Vocab 4/21/14 Flashcards
Bauble
1) A showy trinket or ornament such as would please a child, a piece of finery of little worth, a pretty trifle, a gewgaw. cheap, ornament, trinket; gewgaw.
‘Dom Hemingway’ (R, 1:33) A bright, shiny bauble with next to no lasting power, Richard Shepard’s movie is fabulously kitted out with tasty people, cool costumes, scoops of pomaded hair and the kind of eyeglasses that somehow make people look stupider. Jude Law, clearly having a good time, plays the title character, a British gangster who talks the hard-boiled talk with verve and gutter lyricism, but is really just a big softie.
- The swankiest sewer system ever put on film belongs to this computer-animated bauble about a pampered pet mouse (voiced by Hugh Jackman) who’s flushed down a London toilet and teams up with other sewer creatures to fight an evil toad (Ian McKellen) and his goons.
- We may be returning to an age when local titans owned newspapers as a kind of pinky ring, one more bauble to brandish, but it works best when the prize in question is seen and operated as a jewel, something to be cared for and treasured.
- One, a grizzled, bearded man in olive-green fatigues, was leafing slowly through a large coffee-table book filled with pictures of expensive jewelry, much like a wealthy man reviewing a proffered array of baubles for a wife or mistress.
2) A jester’s scepter. a. A baton or stick, surmounted by a fantastically carved head with asses’ ears, carried by the Court Fool or jester of former days as a mock emblem of office.
a. A childish or foolish matter or affair; a piece of childish foolery.
d. A thing or article of no value, a paltry piece of rubbish.
Augur
1) One of a group of ancient Roman officials charged with observing and interpreting omens for guidance in public affairs.
2) A soothsayer; prophet
Verb (w/obj): To divine or predict, as from omens; prognosticate.
**To serve as an omen or promis of; foreshadow; betoken: **mounting sales augur a profitable year.
- But if this ability to see the whole of a life is God-like it also augurs a revolt against God: once a life is contained, made final, as if flattened within the pages of a diary, it becomes a smaller, contracted thing.
- In a couple of years, the number of jobs needed to stay on trend would fall to 35,000. That augurs a future of low growth. Another estimate, based on Congressional Budget Office projections, says 90,000 jobs a month are needed.
(W/obj) to conjecture from signs or omens; predict.
**2) be a sign or bode: **the movement of troops augurs ill for the peace of the area.
-The surfeit of good candidates augurs well for youth participation in India’s democracy, said Mr. Narasappa of Daksh. “That young Indians are motivated to get to the polling booths and are flaunting their inked finger on social networks is a good sign,” he said.
Raffish
1)disreputable in behavior, character, or appearance; Vulgar; unrefined; or nonconformist; rakish: **a matinee idol whose raffish offstage behavior amused millions.
-Pierce Brosnan plays the raffish and highly successful Daniel, whereas Julianne Moore plays the uptight and highly successful Audrey.
2) Showing an attractive lack of regard for conventional behaviour, appearance, or style; rakish; mischievous; offbeat.
-Prada’s introduction of ribbed, triple-banded tank tops and leg-warmers, a raffish nod to the street/sports insignia of West Coast girl gangs, were echoed in the marketplace, as were the bomber jackets at Marc by Marc Jacobs and Marni, which included a gem-encrusted version that would likely appeal to even the most sports-averse consumer, and may tempt her, for the moment at least, to retire her well-worn biker jacket.
-Perhaps the neighborhood is not as “creative and raffish” as it once was, she avers, but the capsule essays she collected, by mostly contemporary residents, from directors to restaurateurs, reveal its unique character in personal accounts that are “exuberant, poignant, lyrical, eclectic and captivating, just like the Village itself.”
Raffish-look
-Known especially for an olive drab cotton-blend parka lined with plush fur, this Parisian furrier has been seducing a moneyed clientele of late. The style, less raffish than nonchalant, has been sold (and sold out) at Opening Ceremony, Barneys New York and Kirna Zabête, and has since spawned knockoffs from more affordable brands like Sam.
Peccant
Noun + AdJ
1) Sinning; guilty of a moral offense.
- We meet up with an interestingly peccant Chaucer, an intimate, “forgiving and fascinated,
- The irresponsible behavior of a peccant politician like Representative Powell,” the rabbi told worshippers.
2) Violating a rule, principle, or established practice; faulty; wrong.
-The columns, many collected in books, made him an unofficial arbiter of usage and one of the most widely read writers on language. It also tapped into the lighter side of the dour-looking Mr. Safire: a Pickwickian quibbler who gleefully pounced on gaffes, inexactitudes, neologisms, misnomers, solecisms and perversely peccant puns, like “the president’s populism” and “the first lady’s momulism,” written during the Carter presidency.
Quail
Verb: 1) Of senses: intr. Of a material (esp. living) thing: to decline from a natural or flourishing condition; to waste away; to fade, wither. Now Caribbean: (of a plant) to wilt.
b. To daunt, depress (the heart, courage, etc.) with fear; to cause dejection; to dispirit. Now chiefly poet.
- Some of their vacations would quail the hearts of lesser travelers.
** b. Of courage, †hope, †faith, etc.: to fail, give way, become faint or feeble. **
-Justice and courage quail before the shrill voices of emotion and hysteria.
5. intr. a. Of the heart, spirit, eyes, etc.: to flinch, be cowed; to give way through fear, awe, etc. (before, away from, under a formidable person or thing).
-South African hearts, even as they quailed before Big Jonah in full flight, could not help a twinge of pleasure.
b. Of a person: to lose heart, be discouraged; to give way through fear, awe, etc. (at, †to, before, away from a formidable person or thing).
-Like me, my brothers love my mother’s elaborate dinners; like me, they quail at the thought of repeating them.
Noun: A bird
2) Slang for a woman or girl.
Jigger
NOUN 1) a. One who ‘jigs’ or dances a jig. Also, in dial., An odd-looking person, a ‘guy’. Cf.
b. In full, jigger coat. A woman’s short loosely-fitting jacket.
c. Nautical a. A small tackle consisting of a double and a single block and a fall, used for various purposes; esp. one used to hold on the cable when it is heaved into the ship.
b. A drink of spirits, a dram. Also, a small glass or metal cup, a measure used in mixing cocktails; the contents of such a glass or measure. (U.S.)
VERB
1) 1. intr. To make a succession of rapid jerks; said of a fish struggling to free itself from the hook.
** 2. orig. pass., usu. with up: to be tired out, exhausted; so, to be ‘done for’, devitalized. Also actively: to break, destroy, ruin. dial. and slang.**
3. trans. To rearrange or adjust (statistics, procedures, etc.), esp. to produce the desired result; to manipulate, tamper with. Chiefly U.S.
-To the extent that we keep jiggering it to meet special needs, this whole thing can fall down around our ears.
-But people may have better ideas and people may want to jigger slightly sort of the balance between the information that we can get versus the incremental encroachments on privacy that if haven’t already taken place might take place in a future administration, or as technologies develop further.
Verb 3) trans. To shut up, imprison.
Verb 4) Pottery: trans. To shape with a jigger.
Vagary
An unpredecitable or erratic action, occurence, course, or stance: **The vagaries of weather; the vagaries of the economic scene.
- The breakdown of Charismatic in the Belmont Stakes was not caused by the complicity of humans; it was a vagary of nature, a happenstance of life.
- Stanford Organic Food Study and Vagaries of Meta-Analyses …
- And so the match extended to the vagary of a shootout. And finally at this hazardous, decisive moment of pressure and luck and instinct and nerve, Italy defeated England, 4-2 on penalty kicks, advancing to the semifinals to face Germany.
- There was electronic geekery and lyrical vagary, and drums pounded by someone other than the drummer.
2) a **whimsical, wild, or unusual idea, desire, or action.**
-Enzken, now sixty-five, is a sculptor whose sporadic output, abrupt stylistic changes, and personal vagaries have kept her at the margins of art-world notice, until now.
Insouciance
Carelessness, indifference, unconcern.
- The film “is a thoroughly modern confection, blending insouciance and sophistication, heartfelt longing and self-conscious posing with the guileless self-assurance of a great pop song,” he added.
- I could not help smiling at the diplomaticinsouciance of this man.
- “We have a king who loves everyone,” said Mr. Muean, a retired bus driver who exudes the renowned cheerful insouciance of rural Thailand.
Apathetic: disinterested, nonchalant, supine, stoic (One who practises repression of emotion, indifference to pleasure or pain, and patient endurance–cold fish)**, blasé, spunkless, pluckless (Without pluck; lacking courage or spirit. Also as n. with the and pl.concord: people lacking in courage or spirit as a class), benumbed, torpid (Benumbed; deprived or devoid of the power of motion or feeling; in which activity, animation, or development is suspended; dormant); phlegmatic Having, showing, or characteristic of the temperament formerly believed to result from a predominance of phlegm among the bodily humours; not easily excited to feeling or action; stolidly calm, self-possessed, imperturbable; (with pejorative connotation) sluggish, apathetic, lacking enthusiasm), languid.
Unconcerned: dispassionate, heedless (Without heed; paying no heed or attention; careless, inattentive, regardless), devil-may-care, ataractic (Med. Of drugs: inducing calmness, tranquillizing. Hence as n., a drug of this kind.); bovine (fig. Inert, sluggish; dull, stupid; cf. bucolic); sluggish.
Carelessness: disregard, perfunctory (Of a person or action, deed, work, etc.: done merely as a matter of duty, form, or routine, and so without interest, care, or enthusiasm; carried out with a minimum of effort; formulaic, mechanical; superficial, trivial.,) flippant, offhand (Of Person, ungraciously or offensively casual in manner, action, speech, etc.: unpremeditated, extemporaneous, impromptu; (also) having the air or style of something so done; free and easy, unstudied, unceremonious. Now freq. in negative sense: offensively casual or nonchalant.), cursory, slipshod (Wearing slippers or very loose shoes, in later use esp. such as are down at the heel. Also fig: Loose or untidy; in bad condition; down at the heel. Also, Slovenly, Careless: in style or language).
Disarticulate
1. trans. To undo the articulation of, to disjoint; to separate joint from joint.
-Paul Espeseth had hardened his soul in readiness for orcas–their muscular poignancy, their mute drama, the chance that they might in full view and to a soundtrack of inspirational music disarticulate one of their neoprene-suited trainers at the elbow or the neck.
2. intr. (for refl.) To become disjointed; to separate at the joints.
5/25 Lingua Franca
1. A pidgin language drawing its lexicon mainly from the southern Romance languages and formerly used as a trading language, first in the eastern Mediterranean and later throughout much of northern Africa and the Middle East. Freq. with capital initials. Now hist.
2. a. Any language that is used by speakers of different languages as a common medium of communication; a common language.
b. fig. and in figurative contexts. A generally understood or commonly used standard, system, or means of non-verbal communication.
As they guys drank up, with only Jason abstaining, the conversation skipped from fishing to lacrosse to friends in common, the easy lingua franca of young men from the prep-school dominion.
Turnkey
1. One who has charge of the keys of a prison; a jailer, esp. a subordinate; also transf.
2. Used attrib. to designate a contract, system, etc., whereby the contractor undertakes to supply or install a complete product or service that is ready for immediate use.
- He was offering the old, manly Nantucket just as the new, wealthy Nantucket became eafer for a turnkey version of it.
- They are out of line with the labor standards,” he continued, “we deliberately set for those constructing the ‘turnkey’ campus being built for us on Saadiyat Island and inconsistent with what we understood to be happening on the ground for those workers.”
3. fully equipped; ready to go into operation: a turnkey business.
-He preferred Quogue and quickly found two appealing listings: one was in turnkey condition, the other less so, but redeemed by an idyllic setting.
Bel-esprit
A person of great wit or intellect.
She was the most hospitable and jovial of old vestals,and had been a beauty in her day, she said… She wasa bel esprit , and a dreadful Radical for those days.
Amniotic
relating to the sac in which the embryo is suspended.
-The life waters around Nantucket were life-giving and familiar, almost amniotic.
Molder
1. intr. a. To decay to dust; to rot; to crumble. Freq. with away; occas. withdown, up. (Also, FIG)
- It was as if from the trashy workings of a tranny, already mouldering on a rubbish dump, the mellifluous voice of Richard Burton had unaccountably blossomed forth.
- In a sporadic effort to keep my brain from moldering, I’ve begun to memorize shorter poems.
- Miss Belvedere, the 1957 Plymouth Belvedere pulled from a time capsule in Tulsa, Okla., , in 2007, continues to molder in a New Jersey .
2. Trans. a. To cause to crumble, come to pieces, rot, or decay. Also with away,down. Now chiefly Sc. and Eng. regional (north.).
4. intr. To wander aimlessly or listlessly off. nonce-use.
Lithe
Bending readily; pliant; limber; supple; flexible: the lithe body of a ballerina.
-“Rowing isn’t reserved for the lithe and young”
-A lithe, blond, 20-something, Bremer first spots Ismail, her future husband, on a running trail in Chapel Hill, where she’s come to get a graduate degree in journalism.
