Recently Added Articles Page #122

scurrilous - vocabulary

adjectiveGrossly abusive; expressed in coarse, vulgar language. Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the c...

sibilant - vocabulary

adjectiveCharacterized by a hissing sound; in phonetics, noting sounds like those spelled with s, sh, z, zh, as in a sibilant consonant.nounSibilant speech sound. When anybody entered the room, she uttered a shshshsh so sibilant and ominous, that it ...

simile - vocabulary

nounA figure of speech in which two dissimilar things are explicitly compared, often introduced with like or as, as in she runs like the wind. Simile and Metaphor differ only in degree of stylistic refinement. The Simile, in which a comparison is mad...

similitude - vocabulary

nounSimilarity, likeness, resemblance; a person or thing that is the match or like another. When he had a mind to penetrate into the inclinations of those he had to deal with, he composed his face, his gesture, and his whole body, as nearly as he cou...

solecism - vocabulary

nounA nonstandard or ungrammatical usage, as in There’s lots of cars on the road.A solecism can also refer to a social impropriety, especially in British English. “This [feeding fruitcake to the royal corgis] is always regarded as an unforgivable...

somnolent - vocabulary

adjectiveTending to produce sleep; drowsy, sleepy. Gringoire, stunned by his fall, lay prone upon the pavement in front of the image of Our Lady at the corner of the street. By slow degrees his senses returned, but for some moments he lay in a kind o...

sophistry - vocabulary

nounA false, tricky but plausible argument understood to be such by the speaker himself and intentionally used to deceive.  . . . that phrase of mischievous sophistry, “all men are born free and equal.” This false and futile axiom, which has d...

stolid - vocabulary

adjectiveRevealing or having little emotion or sensibility; impassive; unemotional. The Indian sat on the front seat, saying nothing to anybody, with a stolid expression of face, as if barely awake to what was going on. Again I was struck by the pecu...

stultify - vocabulary

verbTo give an appearance of foolishness to; to render wholly futile or ineffectual, usually in a degrading or frustrating way. A calm virility and a dreamy humor, marked contrasts to her level-headedness—into these moods she slipped sometimes as a...

suasion - vocabulary

nounThe act of urging, advising, or persuading; an instance of persuasion. All gentle cant and philosophizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in this world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immu...

subjugate - vocabulary

verbTo bring under total control or subjection; to conquer, master, or enslave. To ask strength not to express itself as strength, not to be a will to dominate, a will to subjugate, a will to become master, a thirst for enemies and obstacles and triu...

substantive - vocabulary

adjectiveBelonging to the real nature of a thing, essential; possessing substance, having practical importance. In law, substantive pertains to provisions of law dealing with rights and duties, as distinguished from procedural provisions, which dicta...

subterfuge - vocabulary

nounA device or conduct used to evade a rule, escape a consequence, or hide a course of conduct; something used to hide the true nature of conduct or event. Men felt a chill in their hearts; a damp in their minds. In a desperate effort to snuggle the...

supercilious - vocabulary

adjectiveExhibiting haughty, arrogant contempt or superiority for those considered unworthy. In a quick turn of her head, in a frank look, a boyish pout, in that proud glance from lowered lids, so pitying and yet so distant that in others it would be...

superfluous - vocabulary

adjectiveBeing more than is needed or sufficient; excess. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.—Henry David Thoreau “Conclusion” Walden (1854)...

supplant - vocabulary

verbTo force out another, through strategy or schemes; to take the place of. Socialists propose to supplant the competitive planning of capitalism with a highly centralized planned economy. Our aim is frankly international and not narrowly patriotic ...

supposition - vocabulary

nounConjecture, assumption; something that is supposed; an opinion based on incomplete evidence. Another and far more important reason than the delivery of a pair of embroidered gloves impelled Hester, at this time, to seek an interview with a person...

surfeit - vocabulary

nounExcess, an excessive amount, as in a surfeit of political speeches; overindulgence in eating and drinking; general disgust caused by excess.verbTo supply with anything to excess; to feed to fullness or satiety. At banquets surfeit not, but fill; ...

surrogate - vocabulary

nounA person appointed to act for another, a deputy; a substitute; a surrogate mother. In law, in some states, a surrogate is a judicial officer charged with probating wills and administering estates.As an adjective, regarded as, or acting as, a surr...

sycophant - vocabulary

nounA servile flatterer, especially of those in authority or influence; a fawning parasite. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenie...

tableau - vocabulary

nounA picture, of a scene; a vivid description; an arrangement of inanimate figures representing a scene from real life, all costumed and posed. In a play, a time in a scene when all actors freeze and then resume the action. The simple tableau is so ...

tacit - vocabulary

adjectiveUnderstood, without being expressed; implied, as in a tacit agreement; silent, as in a tacit partner. In all conversation between two persons, tacit reference is made, as to a third party, to a common nature. That third party or common natur...

taciturn - vocabulary

adjectiveDisinclined to conversation; reserved in speech; not talkative. Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn.—Paul Klee The Diaries of Paul Klee (1965)...

tangible - vocabulary

adjectivePerceptible by touch; material or substantial; real, actual, not imaginary, not vague.Note: A tangible asset is something you can see and touch and, you hope, sell. Examples include gold bars, silver coins, houses, and land. “Collecting as...

tantamount - vocabulary

adjectiveEquivalent to (but not the same as), amounts to, might as well be the same as. Most women of [the World War II] generation have but one image of good motherhood—the one their mothers embodied. . . . Anything done “for the sake of the ...