More Word Smart: How to Build an Impressive Vocabulary (2012)

Chapter 3. THE WORDS

A

ABASE (uh BAYS) v to humiliate; to lower in esteem or dignity; to humble

· After soaping all the windows in the old widow’s mansion on Halloween, the eighth graders abased themselves and said that they were sorry (after the policeman told them he would arrest them if they didn’t).

· I abased myself before the principal because I figured I had to in order to keep from being expelled.

See our listing for debase.

ABET (uh BET) v to support or encourage someone, especially someone who has done something wrong

· Abetting a criminal by giving her a place to hide from the police is itself a criminal act.

· In their efforts to steal millions from their clients, the dishonest bankers were abetted by the greed of the clients themselves.

You may often hear this word as part of the redundant phrase aid and abet. The two words really mean the same thing.

ABEYANCE (uh BAY uns) n suspension; temporary cessation

· Sally wanted to bite Mr. Anderson, but her father held her in abeyance by grabbing her suspenders and looping them over the doorknob.

· Joe’s poverty kept his addiction to video games in abeyance.

ABJURE (ab JOOR) v to repudiate; to take back; to refrain from

· Under pressure from his teacher, Joe abjured his habit of napping in class and promised to keep his eyes open for the rest of the semester.

· Jerry abjured chocolate for several days after eating an entire Mississippi Mud cake and breaking out in hives.

· For her New Year’s resolution, Ellen decided to abjure from abjuring from anything that she enjoyed.

ABOMINATION (uh bahm uh NAY shun) n something despised or abhorred; extreme loathing

· The lobby of the hotel was an abomination; there was garbage rotting in the elevator, and there were rats running on the furniture.

· Barret shuddered with abomination at the thought of eating Henry’s fatty, salty, oily cooking.

To abominate something is to hate it, hate it, hate it.

· Judy abominated the sort of hotels that have garbage rotting in their elevators and rats running on their furniture.

ABORIGINAL (ab uh RIJ nul) adj native; dating back to the very beginning

· The Aborigines of Australia are the earliest known human inhabitants of the continent. They are that country’s aboriginal inhabitants.

· While working on a new subway tunnel, the construction workers found some fragments of pottery that may have belonged to the city’s aboriginal residents.

If you see the word “original” inside this word, then you have a built-in and easy mnemonic device!

ABOUND (uh BOWND) v to be very numerous

· Trout abound in this river; there are so many of them that you can catch them with your hands.

To abound is to be abundant. Abounding and abundant mean the same thing.

· Susan’s abounding love for Harry will never falter unless she meets someone nicer or Harry moves away.

ABROGATE (AB ruh gayt) v to abolish or repeal formally; to set aside; to nullify

· The commander of the ship had the power to abrogate certain laws in the event of an emergency.

When you see this word, you will often see the word “treaty” nearby. To abrogate a treaty is to repeal it. You can also abrogate a law, an agreement, or a ruling.

ACCEDE (ak SEED) v to give in; to yield; to agree

· Mary acceded to my demand that she give back my driver’s license and stop pretending to be me.

· My mother wanted me to spend the holidays at home with my family instead of on the beach with my roommates, and a quick check of my bank balance convinced me that I had no choice but to accede to her desire.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

ACCENTUATE (ak SEN choo wayt) v to emphasize; to accent; to highlight

· Mr. Jones accentuated the positive by pointing out that his pants fit better after he lost his wallet.

· Dacia’s pointed shoes accentuated the length and slenderness of her feet.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #1

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

ACCESS (AK sess) n the right or ability to approach, enter, or use

· Cynthia was one of a few people to have access to the president; she could get in to see him when she wanted to.

· I wanted to read my boss’s written evaluation of my performance, but employees don’t have access to those files.

· When the Joker finally gained access to Batman’s secret Batcave, he redecorated the entire hideaway in more festive pastel colors.

Access is sometimes used as a verb nowadays. To access a computer file is to open it so that you can work with it. If you have access to someone or something, that person or thing is accessible to you. To say that a book is inaccessible is to say that it is hard to understand. In other words, it’s hard to get into.

ACCLAIM (uh KLAYM) v to praise publicly and enthusiastically

· The author’s new book was acclaimed by all the important reviewers, and it quickly became a bestseller.

· When the Congress or any other group of people approves a proposal by means of a voice vote, the proposal is said to have been approved by acclamation.

Acclaim is also a noun, as is acclamation (AK luh MAY shun).

· The author’s new book was met with universal acclaim. The reviewers’ response to the book was one of acclamation.

ACCORD (uh KAWRD) v to agree; to be in harmony; to grant or bestow

· Sprawling on the couch and watching TV all day accords with my theory that intense laziness is good for the heart.

ACCOUTERMENTS (uh KOO tur munts) n personal clothing, accessories, or equipment; trappings

· Alex is a light traveler; he had crammed all his accouterments into a single shopping bag.

· Louanne had so many silly accouterments in her expensive new kitchen that there wasn’t really much room for Louanne.

ACCRUE (uh KROO) v to accumulate over time

· My savings account pays interest, but the interest accrues at such a slow pace that I almost feel poorer than I did when I opened it.

· Over the years, Emily’s unpaid parking fines had accrued to the point at which they exceeded the value of her car.

ACQUISITIVE (uh KWIZ uh tiv) adj seeking or tending to acquire; greedy

· Children are naturally acquisitive; when they see something, they want it, and when they want something, they take it.

· The auctioneer tried to make the grandfather clock sound interesting and valuable, but no one in the room was in an acquisitive mood, and the clock went unsold.

· Johnny’s natural acquisitiveness made it impossible for him to leave the junkyard empty-handed.

ACQUIT (uh KWIT) v to find not guilty; to behave or conduct oneself

· The reputed racketeer had been acquitted of a wide variety of federal crimes.

An act of acquitting is called an acquittal.

· The prosecutors were surprised and saddened by the jury’s verdict of acquittal.

Acquit can also have a somewhat different meaning. To acquit oneself in performing some duty is to do a decent job, usually under adverse conditions.

· The apprentice carpenter had very little experience, but on his first job he worked hard; he acquitted himself like a pro.

· The members of the lacrosse team had spent the previous week goofing around instead of practicing, but they acquitted themselves in the game, easily defeating their opponents.

ACRONYM (AK ruh nim) n a word made up of the initials of other words

Radar is an acronym. The letters that form it stand for Radio Detecting And Ranging. Radar is also a palindrome, that is, a word or expression that reads the same way from right to left as it does from left to right. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest palindromic composition ever written—beginning “Al, sign it, ‘Lover’ …” and ending “… revolting, Isla”—is 100,000 words long.

ADAGE (AD ij) n a traditional saying; a proverb

· There is at least a kernel of truth in the adage “adages usually contain at least a kernel of truth.”

· The politician promised to make bold new proposals in his campaign speech, but all he did was spout stale adages.

· The coach had decorated the locker room with inspirational adages, hoping that the sayings would instill a hunger for victory in his players.

ADDUCE (uh DOOS) v to bring forward as an example or as proof; to cite

· Tabitha adduced so many reasons for doubting Tom’s claims that soon even Tom began to doubt his claims.

· In support of his client’s weak case, the lawyer adduced a few weak precedents from English common law.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #2

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

ADJOURN (uh JURN) v to suspend until another time

In precise usage, adjourn implies that whatever is being adjourned will at some point be resumed. To adjourn a meeting is to bring it to an end for now, with the suggestion that another meeting will take place at a later time. When Congress adjourns at the end of a year, it doesn’t shut itself down permanently; it puts its business on hold until the next session. Thus, the baseball season adjourns each fall, while a single baseball game merely ends—unless it is delayed by rain or darkness.

ADJUNCT (AJ unkt) n something added to or connected with something else; an assistant

· Cooking is just an adjunct to Michael’s real hobby, which is eating.

· The enthusiastic publisher released a set of audiotapes as an adjunct to its popular series of books.

An adjunct professor is one who lacks a permanent position on the faculty.

AD-LIB (AD lib) v to improvise; to speak or act spontaneously

· Teddy hadn’t known that he would be asked to speak after dinner, so when he was called to the microphone, he had to ad-lib.

· The director complained that the lazy star hadn’t memorized his lines; instead of following the script, he ad-libbed in nearly every scene.

ADVENT (AD vent) n arrival; coming; beginning

· The roar of gasoline-powered leaf-blowing machines signaled the advent of autumn.

· The rich industrialist responded to the advent of his estate’s first income tax levy by hiring a new team of accountants.

For Christians, Advent is a season that begins four Sundays before Christmas. The word in that sense refers to the impending arrival of Jesus Christ. For some Christians, the word refers primarily to the second coming of Christ. In secular speech, advent can be used to refer to the arrival or beginning of anything.

ADVENTITIOUS (ad vent TISH us) adj accidental; connected to but nonetheless unrelated; irrelevant

· Arthur’s skills as a businessman are adventitious to his position at the company; the boss hired him because he wanted a regular golf partner.

ADVOCATE (AD vuh kut) n a person who argues in favor of a position

· Lulu believes in eliminating tariffs and import restrictions; she is an advocate of free trade.

· The proposed law was a good one, but it didn’t pass because it had no advocate; no senator stepped forward to speak in its favor.

Advocate (AD vuh kayt) can also be a verb.

· The representative of the paint company advocated cleaning the deck before painting it, but we were in a hurry so we painted right over the dirt.

Advocacy (AD vuh kuh see) is support of or agreement with a position.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

AFFIDAVIT (af uh DAY vit) n a sworn written statement made before an official

· Deanna was too ill to appear at the trial, so the judge accepted her affidavit in place of oral testimony.

AFFILIATE (uh FIL ee ayt) v to become closely associated with

· The testing company is not affiliated with the prestigious university, but by using a similar return address it implies a close connection.

· In an attempt to establish herself as an independent voice, the candidate chose not to affiliate herself with any political party.

If you are affiliated with something, you are an affiliate (uh FIL ee ut) and you have an affiliation (uh fil ee AY shun).

· The local television station is an affiliate of the major network; it carries the network’s programs in addition to its own.

· Wesley had a lifelong affiliation with the YMCA; he was a member all his life.

AFFLICTION (uh FLIK shun) n misery; illness; great suffering; a source of misery, illness, or great suffering

· Athlete’s foot is an affliction that brings great pain and itchiness to its sufferers.

· Martha’s eczema was an affliction to her; it never gave her a moment’s peace from the itching.

· Working in the ghetto brought the young doctor into contact with many afflictions, few of which had medical cures.

AFFORD (uh FAWRD) v to give; to supply; to confer upon

· The holiday season afforded much happiness to the children, who loved opening presents.

· The poorly organized rummage sale afforded a great deal of attention but little profit to the charitable organization.

· Marilyn’s busy schedule afforded little time for leisure.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #3

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

AFFRONT (uh FRUNT) n insult; a deliberate act of disrespect

· Jim’s dreadful score on the back nine was an affront to the ancient game of golf.

· Amanda thought she was paying Liz a compliment when she said that she liked her new hair color, but Liz took it as an affront because she was upset about the greenish spots the hair stylist couldn’t cover.

Affront can also be a verb.

· Laura affronted me by continually sticking out her tongue as I addressed the class.

Rude and disrespectful behavior can be described as effrontery (i FRUN tuh ree).

AFTERMATH (AF tur math) n consequence; events following some occurrence or calamity

This word comes from Middle English words meaning after mowing; the aftermath was the new grass that grew in a field after the field had been mowed. In current usage, this precise original meaning is extended metaphorically.

· Sickness and poverty are often the aftermath of war.

· In the aftermath of their defeat at the state championship, the members of the football team fought endlessly with one another and ceased to function as a team.

AGGRANDIZE (uh GRAN dyze) v to exaggerate; to cause to appear greater; to increase (something) in power, reputation, wealth, etc.

· Michele couldn’t describe the achievements of her company without aggrandizing them. That was too bad, because the company’s achievements were substantial enough to stand on their own, without exaggeration.

To be self-aggrandizing is to aggressively increase one’s position, power, reputation, or wealth, always with a distinctly negative connotation.

· Harry doesn’t really need thirty bathrooms; building that big house was merely an act of self-aggrandizement.

AGGRIEVE (uh GREEV) v to mistreat; to do grievous injury to; to distress

· The ugly behavior of the juvenile delinquent aggrieved his poor parents, who couldn’t imagine what they had done wrong.

To be aggrieved is to have a grievance.

· The jury awarded ten million dollars to the aggrieved former employees of the convicted embezzler.

AGHAST (uh GAST) adj terrified; shocked

· Even the veterans were aghast when they saw the extent of the carnage on the battlefield.

· The children thought their parents would be thrilled to have breakfast in bed, but both parents were aghast when they woke up to find their blankets soaked with orange juice and coffee.

ALCHEMY (AL kuh mee) n a seemingly magical process of transformation

In the Middle Ages, alchemists were people who sought ways to turn base metals into gold, attempted to create elixirs that would cure diseases or keep people alive forever, and engaged in similarly futile pseudo-scientific quests. Alchemy today refers to any process of transformation that is metaphorically similar.

· Through the alchemy of hairspray and makeup, Amelia transformed herself from a hag into a princess.

ALIENATE (AY lee uh nayt) v to estrange; to cause to feel unwelcome or unloved; to make hostile

An alien is a foreigner or stranger, whether from another planet or not. To alienate someone is to make that person feel like an alien.

· The brusque teacher alienated his students by mocking them when they made mistakes.

To be alienated is to be in a state of alienation (ay lee uh NAY shun).

· Sharon found it nearly impossible to make friends; as a result, her freshman year in college was characterized primarily by feelings of alienation.

ALLEGIANCE (uh LEE juns) n loyalty

To pledge allegiance to the flag is to promise to be loyal to it.

· Nolan’s allegiance to his employer ended when a competing company offered him a job at twice his salary.

· The allegiance of the palace guard shifted to the rebel leader as soon as it became clear that the king had been overthrown.

ALLEGORY (AL uh gawr ee) n a story in which the characters are symbols with moral or spiritual meanings

· Instead of lecturing the children directly about the importance of straightening up their rooms, Mrs. Smith told them an allegory in which a little boy named Good was given all the candy in the world after making his bed, while a messy little girl named Bad had nothing to eat but turnips and broccoli.

ALLOT (uh LAHT) v to apportion, allocate, or assign

· The principal allotted students to classrooms by writing their names on pieces of paper and throwing the paper into the air.

· The president allotted several ambassadorships to men and women who had contributed heavily to his campaign.

A group of things that have been allotted is referred to as an allotment.

· George didn’t like his natural allotment of physical features, so he had them altered by a plastic surgeon.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #4

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

ALTERCATION (awl tur KAY shun) n a heated fight, argument, or quarrel

· Newlyweds Mary and Bill were fighting about the proper way to gargle mouthwash, and the sound of their altercation woke up several other guests in the hotel.

· Dr. Mason’s lecture was so controversial and inflammatory that it led to an altercation among the members of the audience.

AMASS (uh MAS) v to pile up; to accumulate; to collect for one’s own use

· By living frugally for fifty years, Jed amassed a large fortune.

· Billy collected bottle caps so assiduously that, before his parents realized what was happening, he had amassed the largest collection in the world.

· By the end of the week, the protest groups had amassed enough signatures on their petitions to be assured of recognition at the convention.

AMID (uh MID) prep in the middle of

· Amid the noise and bright lights of the Fourth of July celebration, tired old Taki slept like a log.

· When the store detective found her, the lost little girl was sitting amid a group of teddy bears in a window display.

The English say, “Amidst,” instead of amid, but you shouldn’t. Unless, that is, you are in England. You can, however, say, “In the midst.”

ANATHEMA (uh NATH uh muh) n something or someone loathed or detested

· Algebra is anathema to Dex; every time he sees an equation, he becomes sick to his stomach.

· The parents became anathema to the greedy children as soon as the children realized they had been left out of the will.

· The women in fur coats were anathema to the members of the animal-rights group.

ANCILLARY (AN suh ler ee) adj subordinate; providing assistance

· Although George earned his living as a high-powered Wall Street investment banker, selling peanuts at weekend Little League games provided an ancillary source of income.

An ancillary employee is one who helps another. Servants are sometimes referred to as ancillaries (AN suh ler eez).

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

ANGST (ahnkst) n anxiety; fear; dread

This is the German word for anxiety. A closely related word is anguish. In English, it is a voguish word that is usually meant to convey a deeper, more down-to-the-bone type of dread than can be described with mere English words.

· The thought of his impending examinations, for which he had not yet begun to study, filled Herman with angst, making it impossible for him to study.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

ANNEX (uh NEKS) v to add or attach

· Old McDonald increased the size of his farm by annexing an adjoining field.

A small connecting structure added to a building is often called an annex (AN eks).

· The annex of the elementary school had a small gymnasium.

Note carefully the pronunciation of both parts of speech.

ANNUITY (uh NOO uh tee) n an annual allowance or income; the annual interest payment on an investment; any regular allowance or income

· The company’s pension fund provides an annuity for its retired employees; each receives regular payments from the fund.

· None of Herbert’s books had been bestsellers, but all of them were still in print, and taken together their royalties amounted to a substantial annuity.

· The widow would have been destitute if her husband had not bought an insurance policy that provided a modest annuity for the rest of her life.

ANTEDATE (AN ti dayt) v to be older than; to have come before

The root “ante” means before or in front of. To antedate is to be dated before something else.

· The Jacksons’ house antedates the Declaration of Independence; it was built in 1774.

· Mrs. Simpson’s birth antedates that of her daughter by twenty-four years.

ANTERIOR (an TIR ee ur) adj situated in front

· The children enjoy sitting dumbly and staring at the anterior surface of the television set.

· Your chest is situated on the anterior portion of your body. (The anterior end of a snake is its head.)

The opposite of anterior is posterior. You are sitting on the posterior end of your body.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #5

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

ANTHOLOGY (an THAHL uh jee) n a collection, especially of literary works

To anthologize (an THAHL uh jyze) a group of literary works or other objects is to collect them into an anthology.

· The Norton Anthology of English Literature is a collection of important works by English writers.

· The chief executive officer of the big company thought so highly of himself that he privately published an anthology of his sayings.

· Mr. Bailey, a terrible hypochondriac, was a walking anthology of symptoms.

ANTHROPOMORPHIC (an thruh puh MAWR fik) adj ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman animals or objects

This word is derived from the Greek word anthropos, which means man or human, and the Greek word morphos, which means shape or form.

To be anthropomorphic is to see a human shape (either literally or metaphorically) in things that are not human. To speak of the hands of a clock, or to say that a car has a mind of its own, is to be anthropomorphic. To be anthropomorphic is to engage in anthropomorphism.

ANTIPODAL (an TIP ud ul) adj situated on opposite sides of the Earth; exactly opposite

The north and south poles are literally antipodal; that is, they are exactly opposite each other on the globe. There is a group of islands near New Zealand called the Antipodes (an TIP uh deez). The islands were named by European explorers who believed they had traveled just about as far away from their home as they possibly could. Antipodal can also be used to describe opposites that have nothing to do with geography.

· John and Mary held antipodal positions on the subject of working. Mary was for it, and John was against it.

The noun is antipodes (an TIP uh deez).

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

ANTIQUITY (an TIK wuh tee) n ancientness; ancient times

· The slow speed at which Lawrence was driving was not surprising, considering the antiquity of his car.

· Tamasha loved studying ancient history so much that she didn’t really pay much attention to the present; when she wasn’t reading old volumes in the library, she walked around in a daze, her head spinning with dreams of antiquity.

Overpriced chairs and other furniture from the olden days are called antiques. Objects or ideas that are too old-fashioned to be of use anymore are said to be antiquated (AN tuh kway tud). (Don’t throw them out, though; sell them to an antiques dealer.) A person who studies ancient things is called an antiquary (AN tuh kwer ee) or, less correctly, an antiquarian (an tuh KWER yun).

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

APERTURE (AP ur chur) n an opening

· Macon’s underpants were plainly visible through the aperture that suddenly appeared along the rear seam of his uniform.

The opening inside a camera’s lens is called its aperture. A photographer controls the amount of light that strikes the film by adjusting the size of the aperture.

APEX (AY peks) n highest point

A mountain’s summit is also its apex.

· Jerry’s score of 162, though poor by most standards, was the apex of his achievement in bowling; it was the best score he earned in thirty years.

· Mary Anne was at the apex of her career; she was the president of her own software company, and everyone in her industry looked up to her.

APOGEE (AP uh jee) n the most distant point in the orbit of the moon or of an artificial satellite

Apogee is derived from Greek words meaning away from the Earth. The apogee of the moon’s orbit is the point at which the moon is farthest from the Earth. The word can also be used figuratively, in which case it usually means pretty much the same thing as apex.

· Though Mary Anne was at the apogee of her career, she didn’t feel that her life was a success since she no longer seemed to be learning new skills.

The opposite of apogee is perigee (PER uh jee), which is derived from Greek words meaning near the Earth.

· At perigee, the satellite was faintly visible on the Earth to anyone with a good pair of binoculars.

In careful usage, moons and other objects orbiting planets other than the Earth do not have apogees and perigees.

APOPLEXY (AP uh plek see) n stroke (that is, numbness and paralysis resulting from the sudden loss of blood flow to the brain)

This word turns up repeatedly in old novels. Nowadays, its use is mostly figurative. If I say that I gave my boss apoplexy when I told him that I was going to take the rest of the day off, I mean that he became so angry that he seemed to be in danger of exploding. To suffer from apoplexy, whether literally or figuratively, is to be apoplectic (ap uh PLEK tik).

· The principal was apoplectic when he discovered that the tenth graders had torn up all the answer sheets for the previous day’s SAT; he was so angry that his face turned bright red.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

APOSTASY (uh PAHS tuh see) n abandonment or rejection of faith or loyalty

· The congregation was appalled by the apostasy of its former priest, who had left the church in order to found a new religion based on winning number combinations in the state lottery.

· The president was hurt by the apostasy of his closest advisers, most of whom had decided to cooperate with the special prosecutor by testifying against him.

A person who commits apostasy is called an apostate (uh PAHS tayt).

· In the cathedral of English literature, Professor Hanratty was an apostate; he thought that Shakespeare was nothing more than an untalented old hack.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

APPALLING (uh PAWL ing) adj causing horror or consternation

· Austin’s table manners were appalling; he chewed with his mouth wide open, and he picked his teeth with the tip of his knife while he ate.

The word appall comes from a French word meaning to make pale. To be appalled is to be so horrified that one loses the color in one’s cheeks.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #6

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

APPARITION (ap uh RISH un) n a ghost or ghostly object

· Barb said that she had seen an apparition and that she was pretty sure that it had been the ghost of President Grant, but it turned out to be nothing more than a sheet flapping on the clothesline.

· The bubbling oasis on the horizon was merely an apparition; there was nothing there but more burning sand.

APPELLATION (ap uh LAY shun) n a name

· Percival had a highly singular appellation; that is, he had an unusual name.

APPENDAGE (uh PEN dij) n something added on to something else; a supplement

To append is to add something on to something else. Your appendix (uh PEN diks), if you still have one, is a small, apparently useless organ attached (or appended) to your intestine. You have no more than one appendix, but you have several appendages, including your arms and legs. Your arms and legs are appended to the trunk of your body.

· Beth’s husband never seemed to be more than an arm’s length away from her. He seemed less like a spouse than like an appendage.

· Billy created a model of a spider with two extra appendages; the spider had ten legs instead of eight.

APPORTION (uh PAWR shun) v to distribute proportionally; to divide into portions

· There was nothing to eat except one hot dog, so Mr. Lucas carefully apportioned it among the eight famished campers.

· Because the property had been apportioned equally among Mr. Smith’s nine children, none had enough land on which to build a house.

· The grant money was apportioned in such a way that the wealthy schools received a great deal while the poor ones received almost nothing.

APPOSITE (AP uh zut) adj distinctly suitable; pertinent

· The appearance of the mayor at the dedication ceremony was accidental but apposite; his great-grandfather had donated the land on which the statue had been erected.

· At the end of the discussion, the moderator made an apposite remark that seemed to bring the entire disagreement to a happy conclusion.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

APPRAISE (uh PRAYZ) v to estimate the value or quality of; to judge

· When we had the beautiful old ring appraised by a jeweler, we were surprised to learn that the large diamond in its center was actually made of glass.

· The general coldly appraised the behavior of his officers and found it to be wanting.

An act of appraising is called an appraisal (uh PRAY zul).

· It is a good idea to seek an independent appraisal of an old painting before bidding many millions of dollars for it in an auction.

APPRISE (uh PRYZE) v to give notice to; to inform

Be careful not to confuse this word with appraise. They don’t mean the same thing, even though there’s only one letter’s difference between them.

· The policeman apprised the suspect of his right to remain silent, but the suspect was so intoxicated that he didn’t seem to notice.

· The president’s advisers had fully apprised him of the worsening situation in the Middle East, and now he was ready to act.

APPURTENANCE (uh PURT nuns) n something extra; an appendage; an accessory

· The salary wasn’t much, but the appurtenances were terrific; as superintendent of the luxury apartment building, Joe got to live in a beautiful apartment and had free access to the tennis courts and swimming pool.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

APROPOS (ap ruh POH) adj appropriate; coming at the right time

This word is close in meaning to appropriate (uh PROH pree ut), to which it is closely related.

· Susan’s loving toast at the wedding dinner was apropos; the clown suit she wore while making it was not.

· The professor’s speech was about endangered species, and the luncheon menu was perversely apropos: Bengal-tiger burgers and ostrich-egg omelets.

The opposite of apropos is malapropos. See our listing for malapropism.

APT (apt) adj appropriate; having a tendency to; likely

· The headmaster’s harsh remarks about the importance of honesty were apt; the entire senior class had just been caught cheating on an exam.

· Charlie is so skinny that he is apt to begin shivering the moment he steps out of the swimming pool.

· If Ellen insults me again, I’m apt to leave the room.

Apt, apropos, and apposite have similar meanings.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #7

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here. Note that “something extra” is the answer for two questions.

ARCADE (ahr KAYD) n a passageway defined by a series of arches; a covered passageway with shops on either side; an area filled with coin-operated games

In the most precise usage, an arcade is an area flanked by arches in the same way that a colonnade is an area flanked by columns. In fact, an arcade can be a colonnade, if the arches are supported by columns.

· The new building consisted of a number of small arcades radiating like the spokes of a wheel from a large plaza containing a fountain.

· The penny arcade was misnamed since none of the games there cost less than a quarter.

ARCHIPELAGO (ahr kuh PEL uh goh) n a large group of islands

· Sumatra, Borneo, and the Philippines are among the numerous island nations that constitute the Malay Archipelago.

· The disgruntled taxpayer declared himself king of an uninhabited archipelago in the South Pacific, but his new country disappeared twice each day at high tide.

· The children lay on their backs in the field and gazed up with wonder at the shimmering archipelago of the Milky Way.

ARCHIVES (ahr KYVZE) n a place where historical documents or materials are stored; the documents or materials themselves

In careful usage, this word is always plural.

· The historical society’s archives were a mess; boxes of valuable documents had simply been dumped on the floor, and none of the society’s records were in chronological order.

· The curator was so protective of the university’s archives that he hovered behind the researcher and moaned every time he turned a page in one of the ancient volumes.

Archive can also be a verb. To archive computer data is to transfer them (in careful usage, data is plural) onto disks or tapes and store them in a safe spot.

A person who archives things in archives is called an archivist (AHR kuh vust). Things that have to do with archives are said to be archival (ahr KYE vul). This word has other uses as well. In the world of photocopying, for example, a copy that doesn’t deteriorate over time is said to be archival.

· A Xerox copy is archival; a copy made on heat-sensitive paper by a facsimile machine is not.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

ARID (AR id) adj very dry; lacking life, interest, or imagination

· When the loggers had finished, what had once been a lush forest was now an arid wasteland.

· The professor was not known for having a sense of humor. His philosophical writings were so arid that a reader could almost hear the pages crackle as he turned them.

ARMAMENT (AHR muh munt) n implements of war; the process of arming for war

This word is often used in the plural: armaments. The word arms can be used to mean weapons. To arm a gun is to load it and ready it for fire.

· In the sorry history of the relationship between the two nations, argument led inexorably to armament.

· Sarah had dreams of being a distinguished professor of mathematics, but midway through graduate school she decided that she just didn’t have the intellectual armament, so she became a waitress instead.

· The megalomaniacal leader spent so much on armaments that there was little left to spend on food, and his superbly equipped soldiers had to beg in order to eat.

ARMISTICE (AHR muh stus) n truce

· Armistice Day (the original name of Veterans Day) commemorated the end of the First World War.

· The warring commanders negotiated a brief armistice so that dead and wounded soldiers could be removed from the battlefield.

ARRAIGN (uh RAYN) v to bring to court to answer an indictment; to accuse

· The suspect was indicted on Monday, arraigned on Tuesday, tried on Wednesday, and sentenced on Thursday.

· The editorial in the student newspaper arraigned the administration for permitting the vandals to escape prosecution.

An act of arraigning is called an arraignment.

· At his arraignment in federal court, Harry entered a plea of not guilty to the charges that had been brought against him.

ARRANT (AR unt) adj utter; unmitigated; bad

This word is often followed by either nonsense or fool. Arrant nonsense is complete, total, no-doubt-about-it nonsense. An arrant fool is an absolute fool.

Arrant should not be confused with errant (ER unt), which means wandering or straying or in error. An errant fool is a fool who doesn’t know where he’s going.

ARREARS (uh RIRZ) n the state of being in debt; unpaid debts

· Amanda was several months in arrears with the rent on her apartment, and her landlord threatened to evict her.

· After Jason settled his arrears at the club, the committee voted to restore his membership.

ARSENAL (AHRS nul) n a collection of armaments; a facility for storing or producing armament; a supply of anything useful

· The nation’s nuclear arsenal is large enough to destroy the world several times over.

· For obvious reasons, smoking was not permitted inside the arsenal.

· Jeremy had an arsenal of power tools that he used in staging remodeling assaults against his house.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word:
The word arsenal has only two syllables.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #8

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

ARTICULATE (ahr TIK yuh layt) v to pronounce clearly; to express clearly

· Sissy had a lisp and could not articulate the s sound; she called herself Thithy.

· Saeed had no trouble articulating his needs; he had typed up a long list of toys that he wanted for Christmas, and he handed it to Santa Claus.

Articulate (ahr TIK yuh lut) can also be an adjective. An articulate person is one who is good at articulating.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

ARTISAN (AHRT uh zun) n a person skilled in a craft

· The little bowl—which the Andersons’ dog knocked off the table and broke into a million pieces—had been meticulously handmade by a charming old artisan who had used a glazing technique passed down for generations.

ASCERTAIN (as ur TAYN) v to determine with certainty; to find out definitely

· With a quick flick of his tongue, Wendell ascertained that the pie that had just landed on his face was indeed lemon meringue.

· The police tried to trace the phone call, but they were unable to ascertain the exact location of the caller.

· Larry believed his wife was seeing another man; the private detective ascertained that that was the case.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

ASCRIBE (uh SKRYBE) v to credit to or assign; to attribute

· Mary was a bit of a nut; she ascribed powerful healing properties to the gravel in her driveway.

· When the scholar ascribed the unsigned limerick to Shakespeare, his colleagues did not believe him.

ASKANCE (uh SKANS) adv with suspicion or disapproval

· When Herman said that he had repaired the car by pouring apple cider into its gas tank, Jerry looked at him askance.

· The substitute teacher looked askance at her students when they insisted that it was the school’s policy to award an A to any student who asked for one.

ASPERSION (uh SPUR zhun) n a slanderous or damning remark

To cast aspersions is to utter highly critical or derogatory remarks. To call someone a cold-blooded murderer is to cast an aspersion on that person’s character.

· The local candidate had no legitimate criticisms to make of his opponent’s record, so he resorted to aspersions.

ASSAIL (uh SAYL) v to attack vigorously

· With a series of bitter editorials, the newspaper assailed the group’s efforts to provide free cosmetic surgery for wealthy people with double chins.

· We hid behind the big maple tree and assailed passing cars with salvos of snowballs.

An attacker is sometimes called an assailant (uh SAY lunt), especially by police officers on television shows.

ASSERT (uh SURT) v to claim strongly; to affirm

· The defendant continued to assert that he was innocent, despite the fact that the police had found a clear videotape of the crime, recovered a revolver with his fingerprints on it, and found all the stolen money in the trunk of his car.

· When Buzz asserted that the UFO was a hoax, the little green creature pulled out a ray-gun and incinerated him.

To assert yourself is to express yourself boldly.

· Mildred always lost arguments because she was always too timid to assert herself.

ASSESS (uh SES) v to evaluate; to estimate; to appraise

· When seven thugs carrying baseball bats began walking across the street toward her car, Dolores quickly assessed the situation and drove away at about one hundred miles per hour.

· Assessing the damage caused by the storm was difficult because the storm had washed away all the roads, making it nearly impossible to enter the area.

· After assessing his chances in the election—only his parents would promise to vote for him—the candidate dropped out of the race.

To reassess is to rethink or reevaluate something.

ASTRINGENT (uh STRIN junt) adj harsh; severe; withering

· Edmund’s astringent review enumerated so many dreadful flaws in the new book that the book quickly disappeared from the best-seller list.

· The coach’s remarks to the team after losing the game were astringent but apparently effective: The team won the next three games in a row.

Astringent is related to stringent, which means strict. The noun is astringency.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #9

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

ASYLUM (uh SYE lum) n a mental hospital or similar institution; refuge; a place of safety

· After Dr. Jones incorrectly diagnosed her nail-biting as the symptom of a severe mental illness, Stella was confined in a lunatic asylum for thirty-seven years.

· “The woods are my asylum,” Marjorie said. “I go there to escape the insanity of the world.”

· The United States granted asylum to the political dissidents from a foreign country, thus permitting them to remain in the United States and not forcing them to return to their native country, where they certainly would have been imprisoned.

ATONE (uh TOHN) v to make amends

The verb atone is followed by the preposition “for.” To atone for your sins is to do something that makes up for the fact that you committed them in the first place.

· The pianist atoned for his past failures by winning every award at the international competition.

The noun is atonement.

· The thief donated his ill-gotten cash to the orphanage as an atonement for stealing from the bank.

ATROPHY (A truh fee) v to wither away; to decline from disuse

· The weightlifter’s right arm was much thinner and less bulgy than his left; it had atrophied severely during the six weeks it had been in a cast.

· The students’ interest in algebra had atrophied to the point at which they could scarcely keep their eyes open in class.

The opposite of atrophy is hypertrophy (hye PUR truh fee).

· Weightlifting makes a muscle grow, or experience hypertrophy.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

ATTEST (uh TEST) v to give proof of; to declare to be true or correct; to give testimony

· Helen’s skillful guitar playing attested to the endless hours she had spent practicing.

To attest to something is to testify or bear witness.

· At the parole hearing, the police officer attested to Henry’s eagerness to rob more banks, and the judge sent Henry back to prison for at least another year.

ATTRIBUTE (uh TRIB yoot) v to credit to or assign; to ascribe

· Sally attributed her success as a student to the fact that she always watched television while doing her homework. She said that watching Scooby-Doo made it easier to concentrate on her arithmetic. Sally’s parents were not convinced by this attribution (a truh BYOO shun).

· The scientist, who was always making excuses, attributed the failure of his experiment to the fact that it had been raining that day in Phoenix, Arizona.

Attribute (A truh byoot) can also be a noun, in which case it means a characteristic or a distinctive feature.

· Great big arms and legs are among the attributes of many professional football players.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

AUGUR (AW gur) v to serve as an omen or be a sign; to predict or foretell

· The many mistakes made by the dancers during dress rehearsal did not augur well for their performance later that night.

· The eleven touchdowns and four field goals scored in the first quarter augured victory for the high school football team.

The act of auguring is called augury (AW guh ree).

· Elizabeth believed that most of the market consultants had no solid basis for their predictions and that financial augury as practiced by them was mere hocus-pocus.

AUGUST (aw GUST) adj inspiring admiration or awe

· The prince’s funeral was dignified and august; the wagon with his coffin was drawn by a dozen black horses, and the road on which they walked was covered with rose petals.

· The queen’s august manner and regal bearing caused everyone in the room to fall silent the moment she entered.

AUSPICES (AW spuh sez) n protection; support; sponsorship

You will find auspice in the dictionary, but this word is almost always used in the plural, and it is usually preceded by the words “under the.”

· The fund-raising event was conducted under the auspices of the local volunteer organization, whose members sold tickets, parked cars, and cleaned up afterward.

The adjective auspicious (aw SPISH us) is closely related to auspices, but the most common meanings of the two words have little in common. Auspicious means promising, favorable, or fortunate. Weddings and political conventions are often referred to as auspicious occasions.

· The bright cloudless sky was an auspicious start to a full day of mountain hiking.

· Harry and Bob hoped to play golf that morning, but the dark clouds, gale-force winds, and six inches of snow were inauspicious.

AUXILIARY (awg ZIL yuh ree) adj secondary; additional; giving assistance or aid

· When Sam’s car broke down, he had to switch to an auxiliary power source; that is, he had to get out and push.

· The spouses of the firefighters established an auxiliary organization whose purpose was to raise money for the fire department.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

AVAIL (uh VAYL) v to help; to be of use; to serve

· My preparation did not avail me on the test; the examination covered a chapter other than the one that I had studied. I could also say that my preparation availed me nothing, or that it was of no avail. In the second example, I would be using avail as a noun.

To be availing is to be helpful or of use. To be unavailing is to be unhelpful or of no use.

· The rescue workers tried to revive the drowning victim, but their efforts were unavailing, and the doctor pronounced him dead.

AVANT-GARDE (ah vahnt GAHRD) n the vanguard; members of a group, especially of a literary or artistic one, who are at the cutting edge of their field

· When his Off-off-off-off-Broadway play moved to Broadway, Harold was thrust against his will from the avant-garde to the establishment.

This word can also be an adjective.

· The avant-garde literary magazine was filled with empty pages to convey the futility of literary expression.

AVERSION (uh VUR zhun) n a strong feeling of dislike

· Many children have a powerful aversion to vegetables. In fact, many of them believe that broccoli is poisonous.

· I knew that it would be in my best financial interest to make friends with the generous, gullible millionaire, but I could not overcome my initial aversion to his habit of sucking his thumb in public.

To have an aversion to something is to be averse (uh VURS) to it.

· I am averse to the idea of letting children sit in front of the television like zombies from morning to night.

Many people confuse averse with adverse (AD vurs), but they are not the same word. Adverse means unfavorable. A field-hockey game played on a muddy field in pouring rain would be a field-hockey game played under adverseconditions. The noun is adversity.

AVERT (uh VURT) v to turn away; to prevent

· Devi averted her eyes and pretended not to see Doug slip on the ice so he wouldn’t be embarrassed.

· The company temporarily averted disaster by stealing several million dollars from the employees’ pension fund.

AVID (AV id) adj eager; enthusiastic

· Eloise is an avid bridge player; she would rather play bridge than eat.

To be avid about playing bridge is to play bridge with avidity (uh VID uh tee).

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #10

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

B

BACCHANAL (BAK uh nuL) n a party animal; a drunken reveler; a drunken revelry or orgy

Bacchus (BAK us) was the Greek god of wine and fertility. To be a bacchanal is to act like Bacchus. People often use bacchanal as a word for the sort of social gathering that Bacchus would have enjoyed.

· The fraternity was shut down by the university after a three-day bacchanal that left a dozen students in the infirmary.

A good word for such a party would be bacchanalia (bak uh NAY lee uh).

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

BALEFUL (BAYL ful) adj menacing; threatening

Almost every time you see this word, it will be followed by the word “glance.” A baleful glance is a look that could kill. Other things can be baleful, too.

· The students responded to the professor’s feeble joke by sitting in baleful silence.

BALK (bawk) v to abruptly refuse (to do something); to stop short

· Susan had said she would be happy to help out with the charity event, but she balked at the idea of sitting on a flagpole for a month.

· Vernon balked when the instructor told him to do a belly-flop from the high diving board; he did not want to do it.

In baseball, a balk occurs when a pitcher begins the pitching motion, but then interrupts it to do something else, such as attempt to throw out a runner leading off from first base. In baseball, a balk is illegal.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word: The l is silent.

BALLYHOO (BAL ee hoo) n sensational advertising or promotion; uproar

This is an informal word of unknown though distinctly American origin.

· Behind the ballyhoo created by the fifty-million-dollar promotional campaign, there was nothing but a crummy movie that no one really wanted to see.

· The public relations director could think of no legitimate case to make for her client, so she resorted to ballyhoo.

· The candidate tried to give his speech, but his words could not be heard above the ballyhoo on the convention floor.

BALM (bawm) n something that heals or soothes

· After Ted had suffered through the endless concert by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the sound of the Guns N’ Roses album played at full volume on his Walkman was a balm to his ears.

Balmy (BAW mee) weather is mild, pleasant, wonderful weather. In slang usage, a balmy person is someone who is eccentric or foolish.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words: the I is silent.

BANDY (BAN dee) v to toss back and forth; to exchange

· Isadora sat on the hillside all day, eating M & Ms and watching the wind bandy the leaves on the trees.

· The enemies bandied insults for a few minutes then jumped on each other and began to fight.

BANTER (BAN tur) n an exchange of good-humored or mildly teasing remarks

· The handsome young teacher fell into easy banter with his students, who were not much younger than he.

· Phoebe was interested in the news, but she hated the phony banter of the correspondents.

Banter can also be a verb. To banter with someone is to converse using banter.

BAROQUE (buh ROHK) adj extravagantly ornate; flamboyant in style

In the study of art, architecture, and music, baroque, or Baroque, refers to a highly exuberant and ornate style that flourished in Europe during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Except when used in this historical sense, the word now is almost always pejorative.

· Devin’s writing style was a little baroque for my taste; he used so many fancy adjectives and adverbs that it was hard to tell what he was trying to say.

BARRAGE (buh RAHZH) n a concentrated outpouring of artillery fire, or of anything else

· To keep the enemy soldiers from advancing up the mountain, the commander directed a steady barrage against the slope just above them.

· Rhoda’s new paintings—which consisted of bacon fat dribbled on the bottoms of old skillets—were met by a barrage of negative reviews.

Barrage can also be a verb.

· At the impromptu press conference, eager reporters barraged the Pentagon spokesman with questions.

BAUBLE (BAW bul) n a gaudy trinket; a small, inexpensive ornament

· The children thought they had discovered buried treasure, but the old chest turned out to contain nothing but cheap costume jewelry and other baubles.

· Sally tried to buy Harry’s affection by showering him with baubles, but Harry held out for diamonds.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #11

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

BEDLAM (BED lum) n noisy uproar and chaos; a place characterized by noisy uproar and chaos

In medieval London, there was a lunatic asylum called St. Mary of Bethlehem, popularly known as Bedlam. If a teacher says that there is bedlam in her classroom, she means that her students are acting like lunatics.

· A few seconds after Enron announced that it was going out of business, there was bedlam on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

BEGRUDGE (bi GRUJ) v to envy another’s possession or enjoyment of something; to be reluctant to give, or to give grudgingly

· The famous author begrudged his daughter her success as a writer; he couldn’t believe that she made the best-seller’s list.

BEHEST (bi HEST) n command; order

· The president was impeached after the panel discovered that the illegal acts had been committed at his behest.

· At my behest, my son cleaned up his room.

BEMOAN (bi MOHN) v to mourn about; to lament

· West bemoaned the D he had received on his chemistry exam, but he didn’t study any harder for future tests.

· Rather than bemoaning the cruelty and injustice of their fate, the hostages quietly dug a tunnel under the prison wall and escaped.

BENEDICTION (ben uh DIK shun) n a blessing; an utterance of good wishes

In certain church services, a benediction is a particular kind of blessing. In secular usage, the word has a more general meaning.

· Jack and Jill were married without their parents’ benediction; in fact, their parents had no idea that Jack and Jill had married.

The opposite of benediction is malediction (mal uh DIK shun), which means curse or slander.

· Despite the near-universal malediction of the critics, the sequel to Gone with the Wind became a huge bestseller.

BENIGHTED (bi NYTE ud) adj ignorant; unenlightened

To be benighted is to be intellectually in the dark—to be lost in intellectual nighttime.

· Not one of Mr. Emerson’s benighted students could say with certainty in which century the Second World War had occurred.

BESTOW (bi STOH) v to present as a gift; to confer

This word is usually used with “on” or “upon.”

· Mary Agnes had bestowed upon all her children a powerful hatred for vegetables of any kind.

· Life had bestowed much good fortune on Lester; in his mind, however, that did not make up for the fact that he had never won more than a few dollars in the lottery.

BILIOUS (BIL yus) adj ill-tempered; cranky

Bilious is derived from bile, a greenish-yellow liquid excreted by the liver. In the Middle Ages, bile was one of several “humors” that were thought to govern human emotion. In those days, anger and crankiness were held to be the result of an excess of bile. Bilious today can be used in a specific medical sense to refer to excretions of the liver or to particular medical conditions involving those same secretions, but it is usually used in a figurative sense that dates back to medieval beliefs about humors. To be bilious is to be in a grumpy, angry mood.

· The new dean’s bilious remarks about members of the faculty quickly made her one of the least popular figures on campus.

· The speaker was taken aback by the biliousness of the audience; every question from the floor had had a nasty tone, and none of his jokes had gotten any laughs.

· Norbert’s wardrobe was distinctly bilious; almost every garment he owned was either yellow or green.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word: two syllables.

BIVOUAC (BIV wak) n a temporary encampment, especially of soldiers.

· The tents and campfires of the soldiers’ bivouac could be seen from the top of a nearby mountain, and the enemy commander launched a devastating barrage.

Bivouac can also be a verb, and it can be used to refer to people other than soldiers.

· Prevented by darkness from returning to their base camp, the climbers were forced to bivouac halfway up the sheer rock wall.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

BLANCH (blanch) v to turn pale; to cause to turn pale

· Margaret blanched when Jacob told her their vacation house was haunted.

· The hot, dry summer had left the leaves on the trees looking blanched and dry.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #12

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

BLAND (bland) adj mild; tasteless; dull; unlively

· George ate only bland foods because he believed that anything with too much flavor in it would make him tense and excitable.

· After the censors had finished with it, the formerly X-rated movie was so bland and unexciting that no one went to see it.

· Harriet’s new boyfriend was bland in the extreme, but that was probably a good thing since her previous one was a circus performer.

BLANDISHMENT (BLAND ish munt) n flattery

This word is often plural.

· Angela was impervious to the blandishments of her employees; no matter how much they flattered her, she refused to give them raises.

BLISS (blis) n perfect contentment; extreme joy

· After spending his vacation in a crowded hotel with throngs of noisy conventioneers, Peter found that returning to work was bliss.

· Paul and Mary naively expected that every moment of their married life would be bliss; rapidly, however, they discovered that they were no different from anyone else.

Anything that promotes feelings of bliss can be said to be blissful. A blissful vacation would be one that made you feel serenely and supremely content.

BLUSTER (BLUS tur) v to roar; to be loud; to be tumultuous

· The cold winter wind blustered all day long, rattling the windows and chilling everyone to the bone.

A day during which the wind blusters would be a blustery (BLUS tur ee) day.

· The golfers happily blamed all their bad shots on the blustery weather.

Bluster can also be a noun.

· Sadie was so used to her mother’s angry shouting that she was able to tune out the bluster and get along with her work.

BOMBAST (BAHM bast) n pompous or pretentious speech or writing

· If you stripped away the bombast from the candidate’s campaign speeches, you would find nothing but misconceptions and lies.

· The magazine writer resorted to bombast whenever his deadline was looming; thoughtful opinions required time and reflection, but he could become pompous almost as rapidly as he could type.

The adjective is bombastic (bahm BAS tik).

BON VIVANT (BON vee VAHN) n a person who enjoys good food, good drink, and luxurious living

This is a French expression.

· Jacques played the bon vivant when he was with his friends, but when he was alone he was a drudge and a workaholic.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this foreign expression.

BONA FIDE (BOH nuh FYDE) adj sincere; done or made in good faith; authentic; genuine

· The signature on the painting appeared to be bona fide; it really did seem to be Van Gogh’s.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this foreign expression.

BOON (boon) n a blessing; a benefit

· Construction of the nuclear-waste incinerator was a boon for the impoverished town; the fees the town earned enabled it to repair its schools and rebuild its roads.

· The company car that came with Sam’s new job turned out not to be the boon it had first appeared to be; Sam quickly realized that he was expected to spend almost all his time in it, driving from one appointment to another.

BOOR (boor) n a rude or churlish person

A boor is not necessarily a bore. Don’t confuse these two words.

· The boor at the next table kept climbing up on his chair and shouting at the waitress.

To be a boor is to be boorish (BOOR ish).

· “Don’t be boorish,” Sue admonished Charles at the prom after he had insulted the chaperone and eaten his dinner with his fingers.

BOOTY (BOO tee) n goods taken from an enemy in war; plunder; stolen or confiscated goods

· The principal’s desk was filled with booty, including squirt guns, chewing gum, slingshots, and candy.

· The gear of the returning soldiers was so loaded down with booty that the commanding officer had to issue weight restrictions.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #13

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

BOTCH (bahch) v to bungle; to ruin through poor or clumsy effort

· Melvin botched his science project by pouring Coca-Cola into his ant farm.

· The carpenter had botched his repair of our old porch, and the whole thing came crashing down when Aunt Sylvia stepped on it.

BRACING (BRAY sing) adj invigorating

· Before breakfast every morning, Lulu enjoyed a bracing swim in the Arctic Ocean.

· Andrew found the intellectual vigor of his students to be positively bracing.

· A bracing wind was blowing across the bay, causing Sally’s sailboat to move so swiftly that she had difficulty controlling it.

BRANDISH (BRAN dish) v to wave or display threateningly

· Brandishing a knife, the robber told the frightened storekeeper to hand over all the money in the cash register.

· I returned to the garage brandishing a flyswatter, but the swarming insects were undeterred, and they continued to go about their business.

BRAVADO (bruh VAH doh) n a false show or ostentatious show of bravery or defiance

· The commander’s speech was the product not of bravery but of bravado; as soon as the soldiers left the room, he collapsed in tears.

· With almost unbelievable bravado, the defendant stood before the judge and told her that he had no idea how his fingerprints had gotten on the murder weapon.

BRAWN (brawn) n big muscles; great strength

· All the other boys in the class thought it extremely unfair that Sean had both brains and brawn.

· The old engine didn’t have the brawn to propel the tractor up the side of the steep hill.

To be brawny (BRAW nee) is to be muscular.

· The members of the football team were so brawny that each one needed two seats on the airplane in order to sit comfortably.

BRAZEN (BRAY zun) adj impudent; bold

Brazen comes from a word meaning brass. To be brazen is to be as bold as brass. (Brazen can also be used to refer to things that really are made of brass, or that have characteristics similar to those of brass. For example, the sound of a trumpet might be said to be brazen.)

· The students’ brazen response to their teacher’s request was to stand up and walk out of the classroom.

· The infantry made a brazen charge into the heart of the enemy position.

BREACH (breech) n a violation; a gap or break

Breach is closely related to break, a word with which it shares much meaning.

· Most of the senators weren’t particularly bothered by the fact that one of their colleagues had been taking bribes, but they viewed his getting caught as an indefensible breach of acceptable behavior.

· At first, the water trickled slowly through the breach in the dam, but it gradually gathered force, and soon both the dam and the town below it had been washed away.

BRINK (bringk) n edge

· The mother became very nervous when she saw her toddler dancing along the brink of the cliff.

· The sputtering engine sent the airliner on a steep downward course that brought it to the brink of disaster; then the pilot woke up and pulled back on the throttle.

Brinkmanship (often also brinksmanship) is a political term describing an effort by one country or official to gain an advantage over another by appearing willing to push a dangerous situation to the brink, such as by resorting to nuclear weapons. To engage in brinkmanship is to appear willing to risk the destruction of the world rather than to lose a particular conflict.

BRISTLE (BRIS ul) v to stiffen with anger; to act in a way suggestive of an animal whose hair is standing on end; to appear in some way similar to hair standing on end

Bristles are short, stiff hairs. A bristle brush is a brush made out of short, stiff hairs from the backs of pigs or other animals. When a pig bristles, it makes the short, stiff hairs on its back stand up. When a person bristles, he or she acts in a way that is reminiscent of a bristling pig.

· Arnie is the sensitive type; he bristled when I told him his storytelling was merely okay.

· The lightning bolt was so close it made my hair bristle.

· The captured vessel bristled with antennae, strongly suggesting that it was a spy ship, as the government contended, and not a fishing boat, as the government continued to claim.

BROMIDE (BROH myde) n a dull, obvious, overfamiliar saying; a cliché

Bromide also refers to certain compounds containing the element bromine (BROH meen). Potassium bromide is a substance that was once used as a sedative. A bromide is a statement that is so boring and obvious that it threatens to sedate the listener.

· Mr. Patel seemed to speak exclusively in bromides. When you hand him his change, he says, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” When he asks for help, he says, “Many hands make light work.”

BROUHAHA (BROO hah hah) n uproar; hubbub

· The brouhaha arising from the party downstairs kept the children awake for hours.

BRUSQUE (brusk) adj abrupt in manner; blunt

· The critic’s review of the new play was short and brusque; he wrote, “It stinks.”

· Samantha felt that the waiter had been brusque when he told her to put on shoes before entering the restaurant, so she spoke to the manager and had the waiter fired.

BUFFOON (buh FOON) n a joker, especially one who is coarse or acts like an ass

· Maria seems to go out only with buffoons; her last boyfriend entertained us at Thanksgiving by standing on the table and reciting dirty limericks.

· Orville put on women’s clothing and pretended to be Pippi Longstocking; he figured that someone at the wedding reception had to play the buffoon and that he might as well be the one.

BULWARK (BUL wurk) n a wall used as a defensive fortification; anything used as the main defense against anything else

· The civilians used bulldozers to create an earthen bulwark around their town, but the attacking soldiers used larger bulldozers to destroy it.

· As a bulwark against Billy, I turned off my phone, but he foiled me by coming over to my house and talking to me in person.

· The Bill of Rights is the bulwark of American liberty.

The bulwarks of a ship are the parts of the ship’s sides that extend above the main deck.

BYZANTINE (BIZ un teen) adj extremely intricate or complicated in structure; having to do with the Byzantine Empire.

The Byzantine Empire consisted of remnants of the Roman Empire bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, and it lasted from roughly the middle of the fifth century until the middle of the fifteenth century. Its principal city was Constantinople, which is now Istanbul, Turkey. Byzantine architecture was (and is) characterized by domes, spires, minarets, round arches, and elaborate mosaics. When used in this precise historical sense, the word is always capitalized; when used in its figurative meaning, it often is not.

· Angela couldn’t follow the book’s byzantine plot, so she read the first and last chapters and tried to guess what happened in the middle parts.

· The emperor’s bodyguards uncovered a byzantine scheme in which his minister of defense had planned to kill him by infusing his cologne with poison.

This word is pronounced and mispronounced in many ways. Our pronunciation is the preferred one.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #14

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

C

CABAL (kuh BAL) n a group of conspirators; the acts of such a group; a clique

· The despised new dictator had been a part of the cabal that for years had plotted the overthrow of the kindly old king.

· The high-level cabal against the company’s president accelerated rapidly and resulted in her ouster.

· Winifred wanted to be popular and go to parties on weekends, but she was never able to penetrate the cabal that controlled the limited supply of fun at her high school.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

CACHE (kash) n a hiding place; the things hidden in a secret place

This word comes from a French word meaning to hide.

· The taxi driver kept his cash in a cache behind his tape-player. Unfortunately, a robber who had merely intended to steal the tape-player discovered the cache and also stole the cash.

· The bandits had a cache of weapons near their hideout in the mountains.

CALAMITY (kuh LAM uh tee) n a disaster

· Trouble always seemed to follow Martha Jane Canary. That’s why she was known as Calamity Jane.

· During the first few months we lived in our house, we suffered one calamity after another: First the furnace exploded; then the washing machine stopped working; then the roof began to leak.

· Misfortune quickly turned into calamity when the burning car set off the hydrogen bomb.

CALLOUS (KAL us) adj insensitive; emotionally hardened

· The callous biology teacher gave a B to the whining student, even though he swore that such a low grade would keep him out of medical school.

· Living in Arizona for ten years has made Sally so callous that she isn’t even moved by the most beautiful sunset over the Grand Canyon.

A callus (KAL us) is a patch of thickened or roughened skin. A callous person is someone who has a metaphorical callus covering his or her emotions.

CALUMNY (KAL um nee) n slander; a maliciously false statement

· The candidate resorted to calumny whenever he couldn’t think of anything merely mean to say about his opponent.

· When Mr. McCoy could no longer withstand the calumnies of his accusers, he told them the truth: The thief was actually his brother.

To utter calumnies about someone is to calumniate (kuh LUM nee ayt) that person.

· The newspaper editorial writer had already calumniated everyone in town, so he started again from the top of the list.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

CANON (KAN un) n a rule or law, especially a religious one; a body of rules or laws; an official set of holy books; an authoritative list; the set of works by an author that are accepted as authentic

· Timothy tried to live in accordance with the canons of fairness, honesty, and responsibility that his parents laid down for their children.

· Brigadoon is part of Shakespeare’s canon.

Canon also has some specific meanings and usages within the Roman Catholic church.

CANT (kant) n insincere or hypocritical speech

· The political candidate resorted to cant whenever he was asked about any of the substantial issues of the campaign.

CANVASS (KAN vus) v to seek votes or opinions; to conduct a survey

This is not the same word as canvas, the rough cotton cloth that circus tents, among other things, used to be made of.

· In the last few days before the election, the campaign volunteers spread out to canvass in key districts.

· The polling organization canvassed consumers to find out which brand of drain cleaner made them feel most optimistic about the global economy.

Canvass can also be a noun. A canvass is an act of canvassing.

· After an exhaustive canvass of consumers, the polling organization discovered that Sludge-X made consumers feel most optimistic about the global economy.

Note carefully the spelling of this word.

CAPACIOUS (kuh PAY shus) adj spacious; roomy; commodious

Something that is capacious has a large capacity.

· Holly had a capacious mouth into which she poured the contents of a family-sized box of Milk Duds.

· The Stones’ house was capacious but not particularly gracious; it felt and looked like the inside of a barn.

· Arnold’s memory for insults was capacious; he could remember every nasty thing that anyone had ever said about him.

CAPITAL (KAP ut ul) n the town or city that is the seat of government; money, equipment, and property owned by a business; wealth used in creating more wealth

· Austin is the official capital of Texas; it is also the self-proclaimed live music capital of the world.

· Ivan inherited his family’s business, but then, through foolish management, exhausted its capital and drove it into bankruptcy.

· Orson wanted to buy a professional football team, but he was unable to come up with the necessary capital; in fact, he was able to raise only $400.

· The Sterns didn’t have much money, so they invested human capital; they built it themselves.

Don’t confuse this word with capitol, which is the building legislatures meet in.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #15

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

CAPTIVATE (KAP tuh vayt) v to fascinate; to enchant; to enrapture

· The magician captivated the children by making their parents disappear in a big ball of blue smoke.

· Frank wasn’t captivating when Melinda came to call on him; he was wearing Ninja Turtle pajamas, and he hadn’t brushed his teeth.

CARCINOGENIC (kahr sin uh JEN ik) adj causing cancer

· The tobacco industry has long denied that cigarette smoke is carcinogenic.

An agent that causes cancer is a carcinogen (kahr SIN uh jun).

· The water flowing out of the chemical factory’s waste pipe was black, bubbling, and undoubtedly loaded with carcinogens.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

CARDINAL (KAHRD nul) adj most important; chief

· The cardinal rule at our school is simple: No chewing gum in the building.

· The “cardinal virtues” are said to be fortitude, justice, prudence, and temperance.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word: two syllables.

CAREEN (kuh REEN) v to swerve; to move rapidly without control; to lean to one side

· The drunk driver’s automobile bounced off several lampposts as it careened along the waterfront, eventually running off the end of the pier and plunging into the harbor.

· The ship careened heavily in the storm, causing all of the cargo in its hold to shift to one side.

Purists insist on use of the etymologically unrelated word career (kuh RIR) in place of careen in the first two instances above, reserving careen for the meaning illustrated in the third example. But most modern speakers happily use careen to mean to swerve or to move rapidly without control and seldom think about career at all. It’s hard to get too worked up about this issue.

CARTOGRAPHY (kahr TAHG ruh fee) n the art of making maps and charts

· The United States Department of State employs a large cartography department because the boundaries of the world’s countries are constantly changing and maps must constantly be updated and redrawn.

A person who makes maps or charts is called a cartographer (kahr TAHG ruh fur).

CASCADE (kas KAYD) n a waterfall; anything resembling a waterfall

· Water from the burst main created a cascade that flowed over the embankment and into our living room.

· When the young star of the movie stubbed his toe while putting on his ostrich-skin cowboy boots, his fans responded with a cascade of get-well cards.

Cascade can also be a verb.

· Silver dollars cascaded from the slot machine when Christine said the magic word that she had learned in Word Smart.

CATACLYSM (KAT uh kliz um) n a violent upheaval; an earthquake; a horrible flood

· The government’s attempts at economic reform initiated a cataclysm that left the country’s structure in ruins.

· The earthquake’s epicenter was in midtown Manhattan, but the effects of the cataclysm could be felt as far away as Chicago.

· Suddenly, the sky opened, and the clouds unleashed a cataclysm that nearly washed away the town.

The adjective form of this word is cataclysmic (kat a KLIZ mik).

· Early on Tuesday morning, fans were still celebrating the team’s cataclysmic 105–7 defeat of the Tigers.

CAUCUS (KAW kus) n a meeting of the members of a political party or political faction; a political group whose members have common interests or goals

· In some states, delegates to political conventions are elected; in other states, they are selected in caucuses.

· The women in the state legislature joined together in an informal caucus in order to increase their influence on equal pay issues.

This word can also be a verb. To caucus is to hold a caucus.

· The members of the caucus caucused for several days in the hope of agreeing on a new method for selecting new members of the caucus. They couldn’t agree, so they disbanded.

CAVALIER (kav uh LIR) adj arrogant; haughty; carefree; casual

· The vain actor was so cavalier that he either didn’t notice or didn’t care that he had broken Loretta’s heart.

· Mrs. Perkins felt that her daughter and son-in-law were somewhat cavalier about their housework; she objected, for example, to the fact that they seldom did any laundry, preferring to root around in the laundry hamper for something clean enough to wear again.

CAVIL (KAV ul) v to quibble; to raise trivial objections

· Writing the organization’s new by-laws would have been much simpler if it hadn’t been the chairman’s habit to cavil about every point raised.

· The lawyer believed that he was raising important objections, but the judge felt that he was merely caviling, and she told him to shut up.

Cavil can also be a noun.

· The critic raised a few cavils about the author’s writing style, but on the whole the review was favorable.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #16

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

CHAFF (chaf) n worthless stuff

In agricultural usage, chaff is the husk left over after grain has been threshed. Outside of a wheat farm, chaff is any worthless stuff, especially any worthless stuff left over after valuable stuff has been separated out or removed.

· Any car in which young children regularly ride gradually fills up with crumbs, Cheerios, gum wrappers, bits of paper, and other chaff.

· The mountain of crumpled paper on which Harry lay snoring was the chaff he had produced in his effort to write a term paper.

CHAMELEON (kuh MEEL yun) n a highly changeable person

In the reptile world, a chameleon is a lizard that can change its color to match its surroundings. In the human world, a chameleon is a person who changes his or her opinions or emotions to reflect those of the people around him or her.

· Rita was a social chameleon; when she was with her swimming-team friends, she made fun of the students on the yearbook staff, and when she was with her yearbook friends, she made fun of the students on the swimming team.

CHAMPION (CHAM pee un) v to defend; to support

· During his campaign, the governor had championed a lot of causes that he promptly forgot about once he was elected.

CHANNEL (CHAN ul) v to direct; to cause to follow a certain path

· When the dean asked Eddie to explain how he had managed to earn three Ds and a C minus during the previous semester, Eddie said, “Well, you know what can happen when you channel all your efforts into one course.”

· Young people arrested for painting graffiti on subway cars were placed in a rehabilitation program that attempted to channel their artistic abilities into socially acceptable pursuits, such as painting the interiors of subway-station bathrooms.

CHASTE (chayst) adj pure and unadorned; abstaining from sex

· The novel’s author had a chaste but powerful writing style; he used few adjectives and even fewer big words, but he nonetheless succeeded in creating a vivid and stirring portrait of a fascinating world.

· Felix enjoyed Cinderella, but he found the movie a bit chaste for his liking.

To be chaste is to be in a state of chastity (CHAS tuh tee).

· Rick chose to live a life of chastity by becoming a monk.

CHERUB (CHER ub) n a cute chubby-cheeked child; a kind of angel

· The bank robber had the face of a cherub and the arrest record of a hardened criminal.

To look or act like a cherub is to be cherubic (chuh ROO bik).

Religiously speaking, a cherub is an angel of the sort you see depicted on valentines and Christmas cards: a small child, with wings and no clothes. In careful usage, the correct plural is cherubim (CHER oo bim), but most people just say cherubs.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

CHORTLE (CHAWR tul) v to chuckle with glee

A chortle is a cross between a chuckle and a snort. The word was coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass.

· The toddler chortled as he arranged his gleaming Christmas presents on the living-room couch.

· The children were supposed to be asleep, but I could tell that they were reading their new joke book because I could hear them chortling through the door.

Chortle can also be a noun.

· Professor Smith meant his lecture to be serious, but the class responded only with chortles.

CHURL (churl) n a rude person; a boor

· Too much wine made Rex act like a churl; he thumped his forefinger on the waiter’s chest and demanded to speak to the manager.

To be a churl is to be churlish. The state of being churlish is known as churlishness.

· Rex’s churlish behavior toward the waiter made him unwelcome at the restaurant.

· Everyone was appalled by Rex’s churlishness.

CHUTZPAH (HUT spuh) n brazenness; audacity

This slang word comes from Yiddish.

· The bank manager had so much chutzpah that during a recent robbery, he asked the stick-up men to sign a receipt for the money they were taking. And they did it!

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

CIPHER (SYE fer) n zero; a nobody; a code; the solution to a code

· The big red cipher at the top of his paper told Harold that he hadn’t done a good job on his algebra exam.

· Michael was a cipher; after he had transferred to a new school, no one could remember what he looked like.

· Heather loved codes, and she quickly figured out the simple cipher that the older girls had used to write one another secret messages about boys.

To decipher (di SYE fer) a coded message is to decode it. To encipher (en SYE fer) a message is to put it into code.

· Boris’s emotions were hard to decipher; the expression on his face never gave one a clue as to what he was feeling or thinking.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #17

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

CIRCUMNAVIGATE (sur kum NAV uh gayt) v to sail or travel all the way around

· Magellan’s crew was the first to circumnavigate the globe.

· Circumnavigating their block took the little boys most of the morning because they stopped in nearly every yard to play with their new action figures.

The word can also be used figuratively.

· Jefferson skillfully circumnavigated the subject of his retirement; in his hour-long speech, he talked about everything but it.

CITADEL (SIT uh dul) n a fortress defending a city; a stronghold; a bulwark

· From the citadel on top of the hill, the king’s soldiers could fire down on the troops attacking the city.

· The president viewed the university as a citadel of learning, as a fortress against the forces of ignorance.

CLANDESTINE (klan DES tin) adj concealed or secret, usually for an evil or subversive purpose

· The meetings held by the terrorists were not as clandestine as they imagined; their meeting room had been bugged by the CIA.

· Unable to persuade Congress to back the cause, the White House conducted a clandestine fund-raising campaign to raise money for the revolutionary faction.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

CLASSIC (KLAS ik) adj top-notch; of the highest quality; serving as a standard or model

· The baseball game was a classic contest; it was one of the finest games I have ever seen.

· Little Rudolph is a classic example of what happens when parents give a child anything he wants; he is a whining, wheedling, annoying little brat.

This word can also be a noun.

· The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an American classic; many readers view it as the Great American Novel.

The adjective classical is closely related but usually distinct in meaning. Classical literature is the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. Ancient Greek and Latin are classical languages. Classical history is the history of ancient Greece and Rome. The neoclassical period in American architecture was a period in which American builders were heavily influenced by the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome. (The Parthenon is a classic example of classical architecture.) In music, classical refers to European music of the second half of the eighteenth century. Mozart is an example of a classical composer.

When people in an academic setting refer to “the classics,” they are almost always referring to the literature and languages of ancient Greece and Rome. A classics major is a student who concentrates in that literature and those languages.

CLEAVE (kleev) v to cling; to split

This fascinating word can be its own opposite. When one thing cleaves to another, they stick together closely. But when you split them apart, you can also be said to be cleaving them (as with a cleaver).

· When a child is frightened, it cleaves to its parent, and no one is able to cleave them.

· The streamlined front of the automobile is designed to cleave the air, reducing wind resistance.

· The explorers had powerful machetes, but the jungle was so dense that they were unable to cleave a path through it.

Something that has been split is cleft (kleft).

CLIMATIC (kly MAT ik) adj having to do with the climate

· The buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere appears to be causing pronounced climatic changes all over the world.

Do not confuse this word with climactic (kly MAK tik), which means coming to or having to do with a climax.

CLOISTER (KLOY stur) n a covered walk, with columns on one side, that runs along the perimeter of a courtyard, especially in a convent or monastery; a convent or monastery; a tranquil, secluded place

In its first two meanings, this word is of interest primarily to people who are interested in convents and monasteries. More generally the word is used in connection with places that suggest the tranquil seclusion of a convent or monastery.

· Virginia viewed her office as a cloister to which she could withdraw from the chaos of the production line.

· The little clearing in the woods was Billy’s cloister; he went there to meditate and recharge his mental batteries.

To cloister someone or something is to put him, her, or it in seclusion.

· After his hectic week, David cloistered himself on the golf course for the entire three-day weekend.

To be cloister-like is to be cloistral (KLOY strul).

CLONE (klohn) n an exact duplicate; an organism genetically identical to another

· The new store was a clone of the old one; even the sales clerks looked the same.

· Margaret’s daughter Eloise looked so much like her that Eloise seemed less like her child than like her clone.

· Identical twins are clones.

This word can also be a verb. To clone something is to make an exact duplicate of it.

· Isaac spent his life trying to find a way to clone himself, because he believed that the world would be a better, more interesting place if it were filled with Isaacs.

CLOUT (klowt) n a blow; influence

· When Winnona kept jumping higher and higher on the bed despite her father’s warnings, her collision with the ceiling gave her a clout on the head that made her see stars.

· Jim has a lot of clout at the bank, perhaps because his father is the president.

CLOY (kloy) v to cause to feel too full, especially when indulging in something overly sweet; to become wearisome through excess

· After a few bites, the delicious dessert began to cloy, and Leo thought that he was going to be sick.

· The new perfume was cloying; it smelled good at first, but soon the fragrance began to seem almost suffocating.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #18

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

CODDLE (KAHD ul) v to baby

· Old Mrs. Smythe had dozens of cats, and she coddled them all by feeding them fresh cream, liver, and chocolate pudding.

· Mr. Katz coddled his new employees because he didn’t want them to quit as a group on the day before Christmas, as his previous employees had done.

COGITATE (KAHJ uh tayt) v to ponder; to meditate; to think carefully about

· When the professor had a particularly difficult problem to solve, he would climb a tree with a bag of jellybeans and cogitate until he had a solution.

· Jerry claimed that he was cogitating, but most people I know don’t snore when they cogitate.

An act of cogitating is called cogitation (kahj uh TAY shun).

· Cogitation was apparently painful to Rebecca; whenever she thought carefully about something, her eyes squinted, her hands shook, and she broke into a sweat.

COHORT (KOH hawrt) n a group

In ancient Rome, a cohort was a military division of several hundred soldiers. In careful modern usage, cohort often retains a shade of this original meaning.

· The IRS office was surrounded by a cohort of disgruntled taxpayers demanding the head of the lead agent.

Cohort is increasingly used to mean companion or accomplice, but many careful speakers and writers would consider this to be careless usage. An example: The armed robber and his cohort were both sentenced to hundreds of years in prison.

COMMEMORATE (kuh MEM uh rayt) v to honor the memory of; to serve as a memorial to

· The big statue in the village square commemorates the founding of the town 250 years ago.

· The members of the senior class painted a mural on the cafeteria wall to commemorate their graduation.

An act of commemorating is a commemoration (kuh MEM uh RAY shun).

· The commemoration ceremony for the new building lasted so long that the weary participants forgot what they were supposed to be commemorating.

COMMISERATE (kuh MIZ uh rayt) v to express sorrow or sympathy for; to sympathize with; to pity

To commiserate with someone is to “share the misery” of that person.

· My grandmother commiserated with me when I told her about the terrible day I had had at school.

· In the aftermath of the flood, the mayor was quick to commiserate but slow to offer any aid.

· The other members of the tennis team commiserated with their captain after his humiliating loss in the finals of the tournament.

Commiseration (kuh miz uh RAY shun) is an act of commiserating.

· The new widow was weary of the commiseration of her friends and eager to get on with her life.

This is one of many words starting with “com” or “con” that mean “with” somebody or something. Watch out for others throughout this section. Can you find some that don’t share this meaning?

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

COMMODIOUS (kuh MOH dee us) adj spacious; roomy; capacious

· The rooms in the old hotel were so commodious that Sheila nearly got lost on her way to the bathroom.

· The millionaire’s house was commodious but not particularly attractive; the big rooms were filled with ugly furniture.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

COMPATIBLE (kum PAT uh bul) adj harmonious; capable of functioning, working, or living together in harmony; consistent

· My college roommate and I were completely compatible; we both liked to leave the lights and television on when we slept, and we both smoked cigars.

· Urban’s new computer was not compatible with his old printer; when he hooked the two of them together, they both exploded.

The opposite of compatible is incompatible.

· Ken and Gina got divorced because they had decided, after thirty-five years of marriage and seven children, that they were simply incompatible.

The noun is compatibility.

COMPETENT (KAHM puh tunt) adj capable; qualified

· The plumber Melody hired to fix her leaky pipes was not competent; when the plumber had finished, the pipes were leakier than they had been before.

· Peter is a competent student but not an exceptional one; he earns average grades and he never makes observations that cause his teachers to gasp with wonder.

· I didn’t feel competent to rebuild my car’s engine, so I let a trained mechanic do the job.

Not to be competent is to be incompetent. An incompetent person is one who lacks competence (KAHM puh tuns).

COMPILE (kum PYLE) v to gather together; to gather together into a book

· At the end of a long career, the company president compiled his thoughts about business in a booklet that was distributed to all the company’s employees.

· In a dozen years in the big leagues, the pitcher compiled a record of victories that placed him in contention for a spot in the Hall of Fame.

The result of an act of compiling is a compilation (KAHM puh lay shun).

· At the end of the semester, the second-grade teacher sent each child home with a compilation of his or her classroom work.

COMPLY (kum PLY) v to act or be in accordance (with)

· The doctor complied with my wishes and told me that I had to stay in bed all day eating ice cream and watching TV.

· The company’s most successful salesman refused to comply with a rule requiring all men to wear neckties, so the company changed the rule.

To comply with something is to be in compliance (kum PLY uns) with it.

· The Internal Revenue Service doesn’t have the resources to audit every tax return; for the most part, it depends on the voluntary compliance of taxpayers.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #19

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

COMPOSED (kum POHZD) adj calm; tranquil

· The defendant was eerily composed when the judge read the jury’s guilty verdict; he almost seemed to welcome his conviction.

· Billy’s mother somehow managed to remain composed in the ticket line at Disneyland, despite the fact that Billy was clinging to her leg and crying at the top of his lungs.

To be composed is to have composure (kum POH zhur).

· The judges were most impressed by the young dancer’s composure; despite the pressure of the nationally televised recital, she remained calm and finished her routine without making a single error.

COMPROMISE (KAHM pruh myze) n a settlement of differences in which each side gives up something

· Bill and Phil couldn’t settle their argument about the composition of the moon, so they agreed to a compromise; on evenly numbered days they would believe that it was made of green cheese, and on oddly numbered days they would believe that it was made of Ivory soap.

This word can also be a verb. To compromise is to make a compromise.

· Even after a year of negotiations, the leaders of the two warring countries refused to compromise; each wished to be viewed as the victor in their dispute.

To compromise can also mean to abandon or give up. To compromise one’s principles is to do something in violation of one’s principles.

· Sally chose detention for violating her high school’s dress code rather than compromise her belief in freedom of expression.

COMPUNCTION (kum PUNK shun) n remorse; a feeling of uneasiness at doing something wrong

· Ms. Riley had no compunction about overeating if she thought that her meal was low in fat.

· The bank robber was absolutely without compunction; he filled his satchel with cash as calmly as if he had been filling it with groceries.

CONCAVE (kahn KAYV) adj curved inward, like the inside of a circle or a sphere

If you cut a volleyball in half, the inside surface of each half would be concave. The outside surface of each half would be convex (kahn VEKS). It’s easy to keep these two words straight. A concave surface goes in, the way a cave does. A convex surface goes out, in a way that will vex you if you don’t remember the part about the cave.

· A big optical telescope is likely to have both a concave reflective surface and a number of convex lenses.

CONCEDE (kun SEED) v to acknowledge as true or right; to grant or yield

· The candidate conceded the election shortly before midnight, after it had become abundantly clear that his opponent was going to win by a landslide.

· Jerry refused to concede defeat, even though his football team was losing 63–14.

To concede is to make a concession (kun SESH un).

· Despite his concession that he didn’t know what he was talking about, Harry continued to argue his point as strongly as before.

CONCENTRIC (kun SEN trik) adj having the same center

· The inner and outer edges of a doughnut are concentric circles. So are the rings on an archery target.

CONCERT (KAHN surt) n combined action; agreement

· By acting in concert, the three boys were able to lift the rock that none of them had been able to lift while acting alone.

A concerted (kun SUR tud) effort is one made by individuals acting in concert.

CONCOCT (kun KAHKT) v to create by mixing ingredients; to devise

· Using only the entirely unexciting groceries she found in the refrigerator, the master chef concocted a fabulous seven-course meal that left her guests shaking their heads.

· Because so many of the streets were flooded from the rains, Sylvia had to concoct an elaborate plan to drive to the supermarket and back.

A concoction (kun KAHK shun) is something that has been concocted.

· After proudly announcing that they had made dessert, the children brought in an unsettling concoction that appeared to contain nothing edible.

CONCOMITANT (kun KAHM uh tunt) adj following from; accompanying; going along with

· Derek Jeter’s success on the baseball field, and the concomitant increase in the size of his bank account, made him the envy of all professional baseball players.

· Along with his large cash donation, the philanthropist made a concomitant promise to support the new library with smaller gifts in the coming years.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

CONFEDERATE (kun FED ur ut) n an ally; an accomplice

· The rebels had few confederates in the countryside; as a result, they were never able to field much of an army.

· It took the police several months to track down the embezzler’s confederates, but they were eventually able to arrest most of them.

A group of confederates is a confederation (kun fed ur AY shun). The Confederacy (kun FED ur uh see), formally known as the Confederate States of America, was the confederation of eleven southern states that seceded from the United States of America between 1860 and 1861, precipitating the Civil War.

Confederate, pronounced “kun FED uh rayt,” is a verb.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #20

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

CONFER (kun FER) v to exchange ideas; to consult with; to bestow

· The referees conferred briefly before ruling that the pass had been incomplete and that no touchdown had been scored.

· I told the salesman that I needed to confer with my wife by telephone before signing a formal agreement to buy the old ocean liner.

· The administration decided to confer an honorary degree upon the old millionaire because it hoped doing so would cause him to leave a large donation to the university in his will.

A conference (KAHN fer uns) is a meeting at which people confer.

CONFIDANT (KAHN fu dahnt) n a person with whom secrets or private thoughts are shared

· A confidant is a person in whom one can confide (kun FYDE).

· Sally’s brother was also her confidant; when she had a problem that she felt she could discuss with no one else, she called him.

A female confidant is a confidante, but the pronunciation remains the same.

CONFIGURATION (kun fig yuh RAY shun) n arrangement

· The configuration of the seats was such that no one in the audience had a clear view of the stage.

· My wife and I loved the exterior of the house, but we hated the configuration of the rooms.

· By slightly altering the configuration of chips on the motherboard of his laptop computer, Zach was able to turn it into a combination death ray and time machine.

To configure is to arrange.

CONFLAGRATION (kahn fluh GRAY shun) n a large fire

· The smoldering rags in the dumpster ignited the drums of explosive chemicals, and the small fire rapidly became a conflagration that enveloped the entire block.

CONFLUENCE (KAHN floo uns) n a flowing together

· St. Louis is situated at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

· Pier’s new book, Angling in the Kitchen, represented the confluence of his two main interests in life, fishing and cooking.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

CONFOUND (kun FOUND) v to bewilder; to amaze; to throw into confusion

· The team’s inability to score confounded the coach, who had expected an easy victory.

· Allen’s failure to understand his computer continues to confound his efforts to become computer-literate.

CONGEAL (kun JEEL) v to solidify; to jell

· The bacon grease congealed into a smooth white mass when we put the skillet in the freezer.

· It took several years for my ideas about invisibility to congeal to the point at which I could begin manufacturing and marketing vanishing pills.

CONJUGAL (KAHN juh gul) adj having to do with marriage

· After twenty-eight years of conjugal bliss, May divorced Ben when Ben suddenly confessed that he never liked the way she flossed her teeth.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

CONNIVE (kuh NYVE) v to conspire; to aid or encourage a wrong by feigning ignorance of it

· An investigation revealed that virtually the entire police department had been conniving with the neighborhood drug dealers, giving them immunity in exchange for a cut of the profits.

The noun is connivance (kuh NYVE uns).

CONSERVATORY (kun SER vuh tawr ee) n a greenhouse, usually one attached to another structure; a music or drama school

· On sunny mornings, Mrs. Klein liked to have breakfast in the conservatory, surrounded by her orchids and miniature palm trees.

· After college, Hugo spent six years studying the violin at a Viennese conservatory.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #21

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

CONSIGN (kun SYNE) v to hand over; to assign; to entrust; to banish

· Upon her retirement, Dinah consigned to her co-workers the contents of her desk.

· Two decades after Frank’s death, most critics consigned his novels to the literary trash heap.

The noun form, consignment (kun SYNE munt), refers to that which is handed over.

· The bookstore owner was waiting anxiously for the publisher to send her a new consignment of books; with no books to sell, she had little to do at work all day.

CONSOLIDATE (kun SAHL uh dayt) v to combine or bring together; to solidify; to strengthen

· The new chairman tried to consolidate the company’s disparate operations into a single unit that would be easier to manage.

· I consolidated the money in my many bank accounts by withdrawing it from all of them and putting it in a box that I kept under my bed.

· The baseball team consolidated its hold on first place by winning all of its remaining games.

CONSPICUOUS (kun SPIK yoo us) adj easily seen; impossible to miss

· There was a conspicuous absence of good food at the terrible party, and many of the guests went out to a restaurant afterward.

· The former president made a conspicuous display of his gleaming wristwatch; he had just signed a promotional contract with the watch’s manufacturer.

· Conspicuous consumption is a variety of showing off that consists of making a public display of buying and using a lot of expensive stuff.

The opposite of conspicuous is inconspicuous.

CONSTERNATION (kahn stur NAY shun) n sudden confusion

· The consternation of the children during the fire drill was evident in their faces; their eyes were wide with fear and uncertainty.

CONSTITUENCY (kun STICH oo un see) n the group of voters represented by a politician; a group of supporters for anything

· The ninety-year-old candidate did most of his campaigning on college campuses, even though his natural constituency was the town’s large population of senior citizens.

· The company’s president failed to build a constituency on the board to support his plan to raise his salary by 300 percent.

A constituency is made up of constituents (kun STICH oo unts).

· The senator never forgot who had elected him; he spent most of his time in Washington doing favors for his constituents.

CONTEMPT (kun TEMPT) n disdain; disgrace

· The lawyer’s contempt for the judge was clear; when she said “Your honor,” she had both thumbs in her ears and was twiddling her fingers at him.

· I have nothing but contempt for people who say one thing and do another.

· The dishonest storekeeper was held in contempt by the townspeople, virtually all of whom began shopping somewhere else.

You will often find this word used in a legal context in the phrase contempt of court. Someone is typically charged with contempt of court for being disrespectful of the judge or rules of legal procedure.

CONTINUUM (kun TIN yoo um) n a continuous whole without clear division into parts

· The spectrum of visible light is a continuum in which each color blends into its neighbors.

· Einstein’s theory of relativity holds that space and time are not distinct dimensions but inseparable aspects of a continuum.

Note carefully the spelling of this word.

CONTRABAND (KAHN truh band) n smuggled goods

· The military police looked for contraband in the luggage of the returning soldiers, and they found plenty of it, including captured enemy weapons and illegal drugs.

· The head of the dormitory classified all candy as contraband, then went from room to room confiscating it, so that he could eat it himself.

CONTRETEMPS (KAHN truh tahn) n an embarrassing occurrence; a mishap

· Newell lost his job over a little contretemps involving an office party, the photocopier, and his rear end.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

CONTUMELY (kun TOO muh lee) n rudeness; insolence; arrogance

· In the opinion of the teacher, the student’s sticking out his tongue during the Pledge of Allegiance was unforgivable contumely.

To be guilty of contumely is to be contumelious (kahn too MEE lee us).

· The contumelious prisoners stuck out their tongues at their jailers.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #22

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

CONUNDRUM (kuh NUN drum) n a puzzle or problem without a solution

· What to do about the dirty dishes piling up in the sink was a conundrum that the four roommates could not even begin to solve.

· English grammar was a conundrum to Marcia; she just couldn’t figure out how to put two words together.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

CONVENE (kun VEEN) v to gather together; to assemble; to meet

· For their annual meeting, the members of the physicians’ organization convened on the first tee of the seaside golf course.

· Mr. Jenkins convened the workers in the cafeteria to tell them they had all been fired.

A convention is an event at which people convene for the purpose of exchanging information, learning new skills, eating rich food, and going shopping.

CONVERSANT (kun VUR sunt) adj familiar; experienced

· After just two days on the job, Gloria was not yet conversant with the many rules laid down by her new employer.

· Several weeks’ worth of watching the sports channel had made Omar conversant with the rules of football, even though he had never played the game himself.

CONVERSE (KAHN vurs) n the opposite

· Freddy followed not the rule but its converse; that is, he did the opposite of what he was supposed to do.

CONVEY (kun VAY) v to transport; to conduct; to communicate

· The train conveyed us across the border in the middle of the night.

· The red pipes convey the hot water, and the blue ones convey the cold.

· The look on my mother’s face is impossible for me to convey; her expression is indescribable.

A conveyance (kun VAY uns) is an act of transporting or a means of transporting, especially a vehicle. A bus is a public conveyance.

CONVICTION (kun VIK shun) n strong belief; a determination of guilt

· It is Terence’s conviction that the earth is the center of the universe, but Terence’s conviction is wrong.

· Ever since his conviction for first-degree murder, Lester had been spending quite a bit of time in jail.

CONVOLUTION (kahn vuh LOO shun) n a twist or turn; the act of twisting or turning

· I couldn’t follow all the convolutions in the plot of the murder mystery; every character seemed to have a dozen identities, and every occurrence turned out to be something other than what it had appeared to be at first.

· Locked within the convolutions of a DNA molecule is the secret of life.

A convoluted plot is a plot that has lots of twists and turns. A convoluted argument is one that is so complex that it is difficult to follow, just as a twisted path would be hard to follow. If you have a simple story to tell, don’t convolute(kahn vuh LOOT) it by making it more complicated than it needs to be.

COPIOUS (KOH pee us) adj abundant; plentiful

· Minor head injuries sometimes produce copious amounts of blood because there are many blood vessels in the scalp.

· The copious harvest ensured that the villagers would survive another winter; there would be plenty of food for all.

CORDIAL (KAWR jul) adj gracious; warm; sincere

· We received a cordial welcome from our host, who was clearly delighted that my wife and I had come to spend several months with him.

· The police officer was cordial; he smiled and shook my hand before he led me off to jail.

To be cordial is to do things cordially or with cordiality (kawr jee AL uh tee).

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

COROLLARY (KAWR uh ler ee) n a proposition that follows easily and obviously from another; a natural consequence or conclusion

· A corollary of Susannah’s rule that her children would be responsible for the cleanliness of their rooms was that their rooms were always filthy.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #23

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

CORPOREAL (kawr PAWR ee ul) adj material; tangible; having substance, like the body

· Steve was mildly crazy; he believed that at night his thoughts became corporeal and wandered around his house eating potato chips and doing laundry.

This word is often confused with corporal (KAWR puh rul), which means having to do with the body. Beating a criminal is corporal punishment. Someone who has a lot of body fat is corpulent (KAWR pyuh lunt). A body of people is called corps (kohr), like the army corps.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

CORRELATION (kawr uh LAY shun) n a mutual relation between two or more things

· The correlation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer has been established to the satisfaction of everyone except the manufacturers of cigarettes.

· There is a strong correlation between the quality of a football team and the number of games that it wins in a season. That is, the quality of a football team and its number of victories are strongly correlated.

CORROSIVE (kuh ROH siv) adj eating away; destructive

· Mary Ellen’s chutney contained some corrosive ingredient that burned a hole in Jeremy’s plate.

· Large quantities of money have a corrosive effect on the morals of many people.

A corrosive substance is one that corrodes something else.

CORRUGATED (KAWR uh gay tud) adj shaped with folds or waves

Corrugated sheet metal is sheet metal that has been shaped so that it has ridges and valleys, like a ridged potato chip. Corduroy pants could be said to be corrugated. Much of the paperboard used in making cardboard cartons is corrugated.

COTERIE (KOH tuh ree) n a group of close associates; a circle (of friends or associates)

· The visiting poet-in-residence quickly developed a large coterie of student admirers, all of whom hoped that the visitor would be able to help them find publishers for their poems.

· In Mary’s opinion, if you weren’t a part of her coterie, then you weren’t anybody at all.

COWER (KOW ur) v to shrink away or huddle up in fear

· The sound of her boss’s footsteps in the hallway made Leah cower behind her desk like a wounded animal.

· When Tyson turned on the lights, he found the children cowering behind the couch; the movie on TV had scared the wits out of them.

· In the morning, the children found their new puppy cowering in the corner of his box, afraid of his new environment.

CRASS (kras) adj extremely unrefined; gross; stupid

· Sending a get-well card to the man who had just died was a pretty crass gesture, in the opinion of his widow.

· The seventh-grade mixer was spoiled by the crassness of the seventh-grade boys, who shouted rude remarks at the girls and then ran off to hide in the restroom.

CRAVEN (KRAY vun) adj cowardly

· The craven soldier turned his back on his wounded comrade and ran for the safety of the trenches.

· The second-grade bully was full of bluster when the kindergartners were on the playground, but he became quite craven when the third graders came out for their recess.

CRESCENDO (kruh SHEN doh) n a gradual increase in the volume of a sound; a gradual increase in the intensity of anything

· The concert ended with a stirring crescendo that began with a single note from a single violin and built up to a thunderous roar from every instrument in the orchestra.

· The fund-raising campaign built slowly to a crescendo of giving that pushed the total well beyond the original goal.

CRESTFALLEN (KREST fawl un) adj dejected; dispirited

Your crest (krest) is the highest point of your body—your head. When your crest falls—when your head is drooping—you are dejected or dispirited. You are crestfallen.

· The big red F on her science paper left Zoe crestfallen, until she realized that the F stood for “Fantastic.”

· I was crestfallen when I opened my Christmas presents; all I got were underwear and socks.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #24

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

CREVICE (KREV us) n a narrow split, crack, or fissure

· The winning lottery ticket I had found on the sidewalk fell into a crevice between the two buildings, and I never saw it again.

A large crevice in a glacier on the earth’s surface is usually called a crevasse (kruh VAS). The tiny crack in a rock face from which a mountain climber hangs by his fingernails is a crevice; the deep crack in a glacier into which a mountain climber falls, never to be seen again, is a crevasse.

CRINGE (krinj) v to shrink back with fear; to cower; to be servile or suck up in a horrible way

· Alison cringed when the doctor came striding toward her with a long hypodermic needle in his hand.

· The cringing jester eventually began to annoy the king, who told the jester to stop fawning.

CRITIQUE (kruh TEEK) n a critical review

· The reviewer’s brutal critique of my latest book made me reluctant ever to pick up a pen again.

· Lloyd liked to help out around the kitchen by offering concise critiques of nearly every move his wife made.

Critique can also be used as a verb.

· The art teacher critiqued the students’ projects in front of the entire class, making some of the students feel utterly miserable.

Critique is neutral—it doesn’t necessarily have a negative connotation, though it is related to several words that typically do. A critic is one who expresses an opinion, often unfavorable, which is also called being critical.

CRUX (kruks) n the central point; the essence

The crux of an argument is the crucial part of it. Crux and crucial are related words. Often when you see this word, it will be followed by “of the matter.” The crux of the matter is the heart of the matter.

· Building a lot of atom bombs and dropping them on the capital was the crux of the renegade general’s plan to topple the existing government.

CUISINE (kwi ZEEN) n a style of cooking

Cuisine is the French word for kitchen and cooking. A restaurant advertising French cuisine is a restaurant that serves food prepared in a French style. A restaurant advertising Italian cuisine is slightly absurd, since cuisine is French not Italian, but this usage is common and everyone understands it.

CULL (kul) v to pick out from among many; to select; to collect

· The farmer culled the best raspberries from his new crop and sold them for twenty-five cents apiece.

· The poet culled a few of his favorite poems from among his collected works and had them printed in a special edition.

· On the first day of school, the veteran teacher culled the troublemakers from her classroom and had them assigned to other teachers.

CURB (kurb) v to restrain or control

· The best way I’ve found to curb my appetite is to eat a couple of pints of coffee ice cream; once I’ve done that, I’m not hungry anymore.

· The scout leader did his best to curb the young scouts’ natural tendency to beat up one another.

A curb is something that curbs. The curb on a street is a barrier that curbs cars from driving onto the sidewalk.

CURMUDGEON (kur MUJ un) n a difficult, bad-tempered person

· Old age had turned kindly old Mr. Green into a curmudgeon; he never seemed to see anything that didn’t displease him, and he always had something nasty to say to the people who came to visit.

The words “old” and curmudgeon often appear together. Sometimes curmudgeon is used affectionately, as when we refer to an elderly person who is humorously grumpy from the aches and pains of life. A curmudgeon can be said to be curmudgeonly.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

CURSORY (KUR suh ree) adj quick and unthorough; hasty; superficial

· Stan had a photographic memory; after giving the book just a cursory glance, he knew the entire thing by heart.

· The painter prepared the exterior of the house in such a cursory manner before painting it that all of the new paint peeled off almost immediately.

· The doctor was so cursory in his examination that he failed to notice the large tumor at the base of the patient’s spine.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #25

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

D

DEBASE (di BAYS) v to lower in quality or value; to degrade

· To deprive a single person of his or her constitutional rights debases the liberty of us all.

· The high school teacher’s reputation as a great educator was debased when it was discovered that his students’ test scores dropped by five points after they utilized his test-taking strategies.

The noun is debasement. See our listing for abase.

DEBUNK (di BUNK) v to expose the nonsense of

· The reporter’s careful exposé debunked the company’s claim that it had not been dumping radioactive waste into the Hudson River.

· Paul’s reputation as a philanthropist was a towering lie just waiting to be debunked.

Bunk, by the way, is nonsense or meaningless talk.

DECREE (di KREE) n an official order, usually having the force of law

· The crazy king’s latest decree forbade the wearing of hats and the eating of asparagus.

This word can also be a verb. To decree something is to declare it formally and officially.

· In a last-ditch attempt to win favor among wealthy voters, the president decreed that thenceforth only poor people would have to pay taxes.

DECRY (di KRY) v to put down; to denounce

· The newspaper editorial decried efforts by the police chief to root out corruption in the police department, saying that the chief was himself corrupt and could not be trusted.

· The environmental organization quickly issued a report decrying the large mining company’s plan to reduce the entire mountain to rubble in its search for uranium.

Note carefully the meaning of this word.

DEEM (deem) v to judge; to consider

· Mother deemed it unwise to lure the bear into the house by smearing honey on the front steps.

· My paper was deemed to be inadequate by my teacher, and he gave it a failing grade.

· After taking but a single bite, Angus deemed the meal to be delectable.

DEFICIT (DEF uh sit) n a shortage, especially of money

· The national deficit is the amount by which the nation’s revenues fall short of its expenditures.

· Frank had forgotten to eat lunch; he made up the deficit at dinner by eating seconds of everything.

· Unexpectedly large legal fees left the company with a deficit in its operating budget.

Deficit is related to the words deficiency and defect.

DEFILE (di FYLE) v to make filthy or foul; to desecrate

· The snowy field was so beautiful that I hated to defile it by driving across it.

· In the night, vandals defiled the painting behind the altar by covering it with spray paint.

DEFT (deft) adj skillful

· The store detective was so deft in his capture of the shoplifter that none of the customers was aware of what was going on.

· In one deft move, the shortstop scooped the ball out of the dirt and flipped it to the second baseman.

DEFUNCT (di FUNKT) adj no longer in effect; no longer in existence

· Most of the businesses in the oldest section of downtown were now defunct; the new specialty stores on the other side of the river had put them out of business.

· My already limited interest in cutting the grass was just about defunct by the time the grass was actually ready to cut, so I never got around to doing it.

· The long spell of extremely hot weather left my entire garden defunct. Defunct is related to the word function.

DEGRADE (di GRAYD) v to lower in dignity or status; to corrupt; to deteriorate

· Being made to perform menial duties at the behest of overbearing male senior partners clearly degrades the law firm’s female associates.

· The former bank president felt degraded to work as a teller, but he was unable to find any other job. The former bank president felt that working as a teller was degrading.

· The secret potion had degraded over the years to the point at which it was no longer capable of turning a person into a frog.

Degradation (deg ruh DAY shun) is the act of degrading or the state of being degraded.

Note carefully the meaning and pronunciation of these words.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #26

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

DEIGN (dayn) v to condescend; to think it in accordance with one’s dignity (to do something)

· When I asked the prince whether he would be willing to lend me five bucks for the rest of the day, he did not deign to make a reply.

DEITY (DEE uh tee) n a god or goddess

· Members of the ancient tribe believed that the big spruce tree in the middle of the forest was an angry deity that punished them by ruining crops and bringing bad weather.

· Many of Elvis’s fans view him as a deity; a few even believe that listening to his records can cure cancer.

To treat someone or something as a deity is to deify (DEE uh fy) it.

· Sasha deified money; the “almighty dollar” was her god.

DEJECTED (di JEK tid) v depressed; disheartened

· Barney was dejected when he heard that Fred had gone to the lodge without him, but he cheered up later when Betty made him some brownies.

· The members of the losing field-hockey team looked dejected; their heads were bowed, and they were dragging their sticks.

To be dejected is to be in a state of dejection (di JEK shun). Rejection often causes dejection.

DELECTABLE (di LEK tuh bul) adj delightful; delicious

· Vince’s success as a writer was made all the more delectable to him by the failure of his closest rival.

· The Christmas turkey looked delectable from a distance, but it was so dry and leathery that it was nearly impossible to eat.

DELINQUENT (di LING kwent) adj neglecting a duty or law; late in payment

· The delinquent father failed to show up for visits with his children from his first marriage.

· The city’s motor vehicle bureau decided to impound the cars of drivers who had been delinquent in paying their traffic tickets.

· The telephone company charges a late fee for customers who are delinquent in paying their bills.

Delinquent can also be a noun. A person who fails to pay his or her taxes is a tax delinquent and is subject to prosecution. A juvenile delinquent is a young person who habitually breaks the law.

DELVE (delv) v to search or study intensively

Delve originally meant to dig, and you occasionally find the word still used in this way. A miner might be said to delve the earth for ore, for example. In its modern meaning, delve means to dig metaphorically. To delve into a subject is to dig deeply into it—not with a shovel, but with your mind.

· Janice was afraid to delve into her childhood memories because she was afraid of what she might remember.

DEMEANOR (di MEE nur) n behavior; manner

· You could tell by Barclay’s demeanor that he was a jerk; he picked his nose two nostrils at a time, and he snorted loudly whenever he heard or saw something that he didn’t like.

· The substitute teacher was thrilled by the demeanor of the children until she realized that they had glued her coffee mug to her table.

Don’t confuse this word with the verb to demean, or the adjective demeaning. To demean something is to lower its dignity or stature.

DEMISE (di MYZE) n death

· Aunt Isabel was grief-stricken about the demise of her favorite rosebush; that plant was the only friend she had ever had.

· Ever since the legislature had passed an income tax, Senator Jones had been working to bring about its demise.

· Oscar’s arrest for possession of cocaine led quickly to the demise of his law practice.

DEMOGRAPHY (di MAHG ruh fee) n the statistical study of characteristics of populations

Democracy is rule by the people. A graph is a written record or picture describing something. Demography is the study of characteristics shared by groups of people. When a magazine announces that 75 percent of its readers drink Scotch and that 53 percent of them earn more than $100,000 per year, it is referring to the results of a demographic (dem uh GRAF ik) study. The characteristics measured in such a study are referred to as the demographics of the group being studied. A person who studies demographics is a demographer (di MAHG ruh fur).

· Computers have made it possible for companies to learn quite a bit about the demographics of their customers, such as how old they are, how much money they make, how many children they have, and what other products they buy.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

DEMUR (di MUR) v to object; to take exception

· Diego demurred when I suggested that he eat the entire plate of “seriously spicy” chicken wings at Fred’s Diner.

Don’t confuse this word with demure on the next page.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #27

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

DEMURE (di MYOOR) adj shy; reserved; sedate

Don’t confuse this word with demur.

· Jenna was a demure child; she sat quietly next to her mother with her hands folded in her lap.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

DENOMINATION (di nahm uh NAY shun) n a classification; a category name

Religious denominations are religious groups consisting of a number of related congregations. Episcopalians and Methodists represent two distinct Christian denominations.

Denomination is often used in connection with currency. When a bank robber demands bills in small denominations, he or she is demanding bills with low face values: ones, fives, and tens.

DENOTE (di NOHT) v to signify; to indicate; to mark

· Blue stains in the sink denote acidic water in the pipes.

· The doll’s name—Baby Wet ‘n’ Mess—denotes exactly what it does.

DENOUNCE (di NOWNS) v to condemn

· The president publicly denounced, but privately celebrated, the illegal activities of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

· In order to avoid being sent to jail, the political prisoner denounced the cause in which he believed.

An act of denouncing is a denunciation (di nun see AY shun).

DEPICT (di PIKT) v to portray, especially in a picture; to describe

If you think you see the same root as in picture, you’re right. To depict is to draw a picture in someone’s mind.

· The enormous mural depicts various incidents from the Bible.

· The candidate’s brochures accurately depicted his opponent as a swindler and a charlatan, but his television commercials were distorted.

The noun form of the word is depiction.

· The author’s depiction (di PIK shun) of New York was not believable to anyone who has ever been to the city; for one thing, she described the Empire State Building as being seven stories tall.

DEPLETE (di PLEET) v to decrease the supply of; to exhaust; to use up

· After three years of careless spending, the young heir had depleted his inheritance to the point at which he was nearly in danger of having to work for a living. He regretted this depletion.

· Irresponsible harvesting has seriously depleted the nation’s stock of old-growth trees.

· Illness has depleted Simone’s strength to the point at which she could barely stand without assistance.

Replete means full. The noun is repletion.

· Ozzy’s stomach was replete after consuming eleven pints of chocolate-chip ice cream.

DEPLORE (di PLAWR) v to regret; to condemn; to lament

· Deploring waste is one thing; actually learning to be less wasteful is another.

· Maria claimed to deplore the commercialization of Christmas, but she did spend several thousand dollars on Christmas presents for each of her children.

DEPLOY (di PLOY) v to station soldiers or armaments strategically; to arrange strategically

· The Soviet soldiers were deployed along the border of Afghanistan, ready to attack.

· The United States has nuclear missiles deployed all over Europe.

· At the banquet, the hostess deployed her army of waiters around the garden, hoping that none of the guests would have to wait more than a few seconds to receive a full glass of champagne.

DEPOSE (di POHZ) v to remove from office or position of power

· The disgruntled generals deposed the king then took him out to the courtyard and shot him.

DEPREDATE (DEP ruh dayt) v to prey upon; to plunder

A predator is someone who preys on others. To depredate is to take what belongs to others, by violence if necessary.

· The greedy broker depredated his elderly clients, stealing many millions of dollars before he was finally caught and sent to jail.

An act or instance of depredating is a depredation (dep ruh DAY shun) or predation (pri DAY shun).

· Despite the frequent depredations of the enemy soldiers, the villagers rebuilt their homes and went on with their lives.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #28

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

DERELICT (DER uh likt) adj neglectful; delinquent; deserted

· The crack-addicted mother was derelict in her duty to her children; they were running around on the city streets in filthy clothes.

· Navigation was made difficult by the rotting hulls of the derelict ships that were scattered around the bay.

Derelict can also be a noun.

· The only car in sight was a rusty derelict that had been stripped to its chassis by vandals.

DESIST (di ZIST) v to stop doing (something)

· For several hours, I desisted from eating any of the pumpkin pie, but then I weakened and ate three pieces.

· The judge issued a cease-and-desist order that forbade Mr. Jones to paint obscene words on the garage door of his neighbor’s house.

DEVOUT (di VOWT) adj deeply religious; fervent

· Mary was such a devout Catholic that she decided to become a nun and spend the rest of her life in a convent.

· Bill is a devout procrastinator; he never does anything today that he can put off until tomorrow—or, better yet, the day after that.

Devout is related to devoted. Someone who is devoted to something is a devotee.

DIATRIBE (DYE uh trybe) n a bitter, abusive denunciation

· Arnold’s review of Norman Mailer’s new book rapidly turned into a diatribe against Mailer’s writing.

· The essay was more of a diatribe than a critique; you could almost hear the sputtering of the author as you read it.

DICHOTOMY (dye KAHT uh mee) n division into two parts, especially contradictory ones

· There has always been a dichotomy between what Harry says and what he does; he says one thing and does the other.

· Linda could never resolve the dichotomy between her desire to help other people and her desire to make lots and lots of money, so she decided just to make lots and lots of money.

DIFFUSE (di FYOOZ) v to cause to spread out; to cause to disperse; to disseminate

· The tear gas diffused across the campus; students as far away as the library reported that their eyes were stinging.

If something is spread out, it is diffuse (di FYOOS).

· Resistance to the proposition was so diffuse that the opposition movement was never able to develop any momentum.

The noun is diffusion.

DILAPIDATED (di LAP uh day tid) adj broken-down; fallen into ruin

This word comes from a Latin word meaning to pelt with stones.

· A dilapidated house is one that is in such a state of ruin that it appears to have been attacked or pelted with stones.

· Our car was so dilapidated that you could see the pavement whizzing past through the big holes in the rusty floor.

DILATE (dye LAYT) v to make larger; to become larger; to speak or write at length

· Before examining my eyes, the doctor gave me some eyedrops that dilated my pupils.

· The pores in the skin dilate in hot weather to cool the skin.

· The evening speaker dilated on his subject for so long that most of the people in the audience fell asleep.

The noun is dilation.

DILEMMA (di LEM uh) n a situation in which one must choose between two equally attractive choices; any problem or predicament

Dilemma comes from Greek words meaning double proposition. In careful usage, the word retains this sense and is used only when the choice is between two things. In less formal usage, though, the word is used to mean any problem or predicament. If you are stuck on the “horns of a dilemma,” you are having trouble choosing between two equally attractive choices.

· Freddy wanted both a new car and a new boat, but had only enough money to buy one of them; he solved his dilemma by buying the car and charging the boat.

Dilemma is a close synonym of quandary.

DIMINUTION (di muh NOO shun) n the act or process of diminishing; reduction

· The process was so gradual that Basil didn’t notice the diminution of his eyesight; it seemed to him that he had simply woken up blind one morning.

· The diminution of the value of savings means that I am not as wealthy as I used to be.

Diminutive (di MIN yoo tiv) means very small.

· The giant’s wife was surprisingly diminutive; when she stood beside her husband, she looked like his child.

Note carefully the spelling and pronunciation of these words.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #29

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

DIRE (DYE ur) adj disastrous; desperate

· The tornado struck the center of town, with dire results; nearly every building was flattened, and all the beer poured into the streets.

· The family’s situation was quite dire; they had no clothes, no food, and no shelter.

DIRGE (durj) n a funeral song

A dirge is a mournful song played at your funeral with the intention of making everyone who knew you feel terribly sad.

· Johann’s new composition was so dirgelike that it sounded like it ought to be played at a funeral.

DISAFFECT (dis uh FEKT) v to cause to lose affection; to estrange; to alienate

· With years of nitpicking, pestering, and faultfinding, Amanda disaffected her children.

· My students’ nasty comments did not disaffect me; I gave them all A’s anyway, to show them that I loved them.

Disaffection (dis uh FEK shun) is the loss of affection—easy to remember. To be disaffected is to be no longer content or no longer loyal.

· The assassination attempt was made by a disaffected civil servant who felt that the government had ruined his life.

Note carefully the meaning of this word.

DISARRAY (dis uh RAY) n disorder; confusion

An array is an orderly arrangement of objects or people. Disarray is the breakdown of that order.

· My children played in my office for several hours yesterday, and they left the place in disarray, with papers and supplies scattered everywhere.

· The entire company had been in disarray ever since federal officers had arrested most of the vice presidents.

Disarray can also be a verb. To disarray something is to throw it into disarray.

· The intermittent artillery bombardment disarrayed the soldiers, making it impossible for them to organize a counterattack.

DISCLAIM (dis KLAYM) v to deny any claim to; to renounce

· The mayor publicly disclaimed any personal interest in his brother’s concrete company, even though he was a major stockholder.

A disclaimer (dis KLAY mur) is an act or statement that disclaims. An advertisement that makes a bold claim in large type (“Cures cancer!”) will often also make a meek disclaimer in tiny type (“Except in living things”) in order to keep it from violating truth-in-advertising laws.

DISCOMFIT (dis KUM fit) v to frustrate; to confuse

· Sheila was discomfited by her secretary’s apparent inability to type, write a grammatical sentence, answer the telephone, or recite the alphabet; in fact, she began to think that he might not be fully qualified for the job.

To discomfit is not the same as to discomfort (dis KUM furt), which means to make uncomfortable or to make uneasy, although the two words are used more or less interchangeably by many, many people.

DISCONCERT (dis kun SERT) v to upset; to ruffle; to perturb

· Professor Jones used to disconcert his students by scrunching up his face and plugging his ears when one of them would begin to say something.

· The jet’s engine was making a disconcerting sound that reminded me of the sound of an old boot bouncing around inside a clothes dryer; I was worried that we were going to crash.

· The boos of the audience did not disconcert Bob; he droned on with his endless, boring speech regardless.

If you think of a concert as an event in which musicians play together, it makes sense that disconcert means to cause to come apart.

DISCOURSE (DIS kawrs) n spoken or written expression in words; conversation

· The level of discourse inside the dining hall was surprisingly high; the students were discussing not drugs or sex but philosophy.

· The company’s imposing president was not one for discourse; when he opened his mouth, it was to issue a command.

· There is no more discourse in American society; there is only television.

See our listing for discursive.

DISCREPANCY (dis KREP un see) n difference; inconsistency

· There was a slight discrepancy between the amount of money that was supposed to be in the account and the amount of money that actually was; gradually the accountant concluded that Logan had stolen seven million dollars.

The adjective is discrepant (dis KREP unt).

DISCURSIVE (dis KUR siv) adj rambling from one topic to another, usually aimlessly

· Betty is an extremely discursive writer; she can’t write about one thing without being reminded of another, and she can’t write about that without being reminded of something else altogether.

· My mother’s letter was long and discursive; if she had a point, she never got to it.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #30

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

DISGRUNTLE (dis GRUN tul) v to make sulky and dissatisfied; to discontent

· Eileen had such a nasty disposition that she tended to disgruntle anyone who worked for her.

The adjective disgruntled means discontented or dissatisfied.

· The children were disgruntled by the lumps of coal in their Christmas stockings.

· The rotten eggs on Alice’s doorstep were placed there by a disgruntled former employee.

DISINFORMATION (dis in fer MAY shun) n false information purposely disseminated, usually by a government, for the purpose of creating a false impression

· The CIA conducted a disinformation campaign in which it tried to persuade the people of Cuba that Fidel Castro was really a woman.

· The government hoped to weaken the revolutionary movement by leaking disinformation about it to the local press.

DISMAL (DIZ mul) adj dreary; causing gloom; causing dread

· The weather has been dismal ever since our vacation began; a cold wind has been blowing, and it has rained almost every day.

· The new television show received dismal ratings and was canceled before its third episode had aired.

· The view from the top of the hill was dismal; every house in the valley had been destroyed by the flood.

DISMAY (dis MAY) v to fill with dread; to discourage greatly; to perturb

· The carnage in the field dismayed the soldiers, and they stood frozen in their steps.

· Peter dismayed his children by criticizing nearly everything they did and never finding anything nice to say about their schoolwork.

· The new police officer has a dismaying tendency to help himself to the money in the cash registers of the stores on his beat.

As a noun, dismay means dread, anxiety, or sudden disappointment.

DISPASSIONATE (dis PASH uh nut) adj unaffected by passion; impartial; calm

Impassioned (im PASH und) means passionate, emotional, all worked up. To be dispassionate is to be cool and objective, to not let judgment be affected by emotions.

· The prosecutor’s dispassionate enumeration of the defendant’s terrible crimes had a far more devastating effect on the jury than a passionate, highly emotional speech would have had. The judge had no interest in either side of the dispute; she was a dispassionate observer.

· Larry’s dispassionate manner often fooled people into thinking he did not care.

Impassive (im PAS iv) is a related word that means revealing no emotions, or expressionless.

Note carefully the spelling and pronunciation of these words.

DISPERSE (dis PURS) v to scatter; to spread widely; to disseminate

· The crowd dispersed after the chief of police announced that he would order his officers to open fire if everyone didn’t go home.

· Engineers from the oil company tried to use chemical solvents to disperse the oil slick formed when the tanker ran aground on the reef and split in two.

· When the seed pod of a milkweed plant dries and breaks apart, the wind disperses the seeds inside, and new milkweed plants sprout all over the countryside.

An act of dispersing is called dispersion (dis PUR zhun).

· The fluffy part of a milkweed seed facilitates its dispersion by the wind.

DISPIRIT (dis PIR ut) v to discourage; to dishearten; to lose spirit

· The coach tried not to let the team’s one thousandth consecutive defeat dispirit him, but somehow he couldn’t help but feel discouraged.

· The campers looked tired and dispirited; it had rained all night, and their sleeping bags had all washed away.

DISPOSITION (dis puh ZISH un) n characteristic attitude; state of mind; inclination; arrangement

· Mary Lou had always had a sweet disposition; even when she was a baby, she smiled almost constantly and never complained.

· My natural disposition is to play golf all the time and not care about anything or anyone else. I am disposed (dis POHZD) to play golf all the time.

· The seemingly random disposition of buildings on the campus suggested that no one had given much thought to how the campus ought to be laid out.

Predisposition is an attitude or state of mind beforehand.

· The heavy-metal music of the warm-up band, the Snakeheads, did not favorably predispose the audience to enjoy the Barry Manilow concert.

DISPROPORTIONATE (dis pruh PAWR shuh nut) adj out of proportion; too much or too little

· Jenn’s division of the candy was disproportionate; she gave herself more than she gave me.

· My mother seemed to be devoting a disproportionate amount of her attention to my brother, so I sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor and began to scream my head off.

The opposite of disproportionate is proportionate.

DISQUIET (dis KWYE ut) v to make uneasy

· The movie’s graphic depiction of childbirth disquieted the children, who had been expecting a story about a stork.

· The silence in the boss’s office was disquieting; everyone was afraid that it was the calm before the storm.

Disquiet can also be used as a noun meaning unease or nervousness.

Note carefully the meaning of this word.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #31

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

DISSEMBLE (di SEM bul) v to conceal the real nature of; to act or speak falsely in order to deceive

· Anne successfully dissembled her hatred for Beth; in fact, Beth viewed Anne as her best friend.

· When asked by young children about Santa Claus, parents are allowed to dissemble.

To dissemble is not the same thing as to disassemble, which means to take apart.

Note carefully the spelling, meaning, and pronunciation of this word.

DISSENT (di SENT) v to disagree; to withhold approval

· The chief justice dissented from the opinion signed by the other justices; in fact, he thought their opinion was crazy.

· Jim and Bob say I’m a jerk; I dissent.

A person who dissents is a dissenter.

· The meeting had lasted so long that when I moved that it be adjourned, there were no dissenters.

Dissent can also be a noun.

· The dissent of a single board member was enough to overturn any proposal; every board member had absolute veto power.

Dissent is related to the words consent and assent (which mean agreement).

DISSERVICE (di SUR vus) n a harmful action; an ill turn

· Inez did a disservice to her parents by informing the police that they were growing marijuana in their garden.

· The reviewer did a grave disservice to the author by inaccurately describing what his book was about.

Note carefully the meaning of this word.

DISSIDENT (DIS uh dunt) n a person who disagrees or dissents

· The old Soviet regime usually responded to dissidents by imprisoning them.

· The plan to build a nuclear power plant in town was put on hold by a group of dissidents who lay down in the road in front of the bulldozers.

Dissident can also be an adjective. A dissident writer is a writer who is a dissident.

DISSUADE (di SWAYD) v to persuade not to

Dissuade is the opposite of persuade.

· The 100 degree heat and the 100 percent relative humidity did not dissuade me from playing tennis all afternoon.

Dissuasion (di SWAY zhun) is the opposite of persuasion.

· Gentle dissuasion is usually more effective than hitting a person over the head with a two-by-four.

DISTINCT (di STINKT) adj separate; different; clear and unmistakable

· The professor was able to identify eleven distinct species of ants in the corner of his backyard.

· The twins were identical, but the personality of each was distinct from that of the other.

To make a distinction (di STINK shun) between two things is to notice what makes each of them distinct from the other. A distinction can also be a distinguishing characteristic.

· Alan, Alex, and Albert had the distinction of being the only triplets in the entire school system.

The opposite of distinct is indistinct.

DIURNAL (dye UR nul) adj occurring every day; occurring during the daytime

Diurnal is the opposite of nocturnal. A nocturnal animal is one that is active primarily during the night; a diurnal animal is one that is active primarily during the day.

· The rising of the sun is a diurnal occurrence; it happens every day.

DIVINE (di VYNE) v to intuit; to prophesy

· I used all of my best mind-reading skills, but I could not divine what Lester was thinking.

· The law firm made a great deal of money helping its clients divine the meaning of obscure federal regulations.

The act of divining is called divination.

Note carefully the usage of this word.

DIVULGE (di VULJ) v to reveal, especially to reveal something that has been a secret

· The secret agent had to promise not to divulge the contents of the government files, but the information in the files was so fascinating that he told everyone he knew.

· We begged and pleaded, but we couldn’t persuade Lester to divulge the secret of his chocolate-chip cookies.

DOCUMENT (DOK yuh ment) v to support with evidence, especially written evidence

· The first documented use of the invention occurred in 1978, according to the encyclopedia.

· Arnold documented his record-breaking car trip around the world by taking a photograph of himself and his car every hundred miles.

· The scientist made a lot of headlines by announcing that he had been taken aboard a flying saucer, but he was unable to document his claim, and his colleagues didn’t believe him.

Note carefully the usage of this word.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #32

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

DOLDRUMS (DOHL drumz) n low spirits; a state of inactivity

This word is plural in form, but it takes a singular verb. In addition, it is almost always preceded by the. To sailors, the doldrums is an ocean area near the equator where there is little wind. A sailing ship in the doldrums is likely to be moving slowly or not moving at all.

To the rest of us, the doldrums is a state of mind comparable to that frustratingly calm weather near the equator.

· Meredith has been in the doldrums ever since her pet bees flew away; she mopes around the house and never wants to do anything.

DOLEFUL (DOHL ful) adj sorrowful; filled with grief

· A long, doleful procession followed the horse-drawn hearse as it wound slowly through the village.

· Aunt Gladys said she loved the pencil holder that her niece had made her for Christmas, but the doleful expression on her face told a different story.

An essentially interchangeable word is dolorous (DOHL ur us).

DOLT (dohlt) n a stupid person; a dunce

· “Dolts and idiots,” said Mrs. Wier when her husband asked her to describe her new students.

· The farmer’s doltish (DOHL tish) son rode the cows and milked the horses.

DOTAGE (DOH tij) n senility; foolish affection

To dote (doht) on something is to be foolishly or excessively affectionate toward it. For some reason, old people are thought to be especially prone to doing this. That’s why dotage almost always applies to old people.

· My grandmother is in her dotage; she spends all day in bed watching soap operas and combing the hair on an old doll she had as a little girl.

A senile person is sometimes called a dotard (DOH turd).

DOUBLE ENTENDRE (DUH bul awn TAWN druh) n a word or phrase having a double meaning, especially when the second meaning is risqué

· The class president’s speech was filled with double entendres that only the students understood; the teachers were left to scratch their heads as the students were doubled over with laughter.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this French expression.

DOUR (door) adj forbidding; severe; gloomy

· The Latin teacher was a dour old man who never had a kind word for anyone, even in Latin.

· The police officer dourly insisted on giving me a traffic ticket, even though I promised to repair my rear headlight.

This word can also be pronounced “dowr.”

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

DOWNCAST (DOWN kast) adj directed downward; dejected

· The children’s downcast faces indicated that they were sad that Santa Claus had brought them nothing for Christmas.

· The entire audience seemed downcast by the end of the depressing movie.

· My six-week struggle with the flu had left me feeling downcast and weak.

DOWNPLAY (DOWN play) v to minimize; to represent as being insignificant

· The doctor had tried hard to downplay the risks involved in the operation, but Harry knew that having his kidney replaced was not minor surgery.

· The parents tried to downplay Christmas because their daughter was very young and they didn’t want her to become so excited that she wouldn’t be able to sleep.

· Superman downplayed his role in rescuing the children, but everyone knew what he had done.

DRACONIAN (dray KOH nee un) adj harsh; severe; cruel

This word is often capitalized. It is derived from the name of Draco, an Athenian official who created a notoriously harsh code of laws. Because of this history, the word is most often used to describe laws, rules, punishments, and so forth.

· The judge was known for handing down draconian sentences; he had once sentenced a shoplifter to life in prison without parole.

· Mrs. Jefferson is a draconian grader; her favorite grade is D, and she has never given an A in her entire life.

DROLL (drohl) adj humorous; amusing in an odd, often understated, way

This word is slightly stilted, and it is not a perfect substitute for funny in every situation. The Three Stooges, for example, are not droll.

· The children entertained the dinner guests with a droll rendition of their parents’ style of arguing.

· The speaker’s attempts to be droll were met with a chilly silence from the audience.

This word is used frequently in classic English literature. For more vocabulary derived from the classics, turn to the short chapter at the end of this book.

DROSS (drahs) n worthless stuff, especially worthless stuff arising from the production of valuable stuff

In metal smelting, the dross is the crud floating on top of the metal once it is molten. Outside of this precise technical meaning, the word is used figuratively to describe any comparably worthless stuff.

· Hilary’s new novel contains three or four good paragraphs; the rest is dross.

· The living room was filled with the dross of Christmas: mounds of wrapping paper and ribbon, empty boxes, and toys that no one would ever play with.

DURESS (doo RES) n coercion; compulsion by force or threat

This word is often preceded by under.

· Mrs. Maloney was under duress when she bought her son a candy bar; the nasty little boy was screaming and crying.

· The court determined that the old man had been under duress when he signed his new will, in which he left all his money to his lawyer; in fact, the court determined that the lawyer had held a gun to the old man’s head while he signed it.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #33

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

E

EBB (eb) v to diminish; to recede

Ebb comes from an old word meaning low tide, and it is still used in this way. When a tide ebbs, it pulls back or goes down. Other things can ebb, too.

· My interest ebbed quickly when my date began to describe the joys of stamp collecting.

· The team’s enthusiasm for the game ebbed as the other team ran up the score.

The opposite of ebb is flood or flow.

· On a typical trading day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ebbs and flows in a seemingly haphazard way.

ECCLESIASTICAL (i klee zee AS ti kul) adj having to do with the church

· The priest had few ecclesiastical duties because he had neither a church nor a congregation.

· The large steeple rising from the roof gave the new house an oddly ecclesiastical feel.

ECLIPSE (i KLIPS) v to block the light of; to overshadow; to reduce the significance of; to surpass

In an eclipse of the moon, the sun, earth, and moon are arranged in such a way that the earth prevents the light of the sun from falling on the moon. In an eclipse of the sun, the moon passes directly between the earth and the sun, preventing the light of the sun from falling on the earth. In the first instance, the earth is said to eclipse the moon; in the second instance, the moon is said to eclipse the sun.

This word can also be used figuratively.

· Lois’s fame eclipsed that of her brother, Louis, who made fewer movies and was a worse actor.

· The spelling team’s glorious victory in the state spelling championship was eclipsed by the arrest of their captain on charges of possessing cocaine.

ECOSYSTEM (EK oh sis tum) n a community of organisms and the physical environment in which they live

Ecology is the science of the relationships between organisms and their environment. The adjective is ecological (EK uh lahj i kul).

· The big muddy swamp is a complex ecosystem in which the fate of each species is inextricably linked with the fate of many others.

Note carefully the various pronunciations of these words (the first syllable can also be pronounced as “eek” instead of “ek”).

EDICT (EE dikt) n an official decree

· The new king celebrated his rise to power by issuing hundreds of edicts governing everything from curbside parking to the wearing of hats.

· By presidential edict, all government offices were closed for the holiday.

EDIFICE (ED uh fis) n a big, imposing building

· Mr. and Mrs. Stevens had originally intended to build a comfortable little cottage in which to spend their golden years, but one thing led to another and they ended up building a sprawling edifice that dwarfed all other structures in the area.

An architect who designs massive or grandiose buildings is sometimes said to have an “edifice complex.” Get it?

EFFECTUAL (i FEK choo ul) adj effective; adequate

· Polly is an effectual teacher, but she is not a masterful one; her students come away from her class with a solid understanding of the subject but with little else.

· Even with all her years of experience, Mrs. Jones had not yet hit on an effectual method of getting her children to go to bed.

Something that is not effectual is ineffectual (IN i fek choo ul).

· The plumber tried several techniques for stopping a leak, all of them ineffectual.

EFFICACY (EF i kuh see) n effectiveness

· Federal law requires manufacturers to demonstrate both the safety and the efficacy of new drugs. The manufacturers must prove that the new drugs are efficacious (ef i KAY shus).

EFFIGY (EF uh jee) n a likeness of someone, especially one used in expressing hatred for the person of whom it is a likeness

· The company’s founder had been dead for many years, but the employees still passed under his gaze because his effigy had been carved in the side of the building.

· The members of the senior class hanged the principal in effigy; they made a dummy out of some old burlap bags and strung it up in the tree beside the parking lot.

This word is often heard in the clichéd phrase burned an effigy, as in, “The chief of staff was so unpopular that White House staffers openly burned an effigy of him at the holiday party.”

ELATION (i LAY shun) n a feeling of great joy

· A tide of elation swept over the crowd as the clock ticked down to zero and it became clear that the college’s team really had made it to the quarterfinals of the countywide tiddlywinks competition.

· Harry’s brother’s elation at having defeated him in the golf match was almost more than Harry could bear.

To feel elation is to be elated. To cause to feel elated is to elate.

· After rowing across the Pacific Ocean in a bathtub, I felt positively elated; I also felt a little tired.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #34

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

ELECTORATE (i LEK tuh rut) n the body of people entitled to vote in an election; the voters

· In order to be elected, a candidate usually has to make a lot of wild, irresponsible promises to the electorate.

· The losing candidate attributed her loss not to any fault in herself but to the fickleness of the electorate.

The adjective is electoral (i LEK tuh rul).

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

ELEGY (EL uh jee) n a mournful poem or other piece of writing; a mournful piece of music

· Most critics agreed that Stan’s best poem was an elegy he wrote following the death of his pet pigeon.

· My new book is an elegy to the good old days—the days before everything became so terrible.

An elegy is elegiac (el i JYE uk).

· The little article in the newspaper about Frank’s retirement had an elegiac tone that Frank found disconcerting.

ELITE (i LEET) n the best or most select group

· Alison is a member of bowling’s elite; she bowls like a champion with both her right hand and her left.

· As captain of the football team, Bobby was part of the high school’s elite, and he never let you forget it.

This word can also be an adjective.

· The presidential palace was defended by an elite corps of soldiers known to be loyal to the president.

To be an elitist (i LEET ust) is to be a snob; to be elitist is to be snobby.

ELOCUTION (el uh KYOO shun) n the art of public speaking

· The mayor was long on elocution but short on execution; he was better at making promises than at carrying them out.

· Professor Jefferson might have become president of the university if he had had even rudimentary skills of elocution.

· In elocution class, Father Ficks learned not to yell, “SHADUPP!” when he heard whispering in the congregation.

A locution (loh KYOO shun) is a particular word or phrase. Someone who speaks well is eloquent (EL uh kwent).

EMACIATE (i MAY shee ayt) v to make extremely thin through starvation or illness

· A dozen years in a foreign prison had emaciated poor old George, who had once weighed more than three hundred pounds but now weighed less than ninety.

The act of emaciating is called emaciation (i may shee AY shun).

· The saddest thing to see in the refugee camp was the emaciation of the children, some of whom had not had a real meal in many weeks.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

EMANATE (EM uh nayt) v to come forth; to issue

· Contradictory orders emanated from many offices in the government building, leaving the distinct impression that no one was in charge.

· The dreadful sound emanating from the house up the street turned out to be not that of a cat being strangled but that of a violin being played by someone who didn’t know how to play it.

Something that emanates is an emanation (em uh NAY shun).

· The mystic claimed to be receiving mental emanations from the ghost of Alexander’s long-dead aunt.

EMANCIPATE (i MAN suh payt) v to liberate; to free from bondage or restraint

· Refrigerators, microwave ovens, and automatic dishwashers have emancipated modern homemakers from much of the drudgery of meal preparation and cleanup.

· My personal computer has emancipated me from my office; I am now able to work out of my home.

The noun is emancipation (i man suh PAY shun).

· President Lincoln announced that he had emancipated the slaves in his Emancipation Proclamation.

EMBARGO (em BAHR goh) n a government order suspending foreign trade; a government order suspending the movement of freight-carrying ships in and out of the country’s ports

· For many years, there has been an embargo in the United States on cigars produced in Cuba.

· Jerry imposed a household embargo on rented movies; for the next six months, he said, no rented movies would be allowed in the house.

For a near synonym, see our second definition of sanction.

EMBELLISH (im BEL ish) v to adorn; to beautify by adding ornaments; to add fanciful or fictitious details to

A belle is a beautiful young woman. To embellish is to make beautiful or to adorn. Note that the word can have negative connotations, as when a person adds false facts to a story.

· Cynthia embellished her plain white wedding gown by gluing zirconium crystals to it.

· Hugh could never leave well enough alone; when he told a story, he liked to embellish it with facts that he had made up.

· Edward was guilty of embellishing his résumé by adding a college degree that he had not earned and a great deal of job experience that he had not had.

EMBODY (em BAH dee) v to personify; to give physical form to

· Kindly old Mr. Benson perfectly embodied the loving philosophy that he taught.

· The members of the club were a bunch of scoundrels who came nowhere near embodying the principles upon which their club had been founded.

The noun is embodiment.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #35

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

EMBROIL (im BROYL) v to involve in conflict; to throw into disorder

· For the last twenty years, Mr. and Mrs. Brown have been embroiled in a legal battle with the city over the camels in their backyard.

· Fighting and shouting embroiled the classroom, leading the teacher to walk out of the room.

An imbroglio (im BROHL yoh) is a confused, difficult, or embarrassing situation.

EMBRYONIC (em bree AHN ik) adj undeveloped; rudimentary

An embryo (EM bree oh) is any unborn animal or unformed plant that is in the earliest stages of development. Embryonic can be used to describe such an undeveloped organism, but it also has a broader meaning.

· The plans for the new building are pretty embryonic at this point; they consist of a single sketch on the back of a cocktail napkin.

· Our fund-raising campaign has passed the embryonic stage, but it still hasn’t officially gotten under way.

EMISSARY (EM uh ser ee) n a messenger or representative sent to represent another

To emit is to send out. An emission is something sent out. An emissary is a person sent out as a messenger or representative.

· The king was unable to attend the wedding, but he sent an emissary: his brother.

· The surrender of the defeated country was negotiated by emissaries from the two warring sides.

· The company’s president couldn’t stand to fire an employee two days before his pension would have taken effect, so he sent an emissary to do it instead.

EMPATHY (EM puh thee) n identification with the feelings or thoughts of another

· Shannon felt a great deal of empathy for Bill’s suffering; she knew just how he felt.

To feel empathy is to empathize (EM puh thyze), or to be empathic (em PATH ik).

· Samuel’s tendency to empathize with creeps may arise from the fact that Samuel himself is a creep.

This word is sometimes confused with sympathy, which is compassion or shared feeling, and apathy (AP uh thee), which means indifference or lack of feeling. Empathy goes a bit further than sympathy; both words mean that you understand someone’s pain or sorrow, but empathy indicates that you also feel the pain yourself.

EMPOWER (im POW ur) v to give power or authority to; to enable

· The city council empowered the dog catcher to do whatever he wanted to with the dogs he caught.

· In several states, legislatures have empowered notaries to perform marriages.

· The sheriff formed a posse and empowered it to arrest the fugitive.

ENDEAR (in DEER) v to make dear; to make beloved

· Merv endeared himself to Oprah by sending her a big box of chocolates on her birthday.

· I did not endear myself to my teacher when I put thumbtacks on the seat of her chair.

· Edgar has the endearing (in DEER ing) habit of giving hundred-dollar bills to people he meets.

An endearment (in DEER munt) is an expression of affection.

· “My little pumpkin” is the endearment Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mother uses for her little boy.

ENGAGING (in GAY jing) adj charming; pleasing; attractive

· Susan was an engaging dinner companion; she was lively, funny, and utterly charming.

· The book I was reading wasn’t terribly engaging; in fact, it was one of those books that is hard to pick up.

ENMITY (EN muh tee) n deep hatred; animosity; ill will

Enmity is what enemies feel toward each other. If this word reminds you of the word enemy, you have a built-in mnemonic.

· The enmity between George and Ed was so strong that the two of them could not be in a room together.

· There was long-standing enmity between students at the college and residents of the town.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

ENNUI (AHN wee) n boredom; listless lack of interest

Ennui is the French word for boredom. Studying French vocabulary words fills some people with ennui.

· The children were excited to open their Christmas presents, but within a few hours an air of ennui had settled on the house, and the children were sprawled on the living room floor, wishing vaguely that they had something interesting to do.

· The playwright’s only real talent was for engendering ennui in the audiences of his plays.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

ENSUE (in SOO) v to follow immediately afterward; to result

· Janet called Debbie a liar, and a screaming fight ensued.

· I tried to talk my professor into changing my D into an A, but nothing ensued from our conversation.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #36

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

ENTAIL (in TAYL) v to have as a necessary consequence; to involve

· Painting turned out to entail a lot more work than I had originally thought; I discovered that you can’t simply take a gallon of paint and heave it against the side of your house.

· Peter was glad to have the prize money, but winning it had entailed so much work that he wasn’t sure the whole thing had been worth it.

· Mr. Eanes hired me so quickly that I hadn’t really had a chance to find out what the job would entail.

ENTITY (EN tuh tee) n something that exists; a distinct thing

· The air force officer found an entity in the cockpit of the crashed spacecraft, but he had no idea what it was.

· The identity card had been issued by a bureaucratic entity called the Office of Identification.

· Mark set up his new company as a separate entity; it had no connection with his old company.

The opposite of an entity is a nonentity.

ENTREAT (in TREET) v to ask earnestly; to beg; to plead

· The frog entreated the wizard to turn him back into a prince, but the wizard said that he would have to remain a frog a little bit longer.

· My nephew entreated me for money for most of a year, and in the end I gave him a few hundred dollars.

An instance of entreating is called an entreaty (in TREE tee).

· My mother was deaf to my entreaties; she made me attend my cousin’s wedding even though I repeatedly begged her not to.

ENTREPRENEUR (ahn truh pruh NOOR) n an independent business person; one who starts, runs, and assumes the risk of operating an independent business enterprise

· Owen left his job at Apple to become an entrepreneur; he started his own computer company to make specialized computers for bookies.

· A majority of beginning business school students say they would like to become entrepreneurs, but most of them end up taking high-paying jobs with consulting firms or investment banks.

An entrepreneur is entrepreneurial (ahn truh pruh NOOR ee ul).

· Hector started his own jewelry business, but he had so little entrepreneurial ability that he soon was bankrupt.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

ENUMERATE (i NOO muh rayt) v to name one by one; to list

· When I asked Beverly what she didn’t like about me, she enumerated so many flaws that I eventually had to ask her to stop.

· After the doctor from the public health department had enumerated all the dreadful sounding diseases that were rampant in the water park, I decided I didn’t want to visit it after all.

Things too numerous to be listed one by one are innumerable (i NOO muh ruh bul).

ENVISION (in VIZH un) v to imagine; to foresee

· Perry’s teachers envisioned great things for him, so they were a little surprised when he decided to become a professional gambler.

This word is different from, but means pretty much exactly the same thing, as envisage (en VIZ ij). The two can be used interchangeably, although envisage is perhaps a bit more stilted.

EPICURE (EP i kyoor) n a person with refined taste in wine and food

Epicurus was a Greek philosopher of the fourth century B.C. who believed that pleasure (rather than, say, truth or beauty) was the highest good. The philosophical system he devised is known as Epicureanism. A teeny shadow of Epicurus is retained in our word epicure, since an epicure is someone who takes an almost philosophical sort of pleasure from fine food and drink.

· Ann dreaded the thought of cooking for William, who was a well-known epicure and would undoubtedly be hard to please.

The adjective is epicurean (ep i KYOOR ee un).

EPILOGUE (EP uh log) n an afterword; a short concluding chapter of a book; a short speech at the end of a play

In the theater, an epilogue is a short speech, sometimes in verse, that is spoken directly to the audience at the end of a play. In classical drama, the character who makes this concluding speech is called Epilogue. Likewise, a prologue(PROH log) is a short speech, sometimes in verse, that is spoken directly to the audience at the beginning of a play. A prologue sets up the play, an epilogue sums it up. Epilogue is also (and more commonly) used outside the theater.

· In a brief epilogue, the author described what had happened to all the book’s main characters in the months since the story had taken place.

EPOCH (EP uk) n an era; a distinctive period of time

Don’t confuse epoch with epic, which is a long poem or story.

· The coach’s retirement ended a glorious epoch in the history of the university’s football team.

The adjective is epochal (EP uh kul). An epochal event is an extremely important one—the sort of significant event that might define an epoch.

· The British Open ended with an epochal confrontation between Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, the two best golfers in the world at that time.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

EQUESTRIAN (i KWES tree un) adj having to do with horseback riding

Equus, a famous play by Peter Shaffer, portrays a troubled stable boy and his relationship with horses. Equine (EE kwyne) means horselike or relating to horses.

· I’ve never enjoyed the equestrian events in the Olympics because I think people look silly sitting on the backs of horses.

· Billy was very small but he had no equestrian skills, so he didn’t make much of a jockey.

Equestrian can also be used as a noun meaning one who rides on horseback.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #37

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

ESTIMABLE (ES tuh muh bul) adj worthy of admiration; capable of being estimated

· The prosecutor was an estimable opponent, but Perry Mason always won his cases.

· He swallowed a hundred goldfish, ate a hundred hot dogs in an hour, and drank a dozen beers, among other estimable achievements.

· The distance to the green was not estimable from where the golfers stood because they could not see the flag.

Something that cannot be estimated is inestimable (in ES tuh muh bul).

· The precise age of the dead man was inestimable because the corpse had thoroughly decomposed.

Note carefully the pronunciation and meaning of these words.

ESTRANGE (i STRAYNJ) v to make unfriendly or hostile; to cause to feel removed from

· Tereza’s estranged husband had been making unkind comments about her ever since the couple had separated.

· Isaac had expected to enjoy his twenty-fifth reunion, but once there he found that he felt oddly estranged from his old university; he just didn’t feel that he was a part of it anymore.

ETHICS (ETH iks) adj moral standards governing behavior

· Irene didn’t think much of the ethics of most politicians; she figured they were all taking bribes.

· The dentist’s habit of stealing the gold dentalwork of his patients was widely considered to be a gross violation of dental ethics.

To have good ethics is to be ethical (ETH i kul). Stealing gold dentalwork is not ethical behavior. It is unethical (un ETH i kul) behavior.

EULOGY (YOO luh jee) n a spoken or written tribute to a person, especially a person who has just died

· The eulogy Michael delivered at his father’s funeral was so moving that it brought tears to the eyes of everyone present.

· Mildred was made distinctly uncomfortable by Merle’s eulogy; she didn’t appreciate Merle pointing out her late father’s flaws.

To give a eulogy about someone is to eulogize (YOO luh jyze) that person. Don’t confuse this word with elegy, which means a mournful song or poem. For a close synonym to eulogy, see our entry for panegyric.

EVINCE (i VINS) v to demonstrate convincingly; to prove

· Oscar’s acceptance speech at the awards ceremony evinced an almost unbearable degree of smugness and self-regard.

· The soldiers evinced great courage, but their mission was hopeless, and they were rapidly defeated.

EVOKE (i VOHK) v to summon forth; to draw forth; to awaken; to produce or suggest

· The car trip with our children evoked many memories of similar car trips I had taken with my own parents when I was a child.

· Professor Herman tried repeatedly but was unable to evoke any but the most meager response from his students.

· Paula’s Christmas photographs evoked both the magic and the crassness of the holiday.

The act of evoking is called evocation (e voh KAY shun). A visit to the house in which one grew up often leads to the evocation of old memories. Something that evokes something else is said to be evocative (i VAHK uh tiv).

· The old novel was highly evocative of its era; when you read it, you felt as though you had been transported a hundred years into the past.

Don’t confuse this word with invoke, which is listed separately.

EXCISE (ek SYZE) v to remove by cutting, or as if by cutting

· Tevy’s editor at the publishing house excised all of the obscene parts from his novel, leaving it just eleven pages long.

· The surgeon used a little pair of snippers to excise Alice’s extra fingers.

The noun form of the word is excision.

· The excision (ek SIZH un) of Dirk’s lungs left him extremely short of breath.

EXEMPT (ig ZEMPT) adj excused; not subject to

· Certain kinds of nonprofit organizations are exempt from taxation.

· David was exempt from jury duty because he was self-employed.

Exempt can also be a verb. To exempt something or someone is to make it exempt.

· Doug’s flat feet and legal blindness exempted him from military service.

Exemption (ig ZEMP shun) is the state of being exempt. An exemption is an act of exempting.

EXHUME (ig ZOOM) v to unbury; to dig out of the ground

· Grave robbers once exhumed freshly buried bodies in order to sell them to physicians and medical students.

· Researchers exhumed the body of President Garfield to determine whether or not he had been poisoned to death.

· While working in his garden, Wallace exhumed an old chest filled with gold coins and other treasure.

See our listing for posthumous, a related word.

EXODUS (EK suh dus) n a mass departure or journey away

Exodus is the second book of the Bible. It contains an account of the Exodus, the flight of Moses and the Israelites from Egypt. When the word refers to either the book of the Bible or the flight of Moses, it is capitalized. When the word refers to any other mass departure, it is not.

· Theodore’s boring slide show provoked an immediate exodus from the auditorium.

· City planners were at a loss to explain the recent exodus of small businesses from the heart of the city.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #38

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

EXORBITANT (ig ZAWR buh tunt) adj excessively costly; excessive

This word literally means out of orbit. Prices are exorbitant when they get sky-high.

· Meals at the new restaurant were exorbitant; a garden salad cost seventy-five dollars.

· The better business bureau cited the discount electronic store for putting an exorbitant mark-up on portable tape recorders.

· The author was exorbitant in his use of big words; nearly every page in the book sent me to the dictionary.

EXPIATE (EK spee ayt) v to make amends for; to atone for

· The convicted murderer attempted to expiate his crime by making pot holders for the family of his victim.

The act of expiating is expiation (ek spee AY shun).

· Wendell performed many hours of community service in expiation of what he believed to be his sins as a corporate lawyer.

EXPLICATE (EK spli kayt) v to make a detailed explanation of the meaning of

· The professor’s attempt to explicate the ancient text left his students more confused than they had been before the class began.

The act of explicating is explication (ek spli KAY shun).

· Explication of difficult poems was one of the principal activities in the English class.

Something that cannot be explained is inexplicable.

EXPOSITION (ek spuh ZISH un) n explanation; a large public exhibition

· The master plumber’s exposition of modern plumbing technique was so riveting that many of the young apprentice plumbers in the audience forgot to take notes.

· Charlie was overwhelmed by the new fishing equipment he saw displayed and demonstrated at the international fishing exposition.

To expound is to give an exposition. The adjective is expository (ek SPAHZ i tawr ee).

EXPOSTULATE (ik SPAHS chu layt) v to reason with someone in order to warn or dissuade

· When I told my mother that I was going to live in a barrel on the bottom of the sea, she expostulated at great length, hoping she could persuade me to stay at home.

EXPUNGE (ik SPUNJ) v to erase; to eliminate any trace of

· Vernon’s conviction for shoplifting was expunged from his criminal record when lightning struck the police computer.

· The blow to Wyman’s head expunged his memory of who he was and where he had come from.

· It took Zelda five years and several lawsuits to expunge the unfavorable rating from her credit report.

EXQUISITE (EKS kwi zit) adj extraordinarily fine or beautiful; intense

· While we had cocktails on the porch, we watched an exquisite sunset that filled the entire sky with vivid oranges and reds.

· The weather was exquisite; the sun was shining and the breeze was cool.

· Pouring the urn of hot coffee down the front of his shirt left Chester in exquisite agony.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

EXTANT (EK stunt) adj still in existence

· Paul rounded up all extant copies of his embarrassing first novel and had them destroyed.

· So many copies of the lithograph were extant that none of them had much value.

EXTORT (ik STAWRT) v to obtain through force, threat, or illicit means

The root “tort” means to twist. To extort is to twist someone’s arm to get something.

· Josie extorted an A from her teacher by threatening to reveal publicly that he gave all the athletes As on their final exams.

The act of extorting is extortion (ik STAWR shun).

· Joe’s conviction for extortion was viewed as an impressive qualification by the mobsters for whom he now worked.

See our listing for tortuous.

EXTREMITY (ik STREM uh tee) n the outermost point or edge; the greatest degree; grave danger; a limb or appendage of the body

· The explorers traveled to the extremity of the glacier then fell off.

· Even in the extremity of his despair, he never lost his love for tennis.

· Ruth was at her best in extremity; great danger awakened all her best instincts.

· During extremely cold weather, blood leaves the extremities to retain heat in the vital organs.

EXUBERANT (ig ZOO buh runt) adj highly joyous or enthusiastic; overflowing; lavish

· The children’s exuberant welcome brought tears of joy to the eyes of the grumpy visitor.

· Quentin was nearly a hundred years old, but he was still in exuberant health; he walked twelve miles every morning and lifted weights every evening.

· The flowers in Mary’s garden were exuberantly (ig ZOO buh runt lee) colorful; her yard contained more bright colors than a box of crayons.

Exuberance (ig ZOO buh runs) is the state of being exuberant.

· The exuberance of her young students was like a tonic to the jaded old teacher.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #39

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

F

FACADE (fuh SAHD) n the front of a building; the false front of a building; the false front or misleading appearance of anything

· The building’s facade was covered with so many intricate carvings that visitors often had trouble finding the front door.

· What appeared to be a bank at the end of the street was really a plywood facade that had been erected as a set for the motion picture.

· Gretchen’s kindness is just a facade; she is really a hostile, scheming bully.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word, which is sometimes written façade.

FACET (FAS it) n any of the flat, polished surfaces of a cut gem; aspect

· Karen loved to admire the tiny reflections of her face in the facets of the diamonds in her engagement ring.

· The two most important facets of Dan’s personality were niceness and meanness.

Anything that has many facets can be said to be multifaceted (mul tee FAS it ud).

· Lonnie is a multifaceted performer; she can tell jokes, sing songs, juggle bowling pins, and dance.

FALLACY (FAL uh see) n a false notion or belief; a misconception

· Peter clung to the fallacy that he was a brilliant writer, despite the fact that everything he had ever written had been rejected by every publisher to whom he had sent it.

· That electricity is a liquid was but one of the many fallacies spread by the incompetent science teacher.

The adjective is fallacious (fuh LAY shus).

FATHOM (FATH um) v to understand; to penetrate the meaning of

At sea, a fathom is a measure of depth equal to six feet. Fathoming, at sea, is measuring the depth of the water, usually by dropping a weighted line over the side of a boat. On land, to fathom is to do the rough figurative equivalent of measuring the depth of water.

· I sat through the entire physics lecture, but I couldn’t even begin to fathom what the professor was talking about.

· Arthur hid his emotions behind a blank expression that was impossible to fathom.

FAUX (foh) adj false

Faux marble is wood painted to look like marble. A faux pas (foh pah) literally means false step, but is used to mean an embarrassing social mistake.

· Susannah’s necklace is made of faux pearls, as the mugger found out when he got to the pawn shop.

· At the royal banquet, Derik committed the minor faux pas of eating salad with the wrong fork.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this French word.

FAWN (fawn) v to exhibit affection; to seek favor through flattery; to kiss up to someone

· The old women fawned over the new baby, pinching its cheeks and making little gurgling sounds.

· The king could not see through the fawning of his court; he thought all the counts and dukes really liked him.

FEIGN (fayn) v to make a false representation of; to pretend

· Ike feigned illness at work in order to spend the day at the circus.

· The children feigned sleep in the hope of catching a glimpse of Santa Claus.

· Agony of the sort that Frances exhibited cannot be feigned; she had obviously been genuinely hurt.

A feigning motion, gesture, or action is a feint (faynt), which can also be used as a verb.

· The boxer feinted with his right hand and then knocked out his distracted opponent with his left.

FESTER (FES tur) v to generate pus; to decay

· Mr. Baker had allowed the wound on his arm to fester for so long that it now required surgery.

· For many years, resentment had festered beneath the surface of the apparently happy organization.

FETISH (FET ish) n an object of obsessive reverence, attention, or interest

· Jeff had made a fetish of his garage; he even waxed the concrete floor.

· Clown shoes were Harriet’s fetish; whenever she saw a pair, she had to buy it.

Though many people associate the word fetish with an object of sexual desire (and that is one definition), the original meaning is actually a religious one. A fetish was an object that was worshipped because it was believed to have magical powers or because it was believed to be the incarnation of a particular spirit, similar to an idol.

FIASCO (fee AS koh) n a complete failure or disaster; an incredible screwup

· The tag sale was a fiasco; it poured down rain all morning, and nobody showed up.

· The birthday party turned into a fiasco when the candles on the cake exploded.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word. The plural is fiascoes.

FIAT (FYE ut) n an arbitrary decree or order

· The value of the country’s currency was set not by the market but by executive fiat.

· The president of the company ruled by fiat; there was no such thing as a discussion of policy, and disagreements were not allowed.

This word can also be pronounced “FEE ut.”

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

FICKLE (FIK ul) adj likely to change for no good reason

· Cats are fickle: One day they love you; the next day they hiss at you.

· The weather had been fickle all day; one moment the sun was shining, the next it was pouring down rain.

· The Taylors were so fickle that their architect finally told them he would quit the job if they made any more changes in the plans for their new house.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #40

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

FIGMENT (FIG munt) n something made up or invented; a fabrication

· The three-year-old told his mother there were skeletons under his bed, but they turned out to be just a figment of his overactive imagination.

· These French-speaking hummingbirds inside my head—are they real, or are they a figment?

FISCAL (FIS kul) adj pertaining to financial matters; monetary

· Having no sense of fiscal responsibility, he was happy to waste his salary on a life-size plastic flamingo with diamond eyes.

· A fiscal year is any twelve-month period established for accounting purposes.

· Scrooge Enterprises begins its fiscal year on December 25 to make sure that no one takes Christmas Day off.

FLEDGLING (FLEJ ling) adj inexperienced or immature

· A fledgling bird is one still too young to fly; once its wing feathers have grown in, it is said to be fledged.

· Lucy was still a fledgling caterer when her deviled eggs gave the whole party food poisoning.

Full-fledged means complete, full-grown.

· Now that Lucy is a full-fledged gourmet chef, her deviled eggs poison only a couple of people annually.

FLIPPANT (FLIP unt) adj frivolously disrespectful; saucy; pert; flip

· I like to make flippant remarks in church to see how many old ladies will turn around and glare at me.

The act or state of being flippant is flippancy (FLIP un see).

· The flippancy of the second graders was almost more than the substitute teacher could stand.

Flip is another form of the word that is in common usage.

FLORID (FLAWR id) adj ruddy; flushed; red-faced

· Ike’s florid complexion is the result of drinking a keg of beer and eating ten pounds of lard every day.

Florid is related to floral and florist, so it also means excessively flowery, overdramatic, or ornate.

· My brother is still making fun of that florid love poem Ted sent me.

FODDER (FAHD ur) n coarse food for livestock; raw material

· The cattle for some reason don’t like their new fodder, which is made of ground-up fish bones and cabbage.

· Estelle was less embarrassed than usual when her father acted stupidly in public because his behavior was fodder for her new stand-up comedy routine.

Fodder and food are derived from the same root.

FOLLY (FAHL ee) n foolishness; insanity; imprudence

· You don’t seem to understand what folly it would be to design a paper raincoat.

· The policeman tried to convince Buddy of the folly of running away from home; he explained to him that his bed at home was more comfortable than a sidewalk, and that his mother’s cooking was better than no cooking at all.

Folly and fool are derived from the same root.

FORAY (FAWR ay) n a quick raid or attack; an initial venture

· The minute Shelly left for the party, her younger sisters made a foray on her makeup; they ended up smearing her lipstick all over their faces.

· My foray into the world of advertising convinced me that my soul is much too sensitive for such a sleazy business.

· The young soldier’s ill-fated foray into the woods ended with his capture by an enemy patrol.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

FOREBODE (fawr BOHD) v to be an omen of; to predict; to foretell

· The baby’s purple face, quivering chin, and clenched fists forebode a temper tantrum.

Sometimes to forebode means to predict or prophesy (PRAHF uh sye).

· Bea forebodes tragedy every time she gazes into her crystal ball, unless the person paying for her fortune-telling wants only the good news.

A foreboding is the feeling that something awful is about to happen.

· When Rafi saw the killer shark leap toward him with a gun under one fin and a knife under the other, he had a foreboding that something not particularly pleasant was about to happen to him.

To bode and forebode are synonyms.

FORECLOSE (fawr KLOHZ) v to deprive a mortgagor of his or her right to redeem a property; to shut out or exclude

· If you don’t make the mortgage payments on your house, the bank may foreclose on the loan, take possession of the house, and sell it in order to raise the money you owe.

· Even though he never made a single payment on his house, Tom still can’t understand why the bank foreclosed on the mortgage.

· When Tom developed an allergy to it, he was foreclosed from eating his favorite food, corn on the cob.

An act of foreclosing is a foreclosure (fawr KLOH zhur).

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #41

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

FORENSIC (fuh REN sik) adj related to or used in courts of law

· Before seeking an indictment, the prosecutor needed a report from the forensic laboratory, which he felt certain would show that the dead man had been strangled with his belt.

Forensics can also be the study or practice of debate.

· Because she likes to argue, Brooke assumed she would be the star of the forensics team; however, she soon found that the competition involved much more than shouting.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

FORESTALL (fawr STAWL) v to thwart, prevent, or hinder something from happening; to head off

· To forestall embarrassing questions about her haircut, Ann decided to wear a bag over her head until the hair grew in.

· Let’s forestall a depressing January by not spending any money on Christmas presents this year.

FORSWEAR (fawr SWAYR) v to retract, renounce, or recant; to take back

· The thief had previously testified that he had been in Florida during the theft, but a stern glance from the judge quickly made him forswear that testimony.

· For my New Year’s resolution, I decided to forswear both tobacco and alcohol; then I lit a cigar and opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate the new me.

· Forswear your gluttonous ways! Go on a diet!

FORTE (FOR tay) n a person’s strong point, special talent, or specialty

· Lulu doesn’t have a forte; she doesn’t do anything particularly well.

· Uncle Joe likes to knit, but his real forte is needlepoint.

FORTHRIGHT (FAWRTH ryte) adj frank; outspoken; going straight to the point

· When the minister asked Lucy whether or not she would take Clay as her lawfully wedded husband, she answered with a forthright, “No!”

· I know I asked for your honest opinion on my dress, but I didn’t expect you to be that forthright.

FOSTER (FAWS tur) v to encourage; to promote the development of

· Growing up next door to a circus fostered my love of elephants.

· By refusing to be pressured into burning its “controversial” books, the library will foster new ideas instead of smothering them.

· The wolves who raised me lovingly fostered my ability to run on my hands and knees.

FRAGMENTARY (FRAG mun tar ee) adj incomplete; disconnected; made up of fragments

· Since the coup leaders refuse to allow the press into the country, our information is still fragmentary at this point.

· She has only a fragmentary knowledge of our national anthem; she can sing the first, fifth, and eleventh lines, and that’s all.

To fragment (frag MENT) is to break into pieces. Note carefully the pronunciation of this verb.

Fragmented means split up or divided. Fragmentary and fragmented are not quite synonyms.

FRUITFUL (FROOT ful) adj productive; producing good or abundant results; successful

· The collaboration between the songwriter and the lyricist proved so fruitful that last year they won a Tony for Best Musical.

· Our brainstorming session was fruitful; we figured out how to achieve world peace and came up with a way to convert old socks into clean energy.

Fruitless (FROOT lus) means unproductive, pointless, or unrewarding. A cherry tree without any cherries is fruitless in both the literal and the figurative sense of the word. A fruitless search turns up nothing.

To reach fruition (froo ISH un) is to accomplish or fulfill what has been sought or striven for.

· The fruition of all Diana’s dreams arrived when Charles asked her to be his wife.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

FUEL (fyool) v to stimulate; to ignite; to kindle, as if providing with fuel

· Her older sister’s sarcasm only fueled Wendy’s desire to live several thousand miles away.

· Juan fueled Juana’s suspicions by telling her out of the blue that he was not planning a surprise party for her.

· The taunts of the opposing quarterback backfired by fueling our team’s quest for victory.

FULMINATE (FUL muh nayt) v to denounce vigorously; to protest vehemently against something

· In every sermon, the bishop fulminates against the evils of miniskirts, saying that they are the sort of skirt that the devil would wear.

· The old man never actually went after any of his numerous enemies; he just sat in his room fulminating.

· The principal’s fulminations (ful muh NAY shuns) had no effect on the naughty sophomores; they went right on smoking cigarettes and blowing their smoke in his face.

Fulmination is a close synonym to diatribe.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #42

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

G

GAFFE (gaf) n a social blunder; an embarrassing mistake; a faux pas

· In some cultures, burping after you eat is considered a sign that you liked the meal. In our culture, it’s considered a gaffe.

· You commit a gaffe when you ask a man if he’s wearing a toupee.

· Michael Kinsley defines a politician’s gaffe as “when one inadvertently tells the truth.”

GALVANIZE (GAL vuh nyze) v to startle into sudden activity; to revitalize

· The student council president hoped his speech would galvanize the student body into rebelling against standardized tests. But his speech was not as galvanic (gal VAHN ik) as he would have liked, and his listeners continued to doze in their seats.

· Dullsville was a sleepy little town until its residents were galvanized by the discovery that they all knew how to whistle really well.

To galvanize something is literally to cover it in zinc, which protects it and makes it stronger. But its figurative definition is much more common in everyday speech.

GAMBIT (GAM but) n a scheme to gain an advantage; a ploy

· Bobby’s opening gambit at the chess tournament allowed him to take control of the game from the beginning.

· Meg’s gambit to get a new car consisted of telling her father that everyone else in her class had a new car.

· My young son said he wanted a drink of water, but I knew that his request was merely a gambit to stay up later.

GAMUT (GAM ut) n the full range (of something)

· The baby’s emotions run the gamut from all-out shrieking to contented cooing.

· Charlotte’s professor said that her essay covered the gamut of literary mistakes, from bad spelling to outright plagiarism.

GARNER (GAHR nur) v to gather; to acquire; to earn

· Steve continues to garner varsity letters, a fact that will no doubt garner him a reputation as a great athlete.

· Mary’s articles about toxic waste garnered her a Pulitzer Prize.

GASTRONOMY (gas TRAHN uh mee) n the art of eating well

· The restaurant’s new French chef is so well versed in gastronomy that she can make a pile of hay taste good. In fact, I believe that hay is what she served us for dinner last night.

· I have never eaten a better meal. It is a gastronomic (gas truh NAHM ik) miracle.

GENERIC (je NER ik) adj general; common; not protected by trademark

· The machinery Pedro used to make his great discovery was entirely generic; anyone with access to a hardware store could have done what he did.

· The year after he graduated from college, Paul moved to New York and wrote a generic first novel in which a young man graduates from college, moves to New York, and writes his first novel.

· Instead of buying expensive name-brand cigarettes, Rachel buys a generic brand and thus ruins her health at far less expense.

GENESIS (JEN uh sis) n origin; creation; beginning

Genesis is the name of the first book of the Bible. It concerns the genesis of the world, and in it Adam and Eve realize that it is never wise to listen to the advice of serpents.

· It’s hard to believe that the Boeing 747 has its genesis in the flimsy contraption built by the Wright brothers.

GENOCIDE (JEN uh syde) n the extermination of a national, racial, or religious group

· Hitler’s policy of genocide made him one of the most hated men in history.

When a word ends with the suffix “cide,” it generally has to do with some form of murder. Homicide (HAHM uh syde) means murder; matricide (MA truh syde) means mother-murder; patricide (PA truh syde) means father-murder; suicide (SOO uh syde) means self-murder. An insecticide (in SEK tuh syde) is a substance that “murders” insects.

GERMANE (jur MAYN) adj applicable; pertinent; relevant

· “Whether or not your mother and I give you too small an allowance,” said Cleo’s father sternly, “is not germane to my suggestion that you clean up your room more often.”

· One of the many germane points he raised during his speech was that someone is going to have to pay for all these improvements.

· Claiming that Arnold’s comments were not germane to the discussion at hand, the president of the company told him to sit down and shut up.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #43

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

GHASTLY (GAST lee) adj shockingly horrible; frightful; ghostlike

· The most ghastly crime ever recorded in these parts was committed by One-Eye Sam, and it was too horrifying to describe.

· You have a rather ghastly color all of a sudden. Have you just spotted One-Eye Sam?

GRATIS (GRAT us) adj free of charge

· Since Gary drove his car through Whitney’s plateglass living room window, he provided her with a new one, gratis.

· I tried to pay for the little mint on my pillow, but the chambermaid explained that it was gratis.

· When the waiter told Herbert that the drink was gratis, Herbert started to shout. He said, “I didn’t order any damned gratis. I want some brandy, and I want it now!”

If something gratis is freely given, then it makes sense that a gratuity is an amount that is paid by choice, and that gratuitous violence in a movie is violence that is unwarranted, or not essential to the plot. Gratis can also be pronounced “GRAY tus.”

GRIEVOUS (GREE vus) adj tragic; agonizing; severe

· When Sarah found out that Thomas didn’t have her money, she threatened to do him grievous harm.

· The memory of all the times I’ve yelled at my children is grievous to me.

GRIMACE (GRIM is) v to make an ugly, disapproving facial expression

· Don’t grimace, Daniel, or your face will freeze that way!

· Tom couldn’t help grimacing when he heard that the Pettibones were coming over for supper; he had hated the Pettibones ever since they had borrowed his riding lawn mower and ridden it into the lake.

This word can also be used as a noun. The expression on the face of a person who is grimacing is called a grimace.

· The grimace on the face of the judge when Lila played her violin did not bode well for her chances in the competition.

GUISE (gyze) n appearance; semblance

· Every night the emperor enters the princess’s room in the guise of a nightingale, and every night the princess opens her window and shoos him out.

A guise can also mean a false appearance or a pretense.

· How was I supposed to know that I couldn’t trust Hortense? She had the guise of an angel!

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #44

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

H

HABITUATE (huh BICH oo wayt) v to train; to accustom to a situation

· Putting a clock in a puppy’s bed is supposed to help habituate it to its new home, but most puppies become homesick anyway.

· The best way to habituate yourself to daily exercise is to work out first thing in the morning.

If you are a frequent visitor to a place, you may be said to be a habitué (huh BICH oo way) of that place.

· Alice is a habitué of both the bar at the end of her street and the gutter in front of it.

Note the accent on habitué.

HALCYON (HAL see un) adj peaceful; carefree; serene

· Why does everyone talk about the halcyon days of youth? Most of the kids I know don’t exactly live serene, carefree lives.

· These halcyon skies are a good harbinger of a pleasant vacation.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

HARASS (HAR us) v to attack repeatedly; to torment or pester

· The unruly students so harassed their uncoordinated physical education teacher that she finally went crazy and quit.

· Warren’s female employees are victims of sexual harassment (HAR us munt). If people outside his company ever find out about Warren’s record of sexual harassment, he’ll never be able to get another job. Good!

Note carefully the preferred pronunciation of this word, although, “huh RAS” is increasingly heard.

HARBINGER (HAR bin jur) n a precursor; an indication; an omen

· When a toilet overflows, it is usually a harbinger of plumbing problems to come.

· Priscilla found a silver dollar on the floor, and she viewed it as a harbinger of the good luck she was certain to have on the slot machines that night.

· The vultures circling overhead were viewed as a harbinger of doom by the starving, thirst-stricken settlers trying to claw their way across the sweltering desert floor several hundred feet below.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

HARP (harp) v to repeat tediously; to go on and on about something

· “Will you quit harping on my hair?” Tim shouted at his mother. “I don’t have to get it cut if I don’t want to!”

Don’t confuse harp with carp (carp). Carping is complaining excessively or finding unreasonable fault with something. If you were to complain that someone had been harping on something when they actually hadn’t been, you would be carping.

HARRY (HAR ee) v to harass; to annoy

· The soldiers vowed to harry their opponents until they finally surrendered the town.

The adjective is harried.

· No wonder that mother has a harried look. She’s been taking care of six children all day.

HEINOUS (HAY nus) adj shockingly evil; abominable; atrocious

· Bruno is a heinous villain; his crimes are so horrible that people burst into tears at the mere sound of his name.

· Gertrude’s treatment of her cat was heinous; she fed him dry food for nearly every meal, and she never gave him any chicken livers.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

HERALD (HER uld) n a royal proclaimer; a harbinger

· The queen sent a herald to proclaim victory.

· A robin is sometimes viewed as a herald of spring; its song announces that winter has finally ended.

Herald can also be a verb. To herald something is to be a herald of it, to proclaim news of it, to announce it, to proclaim it.

· The members of the football team heralded their victory through the town by honking their car horns continuously while driving slowly up and down the streets for several hours.

HOARY (HOHR ee) adj gray or white with age; ancient; stale

· The dog’s hoary muzzle and clouded eyes betrayed her advanced age.

· The college’s philosophy department was a bit on the hoary side; the average age of those professors must have been at least seventy-five.

· Don’t you think that joke’s getting a little hoary? You must have told it twenty times at this party alone.

HOMAGE (AHM ij) n reverence; respect

· Every year, thousands of tourists travel to Graceland to pay homage to Elvis Presley; thousands more stay home and pay homage to him in their local supermarkets and pizza parlors, where they catch glimpses of him ducking into the men’s room or peering through the windows.

· Sanford erected the new office building in homage to himself; he had a statue of himself installed in the lobby, and he commissioned a big sign proclaiming the building’s name: the Sanford Building.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word: The h is silent.

HUBRIS (HYOO bris) n arrogance; excessive pride

· If you’re ever assigned to write an essay about why the hero of a play comes to a tragic end, it’s a safe bet to say that it was hubris that brought about his downfall.

· Steven has a serious case of hubris; he’s always claiming to be the handsomest man on the beach when he’s really a ninety-seven-pound weakling.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

HYPOCRISY (hi PAHK ruh see) n insincerity; two-facedness

· The candidate’s most obvious qualification for office was his hypocrisy; he gave speeches in praise of “family values” even though his own family was in a shambles.

· Oki despises hypocrisy so much that she sometimes goes too far in the other direction. When Julia asked whether Oki liked her new dress, Oki replied, “No. I think it’s ugly.”

A person who practices hypocrisy is a hypocrite (HIP uh krit). A hypocrite is a person who says one thing and does another. A hypocrite is hypocritical (hip uh KRIT i kul). It’s hypocritical to praise someone for her honesty and then call her a liar behind her back.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #45

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here. Note that “attack repeatedly” is the answer for two questions.

I

IDIOM (ID ee um) n an expression whose meaning is different from the literal meaning of the words; a language or dialect used by a group of people

It’s sometimes hard for foreigners to grasp all the idioms we use in English. They have special trouble with expressions like “letting the cat out of the bag.” To let the cat out of the bag is to give away a secret, not to let a cat out of a bag. The expression is an idiom, not a literal statement of fact. Other languages have idioms, too. In French, “my little cabbage” is a term of endearment.

This word can also be used to refer to a language, dialect, or even jargon spoken by a group of people.

· Jerry didn’t get along very well with the people in the computer department because he didn’t understand their idiom.

Idiomatic is an adjective that describes an idiom.

· This rule of grammar may seem peculiar to everyone else in the country because it is only idiomatic to the people living in that small region.

IMBUE (im BYOO) v to inspire; to permeate or tinge

· Was it the young poet’s brilliant writing or his dashing appearance that imbued the girls with such a love of poetry?

· Henrietta soaked her white dress in a bathtub of tea to imbue it with a subtle tan color.

The word infuse is a close synonym.

IMPASSE (IM pas) n a deadlock; a situation from which there is no escape

· After arguing all day, the jury was forced to admit they had reached an impasse; they had examined and reexamined the evidence, but they still could not reach a unanimous verdict.

· We seem to have reached an impasse. You want to spend the money on a pair of hockey skates for yourself, while I want to donate it to charity.

IMPEACH (im PEECH) v to accuse or indict; to challenge; call into question

· Congress is still trying to decide whether to impeach the president for spilling fingerpaint in the Oval Office.

To impeach a political figure is not to throw the person out of office; it is to accuse him or her of an offense for which he or she will be thrown out of office if found guilty. President Clinton was impeached, but he was not convicted. Had President Nixon been impeached, he would have been tried by the Senate. If found guilty, he would have been given the boot. Instead, realizing the jig was up, he resigned.

Impeach also has a meaning that has nothing to do with removing political figures from office.

· It’s not fair to impeach my morals just because I use swear words every once in a while.

To be unimpeachable is to be above suspicion or impossible to discredit.

· If the president proves to be a man of unimpeachable honor, he will not be impeached.

IMPECUNIOUS (im pi KYOO nee us) adj without money; penniless

· Can you lend me five million dollars? I find myself momentarily impecunious.

· When his dream of making a fortune selling talking T-shirts evaporated, Arthur was left impecunious.

The word pecuniary (pi KYOO nee er ee) means relating to money. To peculate (PEK yuh layt) is to embezzle or steal money.

IMPEDE (im PEED) v to obstruct or interfere with; to delay

· The faster I try to pick up the house, the more the cat impedes me; he sees me scurrying around, and, thinking I want to play, he runs up and winds himself around my ankles.

· The fact that the little boy is missing all his front teeth impedes his speaking clearly.

Something that impedes is an impediment (im PED uh munt).

· Irene’s inability to learn foreign languages was a definite impediment to her mastery of French literature.

IMPENDING (im PEND ing) adj approaching; imminent; looming

· Jim’s impending fiftieth birthday filled him with gloom; he was starting to feel old.

· The scowl on her husband’s face alerted Claire to an impending argument.

· The reporter didn’t seem to notice his rapidly impending deadline; he poked around in his office as if he had all the time in the world.

The verb is impend.

IMPENETRABLE (im PEN uh truh bul) adj incapable of being penetrated; impervious; incomprehensible

· The fortress on the top of the hill was impenetrable to the poorly armed soldiers; although they tried for days, they were unable to break through its thick stone walls.

· For obvious reasons, knights in the Middle Ages hoped that their armor would be impenetrable.

· This essay is utterly impenetrable. There isn’t one word in it that makes sense to me.

· I was unable to guess what Bob was thinking; as usual, his expression was impenetrable.

Impenetrable is a close synonym to impregnable.

IMPERATIVE (im PER uh tiv) adj completely necessary; vitally important

· The children couldn’t quite accept the idea that cleaning up the playroom was imperative; they said they didn’t mind wading through the toys strewn on the floor, even if they did occasionally fall down and hurt themselves.

This word can also be used as a noun, in which case it means a command, order, or requirement. A doctor has a moral imperative to help sick people instead of playing golf—unless, of course, it’s his day off, or the people aren’t very sick.

IMPETUOUS (im PECH oo wus) adj rash; overimpulsive; headlong

· Jeremy is so impetuous that he ran out and bought an engagement ring for a girl who smiled at him in the subway.

· Olive’s decision to drive her car into the lake to see whether it would float was an impetuous one that she regretted as soon as water began to seep into the passenger compartment.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #46

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

IMPLICATION (im pluh KAY shun) n something implied or suggested; ramification

· When you said I looked healthy, was that really meant as an implication that I’ve put on weight?

· A 100 percent cut in our school budget would have troubling implications; I simply don’t think the children would receive a good education if they didn’t have teachers, books, or a school.

Intimation is a close synonym for implication.

To imply something is to suggest it.

· When Peter’s girlfriend said, “My, you certainly know how to drive a car fast, don’t you?” in a trembling voice, she was implying that Peter was going too fast.

To imply something is not at all the same thing as to infer (in FUR) it, even though many people use these two words interchangeably. To infer is to figure out what is being implied. The act of inferring is an inferrence (IN fur ens).

· Peter was so proud of his driving that he did not infer the meaning of his girlfriend’s implication.

IMPORTUNE (im pawr TOON) v to urge with annoying persistence; to trouble

· “I hate to importune you once again,” said the woman next door, “but may I please borrow some sugar, eggs, milk, flour, butter, jam, and soup?”

· The ceaseless importuning of her children finally drove Sophie over the brink; she stuffed the entire brood in the car and left them with her mother-in-law.

To importune or be characterized by importuning is to be importunate (im PAWR chuh nit).

· Leslie’s importunate boyfriend called her day and night to ask her if she still loves him; after the hundredth such phone call, she understandably decided that she did not.

Note carefully the spelling and pronunciation of these words.

IMPOVERISH (im PAH vrish) v to reduce to poverty; to make destitute

· Mr. DeZinno spent every penny he had on lottery tickets, none of which was a winner; he impoverished himself in his effort to become rich.

· The ravages of the tornado impoverished many families in our town and placed a heavy strain on our local government’s already limited resources.

Impoverishment (im PAHV rish munt) is poverty or the act of reducing to poverty.

· The Great Depression led to the impoverishment of many formerly well-off families in America.

IMPREGNABLE (im PREG nuh bul) adj unconquerable; able to withstand attack; impenetrable

· Again and again, the army unsuccessfully attacked the fortress, only to conclude that it was impregnable.

· There’s no point in trying to change Mr. Roberts’s attitude about hairstyles; you will find that his belief in a link between long hair and communism is utterly impregnable.

· Thanks to repeated applications of Turtle Wax, my car’s finish is impregnable; the rain and snow bounce right off it.

IMPRESARIO (im pruh SAHR ee oh) n a person who manages public entertainments (especially operas, but other events as well)

· Monsieur Clovis, the impresario of the Little Rock Operetta House, is as temperamental as some of his singers; if he doesn’t get his way, he holds his breath until he turns blue.

· Val calls himself an impresario, but he is really just a lazy guy who likes to hang around rock concerts making a nuisance of himself.

IMPROMPTU (im PRAHMP too) adj done without preparation, on the spur of the moment

· When Dimitri’s mother-in-law dropped in without warning, he prepared her an impromptu meal of the foods he had on hand—coffee and tomato sauce.

· The actress did her best to pretend her award acceptance speech was impromptu, but everyone could see the notes tucked into her dress.

IMPROVISE (IM pruh vyze) v to perform without preparation; to make do with whatever materials are available

· Forced to land on a deserted island, the shipwrecked sailors improvised a shelter out of driftwood and sand.

· When the choir soloist forgot the last verse of the hymn, she hastily improvised a version of her own.

Improvisation (im prahv uh ZAY shun) is the act or an instance of improvising.

· The forgetful choir soloist fortunately had a knack for improvisation.

IMPUNITY (im PYOO nuh tee) n freedom from punishment or harm

· Babies can mash food into their hair with impunity; no one gets angry at them because babies aren’t expected to be polite.

INADVERTENT (in ad VUR tunt) adj unintentional; heedless; not planned

· Paula’s snub of Lauren was entirely inadvertent; she hadn’t meant to turn up her nose and treat Lauren as though she were a piece of furniture.

· Isabelle’s inadvertent laughter during the sad part of the movie was a great embarrassment to her date.

· While ironing a shirt, Steven inadvertently scorched one sleeve; it was really the collar that he had meant to scorch.

INALIENABLE (in AY lee un uh bul) adj sacred; incapable of being transferred, lost, or taken away

· In my household, we believe that people are born with an inalienable right to have desserts after meals.

· According to the religion Jack founded, all left-handed people have an inalienable right to spend eternity in paradise; needless to say, Jack is left-handed.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #47

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

INCARNATION (in kahr NAY shun) n embodiment

· Nina is the incarnation of virtue; she has never done anything wrong since she was born.

· Nina’s brother Ian, however, is so evil that some people consider him the devil incarnate (in KAHR nit). That is, they consider him to be the embodiment of the devil, or the devil in human form.

If you believe in reincarnation (ree in kahr NAY shun), you believe that after your body dies, your soul will return to earth in another body, perhaps that of a housefly. In such a case, you would be said to have been reincarnated (ree in KAHR nay tud), regrettably, as a housefly.

Note carefully the pronunciation of these words.

INCENDIARY (in SEN dee er ee) adj used for setting property on fire; tending to arouse passion or anger; inflammatory

· Although the inspector from the arson squad found a scorched incendiary device in the gutted basement of the burned-down house, the neighbors insisted that the fire was accidental.

· The lyrics of the heavy-metal star’s songs are so incendiary that his fans routinely trash the auditorium during his performances.

· On July 3, the newspaper published an incendiary editorial urging readers to celebrate the nation’s birthday by setting flags on fire.

To incense (in SENS) is to anger.

INCLINATION (in kluh NAY shun) n tendency; preference; liking

· My natural inclination at the end of a tiring morning is to take a long nap rather than a brisk walk, even though I know that the walk would be more likely than the nap to make me feel better. It could also be said that I have a disinclination (dis in kluh NAY shun) to take walks.

· Nudists have an inclination to ridicule people who wear clothes, while people who wear clothes have the same inclination toward nudists.

To have an inclination to do something is to be inclined (in KLYND) to do it.

· I am inclined to postpone my study of vocabulary in order to take a nap right now.

If you picture someone physically leaning, or inclining, toward something, you have a built-in memory device for this word.

INCULCATE (in KUL kayt) v to instill or implant by repeated suggestions or admonitions

· It took ten years, but at last we’ve managed to inculcate in our daughter the habit of shaking hands.

· The preacher who believes that stern sermons will inculcate morals in his congregation frequently finds that people stop coming to church at all.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

INCUMBENT (in KUM bunt) adj currently holding an office; obligatory

· The incumbent dog warden would love to surrender his job to someone else, but no one else is running for the job.

· An incumbent senator usually has a distinct advantage over any opponent because being in office makes it easier for him or her to raise the millions of dollars needed to finance a modern political campaign.

Incumbent can also be a noun. In a political race, the incumbent is the candidate who already holds the office. When incumbent means obligatory, it is usually followed by upon.

· It is incumbent upon me, as Lord High Suzerain of the Universe, to look out for the welfare of all life forms.

INCURSION (in KUR zhun) n a hostile invasion; a raid

· After repeated incursions into the town, the enemy soldiers finally realized that the townspeople would never surrender.

· Todd’s midnight incursions on the refrigerator usually meant that at breakfast time no one else in the family had anything to eat.

INDICT (in DYTE) v to charge with a crime; to accuse of wrongdoing

· After a five-day water fight, the entire freshman dorm was indicted on a charge of damaging property.

· The mob boss had been indicted many times, but he had never been convicted because his high-priced lawyers had always been able to talk circles around the district attorney.

An act of indicting is an indictment.

· The broken fishbowl and missing fish were a clear indictment of the cat.

For more vocabulary derived from politics, government, and law, turn to Chapter 8.

Note carefully the spelling and pronunciation of this word.

INDUCE (in DOOS) v to persuade; to influence; to cause

· “Could I induce you to read one more chapter?” the little boy asked his father at bedtime; the father was so astonished that his little boy understood such a big, important-sounding word that he quickly complied with the request.

Something that persuades is an inducement.

· The dusty, neglected-looking mannequins in the store window were hardly an inducement to shop there.

INELUCTABLE (in uh LUK tuh bul) adj inescapable; incapable of being resisted or avoided

· The overmatched opposing football team could not halt our ineluctable progress down the field, and we easily scored a touchdown.

· If you keep waving that sword around in this crowded room, I’m afraid a tragedy will be ineluctable.

· With slow but ineluctable progress, a wave of molasses crept across the room, silently engulfing the guests at the cocktail party.

INERADICABLE (in uh RAD uh kuh bul) adj incapable of being removed or destroyed or eradicated

· The subway officials did their best to scrub the graffiti off the trains, but the paint the vandals had used proved to be ineradicable; not even cleaning fluid would remove it.

· Tim wore saddle shoes and yellow socks on the first day of high school, garnering himself an ineradicable reputation as a nerd.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #48

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

INFLAMMATORY (in FLAM uh tawr ee) adj fiery; tending to arouse passion or anger; incendiary

· Maxine’s inflammatory speech about animal rights made her listeners so angry that they ran out of the building and began ripping the fur coats off passersby.

Inflammatory should not be confused with inflammable (in FLAM uh bul) or flammable, both of which mean capable of literally bursting into flames. An angry speech is inflammatory, but fortunately it is not inflammable. (In careful usage, inflammable is preferred; flammable was coined to prevent people from thinking that things labeled inflammable were incapable of catching on fire.)

The verb is inflame.

INFLUX (IN fluks) n inflow; arrival of large numbers of people or things; inundation

· The influx of ugly clothes in the stores this fall can only mean that fashion designers have lost their minds once again.

· Heavy spring rains brought an influx of mud to people’s basements.

Be careful not to confuse influx with influx. Influx means in a state of change.

INFRACTION (in FRAK shun) n violation; infringement; the breaking of a law

To fracture is to break. An infraction is breaking a rule or law.

· “I’m warning you, Prudence,” said the headmistress. “Even the slightest infraction of school rules will get you expelled.”

· Driving seventy miles an hour in a thirty-mile-an-hour zone is what Fred would call a minor infraction of the traffic laws, but the policeman did not agree, and Fred’s license was suspended for a year.

INFRASTRUCTURE (IN fruh struk chur) n the basic framework of a system; foundation

· The country’s political infrastructure was so corrupt that most of the citizens welcomed the coup.

· When people talk about “the nation’s crumbling infrastructure,” they are usually referring to deteriorating highways, crumbling bridges, poorly maintained public buildings, and other neglected public resources.

INFRINGE (in FRINJ) v to violate; to encroach or trespass

· The court ruled that the ugly color of Zeke’s neighbor’s house did not infringe on any of Zeke’s legal rights as a property owner.

· Whenever Patrick comes into her room, Liz always shouts, “Mom! He’s infringing on my personal space!”

An act of infringing is an infringement.

· It is a clear infringement of copyright to photocopy the entire text of a book and sell copies to other people.

INFUSE (in FYOOZ) v to introduce into; to instill; to imbue

· Everyone in the wedding party was nervous until the subtle harmonies of the string quartet infused them with a sense of tranquillity; of course, they had also drunk quite a bit of champagne.

· The couple’s redecoration job somehow managed to infuse the whole house with garishness; before, only the kitchen had been garish.

An act of infusing or something that infuses is an infusion.

· Whenever I have a cough, my grandmother steeps an infusion of herbs that cures me right away.

INGRATIATE (in GRAY shee ayt) v to work to make yourself liked

· Putting tacks on people’s chairs isn’t exactly the best way to ingratiate yourself with them.

· Licking the hands of the people he met did not ingratiate Rashid with most of the guests at the cocktail party, although he did make a favorable impression on the poodle.

The act of ingratiating is ingratiation (in gray shee AY shun).

· Bella’s attempts at ingratiation were unsuccessful; her teacher could tell she was being insincere when she told him how nice he looked.

· “That’s the loveliest, most flattering dress I’ve ever seen you wear, Miss Ford,” the class goody-goody told the teacher ingratiatingly.

INIMICAL (i NIM i kul) adj unfavorable; harmful; detrimental; hostile

· All that makeup you wear is inimical to a clear complexion; it smothers your pores and prevents your skin from breathing.

· The reviews of his exhibition were so inimical that Charles never sculpted again.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word, which, with spelling changes, is related to the word “enemy.”

INIMITABLE (i NIM i tuh bul) adj impossible to imitate; incomparable; matchless; the best

· Dressed in a lampshade and a few pieces of tinsel, Frances managed to carry off the evening in her usual inimitable style.

· Fred’s dancing style is so inimitable that anyone who follows his act looks like a drunk elephant by comparison.

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word.

INNUENDO (in yoo EN doh) n an insinuation; a sly hint

· I resent your innuendo that I’m not capable of finishing what I start.

· Oscar tried to hint that he wanted a new fishing pole for his birthday, but Maxine didn’t pick up on the innuendo, and she gave him a bowling ball instead.

The plural is innuendos.

· Although his opponent never actually said Senator Hill cheated on his wife, the public innuendos were enough to ruin Hill’s chances for reelection.

Q • U • I • C • K • Q • U • I • Z #49

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

INQUISITION (in kwi ZISH un) n ruthless questioning; an official investigation characterized by cruelty

· I keep telling you that I got home late because I missed the bus! What is this, some kind of inquisition?

· During the Spanish Inquisition, people were substantially better off if they were not found to be heretics. The Spanish inquisitors weren’t fond of heresy.

An inquisitive (in KWI zuh tiv) person is a person who has a lot of questions. This word does not connote cruelty or ruthlessness. When a five-year-old asks where babies come from, he is being inquisitive; he is not behaving like an inquisitor.

INSOUCIANT (in SOO see unt) adj nonchalant; lighthearted; carefree

· Sebastian delighted in observing the insouciant play of children, but he didn’t want any children of his own.