Misc. 6

Question 1

comity

Answer 1

1. mutual courtesy; civility.
2. Also called comity of nations. courtesy between nations, as in respect shown by one country for the laws, judicial decisions, and institutions of another.

Question 2

overslaugh

Answer 2

\oh-ver-SLAW\
verb
1. to pass over or disregard (a person) by giving a promotion, position, etc., to another instead.

Question 3

iatrogenic

Answer 3

\ahy-a-truh-JEN-ik, ee-a-\
adjective
1. (of a medical disorder) caused by the diagnosis, manner, or treatment of a physician.

Question 4

tohubohu

Answer 4

\TOH-hoo-BOH-hoo\
noun
1. chaos; disorder; confusion.

Question 5

encephalon

Answer 5

\en-SEF-uh-lon, -luh n\
noun
1. Anatomy. the brain.

Question 6

supererogatory

Answer 6

1. going beyond the requirements of duty.

2. greater than that required or needed; superfluous.

Question 7

punctilio

Answer 7

1. strictness or exactness in the observance of formalities or amenities.
2. 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

Question 8

tourbillion

Answer 8

1. a whirlwind or something resembling a whirlwind.

2. a firework that rises spirally.

Question 9

campestral

Answer 9

of or relating to fields or open country.

Question 10

animadversion

Answer 10

1. an unfavorable or censorious comment: to make animadversions on someone’s conduct.
2. the act of criticizing.

Question 11

woolgathering

Answer 11

1. indulgence in idle fancies and in daydreaming; absentmindedness: His woolgathering was a handicap in school.
2. gathering of the tufts of wool shed by sheep and caught on bushes.

Question 12

chiasmus

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

virgule

Answer 13

\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)

Question 14

skylark

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

bumptious

Answer 15

offensively self-assertive: a bumptious young upstart.

Question 16

spindrift

Answer 16

spray swept by a violent wind along the surface of the sea.

Question 17

presentiment

Answer 17

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

Question 18

titivate

Answer 18

1. to make smart or spruce: She titivated her old dress with a new belt.
2. to make oneself smart or spruce.

Question 19

lief

Answer 19

adverb
1. gladly; willingly: I would as lief go south as not.

adjective

1. Archaic. willing; desirous.
2. Archaic. dear; beloved; treasured.

Question 20

blandishment

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

sacerdotal

Answer 21

of priests; priestly.

Question 22

whigmaleerie

Answer 22

\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

Question 23

lucubrate

Answer 23

\LOO-kyoo-breyt\
verb
1. to work, write, or study laboriously, especially at night.
2. to write learnedly.

Question 24

venial

Answer 24

1. able to be forgiven or pardoned; not seriously wrong, as a sin (opposed to mortal).
2. excusable; trifling; minor: a venial error; a venial offense.

Question 25

thrummy

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

truepenny

Answer 26

a trusty, honest fellow.

Question 27

limacine

Answer 27

pertaining to or resembling a slug; sluglike.

Question 28

vilipend

Answer 28

1. to regard or treat as of little value or account.

2. to vilify; depreciate.

Question 29

nodus

Answer 29

a difficult or intricate point, situation, plot, etc.

Question 30

vagarious

Answer 30

1. characterized by vagaries; erratic; capricious: a vagarious foreign policy.
2. roving; wandering: vagarious artists.

Question 31

corybantic

Answer 31

1. frenzied; agitated; unrestrained.
2. (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.

Question 32

longanimity

Answer 32

patient endurance of hardship, injuries, or offense; forbearance.

Question 33

eponym

Answer 33

1. 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.
2. a word based on or derived from a person’s name.

Question 34

overweening

Answer 34

1. presumptuously conceited, overconfident, or proud: a brash, insolent, overweening fellow.
2. exaggerated, excessive, or arrogant: overweening prejudice; overweening pride.

Question 35

stentorian

Answer 35

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.

Question 36

cosset

Answer 36

to treat as a pet; pamper; coddle.

Question 37

afflatus

Answer 37

\uh-FLEY-tuh s\
noun
1. inspiration; an impelling mental force acting from within.
2. divine communication of knowledge.

Question 38

albatross

Answer 38

1. a seemingly inescapable moral or emotional burden, as of guilt or responsibility.
2. something burdensome that impedes action or progress.

Question 39

lodestone

Answer 39

\LOHD-stohn\
noun
1. something that attracts strongly.
2. a variety of magnetite that possesses magnetic polarity and attracts iron.