New Words 9 Flashcards
**Inscrutable **
** Difficult to comprehend; fathom or interpret; One who or that which is inscrutable; a person, etc. that cannot be comprehended.**
She was watching me, her expression inscrutable, somehow aloof and intimate all at once.
Interpolate
To insert or introduce between other elements or part**To insert (material) into a text. **
Berry chose to interpolate music from other leading choral composers including Richard Allain, whose Night wraps Shelley’s poem in velvet chords as thick as darkness, adding a sonorous cello melody beautifully played by Katherine Jenkinson that floats through the stars to ravishing effect.
Interlocutor
One who takes part in dialogue or conversation; a talker, interpreter, or questioner An interlocutory judgment or sentence.
Attacking the intellectual capacity of your interlocutor is a cheap rhetorical device that is useful as a last resort when one has run out of substantive arguments.
**Irredentist **
One who advocates the recovery of territory culturally or historically related to one’s nation but now subject to a foreign government.
Vietnam perceives China as an irredentist and expansionist power.
Jouissance
**Enjoyment; delight; pleasure; **
It is humor that illustrates the potential force of recognizing the humor, jouissance, that is already present in language anyway.
Labile
Open to change; adaptable, unstable:
an emotionally labile person.
I would, however, dispute the claim that he’s paranoid … and claiming that he’s emotionally labile is quite frankly laughable.
Lacuna
a gap or vacancy; a hiatus;
An absent part, especially in a book or other piece of writing;
Yet, given this “lacuna,” this amazing “gap” in his work, a deprivation much more serious than his want of “philosophy,”
Lassitude
A state or feeling of weariness, diminished energy, or listlessness. See Synonyms at lethargy.
Leitmotif
A melodic theme associated with a particular character, place, thing or idea in an opera;
A recurring theme;
Libertine
One who acts without moral restraint; a dissolute person.
** One who defies established religious precepts; a freethinker**
To say that all libertarians are libertine is not factual.
Lubricious
- *smooth and glassy; slippery
adj. lewd, wanton, salacious or lecherous**
Pull it all together and you have a car that is marginally slower than a Prius due to its curb weight but more refined, quiet, spoiling and lubricious.
Lummox
A clumsy, stupid person; an awkward bungler.
Manumit
To release from slavery; liberate from personal bondage or servitude; set free, as a slave; emancipate.
Meretricious
Deceptive or based on deception; seeming plausible, but based on pretense or insincerity; deceptive; misleading; insincere; specious.
So an insincere smile becomes cheesy; from that anything shallow, phony or meretricious.
Lissome
Limber; supple; flexible; lithe; lithesome; light; nimble; active.
She seemed so much softer, so much more pliant, and tender, and lissome.
Mimetic
. Relating to, characteristic of, or exhibiting mimicry.
Of or relating to an imitation; imitative.
Metastasize
To spread, especially destructively:
Moving on to Europe, Huntsman used the word “metastasize” to describe the euro crisis.
Pontificate
To act like a pontiff; to express one’s position or opinions dogmatically and pompously as if they were absolutely correct.
The problem with the blogosphere and and you lot that sit back and pontificate is that a keyboard and mouse have made you an expert.
Plenary
**Fully attended by all qualified members, complete in all respects; **
a plenary session of the council.
**Phillipic **
Any tirade or declamation full of bitter condemnation.
Richard Dawkins has written a characteristically emotional anti-Christian philippic in the Times
Paramour
An illicit lover, either male or female.
Mordant
bitingly sarcastic; incisive and trenchant; caustic
Modicum
A small, moderate, or token amount:
This is not a woman who has displayed any kind of modicum of sensibility or anything.
Olio
A mixture or medley; a hodgepodge; . A collection of various artistic or literary works or musical pieces; a miscellany.
After each show there would be “ a ten-minute ‘ olio ‘ segment, “ with an actor or two coming out to perform their specialties.
**Myrmidian **
**A soldier or a subordinate civil officer who executes orders of a superior without protest or pity; **
*Roy is James myrmidon *
Pell-mell
**in a jumbled; confused manner **
Penumbra
An area of uncertainly or intermediacy between two mutually exclusive states or categories.
Perspicacious
Of acute discernment; having keen insight; mentally perceptive.
David Colander is always very pungent and perspicacious in his observations about economic grad education
Patrimony
An inheritance from a father or an ancestor; legacy or heritage
Parlous
*attended with peril; dangerous; risky.; Dire, terrible, appalling; Dangerously clever or cunning; *
Bain’s legal representative, Nicholas Ellis, referred to “what might be described as the parlous financial state” of Rangers.
Poultice
**To apply a poultice to; to dress with a poultice., a wound or sth. **
During the second five minutes this belief evaporates, but the poultice is buckled at the back and you cant get it off.
Puffery
Flattering, often exaggerated praise and publicity, especially when used for promotional purposes.
They have every reason to engage in puffery regarding the less fraudulent nature of its clickers.
Prurient
Inordinately interested in matters of sex; lascivious.
Prig
** A person who demonstrates an exaggerated conformity or propriety, especially in an irritatingly arrogant or smug manner.**
Puckish
Mischievous; impish: a puckish grin; puckish wit.
Mr. Galentine was quieter, but possessed what the couple’s longtime neighbor described as a puckish sense of humor.
Pulchritude
Beauty; comeliness; handsomeness.
What splendor and pulchritude, what symmetry in all things, what assets for the necessities of life have you not granted and assigned to this land and its inhabitants!
Putsch
A coup; an illegal effort to forcibly overthrow the current government.
resident, who seized power in what can only be described as a putsch but nevertheless said:
Recapitulate
To repeat, as the principal points in a discourse, argument, or essay; to give a summary of the principal facts, points, or arguments of; to relate in brief; to summarize.
Most first generation immigrants will be able to understand more English than you think, but for them to process it and recapitulate, that is more than they are willing to do, it is just plain hard!
Recidivist
One who falls back into prior habits, especially criminal habits; a repeat offender.
I must admit to certain recidivist tendencies where the Guardian is concerned.
Recondite
Not easily understood; abstruse.; ambigious; concealed hidden
For a popular treatment of the somewhat recondite underpinnings of this thesis, see R.
Recriminating
The act of recriminating.
A counter or mutual accusation.
A recrimination is a counter-charge, and is typically legalese and is only used in court, by a defendant against a plaintiff.
Redoubtable
Arousing fear or awe; formidable.
Worthy of respect or honor.
The eldest actually flinched when Simon called the redoubtable Mrs. Frederick by her first name.
Regalia
The emblems and symbols of royalty, such as the crown and scepter; The rights and privileges of royalty.
According to the usage current in the British Isles the term regalia is almost always employed to denote the insignia of royalty or “crown jewels”.
Reportorial
Of, pertaining to or characteristic of a reporter;
These vignettes are reportorial rather than analytical, as their primary purpose is to describe what goes on inside many different types of congregations.
Republican
One who favors a republic as the best form of government
**Requite **
reciprocate; to make repayment or return for;
*unrequited lovel *
Retch
**to try to vomit; to vomit; **
As he drank from me, my skin crawled and I resisted the urge to retch, the sickness and corruption inside him feeling as if it were seeping under my skin.
Rout
An overwhelming defeat Ravens
send message to top-seeded Titans in rout of Dolphins
Risible
Relating to laughter, eliciting laughter, ludicrous;
The only website representing Welsh Labour on the web that isn’t entirely risible is the party’s official website, which nevertheless can be criticised for its lack of imagination, innovation and provision for Welsh speakers in comparison to certain other party websites.
Retrograde
contrary, backwrad, regressive;
**moving backward or tending backward; opposite the usual order, inverted or reversed; reverting to an earlier or inferior condition **
Sere
withered; dry; without moisture
We picked up speed and hauled through sere yellow farmland.
Senescent
**senile; Growing old; aging; characteristics of old age; **
Even when he was senescent and behaving erratically, he still intimidated people.
Seraph
A celestial being;
The word seraph means “celestial being” and seraphim represent the highest known rank of angels.
Sequela
A disease or condition which is caused by an earlier disease or problem; A secondary consequence or result;
Oh, and one more sequela from this event – I despise telephones.
Semiotics
The theory and study of signs and symbols, especially as elements of language or other systems of communication, and comprising semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics.
Salvo
Something resembling a release or discharge of bombs or firearms, as:
By extension, any volley, as in an argument or debate.
So the last salvo is usually to establish a patent much in the same vein as the anemic Microsoft - in order to stifle competition.
