laureates:
- a person who is the recipient of honor or recognition for achievement in literature, art, or science (Example: The Swedish Academy decides who will receive the Nobel Prize in Literature and announces the name of the chosen laureate.)
- to crown with a laurel wreath as a mark of honor, excellence, or achievement
limen: threshold (Example: A limen of a psychological response is called a liminal point.)
exiguous: excessively scanty; inadequate; little; small; meager
lucre: monetary gain; profit (Example: He is a director who makes movies almost entirely for lucre.)
emolument: the returns, wages or perquisites arising from office, employment, or labor; compensation; gain
repast:
- something taken as food; a meal
also:
- the act of taking food
- the time of taking food
eschew: to avoid (as something wrong or distasteful especially on moral or practical grounds)
chary:
- wary; discreetly cautious as hesitant and vigilant about risks and dangers
- discreetly cautious as slow to accept, or expend; not expending freely; sparing
extempore: without preparation or premeditation; on the spur of the moment; in an extemporaneous manner (Example: He spoke extempore and wearied the audience.)
bombast: pompous or pretentious inflated speech or writing
weenie:
- frankfurter; wiener
- penis (slang)
- nerd
- an insignificant, disliked man (slang)
- a weak and ineffectual man (slang)
segue: a transition from one part to another without pause, as in music
propound: to put forward for discussion or consideration; to set forth; to propose
brio: enthusiastic vigor; vivacity (Example: "She tells their story with brio and a mixture of sympathy and tart insight.” [Michiko Kakutani])
superfluous: unnecessary; useless; more than what is wanted
dour: stern; obstinate; inflexible
aberrant: deviating from the normal way; atypical; abnormal
stentorian: extremely loud (Example: Then a stentorian voice blared an all-points bulletin: "Calling the G-men! Calling all Americans to war on the underworld!" [Reference: Strobe Talbott, "Resisting the Gangbusters Option"])
iota:
- the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet
- a bit; a jot; a very small quantity; a very small degree
cadge:
- to obtain by begging; to sponge
- to beg
insipid:
- lacking flavor or zest; tasteless
- not exciting; not interesting
assiduous:
- constant and careful in attention or application; diligent (Example: John is an assiduous programmer who strove for perfection.)
- persistent; unceasing; (Example: The police did an assiduous research to find the murderer.)
wanderlust:
an impulse to wander or travel (Example: The British installation artist Mike Nelson doesn’t just embrace such wanderlust. He also makes it a good reason to stay put. [Reference: The New York Times: Mike Nelson’s Trailer Trash])
asperity: rigor; severity; harshness; roughness (Example: What Pope would say of Cibber nobody inquired, but in hope that Pope's asperity might betray his pain and lessen his dignity. [Reference: Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope])
mascot:
An icon, sign, person, animal, or object, adopted by a group, believed to bring good luck (Example: The ongoing search for a new mascot at the University of Mississippi has gained national attention. After students voted in favor of having a say in choosing the mascot, speculation ramped up that Ole Miss could end up with Star Wars character Admiral Ackbar as the mascot. [Reference: USNews.com]
interdisciplinary:
involving multiple academic, scientific, or artistic disciplines; involving multiple branches of learning (Example: Some schools allow you to construct your own major, perhaps in an interdisciplinary field. [Reference: USNews.com])
traumatize
- to wound or injure (e.g. tissues) in a surgical operation, or by force or by thermal, chemical, etc. - to subject to psychological trauma by a childhood experience
- to impose a trauma; to subject to a trauma
overhaul:
- a major repair, renovation, or revision (Example: The sewing machine requires a overhaul to work properly again.)
- to examine thoroughly for needed repairs
- to dismantle to repair
- to repair, renovate, or revise
- to catch up with; to overtake
stymie:
- obstacle; obstruction
- in golf, the condition that exists when an opponent's ball lies in a direct line between the player's ball and the hole
- to present an obstacle in the way of; to block; to impede
- to hinder or obstruct as with a stymie
erudite:
- possessing or showing an extensive knowledge gained from reading
- learned
- scholarly
nomenclature:
A system or set of names, terms, or procedures used in a branch of science, art, or technology, e.g. the nomenclature of geomorphology.
verve:
spirit and enthusiasm in an artistic performance
deft:
dexterous; quick; skillful; adroit
scrum:
- a restart after an interruption in a rugby play
- throng
masthead:
- the top of a mast
- the printed matter in a blog, newspaper or periodical that gives the title and the ownership detail, etc.
agelast:
a mirthless person; a person who never laughs
facade: (also façade)
- the front of a building; any face of a building facing a street, courtyard, etc.; any face of a building that has special architectural treatment
- a superficial, artificial, or false appearance
stratum: ( plural: strata)
- a layer of rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that makes it be distinguished from the other contiguous layers
- a horizontal layer or section of material in a set of contiguous layers
- a part of a series that presents a period or a stage of development or formation
baryon: the family of composite subatomic particles made of three quarks
joust:
- a fight with lances between two knights on horseback
- to fight on horseback as knights
- to engage in fight or competition as in a joust
lambda:
- the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet (Λ, λ)
- an uncharged hyperon
necropsy: autopsy (usually used for autopsy on animals)
vassal:
- in the Middle Ages: a feudal tenant; a person under protection of the feudal lord to whom she or he has vowed fealty and homage
- a person in a subordinate position
- a person in a subservient position
fealty:
- the loyalty that people owe to their country; the loyalty that people owe to their sovereign
- the fidelity that vassals owe to their feudal lord
- the oath of fidelity or loyalty to country, sovereign, or feudal lord
- faithfulness; allegiance
frolicsome:
full of gaiety; full of high-spirited fun; playful; sportive; rollicking
disport:
- to amuse; to entertain
- amusement; diversion
laager:
- a defensive encampment protected by a circle of armored vehicles or wagons
- a defensive policy; a defensive position
- to camp in a defensive circle of armored vehicles or wagons
- to form (armoured vehicles or wagons) into a laager
- to park (armoured vehicles or wagons) in a laager
Xanthippe (also: Xantippe) :
- Xanthippe was the wife of Socrates
- a scolding woman or wife; an ill-tempered woman or wife; a shrewish woman or wife
jollification: festivity; merrymaking; revelry; conviviality
roomette:
a small private room on a railroad sleeping car or in a railroad passenger train
tootle:
- to toot gently, softly, repeatedly, or continuously on a flute or some musical instrument like that
- to drive, walk or move along in a leisurely manner; amble
hag:
- an ugly, slatternly, wizened, evil-looking old woman; witch
- a kind of fairy or goddess, often found in folklore and children's tales, who is ugly, slatternly, wizened, or evil-looking
old-timer:
- a person who has been an employee, member, soldier or resident for a long time
- an old-fashioned person
- oldster
- veteran
expound:
- to set forth in detail; to state in detail
- to explain, interpret, clarify or defend by setting forth in careful and often elaborate detail
abstain:
to refrain deliberately and often with an effort of self-denial from something regarded as improper or unhealthy (Example: He abstains from eating meat.)
remorse:
a gnawing distress for wrongdoing; compunction; self-reproach
gore:
- a small usually triangular piece of land (as where two roads diverge)
- a triangular piece (as a triangular piece of fabric in clothes)
- to cut into a triangular form
- to pierce or wound with a horn, tusk, or knife
sorgo:
a sorghum cultivated for the sweet juice in its stems (to make sugar and syrup)
delve:
- to dig (with a spade)
- to make a careful investigation for information (Example: He delved into the book to understand the complex algorithms.)
shank:
- the part of leg between knee and ankle in human or other vertebrates
- a cut of meat from the upper or the lower part of the leg of animals
- a projection on the back of buttons by which they are sewn to fabric
pellucid:
- allowing for the passage of light without diffusion; transparent (Example: The air was strangely still, the sky pellucid and speckled with stars except where the swelling clouds massed to the west. [Reference: Conan and the Emerald Lotus by John C. Hocking])
- easy to understand; clear
coeval:
of the same age or antiquity; contemporary
affranchise:
to make or set free from obligation or service
eremite:
a religious recluse; hermit
de jure:
- by right
- in accordance with the laws or the actions of the state
gregarious:
- tending or enjoying to be in crowds and socializing
- traveling or living in herds, flock, or crowd (as animals)
brut:
- very dry
- a sweetness measure for dry sparkling wines
ides:
originally referred to the day of the full moon; but then, in the ancient Roman calendar, refers to the 15th day of March, May, July, or October, or the 13th of the other months
eddy:
- a current of water or air running contrary to the main current and with a circular motion; small whirlpool or whirlwind
- an unimportant contrary movement or trend
- a contrary current as of thought or policy
mortification:
- the control of physical desires and bodily passions and appetites by self-denial, abstinence, fasting, etc.
- something causing shame, humiliation, etc. as it wounds one's pride or self-respect
- the sense of shame and humiliation due to something that wounds one's pride or self-respect
jovial: good-humored, hearty convivial, or genial
abba:
- father
- title of a bishop in some Arabic churches
kame: an irregularly shaped hill or mound composed of sand, gravel and till
scuttlebutt: rumour; gossip
wordmonger
- a writer or speaker who uses words pretentiously
- a writer or speaker who uses words carelessly disregarding for meanings
wean:
- to cause a child or a young animal to get accustomed gradually to food other than its mother's milk
- to detach gradually from a source of dependence
elide:
leave out; suppress; omit; ignore; to strike out, e.g. some word written; slur over, e.g. a vowel, syllable, etc. (Example: "Did you know that dragons elide riders' names?" [Reference: The Chronicles of Pern written by Anne McCaffrey])
elide:
leave out; suppress; omit; ignore; to strike out, e.g. some word written; slur over, e.g. a vowel, syllable, etc. (Example: "Did you know that dragons elide riders' names?" [Reference: The Chronicles of Pern written by Anne McCaffrey])
ewe - a female sheep especially when mature
drudge:
- a person who does hard, menial, tedious, or unpleasant work
- to do hard, menial, tedious, or unpleasant work
- to force to do hard, menial, tedious, or unpleasant work
sabotage:
- destruction of property or obstruction of normal operations in time of war
- destruction of an employer's equipments, tools and materials or hindering of production by discontented workers
hoodlum: a gangster; a thug; a ruffian
yowl:
- to utter a loud and long mournful cry of grief or distress; wail
- to complain with yowls
raver: a person who frequently speaks wildly and irrationally
sempre: always; used in music directions as without varying
turmoil: a state of extreme commotion; tumult
oblivion: the state of forgetting or being forgotten (Example: "Oblivion is a kind of annihilation." [Reference: The Life Of Johnson book])
pooh bah: a pompous ostentatious official especially one that holds many offices and jobs but fulfills none of them
epigrammatic: relating to or resembling an epigram; where an epigram is a short, witty poem expressing a single thought or observation, as an example the following is an epigram by John Donne entitled as A Lame Beggar:
I am unable, yonder beggar cries,
To stand, or move; if he say true, he lies.
topsy-turvy:
- with the head downward; upside down; in a reversed condition
- in confusion or disorder
beleaguerment:
- surrounding with troops; besiege
- harassment
algorithm:
- a step by step procedure to solve a problem
- a set of instructions for solving a problem on a computer in a finite number of steps
lexicon: dictionary; a dictionary especially for of an ancient language
vex: disturb; annoy (Eample: "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. [Reference: The White Company book])
maim: to deprive of a necessary part of the body; cripple (Example: I couldn't, didn't, couldn't believe that Ellis could maim - and effectively kill - a child's pony and three young racehorses. [Reference: Come To Grief book])
womanizer:
- a man who philanders
- to be sexually promiscuous with women
- to make effeminate
duad: pair; couple; unit of two objects
downtrodden: figuratively oppressed; subjugated (Example: He is not a spokesman for the downtrodden, much less those who seek just solutions to real dilemmas [Reference: America and the War by Tony Judt])
oodles: - a great quantity; a great amount; lots; an unspecified large number (Example: I just met her this morning and I could already think of oodles of stuff that I wanted to tell her about.)
foreknowlege: - prescience - awareness of something before its existence or occurrence
looby: someone awkward and clumsy
novemdecillion: The number equal to 1060; one with 60 zeros
foolhardy: heady, reckless
goo goo:
- loving (mostly used in the phrase: goo-goo eyes)
- an advocate of a political reform movement
umpirage: mediation by an umpire; the act of umpiring; refereeing
vorticity:
- the state of a fluid in swirling or vortical motion
- a measure of vortical motions
quackery:
- charlatanism
- medical practice and advice based on observation and experience and ignoring scientific findings
mooch:
- ask for and get free as being a parasite
- someone who cadges and tries to get something free
ultramundane: being beyond the world or the limits of the universe
almsgiving: something such as money, food, etc. given freely to relieve the poor
lorn: desolate; forsaken
idiographic: relating to or concerned with concrete or unique
facts or events
cade: left by its mother and reared by hand (e.g. a cade lamb)
zoolatry: animal worship
baksheesh: munificence (baksheesh is originally a Persian word)
kabbalah (variant of cabala):
- a medieval and modern system of Jewish theosophy, mysticism and thaumaturgy marked by belief in creation through emanation and a cipher method of interpreting Scripture
- a traditional esoteric matter
- esoteric doctrine or mysterious art
cabala:
- a medieval and modern system of Jewish theosophy, mysticism and thaumaturgy marked by belief in creation through emanation and a cipher method of interpreting Scripture
- a traditional esoteric matter
- esoteric doctrine or mysterious art
iconoclast:
- someone who destroys religious images or opposes their veneration
- someone who attacks settled beliefs or institutions
amulet: a small object worn to ward off evil, harm, or illness or to bring
good fortune
balk: to refuse abruptly
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
noun
- a ridge of land left unplowed as a dividing line or through carelessness
- a hindrance
- a ridge between furrows
- a wooden beam or rafter
- failure of a player to complete a motion, especially an illegal motion of the pitcher
in baseball while in position
intransitive verb
- to refuse abruptly [is used with 'at'] (e.g. He balked at putting up the promised
money)
- to stop and refuse to proceed
- to commit a balk in sports
transitive verb
- to check or stop by or as if by an obstacle
artiodactyl: having an even number of toes on each foot (as
camel or pig)
neuston: minute organisms that float in the surface film of water
vatic:
- of or related to a prophet or a prophecy
- prophetic
gelid: extremely cold, icy
litany:
- a liturgical prayer consisting of a series of petitions recited by a leader alternating
with fixed responses by the congregation
- a repetitive or incantatory recital
rorqual: any of a family of large baleen whales having the skin of
the throat marked with deep longitudinal furrows
endocarp: the inner, usually woody, layer of the pericarp of a
fruit, such as the stone of a cherry or peach
pedantic:
- like a pedant, overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning
- being showy of one’s knowledge, often in a boring manner
- being finicky or picky with language
euphemism: the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive
expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant
derision:
- the use of ridicule or scorn to show contempt
- an object of ridicule or scorn
doppelganger (Doppelgänger): the ghostly double of a living
person
subintelligitur:
- something that is implied even though not expressed
- something that is not stated but understood
endemic: native to a particular region
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
adjective
- constantly present in a particular region
- native to a particular country, nation, or region
noun
- an endemic organism
pneuma: - soul - spirit
interdigitate: to become interlocked like the fingers of folded
hands
nanocephalous: having abnormally small head
firmament: - the arch of the sky - the heavens
magniloquent: bombastic in style or expression
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
adjective
- speaking by a bombastic style or manner
- characterized by a bombastic style or manner
- inflated in style or expression
- pompous in style or expression
sapid: - having a strong pleasant flavor - pleasing to the mind
lumpen: one cut off from his/her normal socioeconomic class
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
adjective
- relating to displaced people who have been cut off from the socioeconomic class
with which they would ordinarily be identified (e.g. lumpen intellectuals unable to
find jobs in their fields)
- plebeian
- stupid
- unthinking
noun
- a member of the uneducated lowest class of society
socioeconomic: relating to, or involving both economic and
social factors
gadabout: one roaming about in search of amusement or social
activity
languor: mental or physical weariness or fatigue
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
noun
- mental or physical weariness or fatigue
- physical or mental laziness or weariness
- weakness or weariness of body or mind
- listless indolence
- indolence of one satiated by a luxury life
obtrude: to impose oneself or one's idea on others without
request
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
transitive verb
- to impose oneself or one's idea without request
- to force oneself or one's idea without warrant or invitation
- to thrust out
intransitive verb
- to become unduly prominent
- to interfere unduly
- to intrude
exemplar: one that serves as a model or example
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
noun
- one that serves as a model or example
- a copy of a book or writing
- a model to be copied
- a model to be imitated
- a pattern to be copied
- a pattern to be imitated
- a typical or standard specimen
- an ideal model or type
penchant: - a strong liking - a strong inclination
incongruous: - not harmonious - inconsistent
precarious: dependent on circumstances beyond one's control
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
adjective
- depending on the will or pleasure of another
- dependent on uncertain premises
- dubious
- having insufficient foundation (a precarious belief)
esoteric: intended only for a particular group
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
adjective
- limited to a small circle
- private
- confidential (an esoteric target)
- of rare interest (esoteric construction materials)
vexatious: distressing
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
adjective
- full of stress
- full of disorder
- full of annoyance
- causing vexation
- annoying
- intended to vex
- intended to annoy
pecuniary: monetary
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
adjective
- relating to money
- consisting of or measured in money
- requiring payment of money (e.g. a pecuniary offense)
propitious: presenting favorable conditions
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
adjective
- favorable
- being a good omen
- auspicious
- benevolent
chicanery: deception by trickery or sophistry
jocund: merry
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
adjective
- full of high-spirited merriment
- marked by high spirits
- marked by lively mirthfulness
- of a humorous temperament
- showing high-spirited merriment
languish: to be or become feeble
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
intransitive verb
- to be or become feeble
- to be or become weak
- to be or become enervated
- to be or live in a state of depression
- to be or live in a state of decreasing vitality
- to lose strength or vigor
machination: a crafty action intended to accomplish a sinister
end
surcease: to desist from action
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
1. intransitive verb
- to desist from action
- to come to an end
- to cease
- to stop
2. transitive verb
- to put an end to
- to discontinue
3. noun
- cessation
- a temporary respite or end
- intermission
chapfallen: cast down in spirit
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
adjective
- dejected
- downhearted
- crestfallen
- depressed
heliolatry: worship of the sun
wrangle: to dispute something angrily
----------------------
Detailed Definition:
1. intransitive verb
- to dispute angrily, noisily or peevishly
- to engage in argument or controversy
- to quarrel noisily or angrily
2. transitive verb
- to win or obtain by argument
- to herd livestock, especially horses
3. noun
- the act of wrangling
- an angry, noisy dispute or argument