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Advanced English Vocab. Lists > Misc. 1 > Flashcards

Misc. 1 Flashcards

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Proverbs and Idioms flashcards
1
Q

nabob

A

any very wealthy, influential, or powerful person.

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2
Q

fumarole

A

a hole in or near a volcano, from which vapor rises

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3
Q

flumadiddle

A

utter nonsense

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4
Q

mien

A

air, bearing, or demeanor, as showing character, feeling, etc.: a man of noble mien

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5
Q

piebald

A

having patches of black and white or of other colors; parti-colored

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6
Q

tenderfoot

A

a raw, inexperienced person; novice

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7
Q

otiose

A

1.) being at leisure; idle; indolent. 2) ineffective or futile. Otiose came to English in the late 1700s from the Latin ōtiōsus meaning “at leisure.”

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8
Q

cavil

A
  1. to raise irritating and trivial objections; find fault with unnecessarily (usually followed by at or about ): He finds something to cavil at in everything I say.
  2. to oppose by inconsequential, frivolous, or sham objections: to cavil each item of a proposed agenda.
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9
Q

shivaree

A
  1. a mock serenade with kettles, pans, horns, and other noisemakers given for a newly married couple; charivari.
  2. Informal. an elaborate, noisy celebration.
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10
Q

pentimento

A
  1. Painting. the presence or emergence of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over.
    Quotes
    The term pentimento (plural pentimenti) refers to the evidence of changes an artist makes during the development of a composition on canvas.
    – Wesley Pulkka, “Chicago-born ABQ artist displays new acrylic paintings,” ABQ Journal, August 3, 2014
    Origin
    Pentimento came to English from the Italian pentire meaning “to repent,” which ultimately derives from the Latin paenitēre meaning to regret.
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11
Q

telesthesia

A
  1. sensation or perception received at a distance without the normal operation of the recognized sense organs.
    Quotes
    People might think it was about necromancy or telesthesia or something.
    – Stephen Dixon, “The Play,” The Play and Other Stories, 1988
    Origin
    Telethesia entered English in the late 1880s and stems from the Greek têle meaning “far” and aísthēsis meaning “sensation, perception.”
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12
Q

holophrase

A

a word functioning as a phrase or sentence, as the imperative Go!

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13
Q

floccinaucinihilipilification

A

Rare. the estimation of something as valueless (encountered mainly as an example of one of the longest words in the English language).
Quotes
…they must be taken with an air of contempt, a floccinaucinihilipilification of all that can gratify the outward man
– Sir Walter Scott, “Wednesday, March 18, 1829,” The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, edited by W. E. K Anderson, 1972
Origin
Floccinaucinihilipilification is a combination of the Latin words floccī+naucī+nihilī+pilī each of which refer to something of little or no value. These terms appeared next to one another in a widely used textbook called The Eton Latin Grammar, and were combined in this facetious construction, which is first attested in the 1700s.

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14
Q

agog

A

adjective
1. highly excited by eagerness, curiosity, anticipation, etc.

adverb
1. in a state of eager desire; excitedly.
Quotes
She was as adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school.
– Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929
Origin
Agog may come from the Middle French en gogues meaning “in jest.” It entered English in the mid-1400s.

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15
Q

quidnunc

A

a person who is eager to know the latest news and gossip; a gossip or busybody.
Quotes
You can hide nothing from the quidnunc of Hanbridge. Moreover, when a quidnunc in the streets of Hanbridge sees somebody famous or striking, or notorious, he does not pretend that he has seen nobody.
– Arnold Bennett, Denry the Audacious, 1911
Origin
Quidnunc comes from the classical Latin quid nunc meaning “what now.” It entered English in the early 1700s.

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16
Q

apothegm

A

a short, pithy, instructive saying; a terse remark or aphorism.

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17
Q

sudser

A
  1. Informal. any movie, play, or the like that is designed to provoke a tearful response.
  2. Informal. a soap opera.
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18
Q

tatterdemalion

A

adjective
1. ragged; unkempt or dilapidated.

noun
1. a person in tattered clothing; a shabby person.
Quotes
He seemed to fit the tatterdemalion apartment perfectly: his dark clothes threadbare, his beard unkempt, his shoes cracked, with his right foot resting on the floor at an odd angle to the other.
– Chaim Potok, Old Men at Midnight, 2001
Origin
Tatterdemalion entered English in the early 1600s. This term was first written tatter-de-mallian and rhymed with battalion.

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19
Q

legerity

A

physical or mental quickness; nimbleness; agility.

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20
Q

scroop

A

verb
1. to emit a harsh, grating sound: The gate scrooped as he swung it shut.

noun
1. a scrooping sound.
2. ability to make a rustling sound added to silk or rayon fabrics during finishing by treating them with certain acids.
Quotes
The engine started and the car moved forward, but the buckled wheel scrooped against the frame.
– Nevil Shute, On the Beach, 1957
Origin
Scroop is echoic in origin, and is thought to be a blend of scrape and whoop. It entered English in the late 1700s.

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21
Q

hidebound

A
  1. narrow and rigid in opinion; inflexible: a hidebound pedant.
  2. oriented toward or confined to the past; extremely conservative: a hidebound philosopher.
    Quotes
    I never saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that hidebound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies.
    – Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 1886
    Origin
    Hidebound entered English in the mid-1500s as a descriptor for malnourished cattle. It joins the words hide meaning “the pelt or skin of one of the larger animals” and bound meaning “made fast as if by a band or bond.”
22
Q

frabjous

A

Informal. wonderful, elegant, superb.
Quotes
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! / He chortled in his joy.
– Lewis Carroll, “Jabberwocky,” Through the Looking-Glass, 1871
Origin
Frabjous was coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass, 1871, with elements suggestive of fabulous and joyous.

23
Q

logy

A

\LOH-gee\ [hard ‘g’]

lacking physical or mental energy or vitality; sluggish; dull; lethargic.

24
Q

volitant

A
  1. engaged in or having the power of flight.
  2. active; moving.
    Quotes
    We are golden averages, volitant stabilities, compensated or periodic errors, houses founded on the sea.
    – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men, 1850
    Origin
    Volitant comes from the Latin verb volāre meaning “to fly.” It entered English in the mid-1800s.
25
Q

bafflegab

A

Slang. confusing or generally unintelligible jargon; gobbledegook: an insurance policy written in bafflegab impenetrable to a lay person.
Quotes
Victor had no eye for shape or form…He judged the tone and rhythm of the plans by how the architects could sing their wares, what bafflegab they used.
– Jim Crace, Arcadia, 1992
Origin
Bafflegab is a portmanteau of baffle and gab and is credited to Milton A. Smith, a lawyer for the US Chamber of Commerce during the 1950s. Milton humorously defined this word as “multiloquence characterized by consummate interfusion of circumlocution or periphrasis, inscrutability, and other familiar manifestations of abstruse expatiation commonly utilitzed for promulgations implementing Procrustean determinations by governmental bodies.”

26
Q

piffle

A

noun
1. nonsense, as trivial or senseless talk.
verb
1. to talk nonsense.
Quotes
Piffle. Oh, my, such piffle. You want a house and children and a collie dog about as much as I do.
– John Updike, In the Beauty of the Lilies, 1996
Origin
Piffle arose in the 1840s. It is of unknown origin.

27
Q

veridical

A
  1. truthful; veracious.
  2. corresponding to facts; not illusory; real; actual; genuine.
    Quotes
    To answer that question, consider all those worlds in which Macbeth’s current visual state is veridical.
    – Gregory Currie, The Nature of Fiction, 1990
    Origin
    Veridical comes from the Latin word vēridicus which means “true speaking.”
28
Q

atticism

A
  1. concise and elegant expression, diction, or the like.
  2. the style or idiom of Attic Greek occurring in another dialect or language.
    Quotes
    …and it is distinct to me that the purity was challenged by a friend of the house, and without – pathetically enough! – provoking the only answer, the plea that the missing Atticism would have been wasted on young barbarians.
    – Henry James, A Small Boy and Others, 1913
    Origin
    Atticism comes from the Greek word Attikismós which means “a siding with Athens” or “an Attic expression.” Since Attic was the language of the Greek capital Athens, it also came to be associated with fine speech.
29
Q

brio

A

vigor; vivacity.

30
Q

brume

A

mist; fog.

31
Q

badinage

A

light, playful banter or raillery.

32
Q

diddle

A

Informal. to cheat; swindle; hoax.

33
Q

boodle

A
  1. the lot, pack, or crowd: Send the whole boodle back to the factory.
  2. a large quantity of something, especially money: He’s worth a boodle.
34
Q

paramnesia

A
  1. Psychiatry. a distortion of memory in which fact and fantasy are confused.
  2. the inability to recall the correct meaning of a word.
35
Q

cantillate

A

to chant; intone.

36
Q

anthesis

A

Botany. the period or act of expansion in flowers, especially the maturing of the stamens.

37
Q

dysphemism

A
  1. the substitution of a harsh, disparaging, or unpleasant expression for a more neutral one.
  2. an expression so substituted.
    Quotes
    They were given considerable latitude in determining who should become a target of their “collection efforts.” (The term “spying” was considered a dysphemism, though many believed it to be a more honest description of domestic intelligence work.)
    – David Lindsey, An Absence of Light, 1994
    Origin
    Dysphemism is derived from the Greek dys- meaning “ill, bad” and phḗmē meaning “speaking.” It entered English in the late 1800s.
38
Q

intenerate

A

to make soft or tender; soften.
Quotes
I know not whether I do not too much indulge the vain longings of affection; but I hope they intenerate my heart, and that when I die like my Tetty, this affection will be acknowledged in a happy interview…
– , Samuel Johnson in The Life of Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, 1791
Origin
Intenerate entered English in the late 1500s and finds its roots in the Latin term tener meaning “tender.”

39
Q

magniloquent

A

Lofty or grandiose in speech or expression; using a high-flown style of discourse; bombastic.

40
Q

sastruga

A

Usually, sastrugi. ridges of snow formed on a snowfield by the action of the wind.

41
Q

variorum

A
  1. containing different versions of the text by various editors: a variorum edition of Shakespeare.
  2. containing many notes and commentaries by a number of scholars or critics: a variorum text of Cicero.
    Quotes
    The “Callas Remastered” lineup reproduces Callas’s complete studio recordings, omitting nothing, while live material has been rigorously excluded. As it turns out, the conceptual logic gives the package a strange inconsistency—and a whiff of the variorum.
    – Matthew Gurewitsch, “La Divina Goes High-Def,” Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2014
    Origin
    Variorum is short for the Latin phase ēditiō cum notīs variōrum meaning “edition with the notes of various persons.” It came to English in the 1700s.
42
Q

butyraceous

A

of the nature of, resembling, or containing butter.
Quotes
And, certainly, fine food, lots of the best wine, had given his jowls a butyraceous sheen.
– Ken Bruen, Purgatory, 2013
Origin
Butyraceous can be traced to the Latin word for butter, butyrum, with the -aceous suffix meaning “resembling, having the nature of.” It entered English in the mid-1600s.

43
Q

ad hockery

A

reliance on temporary solutions rather than on consistent, long-term plans.

44
Q

Pickwickian

A
  1. (of words or ideas) meant or understood in a sense different from the apparent or usual one.
  2. (of the use or interpretation of an expression) intentionally or unintentionally odd or unusual.
    Quotes
    She also said, smiling subtly, that she used the word friends in a Pickwickian sense…I replied that I did not know what she meant; and she said to me…”My friends, there are no friends!”
    – Randall Jarrell, Pictures from an Institution, 1954
    Origin
    Pickwickian is derived from the name of the protagonist in Charles Dickens’s novel The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, published serially from 1836–37. While Dickens was using the adjective Pickwickian in the 1930s, it took several more years before it caught on more widely.
45
Q

demassify

A
  1. to break (something standardized or homogeneous) into elements that appeal to individual tastes or special interests: to demassify the magazine industry into special-interest periodicals.
  2. to cause (society or a social system) to become less uniform or centralized; diversify or decentralize: to demassify the federal government.
    Quotes
    Product designers focused on stylization and customization instead of on utility, as advertisers and marketers began to demassify the mass market, breaking consumers into ever-finer market segments and targeting them through an expanded and more refined media system.
    – William Leiss, Stephen Kline, Sut Jhally, Jacqueline Botterill, Social Communication in Advertising, 2005
    Origin
    Demassify came into widespread usage in the 1970s. The verb massify meaning “to popularize for a wide audience” entered English about 20 years prior, and stems from the Latin term massa meaning “lump” or “kneaded dough.”
46
Q

effulgent

A

shining forth brilliantly; radiant.

47
Q

polymathy

A

learning in many fields; encyclopedic knowledge.

48
Q

belie

A
  1. to show to be false; contradict: His trembling hands belied his calm voice.
  2. to misrepresent: The newspaper belied the facts.
    Quotes
    “We are home,” he said. “It is all right here.” His voice belied his words. I wanted to check if he had the medicine he needed for his heart condition, but the call dropped.
    – Basharat Peer, “Waters Close Over Kashmir,” The New Yorker, September 23, 2014
    Origin
    Belie entered English prior to 1000, and is formed with the prefix be- meaning “around,” and the verb lie meaning “to speak falsely.”
49
Q

flâneur

A

an idler, dawdler, or loafer

50
Q

hortatory

A

urging to some course of conduct or action; exhorting; encouraging: a hortatory speech.

Advanced English Vocab. Lists (20 decks)

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