuff that only they think is interesting. You can also call them chatty or gabby, but either way, they’re loquacious.
Whenever you see the Latin loqu-, you can be sure that the word has something to do with “talking.” So a loquacious person is a person who talks a lot, and often too much. Sitting next to a loquacious person at a dinner party can make dinner a real drag. Of course, if you’ve got nothing to say, a loquacious person might make a good dinner companion, because they’ll do all the talking. All you will have to do is smile and eat.
Wane
Wane
grow less
Things that wax and wane grow larger and smaller, like the moon. Things that wane simply grow smaller. “My initial enthusiasm for helping waned when I saw the pile of envelopes that needed licking.”
You may have heard the expression “on the wane.” It means a fad, or a fashion, or a disease, that is on its way out the door. “The face mask fad at school was on the wane as new reports of kids infected with a dreaded new fly virus waned.”
Robust
Robust
strong; healthy; tough
Use robust to describe a person or thing that is healthy and strong, or strongly built. This adjective also commonly describes food or drink: a robust wine has a rich, strong flavor.
If your school has a robust sports program, it means they offer lots of different kinds of sports and that a lot of kids participate. If you have a robust speaking voice, it means you have a voice that’s deep and loud and strong. Robust is from Latin robustus “of oak, hard, strong,” from robur “oak tree, strength.”
Overwrought
Overwrought
worked up; in an emotional state
High on drama and lacking any emotional restraint, overwrought is an adjective that means deeply, excessively agitated or nervous.
Say your favorite soap star gets killed off in episode 12. If you sob uncontrollably, tear at your hair, and refuse to leave the couch for a week, most would say your response was overwrought — in other words, a bit much. But it’s not just emotions that can go over the top. The gaudy, golden McMansion covered in ornate Italian statuary where your soap star lives in real life? Totally overdone, or overwrought, with details.
Penury
Penury
poverty
- Penury* means extreme poverty to the point of homelessness and begging in the streets. Economic downturns, job loss, shopping sprees, and weekends at the high rollers’ table in Vegas can lead to penury.
- Penury* comes from the Latin word penuria, which, though it sounds like something contagious, actually means scarcity. It’s not a word that turns up often in casual conversation or even on nightly newscasts. You’re more apt to spot it in a college textbook or maybe an editorial in The New York Times.
Incarceration
Incarceration
putting in prison
Incarceration is the state of being in prison. If you don’t fancy incarceration, don’t go through with that bank heist.
The noun incarceration comes from the Latin word carcer, meaning “jail.” There are many different types of incarceration. If you commit a crime and get locked up, that’s one form of incarceration. Some people might feel that school is a form of incarceration. Some highly religious people think of the body as an incarceration of the spirit. A great synonym for this word is captivity.
Beguile
Beguile
mislead; lure
To beguile is to trick someone, either with deception or with irresistible charm and beauty. You could be beguiled by a super model or by a super con artist.
Beguile doesn’t always mean that the person or thing beguiling is tricking you, but there is a sense with this word of enchantment that takes away the viewer’s normal powers of judgment. A beautiful place or idea can beguile as easily as a person. You might be so beguiled by the idea of a picnic on the beach that you forgot there are two feet of snow on the ground.
Susceptible
Susceptible
vulnerable
If you are susceptible to something such as infections or earaches, it means you are likely to become sick with these things.
Have you ever received something you don’t want? Well, with susceptible meaning “likely to be influenced or affected by” that is probably going to be the case. If you’re susceptible to flattery, and someone wants something from you, all they have to do is give you a compliment or two and you’ll do what they want. Material that’s susceptible to cracking won’t be in good condition for long.
Respite
Respite
a break; intermission
A respite is a break from something that’s difficult or unpleasant. If you’re cramming for exams, take an occasional walk to give yourself a respite from the intensity.
Respite may look like it rhymes with despite, but this word has a stress on its first syllable (RES-pit). It comes from the Latin word respectus, meaning refuge, but we almost always use respite to describe a time, not a place, of relief. If you’ve been fighting with your partner, a visit from a friend might offer a brief respite from the argument, but the fight will pick up again when she leaves.
