Words and Meanings
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
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Approbation
- An expression of warm approval; praise. 2. Official approval.
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Bilk
- To defraud, cheat, or swindle; To evade payment of; To thwart or frustrate
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Clarion
- brilliantly clear; loud and clear
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Crepuscular -
of, relating to, or resembling twilight : DIM; “the period's crepuscula
Duffer -
- a peddler especially of cheap flashy articles; something counterfeit or worthless;
an incompetent, ineffectual, or clumsy person; especially a mediocre golferEurythmy -
- Harmony of proportion in architecture. 2. A system of rhythmical body movements performed to a recitation of verse or prose.
- Fetid -
- Having an offensive smell; stinking. He grew up between the river and the vineyard-covered slopes, between the fetid smell of the tannery and the f
Froward -
- Stubbornly contrary and disobedient; obstinate.
Gimcrack -
- noun: A showy but useless or worthless object; a gewgaw. adjective:
Tastelessly showy; cheap; gaudy.Gloaming –
- twilight, dusk
Halcyon -
- Calm; quiet; peaceful; undisturbed; happy; as, "deep, halcyon repose."
2. Marked by peace and prosperity; as, "halcyon years.Helot -
- A person in servitude; a serf.
Homogolate -
- sanction, allow; especially : to approve or confirm officially
Mimesis
- 1. The imitation or representation of aspects of the sensible world, especially human actions, in literature and art. 2. Biology Mimicry. 3. Medicine The appearance, often caused by hysteria, of sym
- Plangent -
- Loud and resounding: plangent bells. Expressing or suggesting sadness; plaintive: “From a doorway came the plangent sounds of a guitar
Sinecure -
- A position or office that requires little or no work but provides a salary. Archaic An ecclesiastical benefice not attached to the spiritual duties of a parish.
Trenchant -
- Forceful, effective, and vigorous: a trenchant argument. See synonyms at incisive. 2. Caustic; cutting: trenchant criticism. 3.
- Etymology: Latin; akin to Latin tumEre to swell -- more at THUMB: an artificial hillock or mound (as over a grave); <
Edacious
- - Characterized by voracity; devouring.
- Nimiety -
- Superfluity; excess.
- Effulgent –
- the state of being bright and radiant
Trencherman -
- A hearty eater. Archaic One who frequents another's table; a hanger-on or parasite.
Neoteny - .
- Retention of juvenile characteristics in the adults of a species, as among certain amphibians. 2. The attainment of sexual maturity by an organism still in its larval stage
Beneficence –
- the practice of doing good
Macerate -
- To make soft by soaking or steeping in a liquid. 2. To separate into constituents by soaking. 3. To cause to become lean, usually by starvation; emaciate.
Sempiternal –
- everlasting; eternal
- Styptic -
- tending to contract or bind : astringent; especially : tending to check bleeding
Onus:
- burden; also, blame; stigma
Distaff -
- A staff that holds on its cleft end the unspun flax, wool, or tow from which thread is drawn in spinning by hand. An attachment for a spinning wheel that serves this purpose. Work and concerns traditionally considered
- Solferino -
- A moderate purplish red.
Fideism -
- Reliance on faith alone rather than scientific reasoning or philosophy in questions of religion.
Sententious -
- Terse and energetic in expression; pithy. 2a. Abounding in aphorisms. b. Given to aphoristic utterances. 3a. Abounding in pompous moralizing. b. Given to pompous moralizing.
Malentendu -
- A misunderstanding.
- 1 : the ringing or sounding of bells; a jingling or tinkling sound as if of bells
élan vital -
- The vital force hypothesized by Henri Bergson as a source of efficient causation and evolution in nature. Also called life force.
Pelf –
- money and riches
Pettifogger -
- 1. A petty, quibbling, unscrupulous lawyer. 2. One who quibbles over trivia.
- Argus -
- 1 : a hundred-eyed monster of Greek mythology 2 : a watchful guardian
Tocsin –
- warning
Jacobin -
- A radical or extreme leftist. 2. A radical republican during the French Revolution. 3. A Dominican friar.
Provenience –
- origin
- Doyen -
- A man who is the eldest or senior member of a group
Orotund -
- full in sound; also, bombastic.
Filial -
- of, relating to, or befitting a son or daughter 2 : having or assuming the relation of a child or offspring
Discursive -
- Covering a wide field of subjects; rambling. Proceeding to a conclusion through reason rather than intuition.
Metonymy -
- A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of Washington for the United States government or of the sword for military power.
Virago -
- an ill-tempered, overbearing woman; also, a woman of great strength and courage.
Praemunire -
- 1. The offense under English law of appealing to or obeying a foreign court or authority, thus challenging the supremacy of the Crown. 2. The writ charging this offense. 3. The penalty for this offense.
Susurrus -
- a whispering or rustling sound.
Recondite -
- Not easily understood; abstruse. See synonyms at ambiguous. 2. Concerned with or treating something abstruse or obscure: recondite scholarship. 3
Nugatory -
- 1. Of little or no importance; trifling. 2. Having no force; invalid
Jejune -
- 1 : lacking nutritive value 2 : devoid of significance or interest : dull 3 : juvenile, puerile
Catachresis -
- use of the wrong word for the context 2 : use of a forced and especially paradoxical figure of speech
Zeitgeist -
- The spirit of the time; the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation: “It's easy to see how a student... in the 1940's could imbibe such notions. The Zeitgeist encouraged Philosopher-Kings” (James Atlas).
Temporize -
- to draw out discussions or negotiations so as to gain time
Propitious -
- presenting favorable circumstances.
Vulnerary -
- used for or useful in healing wounds
Ossify -
- To change into bone; become bony. To become set in a rigidly conventional pattern: “The central ideas of liberalism have ossified” (Jeffrey Hart).
Carceral -
- of, relating to, or suggesting a jail or prison
Puissant -
- Powerful; strong; mighty; as, a puissant prince or empire
Afflatus -
- A strong creative impulse, especially as a result of divine inspiration
Chatoyant -
- having a changeable luster or color with an undulating narrow band of white light
- Sabulous –
- gritty, sandy
- Hebetude -
- Dullness of mind; mental lethargy
Polymath -
- a person of encyclopedic learning
Splenetic -
- marked by bad temper, malevolence, or spite
Abulia -
- abnormal lack of ability to act or to make decisions
Ensurient –
- hungry, greedy
- Martinet
- Etymology: Jean Martinet, 17th century French army officer
1 : a strict disciplinarian
2 : a person who stresses a rigid adherence to the details of forms and methods- alfresco
- taking place or located in the open air : outdoor, outdoors
- rebarbative
- repellent, irritating
- clepsydra
- water clock
- ex parte
1 : On or from one side or party only -- used of legal proceedings
2 : from a one-sided or partisan point of view
- Longanimity
- a disposition to bear injuries patiently : forbearance
- Pluvial
- a : of or relating to rain
- *b : characterized by abundant rain
- 2 of a geologic change : resulting from
- Nonage
- *1 : minority
- 2 a : a period of youth
- b : lack of maturity
- Churlish
- It is easy to understand how "churlish" has come to mean "vulgar," "surly," and "intractable" if you know your English history. In Anglo-Saxon England a churl, or ceorl, was a freeman of the lowest
- Overweening
- 1 : arrogant, presumptuous
- *2 : immoderate, exaggerated
- Rutilant
- having a reddish glow
- Riparian
- relating to or living or located on the bank of a natural watercourse (as a river) or sometimes of a lake or a tidewater
- Opusculum
- a minor work (as of literature)
- Mythomania
- an excessive or abnormal propensity for lying and exaggerating
- Wowser
- an obtrusively puritanical person
- Internecine
- 1 : marked by slaughter : deadly; especially : mutually destructive
- *2 : of, relating to, or involving confl
- Usance
- 1 : firmly established and generally accepted practice or procedure : usage
- 2 : use, employment
- Camarilla
- a group of unofficial often secret and scheming advisers; also : cabal
- sprachgefuhl
- an intuitive sense of what is linguistically appropriate
- Prehensile
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- *1 : adapted for seizing or grasping especially by wrapping around
- 2 : gifted with mental grasp or moral or aesthetic perception
- atrabilious
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- 1 : given to or marked by melancholy : gloomy
- *2 : ill-natured, peevish
- roustabout
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- 1 a : deckhand
- b : longshoreman
- 2 : an unskilled or semiskilled laborer especially in an oil field or refinery
- inkhorn
- ostentatiously learned : pedantic
- corybantic
- Cybele (According to Oriental and Greco-Roman mythology, she was the mother of it all: gods, humans, animals . . . even nature itself. The Corybants were Cybele's attendants and priests, and they worshipped her with an unrestrained f
- Fulminate
- to send forth censures or invectives
- jackanapes
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- 1 : monkey, ape
- 2 a : an impudent or conceited fellow
- *b : a saucy or mischievous child
- henotheism
- the worship of one god without denying the existence of other gods
- Prothalamion
- a song in celebration of a marriage
- entelechy
- 1. In the philosophy of Aristotle, the condition of a thing whose essence is fully realized; actuality. 2. In some philosophical systems, a vital force that directs an organism toward self-fulfillment.
- aver
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to declare
- blandishment
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speech or action intended to coax someone into doing something
- cadge
- to get something by taking advantage of someone
- depradation
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the act of preying upon or plundering
- emollient
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Something that softens
- extant
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In existence, still existing
- impecunious
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penniless, poor
- improvidence
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Absence of foresight, failure to provide for future needs or events
- intransigent
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Stubborn, unwilling to move or change
- noisome
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harmful, defensive, destructive
- pecadillo
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a small sin or fault
- perfidious
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deliberately treacherous
- pulchritudinous
- Beautiful
- pusillanimous
- Cowardly, timid, or irresolute; petty
- rarefy
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to make or become thin; to purify or refine
- specious
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seemingly true but false
- turpitude
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depravity, baseness
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accede
- agree
- acclivity
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sharp upslope of a hill
- evince
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1 : to constitute outward evidence of
2 : to display clearly : REVEAL