Definition (Verb) To render incomplete, imperfect, or faulty; to impair or spoil. In Context "Or so I argued against Arendt's view which, if put into practice, would surely vitiate what she hoped to invigorate and purify." Michael G. Gottsegen, The Political Thought of Hannah Arendt, 1994.
Definition (Noun) A wreath for the head, usually a garland of flowers or leaves, also of gold, precious stones, etc.; a circlet, coronal. In Context "A chaplet of fresh white dog roses and columbine crowned her brow and her cloak was pinned with a beautiful brooch of delicate blue enamel work." Elizabeth Chadwick, A Place Beyond Courage, 2007.
Definition (Noun) A breach of continuity; an interval, pause, vacant space. In Context "For about fifteen years there was an interregnum in English literature, which makes a convenient division between the great men of the Napoleonic era and the great Victorians." William Ralph Inge, The Victorian Age, 1922.
Definition (Noun) A timid, submissive, or ineffectual person, a milksop. In Context "Soft-spoken, fastidious, a bird-watcher in his off-hours, Cramp struck some as a bit of a milquetoast." Pope Brock, Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam, 2008.
Definition (Noun) An instrument for telling the hour; a timepiece; a dial, hour-glass, or clock. In Context "Carlyle often mused on the strange fact that the clock strikes to mark the change from hour to hour but no hammer in the horologe of time peals through the universe to announce the change from era to era." Max Freedman, "Much Sensible Advice Available for New Year If One Will Take It," Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1964.
Definition (Noun) The quality of having a pleasant sound; the pleasing effect of sounds free from harshness; chiefly with reference to combinations of words in sentences, or of phonetic elements in spoken words. In Context "When a prime minister starts talking with relish about iron and blood (the phrase was later – perhaps, for euphony – turned round to read 'blood and iron') in his second speech in office and in connection with the rectification of his country's frontiers it is only fair to take him seriously." Edward Crankshaw, Bismarck, 1981. This word was suggested by Jeff Bergman in the Office [...]
Definition (Verb) To chastise, correct, inflict corrective punishment on; to subdue by punishment or discipline, to chasten; now usually, to punish or rebuke severely. In Context "Most groups – ethnic or religious, national, clan, or tribe – think of themselves as good and worthy, and they tend to castigate their own members who might question these assumptions." John Borneman, Political Crime and the Memory of Loss, 2011.
Definition (Adjective) Boisterous, turbulent; unruly. In Context "The man who emerges from this book is rumbustious, challenging, infuriating, childish yet utterly grown-up, at times short-tempered, at times possessing an almost visionary generosity of spirit." Roger Mosey, "King of America," The Guardian, April 6, 2002.
Definition (Noun) A low soft sound as of whispering or muttering; a whisper; a rustling. In Context "Presently our faithful blackbird will try out a splash of liquid notes in the dimmened and newly oppressive air, and then will come the first and faintest susurrus of rain, like the sound of a blind man's fingers reading braille." John Banville, The Infinities, 2010.
Definition (Noun) A charlatan, a person who falsely claims knowledge of or skill in some matter, especially for personal gain; a person who pretends to be something he or she is not, in order to gain prestige, fame, etc. In Context "Whether patriot or scoundrel, military mountebank or tactical genius, epic hero or unwelcome ghost of a repressive society best forgotten, he remains what he always was: a fascinating story and a fascinating storyteller who must be approached obliquely, stalked with the same guerrilla tactics that he made famous during the Civil War." Paul Ashdown and Edward Caudill, The Mosby Myth: [...]
