W's & Y's Flashcards
Wanting
Lacking, insufficient, or not good enough (as in, I read the book and found it wanting). This makes sense when you think about the fact that people generally want good things, of course - so if a person is left wanting, he did not get those good things. Conversely, a person who wants for nothing is someone who already has everything.
Warranted
Justified, authorized (warrant can mean to justify or a justification, but can also mean to vouch for or guarantee).
The pundit’s comments don’t even warrant a response from our organization - they were mere name-calling, not suitable for public discourse.
Your criticism of Anne is unwarranted - as your assistant, she has done everything you’ve asked her to do.
He doesn’t have his documents with him, but I’ll warrant that he is indeed a certified forklift operator.
Whereas
While on the contrary, considering that.
Mr. Katsoulas had always assumed his son would take over the family business, whereas his son had always assumed he would go away to college and never come back.
Whereas squash and peppers are vegetables, a tomato is technically a fruit.
Whet
Stimulate, make keen or eager (esp. of an appetite).
Dinner will take another 20 minutes, but maybe this cheese plate can whet your appetite?
Wholesale
Sale of goods in quantity to resellers (opposite of retail). The word can also mean extensive, in a large way.
Neckties have an enormous markup - a tie that sells for $50 often has a wholesale cost of less than $5.
the CEO’s wholesale dismissal of a new potential product line cost him his job when the board realized that the company would have made $50 million in the first year alone.
Winnow
Sift, analyze critically, separate the useful part from the worthless part.
We got 120 resumes for one job - it’s going to take me awhile just to winnow this down to a reasonable stack of people to interview.
Yoke
A frame for attaching animals (such as oxen) to each other and to a plow or other equipment, or a bar across a person’s shoulders to help carry buckets of water, etc. Metaphorically, a yoke, is a burden or something that oppresses. To yoke is to unite together or to burden. To throw off the yoke of oppression is to free oneself from oppression.
the speaker argued that humanity had traded the yoke of servitude to kings and tyrants for the yoke of consumerism, which enslaves us just as much in the end.
