The Spear Cuts Through Water Flashcards
Impertinent
adjective
1. not showing proper respect; rude.
“an impertinent question”
FORMAL
2. not pertinent to a particular matter; irrelevant.
“talk of ‘rhetoric’ and ‘strategy’ is impertinent to this process”
Luminous
adjective
1. giving off light; bright or shining.
“the luminous dial on his watch”
2. very bright in colour; lurid.
“he wore luminous green socks”
PHYSICS
3. relating to light as it is perceived by the eye, rather than in terms of its actual energy.
“luminous intensity”
Rictus
noun
a fixed grimace or grin.
“their faces were each frozen in a terrified rictus”
Careen
verb
NORTH AMERICAN
1. move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way.
“an electric golf cart careened around the corner”
2. turn (a ship) on its side for cleaning, caulking, or repair.
Keening
noun
the action of wailing in grief for a dead person.
“the keening of grieving mothers tore into an otherwise silent afternoon”
adjective
(of a sound) prolonged and high-pitched, typically in a way that expresses grief or sorrow.
“a keening soprano voice”
Syncopation
noun
1. the practice of displacing the beats or accents in music or a rhythm so that strong beats become weak and vice versa.
“the accompaniment is steady, all the syncopation is in the vocal part”
2. the shortening of a word by dropping sounds or letters in the middle, as in symbology for symbolology, or Gloster for Gloucester.
Chortle
verb
laugh in a noisy, gleeful way.
“he chortled at his own pun”
noun
a noisy, gleeful laugh.
“Thomas gave a chortle”
Crag
noun
1. a steep or rugged cliff or rock face.
GEOLOGY
2. a shelly sandstone occurring in eastern England.
Acrid
adjective
unpleasantly bitter or pungent.
“acrid smoke”
Proscenium
noun
1. the part of a theatre stage in front of the curtain.
2. the stage of an ancient theatre.
3. short for proscenium arch.
Bequeath
verb
1. leave (property) to a person or other beneficiary by a will.
“he bequeathed his art collection to the town”
2. pass (something) on or leave (something) to someone else.
“he ditched the unpopular policies bequeathed to him”
Hew
verb
1. chop or cut (something, especially wood or coal) with an axe, pick, or other tool.
“master carpenters would hew the logs with an axe”
2. make or shape (something) by cutting or chopping a material such as wood or stone.
“a seat hewn out of a fallen tree trunk”
Cordon
noun
1. a line or circle of police, soldiers, or guards preventing access to or from an area or building.
“the crowd was halted in front of the police cordon”
2. a fruit tree trained to grow as a single stem.
verb
prevent access to or from an area or building by surrounding it with police or other guards.
“the city centre was cordoned off after fires were discovered in two stores”
Vole
noun
a small, typically burrowing, mouse-like rodent with a rounded muzzle, found in both Eurasia and North America.
Adobe
noun
1. a kind of clay used as a building material.
“adobe houses”
a brick formed from adobe.
US
2. a building constructed from adobe clay or bricks.
