Recently Added Articles Page #121

recluse - vocabulary

nounOne who lives in seclusion, often for religious meditation.Note: The adjective form is either recluse or reclusive. Henry David Thoreau and Charles Darwin form both a spectacular comparison and contrast. Both Thoreau and Darwin were voyagers. One...

redolent - vocabulary

adjectiveSmelling sweet and agreeable; also, suggestive or reminiscent.Note: The word redolent is often followed by the preposition of. They are very proper forest houses, the stems of the trees collected together and piled up around a man to keep ou...

redoubtable - vocabulary

adjectiveArousing awe or fear, formidable; commanding respect or reverence. In "Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King," Brooklyn College film historian Foster Hirsch weaves interviews with industry players and family members into a straightforwar...

regale - vocabulary

verbTo entertain agreeably or lavishly, with food or drink; delight.Note: The word regale also acts as a noun, as in steaks were grilled for the regale of the guests. Going along the narrow path to a little uncut meadow covered on one side with thick...

relegate - vocabulary

verbTo send off or consign to an inferior position or remote destination; to assign or commit a task to a person; to banish or exile. Children need people in order to become human . . . . It is primarily through observing, playing, and working wi...

remiss - vocabulary

adjectiveNegligent, slow, careless in performing a task or duty; also, languid, sluggish. Perhaps this hut has never been required to shelter a shipwrecked man, and the benevolent person who promised to inspect it annually, to see that the straw and ...

repertory - vocabulary

nounA place where things are stored or gathered together, a collection; also, a type of theatrical presentation in which the theater group presents several works. Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 pl...

replete - vocabulary

adjectiveFull to the uttermost, abundantly provided or supplied, filled with; complete, as in a legal brief replete in its citations to authority. The highway is replete with culinary land mines disguised as quaint local restaurants that carry such r...

repute - vocabulary

nounEstimation in the view of others; reputation, as in a house of ill repute.verbTo believe a person or thing to be as specified; to regard.Note: The verb form repute usually appears in the passive voice, as in he was reputed to be quite wealthy. Wo...

requisite - vocabulary

nounA required thing, something necessary or indispensable.adjectiveNecessary or required for a particular purpose, as in the requisite skills. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in this professio...

respite - vocabulary

nounInterval of rest; a delay or cessation of anything trying or distressing. Whatever choice Elizabeth Bouvia may ultimately make, I can only hope that her courage, persistence and example will cause our society to deal realistically with the plight...

resplendent - vocabulary

adjectiveVery bright, shining brightly, gleaming, splendid, as in the dancers resplendent in their native costumes. In the luxuriance of a bowl of grapes set out in ritual display, in a bottle of wine, the soil and sunshine of California reached mill...

reticence, reticent - vocabulary

nounReticence: the quality of habitually keeping silent or being reserved in utterance.adjectiveReticent: disposed to be silent or reserved. Ted had come down from the University for the week-end. Though he no longer spoke of mechanical engineering a...

retroactive - vocabulary

adjectiveOperative on, affecting, or having reference to past events, transactions, responsibilities; pertaining to a pay raise effective in the past. In June, the Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the documents underlying the warrantless surveillance p...

retrospective - vocabulary

nounAn exhibition of art or performance of works produced by an artist or composer over time.adjectiveDirected to past events or situations; looking backward, looking back on. The university must be retrospective. The gale that gives direction to the...

revile - vocabulary

verbTo address or speak of with abuse; vilify, berate, disparage. You shall not revile God, or curse a leader of your people. —Exodus 22:28Old Testament...

rife - vocabulary

adjectiveOf frequent or common occurrence; in widespread existence, prevalent, use, or activity; abundant, numerous, plentiful. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one a...

ruminate - vocabulary

verbTo chew over again, as food previously swallowed and regurgitated; to meditate about, ponder. Let's start with their explication of depression, which has metastasized in the West over the past two generations. Victims can see that Griffin and Tyr...

sagacious - vocabulary

adjectiveAble to discern and distinguish with wise perception; having a keen practical sense. What arouses the indignation of the honest satirist is not, unless the man is a prig, the fact that people in positions of power or influence behave idiotic...

salient - vocabulary

adjectiveConspicuous or prominent; projecting or pointing outward; springing, jumping. Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, and its salient virtuosi a gang of u...

salutary - vocabulary

adjectivePromoting or favorable to health, healthful; promoting some beneficial purpose, wholesome; designed to effect improvement. Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment. The system of universal education is in our ag...

sanctimonious - vocabulary

adjectiveMaking an ostentatious display or hypocritical pretense of holiness, piety, or righteousness. Recently, I boarded a flight from Boston to New York. As I sat down, the attendant announced that the flight was scheduled to take less than two ho...

sanguine - vocabulary

adjectiveOptimistic (and cheerfully so), hopeful, confident; reddish, ruddy.Note: Do not confuse sanguine with sanguinary. Sanguinary means “bloodthirsty” or “accompanied by bloodshed.”How did two seemingly different meanings arise? According...

sardonic - vocabulary

adjectiveScornfully or bitterly sarcastic, mocking, cynical, sneering. Freud, Jung thought, had been a great discoverer of facts about the mind, but far too inclined to leave the solid ground of “critical reason and common sense.” Freud for his p...

satiate - vocabulary

verbTo satisfy fully the appetite or desire of; to satisfy to excess. I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.—Jean-Paul Sartre The Devi...