Words Flashcards
Bereft
- adjective: lacking or deprived of something
- adjective: sorrowful through loss or deprivation
“bereft of hope” - synonyms:bereaved, grief-stricken, grieving, mourning, sorrowing
So, they took the thing you most loved, and you’re never going to get it back. You’ve gone beyond just plain grief-stricken — you’re bereft.
The way in which bereft differs just from plain mournful or grief-stricken is in its sense of deprivation or lack. It can be used that way too, for example when you’re bereft of words. It’s the past tense of bereave, following the same pattern as leave and left. When you see your bereft relatives at a funeral, it’s very sad, but if your friend says that their cookie is bereft of chocolate chips, you know they are using exaggerated language to be a little funny.
Partake
- verb consume
- synonyms:touch
- verb have, give, or receive a share of
- synonyms:partake in, share
- verb have some of the qualities or attributes of something
Other forms: partook; partaking; partaken; partakes
When you partake in something, you join in, like when you partake in the three-legged race and bobbing for apples at your town fall festival.
The verb partake is almost always followed by the word in, and used in a somewhat formal context. You partake in whatever activities you participate — or take part — in, like when you partake in a backyard football game or partake in your family’s holiday cookie making party. If you get a share of something, you also partake of it, like when you partake of the delicious buffet at your cousin’s wedding.
Muddle
- verb make into a puddle
- synonyms:puddle
- verb mix up or confuse
“He muddled the issues” - synonyms:addle, puddle
- noun a confused multitude of things
- synonyms:clutter, fuddle, jumble, mare’s nest, smother, welter
noun informal terms for a difficult situation
“he made a muddle of his marriage”
synonyms:fix, hole, jam, kettle of fish, mess, pickle
Other forms: muddled; muddling; muddles
A muddle is something that’s messy and confusing. If your bedroom looks like a hurricane just hit it, you might describe it as a muddle.
Oftentimes, we create the muddles in our lives, so it’s appropriate that muddle can be used as a verb meaning “to mix up” or “confuse.” Conveniently, though, the word muddle also describes a way out of difficult situations; to muddle through a troublesome task is to somehow figure it out, even if you don’t quite know what you’re doing. It has been suggested that muddle comes from an old Dutch word meaning “to make muddy.”
Sort out
verb arrange or order by classes or categories
synonyms:assort, class, classify, separate, sort
verb make free from confusion or ambiguity; make clear
synonyms:clear, clear up, crystalise, crystalize, crystallise, crystallize, elucidate, enlighten, illuminate, shed light on, straighten out
verb punish in order to gain control or enforce obedience
synonyms:correct, discipline
teeming
adjective abundantly filled with especially living things
“the Third World’s teeming millions”
“the teeming boulevard”
synonyms:
abundant, aplenty
present in great quantity
Teeming means completely full, especially with living things. If your grandmother’s apartment is teeming with cats, she sure has a lot of them.
Any time something (or someplace) is filled with life, it’s teeming with it. A gorgeous purple garden in the south of France might be teeming with lavender plants, and you might describe the crowded state fair grounds as teeming with people. The Old English root teman means to give birth to, and this used to be a common meaning of teeming — being fertile or pregnant, or producing young.
flutter
Flutter means to move back and forth rapidly. Flags flutter in the wind. Leaves flutter to the ground. Flutter also exists as a noun—you might feel a flutter in your heart when you’re excited.
To remember flutter, think of the children’s rhyme, “See the butterfly flutter by.” Flutter is often paired with “flit,” to describe the way that birds and insects fly––they flit and flutter. It can also be used to describe indecision—someone who can’t make up their mind might flutter between two choices.
verb flap the wings rapidly or fly with flapping movements
“The seagulls fluttered overhead”
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verb move along rapidly and lightly; skim or dart
synonyms:dart, fleet, flit
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verb move back and forth very rapidly
synonyms:flicker, flitter, quiver, waver
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verb beat rapidly
synonyms:palpitate
palpitate
cause to throb or beat rapidly
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verb wink briefly
synonyms:bat
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noun the motion made by flapping up and down
synonyms:flap, flapping, fluttering
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noun the act of moving back and forth
synonyms:flicker, waver
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noun abnormally rapid beating of the auricles of the heart (especially in a regular rhythm); can result in heart block
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noun a disorderly outburst or tumult
synonyms:commotion, disruption, disturbance, hoo-ha, hoo-hah, hurly burly, kerfuffle, to-do
muffle
To muffle is to quiet a sound, usually by wrapping it with something. If you try to speak with a scarf over your mouth, your voice will be muffled.
When a hitman puts a silencer on a gun, he’s muffling the sound of gunshots, since muffling makes things quieter. Usually, muffling involves wrapping something around or putting something over a noisy thing. Muffling dampens, tones down, deadens, and dulls. Also, if you hold down your emotions and don’t express them, you’re muffling them. Muffling keeps things quiet.
verb deaden (a sound or noise), especially by wrapping
synonyms:damp, dampen, dull, mute, tone down
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verb conceal or hide
“muffle one’s anger”
synonyms:repress, smother, stifle, strangle
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noun a kiln with an inner chamber for firing things at a low temperature
Nip
A nip is a tiny bite, a cold feeling, or a strong taste on your tongue. It’s also a verb for pinching or biting something, but not always in a bad way.
Being nipped now and then isn’t a big deal. If a puppy nips your finger, no worries. The cold morning nip when you get out of bed is uncomfortable, but put on socks and you’re fine. Nipping can be a good thing sometimes, like in the phrase “nip it in the bud,” which means stopping a poor behavior or activity when it first starts. A nip can also mean a small sip of something, like hot chocolate — which is a good idea if you’re feeling a nip of a cold draft.
Verb:
Sever or remove by pinching or snipping.
Example: “I need to nip off the flowers.”
Synonyms: clip, nip off, snip, snip off
Squeeze tightly between the fingers.
Example: “She likes to pinch the fabric to check its quality.”
Synonyms: pinch, squeeze, tweak, twinge, twitch
Give a small sharp bite to.
Example: “The Queen’s corgis always nip at her staff’s ankles.”
Synonyms: pinch, squeeze, tweak, twinge, twitch
Noun:
A small sharp bite or snip.
Example: “He felt a sudden nip off his fingers.”
Synonyms: pinch
The property of being moderately cold.
Example: “The chilliness of the room made her shiver.”
Synonyms: chilliness, coolness
A small drink of liquor.
Example: “After a long day, he enjoyed a quick shot of whiskey.”
Synonyms: shot
A tart spicy quality.
Example: “The salsa had a delightful tang.”
Synonyms: piquance, piquancy, piquantness, tang, tanginess, zest
The taste experience when a savory condiment is taken into the mouth.
Example: “The burger lacked flavor until I added a bit of relish.”
Synonyms: flavor, flavour, relish, sapidity, savor, savour, smack, tang
flogging
Noun:
Beating with a whip or strap or rope as a form of punishment.
Example: “The cruel practice of flagellation was used as a punishment in ancient times.”
Synonyms: flagellation, lashing, tanning, whipping
leap
The word leap is another word for “jump,” but it gives a slightly different image — one of lightness and quickness, perhaps a movement with a little more spring in it than a regular jump.
Leap comes from the Old English hlēapan, “to leap or run.” The word can convey a happy feeling, as when William Wordsworth writes, “My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.” As a side note, the game of leap-frog appears to have had its beginnings in the 1590s.
Verb:
Move forward by leaps and bounds.
Example: “The child leapt across the puddle.”
Synonyms: bound, jump, spring
Jump down from an elevated point.
Example: “He decided to leap off the ledge into the water below.”
Synonyms: jump, jump off
Cause to jump or leap.
Example: “The trainer used a command to leap the horse over the obstacle.”
Synonyms: jump
Pass abruptly from one state or topic to another.
Example: “The artist’s debut album allowed him to leap into fame.”
Synonyms: jump
Noun:
A light, self-propelled movement upwards or forwards.
Example: “The gazelle’s effortless leap carried it across the grassland.”
Synonyms: bounce, bound, leaping, saltation, spring
The distance leaped (or to be leaped).
Example: “He made a remarkable leap of 10 feet in the long jump competition.”
Synonyms: jump
An abrupt transition.
Example: “The novel had a surprising leap from college to the major leagues in its storyline.”
Synonyms: jump, saltation
A sudden and decisive increase.
Example: “There was a significant leap in sales after the product launch.”
Synonyms: jump
sprawled
Other forms: sprawled; sprawls
When you sprawl, you spread out in an ungainly way, like when you’re lying down comfortably on the sofa with your legs and arms flung out around you.
As a noun, the most common use of this word nowadays is in the phrase “urban sprawl” (or “suburban sprawl”), which describes municipal development — things like new neighborhoods, shopping malls, and office complexes — that spreads out of control, according to no approved plan, and usually with pretty ugly results.
Verb:
Sit or lie with one’s limbs spread out.
Example: “After a long day of hiking, he decided to sprawl out on the grass and relax.”
Synonyms: sprawl
Go, come, or spread in a rambling or irregular way.
Example: “The vines began to sprawl across the garden, creating a natural canopy.”
Synonyms: straggle
Noun:
An ungainly posture with arms and legs spread about.
Example: “The child’s tiredness was evident in the way he assumed a comfortable sprawling position on the couch.”
Synonyms: sprawling
An aggregation or continuous network of urban communities.
Example: “The city’s rapid growth led to the development of a vast urban sprawl around its outskirts.”
Synonyms: conurbation, urban sprawl
brood
A brood is a group of young born at the same time — like a brood of chicks — but your parents might use the word for you and your siblings: “We’re taking the whole brood to the movies tonight.”
Brood is also what a chicken does when she sits on her eggs to hatch them. You can also brood, when you worry and sulk and dwell on something obsessively — maybe as tedious as sitting on eggs, but no chicks when you’re done. Things like clouds or silence can also brood, hanging over something ominously, as a storm that broods over the sea, sending fishermen scurrying for safety.
Verb:
Hang over, as of something threatening, dark, or menacing.
Example: “The terrible vision brooded over her all day long.”
Synonyms: bulk large, hover, loom
Think moodily or anxiously about something.
Example: “She couldn’t shake off the disturbing thoughts that continued to brood in her mind.”
Synonyms: dwell
Be in a huff; be silent or sullen.
Example: “Be in a huff and display one’s displeasure. Pout, sulk.”
Noun:
The young of an animal cared for at one time.
Example: “The hen kept her brood of chicks close, protecting them from predators.”
Verb:
2. Sit on (eggs).
Example: “Birds brood.”
sheer
If your curtains allow light to pass through, they’re sheer, or see-through. Sheer can also describe something steep, like a cliff, or anything extreme, like sheer nerve.
This word has several meanings, but they’re all extreme. You might want to layer a sheer shirt over a tank top. Climbing a sheer cliff is almost impossible. If your car sheers, it swerves sharply, and you might crash. Maybe you’ve met all these meanings in a single nightmare: When the sheer fabric blew over your face as you drove, you lost control and the car began to sheer, filling you with sheer terror as you went over the sheer cliff.
Adjective:
So thin as to transmit light - sheer silk stockings
Synonyms: cobwebby, diaphanous, filmy, gauze-like, gauzy, gossamer, see-through, transparent, vaporous, vapourous
Of relatively small extent from one surface to the opposite or in cross-section - thin
Adjective:
Complete and without restriction or qualification; sometimes used informally as intensifiers - got the job through sheer persistence
Synonyms: absolute, downright, out-and-out, rank, right-down
Having every necessary or normal part or component or step - complete
Adjective:
Not mixed with extraneous elements - pure
Synonyms: plain, unmingled, unmixed
Free of extraneous elements of any kind - pure
Adjective:
Very steep; having a prominent and almost vertical front - a sheer descent of rock
Synonyms: bluff, bold
Having a sharp inclination
Verb:
Turn sharply; change direction abruptly - curve, cut, slew, slue, swerve, trend, veer
Cause to sheer - She sheered her car around the obstacle
Adverb:
Directly - he fell sheer into the water
Adverb:
Straight up or down without a break
Synonyms: perpendicularly
dawn
The noun dawn refers to the first light of day, or the first time period, like the dawn of a new era, which occurs when a new president takes office.
Not just the beginning of a day, the noun dawn can refer to any beginning, like the dawn of the Internet era. As a verb, dawn can mean “become light” or “become clear,” like when it dawns on you that you left an important paper at home today. In that case, you can suddenly see what you did wrong, like at the dawn of a new day, when it is no longer dark and you can see, literally.
Noun:
The first light of day - we got up before dawn
Synonyms: aurora, break of day, break of the day, cockcrow, dawning, daybreak, dayspring, first light, morning, sunrise, sunup
The earliest period - the dawn of civilization
Synonyms: morning
An opening time period - it was the dawn of the Roman Empire
Verb:
Become light - It started to dawn, and we had to get up
Appear or develop - The age of computers had dawned
Become clear or enter one’s consciousness or emotions - It dawned on him that she had betrayed him
Synonyms: click, come home, fall into place, get across, get through, penetrate, sink in
shrewd
If you are shrewd in your spending, you can make a small salary go a long way. Use the adjective shrewd to describe a person or thing that is smart or clever in a practical sort of way.
The word shrewd is from a Middle English adjective formed from the noun schrewe, “an evil person, a villain.” This Middle English noun is an earlier form of our modern English word shrew. So shrewd and shrew are related to each other. Shrewd doesn’t usually have a disapproving or negative tone, but shrew certainly does.
Adjective:
Marked by practical hardheaded intelligence - he was too shrewd to go along with them on a road that could lead only to their overthrow
Synonyms: astute, savvy, sharp, smart
Showing mental alertness and calculation and resourcefulness
Adjective:
(Used of persons) Good at tricking people to get something - calculating, calculative, conniving, scheming
Dispassionate
