New Words 8

Question 1

Avant-garde

Answer 1

Of, relating to, or being part of an innovative group, especially one in the arts:

avant-garde painters; an avant-garde theater piece.

Question 2

Askance

Answer 2

Sideways; obliquely; with a side glance; with disdain, envy, or suspicion.

Let me get a– let me get a break and get Senator Warner to comment, because I noticed he – he looked kind of askance at some of the things you were saying.

Question 3

Assay

Answer 3

trial, attempt, essay.

Question 4

Assevervation

Answer 4

• *The act of asseverating; positive affirmation or assertion; solemn declaration.
  n. That which is asseverated; an emphatic assertion.**

With this solemn asseveration, which is not lightly made, but which is the result of sixty years ‘experience, I leave you.

Question 5

Arcadian

Answer 5

Ideally or Rustic

And often she found herself dreaming of the arcadian days of her people, when they had not lived in cities nor been vexed with labor unions and employers ‘associations.

Question 6

Bald

Answer 6

** Undisguised; blunt: a bald statement of policy**

Question 7

Balkanize

Answer 7

**Divide a territory into small, hostile states **

The money would go to the Taliban, who in turn would storm in on horse-hoofs and balkanize India.

Question 8

Ballast

Answer 8

Something that gives stability, especially in character.
transitive v.

To stabilize or provide with ballast.

Question 9

Belletristic

Answer 9

Written or appreciated for aesthetic value rather than content

The belletristic form to which The Spectator belongs is integral to implementing this future for philosophy.

Question 10

Besmirch

Answer 10

To stain; sully: a reputation that was besmirched by slander. To make dirty; soil.

Question 11

Besotted

Answer 11

Made sottish, senseless, or infatuated; characterized by drunken stupidity, or by infatuation; stupefied.

Question 12

Blather

Answer 12

To talk nonsensically.

Question 13

Cavalier

Answer 13

Not caring enough about something important,
High-spirited. Supercilious; haughty; disdainful; curt; brusque.

Question 14

Celerity

Answer 14

** Rapidity of motion; quickness; swiftness.**

I recall the celerity with which he used to kick them off at sundown.

Question 15

Censorious

Answer 15

Tending the censure; highly critical

Question 16

**Chicanery **

Answer 16

Deception by use of trickery, quibbling, or subterfuge, sophistry.

A slick performance by a lawyer.

Question 17

Coltish

Answer 17

Lively and playful; frisky

Question 18

Complaisant

Answer 18

Exhibiting a desire or willingness to please; cheerfully obliging

Question 19

Concatenate

Answer 19

To link together; to unite in a series or chain, as things depending on one another.

Question 20

Confabulation

Answer 20

A casual conversation;

Question 21

Consanguineous

Answer 21

Of the same lineage or origin; having a common ancestor

Question 22

Fungible

Answer 22

Able to be substituted for something of equal value or utility; interchangeable, exchangeable, replaceable.

Question 23

Contrapuntal

Answer 23

**Of or relating to counterpoint; **

music of, relating to, or incorporating counterpoint

Question 24

Contretemp

Answer 24

** An unforeseen, inopportune, or embarrassing event; a hitch**

While the Clinton contretemps is absolutely fascinating – particularly to veteran Clinton watchers like us – it ultimately will have little effect on the race.

Question 25

Conversance

Answer 25

** The state of being conversant; familiarity.**

These are tough, Irish and Italian working-class towns, and anybody who claimed any kind of conversance with Emerson was an alien immediately.

Question 26

Convivial

Answer 26

Merry; festive: a convivial atmosphere at the reunion.
Fond of feasting, drinking, and good company; sociable.

He was not what might be called convivial, though fond of good company - very little wine affecting him - so that a certain self-control became second nature to him.

Question 27

Cosset

Answer 27

**To pamper; indulge; to treay as a pet; **

Question 28

Cosmopolitan

Answer 28

So sophisticated as to be at home in all parts of the world or conversant with many spheres of interest:

a cosmopolitan traveler.

Having no fixed residence; at home in any place; free from local attachments or prejudices; not provincial; liberal.

Question 29

Desuetude

Answer 29

The cessation of use; disuse; discontinuance of practice, custom, or fashion.

Toasts have also fallen into “desuetude” at private dinners.

Question 30

Depredate

Answer 30

**To ransack plunder; to engage in plunder; **

My dictionary gives the meaning of “depredate” as “to plunder or lay waste to”, something Vikings would do, but not snails.

Question 31

Costive

Answer 31

Figuratively, slow in action, especially slow in giving forth ideas or opinions…uncommunicative, close unproductive

There is really no way of reading these often rather costive and puzzling early books without wondering on every page what, in them, is leading towards the immense achievements of those two big last novels.

Question 32

Dispensation

Answer 32

The following day, Deb got special dispensation from the principal and took Gunner to school with her.

An exemption or release from an obligation or rule, granted by or as if by an authority.

Question 33

Divagate

Answer 33

To wander about, as from place to place or from subject to subject; stray; digress.

Allow me to briefly divagate here on the nonexistence of abortion as an option in Knocked Up.

Question 34

Dotage

Answer 34

Decline in judgment and other cognitive functions, associated with aging; senility; drivel

If you forget all the delightful things she comes out with – and sadly Mums do – all you have to do, when you are in your dotage, is browse through your blog.

Question 35

Doyenne

Answer 35

A woman who is the eldest or senior member of a group.

Question 36

Dramaturgy

Answer 36

The science which treats of the rules of dramatic composition and representation; the dramatic art.

Theatrical representation; histrionism.

The dramaturgy in writer-director Rashaad Ernesto Green’s film can get heavy-handed.

Question 37

Effete

Answer 37

• *Marked by self-indulgence, triviality, or decadence: sterile; **
• an effete group of self-professed intellectuals*

Question 38

Efface

Answer 38

expunge, erase, delete, rub out, dislimn, dele, To cause to disappear as if by rubbing out or striking out.

To make oneself inobtrusive as if due to modesty or diffidence.

Question 39

**Eremitic **

Answer 39

**characteristic of a hermit; living in solitude; **

Khodorkovsky was also forced into lead an eremitic existence after committing the relatively venial sin of drinking tea in an unauthorized place

Question 40

Ersatz

Answer 40

Made in imitation; artificial, especially of an inferior quality.

ersatz coffee made mostly of chicory.

Question 45

Excogitate

Answer 45

**to cogitate; To think over something carefully; to consider fully; **To think out; contrive; devise.

It’s no criticism of your work product, and no one can excogitate the perfect bill.

Question 46

Fawning

Answer 46

The act of caressing or flattering servilely; mean obsequiousness; attempting to win favor by flattery

But I guess Bill Clinton’s psychotic need for publicity, approval, and fawning is a little more important than the safety of Americans abroad ….. who are now in MORE danger as a result of this stupid publicity stunt.

Question 47

Factotum

Answer 47

**An employee or assistant who serves in a wide range of capacities. A jack of all trades; **

He was greatly liked, and the late Sir George Barlow, a landed proprietor of the neighbourhood, made him a kind of factotum on his estate.

Question 48

Fecund(2)

Answer 48

• *Capable of producing offspring or vegetation; fruitful.**

Marked by intellectual productivity.

Question 49

Fictive

Answer 49

**Of, relating to, or able to engage in imaginative investion; not genuine, sham, feigned. **

Question 50

Fissile

Answer 50

possible to be split;

Question 51

Floe

Answer 51

A segment that has separated from an ice mass

Question 52

Fractured

Answer 52

split into groups which disagree

Question 53

Fraught

Answer 53

• *adj. filled with or attended with
  adj. marked by distress**
• an incident fraught with danger;*
• an evening fraught with high drama.*

Question 54

Gallivant

Answer 54

• *v. To roam about for pleasure without any definite plan.
  v. To flirt, to romance.**

Helen writes from Athens, a propos the prospect of looking after her father for a couple of days next summer while I gallivant about: No prob at all.

Question 55

** Garlanded**

Answer 55

to put a wreath or festoon on somone;

Question 56

Hortatory

Answer 56

Marked by exhortation or strong urging: a hortatory speech.

These resolutions pass because they are purely hortatory, but a resolution with real teeth authorizing a commission will be a much heavier lift.

Question 57

Homily

Answer 57

• *n. A tedious moralizing lecture or admonition.
  n. An inspirational saying or platitude.**

Question 58

Hale

Answer 58

Sound, entire, healthy; robust, not impaired.To drag, pull, especially forcibly.

Question 59

Hermeneutic

Answer 59

That explains, interprets, illustrates or elucidates

It is a so-called hermeneutic insight and every new such insight is supported by our past observational experience.

Question 60

Importunate

Answer 60

Of a demand: persistent or pressing, often annoyingly so.; to importune;beseeching in an annoying way;

The word “importunate” has the signification of a wearisome repetition of a request, a constant asking, impossible to satisfy.