new words 1 (1-4) - 1 Flashcards
adumbration
the act of providing vague advance indications; representing beforehand
ambit
An ambit is the area or range that someone controls or affects. The kid who’s voted president of her sixth grade class is going to be thrilled, despite her relatively small ambit.
The origins of ambit go back to the Latin word for “going about or going round,” ambitus, and for a time, ambit literally meant “the area surrounding a building.” Today, the range of a person or group’s power is their ambit. For example, if a crime is committed on a college campus, the town police won’t investigate if they decide that it’s the ambit of the college police, or under their jurisdiction.
apposite
Something apposite is fitting or relevant. It is apposite that radio stations play Christmas carols on Christmas Eve, and that your tax accountant takes vacation after April 15th. It all makes sense.
The adjective apposite is derived from the Latin terms appositus and apponere. Ponere means to place, and thus apponere is “well-placed or well-put.” Don’t confuse apposite with opposite; they have almost opposite meanings!
cozen
To cozen is to mislead, defraud, or fool someone through lies. Cozen rhymes with dozen, and if you say you had two wrong answers on your math test, but you really had a dozen, you might be trying to cozen your parents.
While not related in roots, the first part of cozen sounds like the slang word “cuz.” If someone asks why you lied, you might say “Cuz I didn’t want you to know the truth.” And to cozen is to keep the truth hidden and deceive or cheat. Using a trick to get something is one way to cozen, and if you tell a partial truth, there’s still a part lie or an attempt to cozen and mislead.
factitious
If you create a “diamond” out of plastic, then you’ve created a factitious diamond, meaning that it’s a phony.
Factitious, pronounced “fac-TISH-us,” means “fake,” like a factitious compliment you give the person who cooked you an awful meal — you don’t mean it, but you say it anyway, just to be nice. As he or she happily walks away, another friend might whisper, “Were you being facetious about the dinner being good?” Facetious, pronounced “fuh-SEE-shuhs,” means “trying to be funny.” Don’t confuse factitious with facetious — or fictitious, which means “made up.”
froward
habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition
fulsome
Compliments usually make you feel pretty good, but fulsome compliments, which are exaggerated and usually insincere, may have the opposite effect; Hundreds of years ago fulsome used to mean “abundant,” but now it’s more often used to describe an ingratiating manner or an excess of flattery that might provoke an onlooker to mime gagging. If you find fulsome to be a rather clunky word, there are several fun (if vaguely stomach-churning) synonyms, including buttery, oily, oleaginous, and smarmy.
pertinacious
If you won’t take no for an answer, you’re pertinacious. The same holds true if you stubbornly push on a door despite a sign that says “pull.” Pertinacious means unyielding or perversely persistent.
We get pertinacious from the Latin pertinx, which combines per- “thoroughly” with tenx “tenacious.” You can impress your friends by dropping pertinacious into conversation when referring to anyone who is bullheaded and obstinately stuck in their ways and opinions. If a Girl Scout is a pertinacious salesperson you might buy fifty boxes of Thin Mints when you only wanted one.
phlegmatic
Just a little dull in expressing feelings or showing emotion. Kinda like the Vulcans on Star Trek.
It may be their training more than their natural behavior, but those palace guards who wear the red coats and big hats and show absolutely no expression on their faces are phlegmatic. Attempts to make them laugh, smile, or twist their faces in irritation won’t work, because being phlegmatic is important to their role as stone-faced keepers of the palace. Phlegmatic people show less emotion on the outside — but who knows, they may be jumping up and down on the inside.
purloin
You can use the verb purloin to mean “steal” or “take,” especially if it’s done in a sneaky way. If you sneak a dollar out of your mom’s purse, you purloin it.
Kids might purloin apples from a neighbor’s tree, and a crooked cashier might purloin cash from her boss’s convenience store. Originally, purloin meant “put at a distance” in Middle English. The word comes from the Anglo-French purloigner, “put away.”
recreant
A recreant is a heavy-duty coward. If your friend shoves you in front of him when a growling dog approaches, you’d quickly recognize him for the recreant that he is. And in the future you’d choose your friends more carefully.
An extreme recreant would be the soldier who goes over to the enemy if it looks like they might win. Definitely not the kind of person you’d want in your platoon. Recreant (RE-cree-unt) comes from the Latin re-, meaning to “reverse” something, and credere, “entrust.” The word miscreant is nearly synonymous, although a miscreant is not so much a coward, but just an all-around bad sort.
temerity
Use the noun temerity to mean the quality of being unafraid of danger or punishment. If you have the temerity to jump off the bridge even after hearing about the risk of instant death, you truly are a nutcase.
Someone who has the temerity to do something is usually considered to be bold in a foolish way. Near synonyms are audacity and recklessness. Temerity is from Middle English temeryte, from Latin temeritas, from temere “by chance, rashly.”
