Words Flashcards
pecksniffian
Pretending to have high moral principles; sanctimonious, hypocritical
“Some people likened him to a direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there.””
She said, ‘Davis, stop being such a Pecksniffian stuffed shirt.’”
“In the meantime, the pecksniffian French consul was feigning indignation.”
falstaffian
fal-STAF-ee-uhn
Fat, jolly, and convivial.
“His hair was long and scruffy, his ties ludicrous and his manner jovial bordering on Falstaffian; a board meeting, for him, was a debate, punctuated by gales of his maniacal laughter.”
primogeniture
- The state of being the firstborn or eldest child in a family.
- The right of succession and inheritance belonging to the firstborn child.
sclerotic
skluh-ROT-ik
- Hard, rigid, slow to adapt or respond.
- Relating to or affected with sclerosis, an abnormal hardening of a tissue or part.
- Of or relating to the sclera, the white fibrous outer layer of the eyeball.
“It was getting to be late in the afternoon, and the traffic was crabby and sclerotic.”
“This group decided that if the government bureaucracy had grown so sclerotic, it was time for a small, professional group of private citizens to give attention to delicate problems of the world.”
ineluctable
Impossible to avoid: inescapable.
“My qualms were squashed out of existence by the ineluctable pressure of necessity.”
pilgarlic
pil-GAHR-lik
A bald person.
“With his cherubic face, big blue eyes, pilgarlic pate, steel-rimmed glasses, and shuffling gait, Horace Greeley looked more like a character out of a Dickens novel than a presidential hopeful.”
lapsus linguae
LAP-suhs LING-gwee, LAHP-soos LING-gwy
A slip of the tongue
“True, Top Dumb mispronounced the name of Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, but not even that lapsus linguae could sour the mood in the first meeting between the two conservatives.”
antipodes
- Two places situated on the diametrically opposite sides of the earth.
- The exact opposite of someone or something.
“Tasmania’s most celebrated attraction now is the Museum of Old and New Art, outside Hobart. Everyone in the antipodes knows its titillating backstory.”
“At no other time have the sensibilities of America’s Atlantic and Pacific cosmopolitan antipodes stood in sharper contrast.”
olid
Foul-smelling
“Ducks’ blood smells no less olid than pig’s blood.”
animadversion
- The act of criticizing.
- An unfavorable comment.
“This newspaper has never felt that it is above criticism, especially from politicians and other public officials who take the brunt of our animadversion.”
deus ex machina
An unexpected or improbable person or event that saves a seemingly hopeless situation.
“Warren Buffet is the deus ex machina of the stock market, a constant background presence who could decide from his bathtub in 2011 to rescue confidence in Bank of America with bags of cash.”
misoneism
mis-oh-NEE-iz-uhm
hatred or dislike of what is new or represents change.
But it is necessary to note that hereditary anomaly, if it provokes an anomaly in the moral sense, also suppresses misoneism, the horror of novelty which is almost the general rule of humanity.
edacity
ih-DAS-i-tee
the state of being edacious; voraciousness; appetite.
Craving can be defined as a compelling and overwhelming edacity for a particular substance.
…if thou have any vendible faculty, nay if thou have but edacity and loquacity, come!
mishpocha
mish-PAW-khuh
an entire family network comprising relatives by blood and marriage and sometimes including close friends; clan.
Levinsky told him he didn’t need a lawyer. “Dealing with us is like mishpocha. Who needs a lawyer to talk to mishpocha.” Simon learned later they had cheated him, but who cares, who would have cared?
“You can speak now. We’re all mishpocha here and we got no secrets.”
de profundis
dey proh-FOON-dis
out of the depths (of sorrow, despair, etc.)
Once he spoke to himself in a low voice that shook as if with difficulty dominating sobs that were rising in his throat. “De profundis—” he said.
Her letters were written in varying spirits, sometimes cheery, sometimes de profundis.
De profundis means “out of the depth”
soigné
swahn-YEY
- carefully or elegantly done, operated, or designed. 2. well-groomed.
I saw…books being borrowed from the library by gentlemen of soigné appearance.
A moment later the lights dimmed, the orchestra struck up the prelude and the curtain slid smoothly up. Later, during the intermission, Hearn took a cup of hot chocolate and mingled with the soigné crowd.
decamp
dih-KAMP
- to depart quickly, secretly, or unceremoniously: The band of thieves decamped in the night.
- to depart from a camp; to pack up equipment and leave a camping ground: We decamped before the rain began.
Bemused not only by Claire’s peculiar dress—or lack of it—by the sheer impossibility of her presence—English ladies simply aren’t found in the Highlands in 1743—the Scotsmen decide to take her with them when they decamp under cover of darkness.
Louis XII of France at the time was invading Italy much the way his dwarf Uncle Charles had, and we were close enough we could decamp immediately back to Rome in a day or two.
plethoric
ple-THAWR-ik
- overfull; turgid; inflated: a plethoric, pompous speech. 2. of, pertaining to, or characterized by plethora.
He is a plethoric sleeper: literally a sleeper having an excess of red corpuscles in the blood (the opposite of anaemic), suggesting “unhealthy repletion”, but here a “heavy” sleeper.
And I did these things, not that I was an egotist, not that I was impervious to the critical glances of my fellows, but because of a certain hogskin belt, plethoric and sweat-bewrinkled, which buckled next the skin above the hips.
