Recently Added Articles Page #115

harbinger - vocabulary

nounOne who or that which foreruns and announces the coming of any person or thing; anything that foreshadows a coming thing or event. Now the bright morning star, day’s harbinger, Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her The flow’ry May, ...

heinous - vocabulary

adjectiveOdious, hateful, totally reprehensible. If you commit a big crime then you are crazy, and the more heinous the crime the crazier you must be. Therefore you are not responsible, and nothing is your fault.—Peggy Noonan What I Saw at the Revo...

homogeneous - vocabulary

adjectiveComposed of elements or parts of the same kind; essentially alike. Israel's new deputy prime minister on Sunday called for a near-total separation between Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land, sparking a wave of condemnation less than a week afte...

hoodwink - vocabulary

verbTo deceive, trick, cheat, swindle. British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran.—Tim Shipman, Phil...

icon, iconoclast - vocabulary

nounIcon: An image, picture, likeness, or representation; an enduring symbol; a person who is the object of devotion or attention. In the computer world, a graphical image or symbol on a screen that represents an underlying file or program. “Grille...

idiosyncrasy - vocabulary

nounA characteristic, mental quality, or habit peculiar to an individual or group. “What’s to be done? Here’s the cottage, taking one time with another, will produce, say seventy pounds a year. I think we may safely put it down at that. Well!�...

imbroglio - vocabulary

nounA misunderstanding or disagreement attended by ill feeling, perplexity, or strife. In 1807, the US government implemented the Embargo Act. This decree, which closed American ports to foreign trade and prevented US ships from leaving those ports, ...

immutable - vocabulary

adjectiveUnchangeable; not subject or susceptible to change. Despite the promised "new direction for America," getting the money out of politics and all of that, some facts of Washington life appear immutable and eternal."One hundred hours to make th...

impalpable - vocabulary

adjectiveIncapable of being perceived by the sense of touch; intangible; difficult for the mind to grasp easily or readily, as in impalpable distinctions. This name [Virginia Woolf] springs to one's mind because Miss [Nadine] Gordimer is a writer who...

impecunious - vocabulary

adjectiveHaving little or no money; penniless; poor. He was an eccentric, disheveled, toothless and impecunious lifelong bachelor, an amateur poet and musician and an autodidact able to converse knowledgeably with experts in many different fields. An...

impervious - vocabulary

adjectiveImpenetrable, as in impervious to rain; incapable of being injured or impaired, as in impervious to wear and tear; incapable of being persuaded, influenced, or affected, as in impervious to another person’s suffering. Over the past several...

implicate, implicit - vocabulary

verbImplicate: to show to be also involved, usually in an incriminating manner, as in He was implicated in the crime; to imply as a necessary circumstance, or as something to be inferred or understood; to connect or relate to intimately; affect as a ...

importune - vocabulary

verbTo beset with solicitations, to demand with urgency; to beg for something urgently. When Benedict comes to the United States, he is likely to be importuned by conservative Catholics to side with the hard-liners. He would be wiser to listen to oth...

improvident - vocabulary

adjectiveLacking foresight; incautious; neglecting to provide for future needs. In the House of Representatives late this afternoon a sensational appeal was made by Representative John J. Fitzgerald of New York to vote against improvident and imprope...

impugn - vocabulary

verbTo challenge as false, cast doubt upon. “This was a great N.Y.P.D. officer who dedicated himself—put his life in harm’s way hundreds of times during his career—and you can use your own definition,” Mr. [Michael R.] Bloomberg said at a n...

impute - vocabulary

verbTo ascribe or attribute, as in She imputed special powers to the new software program. Kings are much to be pitied, who, misled by weak ministers, and deceived by wicked favourites, run into political errors, which involve their families in ruin:...

inane - vocabulary

adjectiveLacking sense, ideas, or significance; silly; empty or void. Anna made no answer. The conductor and her two fellow-passengers did not notice under her veil her panic-stricken face. She went back to her corner and sat down. The couple seated ...

inanimate - vocabulary

adjectiveLacking the qualities associated with living organisms; sluggish, dull. “Do you call that happiness—the ownership of human beings?” cried Miss Stackpole. “He owns his tenants, and he has thousands of them. It is pleasant to own somet...

inchoate - vocabulary

adjectiveNot yet completed or fully developed; just begun, incipient; not organized, lacking order. Until an employee has earned his retirement pay, or until the time arrives when he may retire, his retirement pay is but an inchoate right; but when t...

incipient - vocabulary

adjectiveBeginning to appear or exist, in an initial stage, as in an incipient disease. [Brent] Scowcroft predicted "an incipient civil war" would grip Iraq and said the best hope for pulling the country from chaos would be to turn the U.S. operation...

indolent - vocabulary

adjectiveLaziness; having or showing a disposition to avoid exertion or work. In pathology, causing little or no pain, as in an indolent sore slow to heal. Miss Bingley was engrossed by Mr. Darcy, her sister scarcely less so; and as for Mr. Hurst, by...

ineffable - vocabulary

adjectiveIncapable of being expressed or described in words, as in ineffable joy; not to be spoken because of its sacredness, unutterable, as in the ineffable name of the deity. He began with being a young man of promise; at Oxford he distinguished h...

inexorable - vocabulary

adjectiveUnalterable, unyielding, as in an inexorable truth; unrelenting, not to be moved, persuaded, affected by entreaties or prayers, as in an inexorable bill collector. And never has this lesson been taught with sterner and more unpitying force t...

infer, imply - vocabulary

verbInfer: to derive by reasoning, to conclude or judge from evidence or premises.Imply: to suggest or indicate a conclusion without its being explicitly stated; to involve as a necessary circumstance, as in speech implies a speaker. Note: Infer is s...

ingenuous, disingenuous - vocabulary

adjectiveIngenuous: candid, frank, or open in character or quality; characterized by an inability to mask feelings, not devious.Disingenuous: the dis- prefix establishes the negative; thus, not candid, not frank, not open in character or quality; ins...