Word of the Week: prescient (PRĔSH-ənt)

2023-11-08T16:45:56-05:00

Word of the Week: prescient (PRĔSH-ənt) Definition (Adjective) Having foreknowledge or foresight; foreseeing. In Context “In 1984, written in 1948, George Orwell left a prescient description of the sort of totalitarian architecture that would soon dominate the Communist bloc, imposing and hideous: the Ministry of Truth, an ‘enormous, pyramidal structure of white concrete, soaring up terrace after terrace, three hundred metres into the air . . .’” Ben Macintyre, “Look on Those Monuments to Megalomania, and Despair,” The Times, March 30, 2007.

Word of the Week: prescient (PRĔSH-ənt)2023-11-08T16:45:56-05:00

Word of the Week: pergola (PÛR-gə-lə)

2023-11-08T16:44:48-05:00

Word of the Week: pergola (PÛR-gə-lə) Definition (Noun) An arbour; a covered walk or shelter (usually in a garden), especially one formed of growing plants trained over a (usually wooden or metal) framework; this framework itself. Also: a small open-sided shelter or sunshade usually consisting of a roof supported on columns. In Context "At the end of the garden there was a place – a pergola dense with briar rose, and behind it a fir where there would be shade from the hot yellow light." Paul Scott, The Day of the Scorpion, 1968.

Word of the Week: pergola (PÛR-gə-lə)2023-11-08T16:44:48-05:00

Word of the Week: innuendo (ĭn-yōō-ĔN-dō)

2023-11-08T16:42:39-05:00

Word of the Week: innuendo (ĭn-yōō-ĔN-dō) Definition (Noun) An oblique hint, indirect suggestion; an allusive remark concerning a person or thing, especially one of a depreciatory kind. In Context "The Grimms' transformation of a tale replete with sexual innuendo into a prim and proper nursery story with a dutiful daughter is almost as striking as the folkloric metamorphosis of frog into prince." Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, Second Edition, 2003.

Word of the Week: innuendo (ĭn-yōō-ĔN-dō)2023-11-08T16:42:39-05:00

Word of the Week: trundle (TRŬN-dl)

2023-10-31T15:21:31-04:00

Word of the Week: trundle (TRŬN-dl) Definition (Verb) To draw or push along on a wheel or wheels, as a wheelbarrow, vehicle, etc. In Context “On more than one such hopeless night we had to load him into a wheelbarrow and trundle him down the hill to his bed, dumping him onto it like a load of bricks, him all the while snarling and snoring and muttering about bad things sure to happen.” Kim Stanley Robinson, Galileo’s Dream, 2009.

Word of the Week: trundle (TRŬN-dl)2023-10-31T15:21:31-04:00

Word of the Week: inchoate (ĭn-KŌ-ĭt)

2023-09-11T14:28:14-04:00

Word of the Week: inchoate (ĭn-KŌ-ĭt) Definition (Adjective) Just begun, incipient; in an initial or early stage; hence elementary, imperfect, undeveloped, immature. In Context “In black America, cultural conservatism takes the form of an inchoate xenophobia (e.g., against whites, Jews, and Asians), systemic sexism, and homophobia.” Cornel West, Race Matters, 1993.

Word of the Week: inchoate (ĭn-KŌ-ĭt)2023-09-11T14:28:14-04:00

Word of the Week: confabulate (kən-FĂB-yə-lāt)

2023-09-11T12:36:17-04:00

Word of the Week: confabulate (kən-FĂB-yə-lāt) Definition (Verb) To talk familiarly together, converse, chat. In Context "In the large room, where several different groups had been formed, and the hum of voices and of laughter was loud, these two young persons might confabulate, as the Doctor phrased it to himself, without attracting attention." Henry James, Washington Square, 1880.

Word of the Week: confabulate (kən-FĂB-yə-lāt)2023-09-11T12:36:17-04:00

Word of the Week: bonhomie (bŏn-ə-MĒ)

2023-09-11T12:34:16-04:00

Word of the Week: bonhomie (bŏn-ə-MĒ) Definition (Noun) Good nature; the quality of being a good fellow. In Context "Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress emerged from their first budget meeting with President Obama at the White House at midday Friday and, in a rare show of bipartisan bonhomie, jointly expressed confidence that the two parties will reach an agreement before the end of the year to avert economy-rattling tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts." Jackie Calmes, "At White House, Top Lawmakers Say They Expect Budget Deal," The New York Times, November 16, 2012.

Word of the Week: bonhomie (bŏn-ə-MĒ)2023-09-11T12:34:16-04:00

Word of the Week: misanthrope (MĬS-ən-thrōp)

2023-09-11T12:22:58-04:00

Word of the Week: misanthrope (MĬS-ən-thrōp) Definition (Noun) A hater of mankind; a person who distrusts and avoids other people. In Context "To be introduced to Jennings and not be taken with his affability, his earnest good nature, you would have to be a misanthrope." Mark Singer, Funny Money, 1985.

Word of the Week: misanthrope (MĬS-ən-thrōp)2023-09-11T12:22:58-04:00

Word of the Week: polymath (PŎL-ē-măth)

2023-09-11T12:18:50-04:00

Word of the Week: polymath (PŎL-ē-măth) Definition (Noun) A person of great or varied learning; a person acquainted with many fields of study; an accomplished scholar. In Context "Possibly the last true polymath, von Neumann made a brilliant career – half a dozen brilliant careers – by plunging fearlessly and frequently into any area where highly abstract mathematical thought could provide fresh insights." Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind: A Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, 1994, 1998.  

Word of the Week: polymath (PŎL-ē-măth)2023-09-11T12:18:50-04:00

Word of the Week: tonsorial (tahn-SOR-ee-ul)

2023-05-08T11:24:05-04:00

Word of the Week: tonsorial (tahn-SOR-ee-ul) Definition Of or relating to a barber or the work of a barber In Context "Once again Ryan's Barber Shop and Shaving Parlor … provided the tonsorial team the chairs and the needed supplies for the men to sit down and get their faces cleaned up or hair trimmed." Steve Moran, The Asbury Park (New Jersey) Press, 6 Dec. 2018  

Word of the Week: tonsorial (tahn-SOR-ee-ul)2023-05-08T11:24:05-04:00
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