Word Du Jours
Terms
undefined, object
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- deleterious
- having a harmful effect; injurious
- ensconce
-
to hide or place in a
secure place - rescind
- v.:to invalidate; to repeal; to retract
- debunk
- to expose the falseness of
- gerrymander
-
v.:to set up lines for political
districts so that the party in power is more likely to win an election - dulcet
- adj.:melodious, harmonious
- asylum
- a place of retreat or security
- heretical
- adj.:violating accepted dogma or convention
- desiderate
-
v.:to seek earnestly, to express a desire
for, to miss - alleviate
- to ease a pain or a burden
- objurgate
- v.:to scold sharply
- terse
- adj.:brief and concise in wording
- punctilious
-
strictly attentive to minute details in
conduct; picky - extirpate
-
v.:to rip up by the roots; to abolish or
exterminate; to remove by surgery - apprise
- v.:to give notice to, inform
- vituperate
-
v.:to revile, to scold
harshly, to vilify - imminent
- adj.:about to happen; impending
- zealous
-
passionate; extremely interested in pursuing
something - ablate
-
v.:to remove through erosion or evaporation; to become
reduced by erosion or evaporation - antipathy
- n.:aversion, dislike
- tenacity
-
persistent adherence to a belief or a point
of view - manumit
- v.:to release from slavery
- squander
- v.:to waste by spending or using irresponsibly
- obstinate
-
stubbornly adhering to an opinion or a course
of action - impunity
- n.:immunity from punishment or penalty
- interdict
-
v.:to prohibit, to forbid; to
stop enemy movement by destroying supply lines - prognosticate
- v.:to predict; foreshadow, presage
- pervasive
- adj.:having the tendency to permeate or spread throughout
- intrepid
- courageous; fearless
- fastidious
-
possessing careful attention to detail;
difficult to please - posit
-
v.:to postulate or theorize, to assume to be true; to
place in position - enigmatic
- adj.:mysterious; obscure; difficult to understand
- amenable
- adj.:agreeable; responsive to suggestion
- bruit (BROOT)
- v.:to pass news of; repeat
- exemplary
- commendable
- gloze
- v.:to palliate, to minimize, to gloss (over)
- dogged
- stubbornly persevering
- disinterested
- adj.:indifferent; free from self-interest
- undulate
-
v.:to move smoothly in a wavelike motion; to
cause to move smoothly in a wavelike motion - martial
- adj.:associated with war and the armed forces
- diligent
- marked by painstaking effort; hard-working
- conscientious
- careful and principled
- relegate
- v.:to forcibly assign, especially to a lower place or position
- deliquesce
- v.:to melt away, to become liquid
- assiduous
- hard-working
- brook
- v.:to tolerate or endure
- macerate (MAS uh rayt
-
v.:to make or become soft by soaking; to cause to
waste away (usually be starving) - adamant
- extremely stubborn
- susurrate
-
v.:to make a soft rustling sound, to whisper
n.:a whispering sound - audacious
- adj.:daring and fearless; recklessly bold
- assuage
- v.:to ease or lessen; to appease or pacify
- disparate
- fundamentally distinct or different
- fleer (FLIR)
-
v.:to smirk in contempt, to leer; n.:a derisive look, a
sneer - gauche
- adj.:crude, awkward, tasteless
- disingenuous
- not straightforward; crafty
- unfeigned
- adj.:genuine; not false or hypocritical
- eschew
- v.:to shun
- usurp
- to take power by force
- sough(SAOW or SUHF)
-
v.:to make a murmuring or sighing sound n.:a soft
murmuring sound - rail
- v.:to complain about bitterly
- omnipotent
- all-powerful
- crepitate
- v.:to make a crackling noise; to crackle
- auspicious
- adj.:favorable, prosperous, well-omened
- prattle
- v.:to babble meaninglessly; to talk in an empty and idle manner
- cachinnate
- v.:to laugh really hard; to guffaw
- imperious
- arrogantly domineering or overbearing
- haughty
- condescendingly proud
- immolate
-
v.:to kill as a sacrificial victim; to commit
suicide by fire; to destroy - bolster
- v.:to provide support or reinforcement
- dictatorial
- domineering; oppressively overbearing
- jape
-
v.:to joke, to quip; to make fun of n.:a joke, something
meant to amuse - eclectic
- adj.:composed of elements drawn from various sources
- wreak
- v.:to inflict; to vent, to indulge; to cause
- innocuous
- adj.:harmless; causing no damage
- despotic
-
characterized by exercising absolute power
tyrannically - renege
- v.:to fail to honor a commitment; to go back on a promise
- annihilate
- to destroy completely
- mollycoddle
-
v.:to indulge, to pamper; n.:a boy who
is pampered; a wimp or weakling - abdicate
- to formally give up power
- coruscate
-
v.:to glitter or sparkle; to be brilliant in
technique or intelligence - malleable
- adj.:capable of being shaped or formed; tractable; pliable
- kibitz
- v.:to give unasked-for advice, esp. in a card game
- aesthetic
-
adj.:dealing with, appreciative of, or responsive to art or
the beautiful - parody
-
an artistic work that imitates the style of
another work for comic effect - babbitt
-
n.:a member of the middle class who is so fond of its
ideals as to be narrow minded and conceited - decorum
- n.:polite or appropriate conduct or behavior
- thwart
- to prevent the occurrence of
- wary
- on guard; watchful
- troglodyte
-
n.:a member of any ancient or mythological
race that dwelt in caves; a recluse, a brutish person, a hermit - virulent
-
adj.:extremely harmful or poisonous; bitterly hostile or
antagonistic - nocturnal
- of or occurring in the night
- nimbus
-
n.:a luminous cloud surrounding an ancient god while
on earth; an atmosphere that surrounds a person or thing; a brilliant
light that surrounds a holy person, god, or emperor that is used in
artistic representation to denote holiness; a rain cloud - credulous
- adj.:tending to believe too readily; gullible
- conflagration
- a widespread fire
- paramour
- n.:a lover, esp. an illicit lover
- hackneyed
- adj.:rendered trite or commonplace by frequent usage
- apodictic
- adj.:unequivocally true
- dyad
- n.:two individuals thought of as a pair
- sturm und drang
-
n.:turmoil; a late eighteenth
century German literary movement in which a person's individual struggle
against conventional society was a typical theme - nictate
- v.:to wink
- etiolated
- adj.:to whiten or become bleached
- divagate
- v.:to wander; to digress
- gad
- v.:to wander with no apparent purpose
- sashay
-
v.:to walk, to glide in an easy or casual manner; to
strut; to do a certain dance move in which one foot slides sideways and
is then followed by the other (like a gallop) n.:the dance move
described above; an outing - ululate
- v.:to wail or howl loudly
- reify
-
v.:to treat (mentally) something that is abstract as
if it were real - moil
-
v.:to toil; to work assiduously and continuously
n.:drudgery, confusion - twit
-
v.:to tease, ridicule in a good humored way; n.:the act of
ridiculing; a taunt; (slang) a fool - burke
-
v.:to suppress quietly or stifle; to disregard; to kill
someone through suffocation - contraindicate
-
v.:to suggest that something is
inadvisable (usually used in discussing medical treatments) - perorate
-
v.:to make a long speech, esp. in
a grandiloquent manner; to sum up a speech - exculpate
-
v.:to free from blame, to prove to be
guiltless - ideate
- v.:to form an idea, to conceive
- coquet
- v.:to flirt; to dally
- predicate
-
v.:to establish, to base; to affirm, to
declare; to ascribe a quality to (used with of) - tergiversate
-
v.:to equivocate, evade, esp. in a
dishonorable manner; to desert a cause; apostatize - embrangle
-
v.:to entangle; to mix up in confusion (also
imbrangle) - roister
- v.:to engage in boisterous revelry; to swagger
- immure
-
v.:to enclose as if within a wall; to entomb into a
wall - gird
- v.:to encircle as with a belt; to prepare for action
- peculate
- v.:to embezzle money
- defalcate
- v.:to embezzle
- degauss
- v.:to eliminate the magnetic field of something
- quaff
- v.:to drink deeply; to drink of a liquid freely n.:a drink
- bedizen
- v.:to dress in a gaudy fashion
- educe
-
v.:to draw out something that is present in a latent
state, elicit, evoke - sully
- v.:to dirty, soil or stain; to defile
- titivate
-
v.:to decorate, spruce up, make alterations in
ones appearance - absquatulate
- v.:to decamp
- imprecate
- v.:to curse
- bray
- v.:to crush into powder
- emend
-
v.:to correct, improve, esp. to correct a
literary text - disabuse
-
v.:to correct someone; to free from
misconception - discombobulate
-
v.:to confuse; to throw into a
state of chaos or confusion - homologate
- v.:to confirm officially
- adjure
- v.:to command earnestly
- masticate
- v.:to chew, to grind with the teeth; to grind
- diddle
- v.:to cheat or swindle (slang)
- dily
- a remarkable thing or a person (slang)
- confabulate
-
v.:to chat; in psychology, to replace
fact with fantasy in memory - bowdlerize
- v.:to censor prudishly
- canoodle
-
v.:to caress or make love; to persuade through
caressing - vaunt
- v.:to brag about; to brag
- gallivant
-
v.:to bop about happily, esp. with members of
the opposite sex - nonplus
-
v.:to bewilder, to make incapable of speaking or
doing n.:a state of confusion - genuflect
-
v.:to bend one's knees or touch a knee to the
ground in worship; to grovel - decollate
- v.:to behead
- comport
-
v.:to behave (oneself) in a particular manner; to
agree; to suit - ossify
-
v.:to become bone; to become rigidly conventional,
to mold into a conventional pattern - niggle
-
v.:to be obsessed with trivialities; to quibble, to
constantly find fault with - arrogate
-
v.:to appropriate without right, to make undue
claim to, assume; to appropriate for another in an unwarranted manner - commove
- v.:to agitate; to move violently
- excoriate
-
v.:to abrade, to wear the skin off; to
denounce scathingly - philippic
- n.:tirade, an attack
- serif
-
n.:those little lines that are used in printing on the
end of broad strokes used to form the lines of a letter - empiricism
-
n.:the view that experience is the only
valid source of knowledge; a way of practicing medicine in which all
theory is disregarded and only practical experience is used; quackery - pleonasm
-
n.:the use of an excess of words to express an
idea when only a few words would make the same statement clear to
anyone who could see with his own eyes; superfluity - trope
-
n.:the use of a word in a figurative sense, a figure of
speech - avatar
-
n.:an archetype; a temporary incarnation of a
continuing entity; the embodiment of a Hindu deity, esp. Vishnu - gymnosophist
-
n.:a member of an ancient Hindu sect
that wore no clothes and meditated a lot - farrago
- n.:a medley, a mixture
- omphaloskepsis
-
n.:a meditation on one's navel
practiced by Eastern mystics to achieve mystical fulfillment - nostrum
-
n.:a medicine, made up of secret
ingredients, whose efficacy is in question, and is usually prepared by the
person selling it; a panacea - cachet
-
n.:a mark or quality of distinction or
authenticity; prestige; an indication of approval - parlance
-
n.:a manner of speaking, diction, idiom,
phraseology; a speech, an instance of speaking - epiphany
-
n.:a manifestation of God or other divine
being; a sudden understanding of the essential meaning of something - ombudsman
-
n.:a man who mediates
settlements between aggrieved parties, esp. representing people against the
government; a mediator - sesquipedalian
-
n.:a long word, or one with many
syllables adj.:given to using long words - juggernaut
-
n.:a massive unstoppable
object that crushes anything in its path - ruck
-
n.:a mass, a throng, a crowd; the group of horses left
behind in a race, or people who are not distinguishable as opposed to their
leader - palaver
-
n.:a long meeting or conference; idle chitchat;
talk meant to charm v.:to cajole, to wheedle; to partake of idle chitchat - screed
- n.:a long and monotonous tirade or a long letter
- grig
- n.:a lively person
- dada
-
n.:a literary and artistic movement (1916-1923) in Europe
that thrived on absurdity, flouting conventional artistic values - portmanteau
-
n.:a large suitcase; a portmanteau word is a
word made from two other words by combining sounds; e.g. smog - beguine
-
n.:a kind of popular dance, associated
with Martinique; adj.:syncopated beat - sinecure
-
n.:a job or position that pays
a salary but requires no work - nimrod
- n.:a hunter
- tor
- n.:a high rocky hill or pile of rocks
- chirr
- n.:a harsh sound similar to that made by crickets.
- nebbish
- an offensive term that deliberately insults somebody’s courage, personality, and initiative (insult)
- gemeinschaft
-
n.:a group with similar tastes or a strong
sense of identity - gestalt
-
n.:a group or configuration whose individual parts
cannot stand alone, nor can they be understood as simply the summation
of the elements - claque
-
n.:a group of people paid to applaud during a performance;
a group of obsequious admirers - coffle
- n.:a group of animals or prisoners chained in a line
- puce
- n.:a gray brownish purple
- bonhomie
-
n.:a genial disposition; a
genial atmosphere - mercurial
- quick and changeable in mood
- dilettante
-
n.:one with an amateurish or superficial interest in the
arts or a branch of knowledge - syncretism
-
n.:a fusion of differing systems of
belief or philosophy - syllogism
-
n.:a form of logic in which major and minor
premises are made, and from them a conclusion is drawn; the process of
deduction; a crafty or specious argument - coxcomb
- n.:a fop; a self-satisfied dandy
- schlemiel
- n.:a foolish, unlucky, clumsy wimp
- marplot
- n.:a foolish meddler who causes a plot to fail
- myrmidon
-
n.:a follower who faithfully obeys orders
without asking questions - minx
- n.:a flirtatious young woman or girl
- mulct
- n.:a fine; a penalty v.:to fine; to swindle, to bleed
- metonymy
-
n.:a figure of speech in which a word is
substituted for a related word with which it is associated - canard
- n.:a false, intentionally misleading story
- jactitation
-
n.:a false boasting or claim, esp. one
that hurts others; a twitching of the body or its parts - homunculus
-
n.:a dwarf, a small human; a tiny human
believed by early biologists to live in a sperm cell - oubliette
-
n.:a dungeon which has only one exit, a trap door
in its roof - nepenthe
-
n.:a drug or something else that helps someone
forget sorrow or pain - luftmensch
- n.:a dreamer; a person who is impractical
- pettifogger
-
n.:a disreputable lawyer who works mainly
on petty cases; one who worries over trivial details - imbroglio
-
n.:a difficult situation; a complicated
disagreement; a confused mass - argot
- n.:a dialect of a particular group
- charybdis
- n.:a destructive hazard
- cuckold
-
n.:a derisive word for a man whose wife is
unfaithful; v.:to make into a cuckold - fop
-
n.:a dandy, coxcomb, a man overly concerned with (and usually
vain about) his manners and clothes - diadem
-
n.:a crown that symbolizes royalty; royal power;
v.:to adorn with a diadem - bower
-
n.:a cottage or abode; a shelter in a garden made of tree
limbs - cognoscente
-
n.:a connoisseur;
one with refined taste, esp. in the fine arts - mountebank
-
n.:a conman who sells false medicines and
uses jokes or tricks to attract customers; an impostor or charlatan - trade-last
-
n.:a compliment that one has overheard and is
willing to trade to a person if that person will repeat a favorable
remark made about oneself - weltanschauung
-
n.:a complete philosophy of the
universe, world view - votary
-
n.:a committed worshiper; a zealously devoted
person; an enthusiast - dissonance
-
n.:a combination of sounds that is harsh;
discord; discrepancy; strife - caryatid
- column in the shape of a draped female figure supporting a structure such as the frieze or porch of a classical Greek temple
- demimonde
-
n.:a class of kept women or other woman of
lower social standing; a group with marginal success or respectability - gobbet
-
n.:a chunk or piece, esp. of raw flesh; a lump, or
morsel; a mouthful - hobson's choice
-
n.:a choice where one must take what
is offered or must take nothing at all - wunderkind
-
n.:a child with exceptional talent who
becomes famous at an early age, a prodigy - pablum
-
n.:Trite or simplistic writing, speech, or concepts; a
cereal for infants patented in 1932; something made palatable - ailurophile
- n.:a cat lover
- quidnunc
- n.:a busybody, one who needs to know everything
- tome
- n.:a book, esp. a large, heavy scholarly book
- incunabula
-
n.:a book from before the invention
of the printing press (1501); anything in its infancy - hagiography
-
n.:a biography of
saints; a biography that idealizes or worships its subjec - tyro
-
n.:a beginner, one who understands the basics but lacks
any experience - bastinado
-
n.:a beating; a form of punishment in which
a person is hit on the soles of his feet with a stick - bibelot
-
n.:a bauble, a small decorative
object; a finely crafted miniature book - hootenanny
-
n.:a "thingamajig"; an informal jam session
of singers with participation from the audience - schlimazel
- n.:a "born loser," an unlucky simp
- leitmotif
-
n.:(music) a repeating theme
associated with a particular character (in Wagnerian opera); a dominant
and recurring theme - demesne
-
n.:possessed legally; land attached to a home or
estate; a region; a realm - fungible
-
)adj.:able to replace something of equal value,
e.g. a quantity of grain that can replace the same amount;
interchangeable - moot
-
n.:(law) a hypothetical case or trial used as an exercise;
<I>v.</I> to discuss, to broach adj.:subject to debate; of no legal
significance; of no importance, made academic - nadir
-
n.:(astronomy) the point diametrically opposed to the
zenith, directly below the observer; the lowest point - weltschmerz
- n.:world weariness
- verbiage
-
n.:wordiness, too many words for the purpose; how
words are used to express something, diction, wording - glabrous
- adj.:without hair; smooth
- pace
- prep.:with deference to
- sapient
- adj.:wise, sagacious, shrewd
- feral
-
adj.:wild by nature; tame animals whose
descendants have become wild; like a wild animal - synesthesia
-
n.:when one sense informs the other (a
sound makes one see color); a description of one sense with a term used
in another sense (loud pattern)