Misc. 6 Flashcards
comity
- mutual courtesy; civility.
- Also called comity of nations. courtesy between nations, as in respect shown by one country for the laws, judicial decisions, and institutions of another.
overslaugh
\oh-ver-SLAW\
verb
1. to pass over or disregard (a person) by giving a promotion, position, etc., to another instead.
iatrogenic
\ahy-a-truh-JEN-ik, ee-a-\
adjective
1. (of a medical disorder) caused by the diagnosis, manner, or treatment of a physician.
tohubohu
\TOH-hoo-BOH-hoo\
noun
1. chaos; disorder; confusion.
encephalon
\en-SEF-uh-lon, -luh n\
noun
1. Anatomy. the brain.
supererogatory
- going beyond the requirements of duty.
2. greater than that required or needed; superfluous.
punctilio
- strictness or exactness in the observance of formalities or amenities.
- a fine point, particular, or detail, as of conduct, ceremony, or procedure.
“Overstrained etiquette at last gave way. It is not known who first overstepped the bounds of punctilio; but the consequences were immediate.”
– O. Henry, “Past One at Rooney’s,” Strictly Business, 1910
tourbillion
- a whirlwind or something resembling a whirlwind.
2. a firework that rises spirally.
campestral
of or relating to fields or open country.
animadversion
- an unfavorable or censorious comment: to make animadversions on someone’s conduct.
- the act of criticizing.
woolgathering
- indulgence in idle fancies and in daydreaming; absentmindedness: His woolgathering was a handicap in school.
- gathering of the tufts of wool shed by sheep and caught on bushes.
chiasmus
Rhetoric. a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases, as in “He went to the country, to the town went she.” Applied fairly broadly to any “criss-cross” structure. In its classical application, chiasmus would have been used for structures that do not repeat the same words and phrases, but invert a sentence’s grammatical structure or ideas. The concept of chiasmus on a higher level, applied to motifs, turns of phrase, or whole passages, is called chiastic structure.
virgule
\VUR-gyool\
noun
1. a short oblique stroke (/) between two words indicating that whichever is appropriate may be chosen to complete the sense of the text in which they occur: The defendant and his/her attorney must appear in court.
2. a dividing line, as in dates, fractions, a run-in passage of poetry to show verse division, etc.: 3/21/27; “Sweetest love, I do not go/For weariness of thee.” (John Donne)
skylark
verb
1. to frolic; sport: The children were skylarking on the beach.
noun
1. a brown-speckled European lark, Alauda arvensis, famed for its melodious song.
bumptious
offensively self-assertive: a bumptious young upstart.
spindrift
spray swept by a violent wind along the surface of the sea.
presentiment
a feeling or impression that something is about to happen, especially something evil; foreboding.
“… the good lady set that question entirely at rest, by informing them that she had a presentiment on the subject–a species of second-sight with which she had been in the habit of clinching every argument with the deceased Mr Nickleby, and in nine cases and three-quarters out of every ten, determining it the wrong way.”
– Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, 1839
titivate
- to make smart or spruce: She titivated her old dress with a new belt.
- to make oneself smart or spruce.
lief
adverb
1. gladly; willingly: I would as lief go south as not.
adjective
- Archaic. willing; desirous.
- Archaic. dear; beloved; treasured.
blandishment
something, as an action or speech, that tends to flatter, coax, entice, etc.: Our blandishments left him unmoved. We succumbed to the blandishments of tropical living.
sacerdotal
of priests; priestly.
whigmaleerie
\hwig-muh-LEER-ee, wig-\
noun
1. a whim; notion.
2. a whimsical or fanciful ornament or contrivance; gimmick.
Quotes
It tells the weird story of the Holroyds, a fun-loving family of witches and wizards who speak half-hollowly and give free reign to their every whimsical whigmaleerie.
– , “Bewitching Tale About Witches,” Life, November 24, 1958
lucubrate
\LOO-kyoo-breyt\
verb
1. to work, write, or study laboriously, especially at night.
2. to write learnedly.
venial
- able to be forgiven or pardoned; not seriously wrong, as a sin (opposed to mortal).
- excusable; trifling; minor: a venial error; a venial offense.
thrummy
of or abounding in thrums; shaggy or tufted.
Quotes
They stood Englishly around a bandy-legged Scot with a thrummy beard.
– Guy Davenport, “A Field of Snow on a Slope of the Rosenberg,” Da Vinci’s Bicycle, 1979
Thrummy is formed from the noun thrum meaning “one of the ends of the warp threads in a loom, left unwoven and remaining attached to the loom when the web is cut off.” It entered English in the late 1500s.
truepenny
a trusty, honest fellow.
limacine
pertaining to or resembling a slug; sluglike.
vilipend
- to regard or treat as of little value or account.
2. to vilify; depreciate.
nodus
a difficult or intricate point, situation, plot, etc.
vagarious
- characterized by vagaries; erratic; capricious: a vagarious foreign policy.
- roving; wandering: vagarious artists.
corybantic
- frenzied; agitated; unrestrained.
- (initial capital letter) of or relating to a Corybant.
Quotes
From outside we hear a confused shouting that grows louder and louder, and suddenly the shrine is invaded by a throng of corybantic worshipers. They rush to the altar, they tear off one another’s aprons and fling them in a mounting pile at the foot of the Arch-Vicar’s throne.
– Aldous Huxley, Ape and Essence, 1948
Corybantic derives from Corybant, the name for an ancient Phrygian priest of Cybele or any of the spirits or secondary divinities attending Cybele with wild music and dancing. It entered English in the mid-1600s.
longanimity
patient endurance of hardship, injuries, or offense; forbearance.
eponym
- a person, real or imaginary, from whom something, as a tribe, nation, or place, takes or is said to take its name: Brut, the supposed grandson of Aeneas, is the eponym of the Britons.
- a word based on or derived from a person’s name.
overweening
- presumptuously conceited, overconfident, or proud: a brash, insolent, overweening fellow.
- exaggerated, excessive, or arrogant: overweening prejudice; overweening pride.
stentorian
very loud or powerful in sound: a stentorian voice.
Stentorian comes from the name Stentor, a warrior in Greek mythology who, in Homer’s Iliad, is said to have a voice as powerful as fifty men.
cosset
to treat as a pet; pamper; coddle.
afflatus
\uh-FLEY-tuh s\
noun
1. inspiration; an impelling mental force acting from within.
2. divine communication of knowledge.
albatross
- a seemingly inescapable moral or emotional burden, as of guilt or responsibility.
- something burdensome that impedes action or progress.
lodestone
\LOHD-stohn\
noun
1. something that attracts strongly.
2. a variety of magnetite that possesses magnetic polarity and attracts iron.
