1041 Extraordinary, Unique, and Rare English Words Advance Your Language Level, Expand Your Vocabulary, and Impress Your Examiners!

INTRODUCTION

1041 rare, unique and extraordinary English words!

Words that distinguish themselves from the herd, conveying a special and unique sense upon their use; words that impress even the most educated native speakers! Use them in your written word or daily conversations and cast a most special dimension in human interaction. Use them even in your English exams to impress the examiners and successfully pass any English exam…

The material of the collection is derived from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a legendary resource and online English dictionary provider, part of Encyclopedia Britannica Company. The whole project constitutes a painstaking effort of collecting them on the part of the editor, word by word, day in and day out, for more than 5 years.

All words are presented with their grammatical nature, meaning, example sentences, accompanied with a more than interesting and beautiful part of Did you know paragraph, explaining their origin. You’ll be pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised to know that a great deal of these words is not… English at all! In all likelihood, you’ll be amazed at the richness, variety and abundance of linguistic interactions through the centuries and the etymological journey each word made to arrive at this epoch!

According to official studies, any language is a high frequency content. The more active one becomes in language issues the more he/she increases his/her brain energy frequency! Particularly in English, 1000 words cover 85% of anything a native speaker is going to say in daily communication; 3000 words give 98% of anything you’re going to say in daily conversation; accordingly, if you got 3000 words you’re speaking the language! The rest is icing on the cake!

How about now mastering 1041 beautiful and unique words and put the icing on the cake? How about increasing your brain frequency by indulging in this unique collection of rare words?

If you really want to advance in English and add a picturesque and eloquent dimension in your writing or oral speech, here’s your chance to initiate yourself with a set of 1041 unique words. A package of lexical quality suitable for any individual on the planet who wishes to qualitatively advance his/her linguistic level, and not only this!

Exploit them and pass the test of life!

To your success

Georgios Athanasiou

Cpn (Rt)

metonymy   \muh-TAH-nuh-mee\   noun

     : a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated

Example sentence: American journalists employ metonymy whenever they say the White House in place of the president and his administration.

Did you know?

     When Mark Antony asks the people of Rome to lend him their ears in William Shakespeare's play _Julius Caesar_, he is employing the rhetorical device known as metonymy. Derived via Latin from the Greek metonymia (from meta-, meaning among, with, after and onyma, meaning name), metonymy often appears in news articles and headlines, such as when journalists use the term crown to refer to a king or queen. Another common example is the use of an author's name to refer to works written by that person, as in He is studying Hemingway. Metonymy is closely related to synecdoche, which refers to the naming of a part of something to refer to the whole thing (or vice versa), as in We hired extra hands to help us.

chicanery   \shih-KAY-nuh-ree\   noun

    *1: deception by artful subterfuge or sophistry: trickery

     2: a piece of sharp practice (as at law): trick

3: clever, dishonest talk or behavior which is used to deceive people

Example sentence: The or's spokeswoman quickly denied the charges of nepotism, financial indiscretions, and political chicanery.

Did you know?

     We have hardly any words that do so fully express the French clinquant, naivete... chicaneries. So lamented English writer John Evelyn in a letter to Sir Peter Wyche in 1665. Evelyn and Wyche were members of a group called the Royal Society, which had formed a committee emulating the French Academy for the purpose of improving the English language. We can surmise that, in Evelyn's estimation, the addition of chicanery to English from French was an improvement. What he apparently didn't realize was that English speakers had adopted the word from the French chicanerie before he wished for it; the term appears in English manuscripts dating from 1609. Similarly, clinquant (glittering with gold or tinsel) dates from 1591. Naivete, on the other hand, waited until 1673

mugwump   \MUG-wump\   noun

     1: a bolter from the Republican Party in 1884

    *2: a person who is independent in politics or who remains

undecided or neutral

Example sentence: Campaigning heated up in the swing states as the election approached, both sides making a last bid for the mugwump vote.

Did you know?

     An 18th-century Massachusett Indian might not recognize his people's word for war leader if he saw it used today. In early America, mugwump, our version of the Native

American mugquomp, was sometimes jestingly applied to someone who was the head guy. The first political mugwumps were Republicans in the presidential race of 1884 that chose to support Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland rather than their own party's nominee. Their independence prompted one 1930s humorist to define a mugwump as a bird who sits with its mug on one side of the fence and its wump on the other.

dander \DAN-der\ noun

  1 : dandruff; specifically : minute scales from hair,

feathers, or skin that be allergenic

    *2: anger, temper

Example sentence: Seeing his ex-girlfriend with another guy only a week after they broke up really got Stan's dander up.

Did you know?

     How did dander acquire its anger sense? Etymologists

have come up with a few possibilities, but nothing is known for sure. Some experts have proposed, tongue-in-cheek, that the meaning stems from the image of an angry person tearing up his or her hair by the fistful, scattering dandruff in the process. Some think it come from a West Indian word dander, which refers to a kind of ferment and suggests rising anger (in English, ferment can mean either an agent capable of causing fermentation or a state of unrest or excitement). Yet another proposed possibility is that the anger sense was imported to America by early Dutch colonists and is from their phrase op donderen, meaning to burst into a sudden rage.

itinerant   \igh-TIN-uh-runt\   adjective

     : traveling from place to place; especially: covering a circuit

Example sentence: John Steinbeck's novel, _The Grapes of Wrath_, traces the migration of itinerant farm workers from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California.

Did you know?

     In Latin, iter means way or journey. That root was the parent of the Late Latin verb itinerari, meaning to journey. It was that verb which ultimately gave rise to today's English word for traveling types: itinerant. The linguistic grandsire, iter, also contributed to the development of other words in our vocabulary, including itinerary (the route of a journey and the plan made for a journey) and errant (traveling or given to traveling).

oblivion   \uh-BLIV-ee-un\   noun

     1: the state of forgetting or having forgotten or of being

unaware or unconscious

    *2: the condition or state of being forgotten or unknown

Example sentence: When the last of his favorite author's books went out of print, Victor feared that she would fall into literary oblivion.

Did you know?

     Oblivion derived via Middle English and Anglo-French from the Latin oblivisci, which means to forget. This form have stemmed from combining ob- (in the way) and levis (smooth). In the past, oblivion has been used in reference to the River Lethe, which according to Greek myth lowed through the Underworld and induced a state of forgetfulness in anyone who drank its water. Among those who have used the word this way is the poet John Milton, who wrote in _Paradise Lost_, Farr off from these a slow and silent stream, Lethe the River of Oblivion roules her watrie Labyrinth.

matriculate   \muh-TRIK-yuh-layt\   verb

     : to enroll as a member of a body and especially of a

college or university

Example sentence: Joan and Kara matriculated together at Harvard, and they still get together at least once a year to reminisce about their

college days.

Did you know?

     Anybody who has had basic Latin knows that alma mater, a fancy term for the school you attended, comes from a phrase that means fostering mother. If mater is mother,

then matriculate probably has something to do with a school nurturing you just like good old mom, right? Not exactly. If you go back far enough, matriculate is distantly related to the

Latin mater, but its maternal associations were lost long ago.

It is more closely related to the Late Latin matricula, which

means public roll or register, and it has more to do with

being enrolled than being mothered.

slake   \SLAYK\   verb

    *1 : satisfy, quench

     2 : to cause (as lime) to heat and crumble by treatment

with water : hydrate

Example sentence: What an unspeakable luxury it was to slake that thirst with the pure and limpid ice-water of the glacier! (Mark Twain, _A Tramp Abroad_)

Did you know?

     Slake is no slacker when it comes to obsolete and archaic

meanings. Shakespearean scholars know that in the Bard's day slake meant to subside or abate (No flood by raining slaketh -- _The Rape of Lucrece_) or to lessen the force of» (It could not slake mine ire, nor ease my heart. -- Henry VI, Part 3). The most erudite word enthusiasts also are aware of earlier meanings of slake, such as to slacken one's efforts or to cause to be relaxed or loose. These early meanings recall the word's Old English ancestor sleac, which not only meant slack" but is also the source of that modern term.

ambient   \AM-bee-unt\   adjective

     : existing or present on all sides : encompassing

Example sentence: The general, or ambient, light in each gallery is enhanced by accent lights focused ... on objects or groups of objects. (Grace Glueck, _The New York Times Magazine_, 24, l982)

Did you know?

     With biologists exploring the effects of ambient light on

plants, acoustics experts trying to control ambient sound and meteorologists studying ambient pressure, air, or temperature, ambient seem like a technical term, but when it first saw light of day, that all-encompassing adjective was as likely to be used in poetry or philosophy as science. John Milton used it in _Paradise Lost_, and Alexander Pope wrote of a mountain whose tow'ring summit ambient clouds conceal'd. Both poets and scientists who use ambient owe a debt to the Latin verb ambire, meaning to go around, the grandparent of our English word.

superjacent   \soo-per-JAY-sunt\   adjective

     : lying above or upon : overlying

Example sentence: Foreign states enjoy the right of overflight in the airspace superjacent to a coastal state's 200-mile exclusive economic zone (James C. Hsiung, _The New York Times_, 14, 2001)

Did you know?

     You're probably familiar with adjacent, and if you guessed that it's a relative of superjacent, you're right. Both derive from the Latin verb jacere, meaning to lie. Adjacent, which is both the more popular and the earlier word (it first appeared in print in the 15th century, while superjacent turned up in 1610), comes from jacere and the prefix ad-, meaning near. Superjacent, on the other hand, was formed by combining jacere with the prefix super-, meaning over, above, or on top of. In case you were wondering, jacere descendants are also available for other possible configurations -- subjacent means lying below, and circumjacent means lying near on all sides or surrounding.

wraith   \RAYTH\   noun

     1 a: the exact likeness of a living person seen usually

just before death as an apparition *b: ghost, specter

     2: an insubstantial form or semblance: shadow

     3: a barely visible gaseous or vaporous column

Example sentence: As the twilight deepened, she dreaded to raise her head and look at the dark corners of the room, lest his wraith, the offspring of her excited imagination, should be waiting there, to startle her. (Charles Dickens, _Dombey and Son_)

Did you know?

     If you see your own double, you're in trouble, at least if you believe old superstitions. The belief that a ghostly twin's appearance portends death is one common to many cultures. In German folklore, such apparitions were called doppelgangers (literally, double goers); in Scottish lore, they were wraiths. The exact origin of the word wraith is misty, however. Etymologists can only trace it back to its first known use in an English text, which was a 1513 classical translation by cotsman Gawin Douglas (he used it to name apparitions of both the dead and the living). In current English, wraith has taken on additional, less spooky, meanings as well; it now often suggests a shadowy -- but not necessarily scary -- lack of substance.

juncture   \JUNK-cher\   noun

     1: joint, connection

    *2: a critical time or state of affairs

Example sentence: At this early juncture in his career, Wayne should try to learn as many new skills as he can; that way, he'll be prepared when opportunities for advancement present themselves.

Did you know?

     Some of the English words that share the same root as juncture are easy to spot, whereas others are not so obvious. Juncture derives from the Latin verb jungere (to join), which gave us not only join and junction but also conjugal (relating to marriage) and junta (a group of persons controlling a government). Jungere also has distant etymological connections to joust, jugular, juxtapose, yoga and yoke. The use of juncture in English dates back to the 14th century. Originally, the word meant a place where two or more things are joined," but by the 17th century it could also be used of a time made critical by a convergence of circumstances.

trepid   \TREP-id\   adjective

     : timorous, fearful

Example sentence: After dark, the less trepid among us would venture as far as the front porch of the empty house, where the smallest creak would send us screaming.

Did you know?

     Don't be afraid to use trepid. After all, it has been in the English language over 350 years -- longer, by 30 years, than its antonym intrepid. Trepid (from Latin trepidus, meaning alarmed or agitiated) isn't used as much as intrepid, but it can be a good word at times. Bill Kaufman, for example, found a use for it in a 7, 2000 _Newsday_ article, in which an aquarium volunteer is asked if she is perhaps a little trepid about swimming with sharks in a 12-foot deep, 120,000 gallon tank. (Her fearless reply: Not really.) The more intrepid among you might even consider using trepidate for to tremble with fear and trepidant, meaning timid, trembling. These are uncommon words, granted, but they haven't breathed their last.

ensconce   \in-SKAHNSS\   verb

      1 : shelter; conceal

     *2 : establish; settle

Example sentence: Jan was already firmly ensconced in her position at the publishing house when she met the not-yet-famous young writer.

Did you know?

       Many people might think of sconce as a type of candleholder or lamp, but the word can also refer to a defensive fortification, usually one made of earth. Originally, then, a person who was ensconced was enclosed in or concealed by such a structure, out of harm's way. The earliest writer to apply the verb ensconce to its figurative sense was William Shakespeare. In his play _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, the character Falstaff, hoping to avoid detection when he is surprised during an amorous moment with Mrs. Ford, says She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind the arras. (An arras is a tapestry or wall hanging.)

scrutinize   \SKROO-tuh-nyze\   verb

    *1 : to examine closely and minutely

     2 : to make a scrutiny

Example sentence: Signora Bernasconi scrutinized the painting, said to be by Fra Angelico, and declared it a fake.

Did you know?

     A close look at the etymology of scrutinize reveals that the word stems from the Latin verb scrutari (meaning to search or to examine), which in turn probably comes from scruta (meaning trash, or more specifically a mixture of worthwhile articles and trash). Scrutari gave us the noun scrutiny in the 15th century, a word which originally meant a formal vote and then an official examination of votes. Scrutinize retained reference to voting; with the meaning to examine votes, at least into the 18th century -- and even today in Britain a scrutineer is a person who counts votes.

tergiversation   \ter-jiv-er-SAY-shun\   noun

    *1 : evasion of straightforward action or clear-cut

statement : equivocation

     2 : desertion of a cause, position, party, or faith

Example sentence: The tergiversation of Ken's speech left his listeners confused about where he really stood on the issue.

Did you know?

     The Latin verb tergiversari means to show reluctance, and it comes from the combination of tergum, meaning back, and versare, meaning to turn. Tergiversari gave English the noun tergiversation and the verb tergiversate (to engage in tergiversation). Tergiversation is the slightly older term, having been around since at least 1570; the first known use of tergiversate dates from 1590. There's also the much rarer adjective tergiversant (tending to evade), as well as the noun tergiversator (one that tergiversates").

acumen   \uh-KYOO-mun\   noun

     : keenness and depth of perception, discernment, or

discrimination especially in practical matters

Example sentence: For a man who was never in the country, and who did not evidently do much in the way of business, his knowledge and acumen were wonderful. (Bram Stoker, _Dracula_)

Did you know?

     A keen mind and a sharp wit can pierce the soul as easily as a needle passes through cloth. Remember the analogy between a jabbing needle and piercing perception, and you will readily recall the history of acumen. Our English word retains the spelling and figurative meaning of its direct Latin ancestor, a term that literally meant point. Latin acumen traces to the verb acuere, which means to sharpen and which derives from acus, the Latin word for needle. In its first known English uses in the 1500s, acumen referred specifically to a sharpness of wit. In modern English, it conveys the sense that someone is perceptive enough to grasp a situation quickly and clever enough to use that discernment to good advantage.

phantasmagoria   \fan-taz-muh-GOR-ee-uh\   noun

    *1: an exhibition or display of optical effects and illusions

     2 a: a constantly shifting complex succession of things seen or imagined  b : a scene that constantly changes

     3 : a bizarre or fantastic combination, collection, or assemblage

Example sentence: The phantasmagorias of artist Joan Miro convey a ghostly impression by showing objects free from the bounds of time and space.

Did you know?

     When an early 19th-century showman named Philipstal invented a special-effects lightshow of optical illusions that reminded people of phantoms and phantasms, he dubbed it a phantasmagoria. He picked a term that sounds impressive (and creepy) and that comes from the same roots as the words phantom and phantasm. Like them, phantasmagoria can be traced back to Latin phantasma (a product of antasy) and ultimately to Greek phantazein, which means to present to the mind."

diffident   \DIF-uh-dunt\   adjective

     1 : hesitant in acting or speaking through lack of self-confidence

    *2 : reserved, unassertive

Example sentence: Always diffident and soft-spoken, Tony did not raise any objection when the cashier overcharged him for his purchase.

Did you know?

     Diffident and confident are antonyms, but both have a lot to do with how much trust you have in yourself. Etymology reveals the role that that underlying trust plays in the two terms. Confident and diffident both trace to the Latin verb fidere, which means to trust. Diffident arose from a combination of fidere and the prefix dis-, meaning the absence of, and it has been used to refer to individuals lacking in self-trust since the 15th century. Confident arose from confidere, a term created by combining fidere with the intensifying prefix con-. That term has been used for self- trusting souls since at least the late 16th century. By the way, fidere puts the trust in several other English words too, including fidelity and "fiduciary.

Pickwickian   \pick-WICK-ee-un\   adjective

     1 : marked by simplicity and generosity

   *2 : intended or taken in a sense other than the obvious or literal one

Example sentence: It was tough, but I survived was Carl's Pickwickian response when I asked him about his weekend boat-sitting a 50- foot luxury yacht.

Did you know?

     The term Pickwickian comes from Samuel Pickwick, the name of a simple and benevolent character in Charles Dickens' novel _The Pickwick Papers_. Early in the novel, Mr. Pickwick accuses another character, Mr. Blotton, of behaving in a vile and calumnious mode, and in return is called a humbug. Only later is the reader made aware that all was said in jest, and that the two men are actually the best of friends. Such literary tricks have led to the use of Pickwickian to describe uses of language that are similarly not meant to be taken at face value.

devise   \dih-VYZE\   verb

     1 *a : to form in the mind by new combinations or applications of ideas or principles : invent  b : to plan to obtain or bring about : plot 

     2 : to give (real estate) by will

Example sentence: As a young scientist, Constance devised ingenious ways of collecting and interpreting data.

Did you know?

      There's something inventive about devise, a word that stems from Latin dividere, meaning to divide. By the time devise appeared in English in the 1200s, its Anglo-French forebear deviser had accumulated an array of senses, including to divide, distribute, arrange, array, digest, order, plan, invent, contrive, and assign by will. English adopted most of these and added some new senses over the course of time: to imagine, guess, pretend, and describe. In modern use, we've disposed of a lot of the old meanings, but we kept the one that applies to wills. Devise traditionally referred to the transfer of real property (land), and bequeath to personal property; these days, however, devise is often recognized as applying generally to all the property in a person's estate.

mountebank   \MOUNT-ih-bank\   noun

     1: a person who sells quack medicines from a platform

    *2: a boastful unscrupulous pretender : charlatan

Example sentence: In his newspaper column, Gavin criticized the talk-radio host as a mountebank whose 'expert' opinions and advice are complete hooey.

Did you know?

     Mountebank derives from the Italian montimbanco, which was formed by combining the verb montare (to mount), the preposition in (converted to im, meaning in or on) and the noun banco (bench). Put these components together and you can deduce the literal origins of mountebank as someone mounted on a bench -- the bench being the platform on which charlatans from the 16th and 17th centuries would stand to sell their phony medicines. Mountebanks often included various forms of light entertainment on stage in order to attract customers. Later, extended uses of mountebank" referred to someone who falsely claims to have knowledge about a particular subject or a person who simply pretends to be something he or she is not in order to gain attention.

inveterate   \in-VET-uh-rut\   adjective

     1 : firmly established by long persistence

    *2 : confirmed in a habit : habitual

Example sentence: It started with an occasional cigarette in college, but by her late twenties, Lilly was an inveterate smoker.

Did you know?

     Like veteran, inveterate ultimately comes from Latin vetus, which means old, and which led to the Latin verb inveterare (to age). That verb in turn gave rise eventually to the adjective inveteratus, the direct source of our adjective inveterate (in use since the 14th century). In the past, inveterate has meant long-standing or simply old. For example, one 16th-century writer warned of Those great Flyes which in the springe time of the year creepe out of inveterate walls. Today, inveterate most often applies to a habit, attitude, or feeling of such long existence that it is practically ineradicable or unalterable.

accolade   \AK-uh-layd\   noun

     1 a: a ceremonial embrace b: a ceremony or salute conferring knighthood

     2 a : a mark of acknowledgment : award  *b : an expression of praise

     3 : a brace or a line used in music to join two or more staffs carrying simultaneous parts

Example sentence: A celebration that normally thanks those who risked their lives now includes accolades to those putting their lives on the line at the moment. (_Chicago Daily Herald_, 10, 2001)

Did you know?

     Accolade was borrowed into English in the 17th century from French. The French noun in turn derives from the verb accoler, which means to embrace, and ultimately from the Latin term collum, meaning neck. (Collum is also an ancestor of the English word collar.) When it was first borrowed from French, accolade referred to a ceremonial embrace that once marked the conferring of knighthood. The term was later extended to any ceremony conferring knighthood (such as the more familiar tapping on the shoulders with the flat blade of a sword), and eventually extended to honors or awards in general.

encomium   \en-KOH-mee-um\   noun

     : glowing and warmly enthusiastic praise; also : an expression of this

Example sentence: Charles Schulz certainly deserves the encomiums heaped upon him for his marvelous Peanuts comic strip, which has given so many so much joy and laughter.

Did you know?

     The love of praise, how’re concealed by art / Reigns more or less, and glows in every heart. British writer Edward Young knew how much people love to hear praise -- and so did the ancient Greeks, the originators of encomium. They formalized that particular expression of praise and named it an enkomion, from their terms en, meaning in, and komos, meaning celebration. The original encomiums were eulogies or panegyrics, often ones prepared in honor of a victor in the Olympics. The term was later broadened to refer to any laudatory ode. Since then encomiums have been written praising everyone from Julius Caesar to Elton John, although not all have been entirely serious -- one of the best known is the satirical Moriae Encomium (Praise of Folly) by Erasmus.

mosque   \MAHSK\   noun

     : a building used for public worship by Muslims

Example sentence: On the last day of Ramadan, Fatimah and her family attended prayer services at a local mosque.

Did you know?

       Mosques were known to the English-speaking world long before we called them mosques. In the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, we used many different variations of the word -- moseak, muskey, moschy, mos'keh, among others -- until we finally hit on mosquee, emulating Middle French. The Middle French word had come by way of Italian and Old Spanish from the Arabic word for temple, which is masjid. In the early 1700s, we settled on the present spelling, and mosque thus joined other English words related to Muslim worship: mihrab, for the special niche in a mosque that points towards Mecca; minaret, for  the tall slender tower of a mosque; and muezzin, for the crier who, standing in the minaret, calls the hour of daily prayers.

cachet   \ka-SHAY\   noun

      1 : a seal used especially as a mark of official approval

     *2 : a feature or quality conferring prestige; also : prestige

Example sentence: Robin's chosen college didn't have the same cachet as an Ivy League school, but it had the best program for her needs.

Did you know?

      In the years before the French Revolution, a lettre de cachet was a letter, signed by both the French king and another officer that was used to authorize a person's imprisonment. Documents such as these were usually made official by being marked with a seal pressed into soft wax. This seal was known in French as a cachet. This word derived from the Middle French verb cacher, meaning to press or to hide. The seal sense of cachet has been used in English since the mid-17th century, and in the 19th century it acquired its extended sense, that of a distinguishing mark that is used to identify something as being prestigious.

meed   \MEED\   noun

     : a fitting return or recompense

Example sentence: For his valor displayed on the field of battle, the knight was rewarded with his due meed of praise and gratitude from the king.

Did you know?

     The word meed is one of the oldest terms in our language, having been part of English for about 1,000 years. An early form of the word appeared in the Old English classic Beowulf_ and it can be found in works by literary luminaries including Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, John Milton, Alexander Pope, and Ben Jonson. Its Old English form, med, is akin to terms found in the ancestral versions of many European languages, including Old High German, Old Swedish, and ancient Greek. In Modern English, the venerable meed is most likely to be found in poetic contexts.

recusant   \RECK-yuh-zunt\   adjective

     : refusing to submit to authority

Example sentence: Several recusant senators refused to vote along party lines.

Did you know?

     In 1534, Henry VIII of England declared himself the head of the Church of England, separating it from the Roman Catholic Church, and the resultant furor led to increased attention focused on people's religious observances. A recusant was someone who (from about 1570-1791) refused to attend services of the Church of England, and therefore violated the laws of mandatory church attendance. The word derives from the Latin verb recusare, meaning reject or oppose. The adjective recusant has been in use since the early 17th century. Originally, it meant refusing to attend the services of the Church of England, but by the century's end, both the adjective and the noun were also being used generally to suggest resistance to authority of any form.

bemuse   \bih-MYOOZ\   verb

     1 : to make confused : puzzle, bewilder

     2 : to occupy the attention of : distract, absorb

   *3 : to cause to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement

Example sentence: [The boat's captain] is too polite to comment, but he has noted, faintly bemused, his passenger's suede shoes. (Michael Kenyon, _Gourmet_, 1990)

Did you know?

     In 1735, British poet Alexander Pope lamented, in rhyme, being besieged by a parson much bemus'd in beer. The cleric in question was apparently one of a horde of would-be poets who plagued Pope with requests that he read their verses. Pope meant the parson had found his muse -- his inspiration -- in beer. That use of bemus'd harks back to a 1705 letter in which Pope wrote of Poets . . . irrecoverably Be-mus'd. In both letter and poem, Pope used bemused to refer to being inspired by or devoted to one of the Muses, the Greek sister goddesses of art, music, and literature. The lexicographers who followed him, however, interpreted bemus'd in beer as meaning left confused by beer, and their confusion gave rise to one modern sense of bemused.

caduceus   \kuh-DOO-see-us\   noun

     1 : a figure of a staff with two snakes wound around it and two wings at the top

    *2 : an insignia bearing a caduceus and symbolizing a physician

Example sentence: Adrienne knew she had found Dr. Moore's office when she saw the familiar caduceus on the door.

Did you know?

     Beware of snakes -- at least snakes entwining heraldic staffs -- because they're not all caducei. The genuine caduceus takes its name from Latin, which in turn picked up the name as a modification of Greek karykeion, from karyx or keryx, meaning herald. Such a two-snake staff was the symbol of messenger-gods Mercury and Hermes, and it is still used in the insignia of the U.S. Army medical corps. If you see just one snake and no wings, there be a doctor in the house, but one who displays the staff of Aesculapius, the god of medicine, rather than a true caduceus.

extremophile   \ik-STREE-muh-fyle\   noun

     : an organism that lives under extreme environmental conditions (as in a hot spring or ice cap)

Example sentence: Cold-loving extremophiles could show us what kinds of creatures might live... in parts of the solar system previously thought uninhabitable. (Michael Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, Time Magazine, 2002)

Did you know?

     No, an extremophile is not an enthusiast of extreme sports (though -phile does mean one who loves or has an affinity for). Rather, extremophiles are microbes that thrive in environments once considered uninhabitable, from places with high levels of toxicity and radiation to boiling-hot, deep-sea volcanoes to Antarctic ice sheets. Scientists have even created a new biological kingdom to classify some of these microbes: Archaea (from archae-, meaning primitive). These extremophiles have a lot in common with the first organisms to appear on earth billions of years ago. If so, they can give us insight into how life on our planet has arisen. They are also being studied to learn about possible life forms on other planets, whose conditions are extreme compared to Earth's.

abeyance   \uh-BAY-unss\   noun

     1 : a lapse in succession during which there is no person in whom a title is vested

    *2 : temporary inactivity : suspension

Example sentence: When Joe lost his job, house-hunting had to be put in abeyance until he could secure a new position.

Did you know?

     Abeyance has something in common with yawn. Today, yawn implies sleep or boredom, but years ago it could also signify longing or desire (Full many men know I that yawn and gape after some fat and rich benefice -- Thomas Hoccleve, 1420). The Old French word for yawn was baer, which joined the prefix a- (in a state or condition of) to form abaer, a verb meaning to expect or await. There followed Anglo- French abeyance, which referred to a state of expectation --specifically, a person's expectation of inheriting a title or property. But when we adopted abeyance into English in the 16th century, we applied the expectation to the property itself: a property or title in abeyance is in temporary limbo, waiting to be claimed by a rightful heir or owner.

dilatory   \DIL-uh-tor-ee\   adjective

     1 : tending or intended to cause delay

    *2 : characterized by procrastination : tardy

Example sentence: Maura has been dilatory in paying her bills, and she now owes late fees in addition to the original amounts due.

Did you know?

     Slow down. Set a leisurely pace. What's the hurry? If procrastination is your style, dilatory is the word for you. That term has been used in English to describe things that cause delay since at least the 15th century, and its ancestors were hanging around with similar meanings long before that. If you take the time to trace the roots of dilatory, you will discover that it derives from dilatus, the past participle of the Latin verb differre, which meant either to postpone or to differ. If you think differre looks like several other English words, you have a discerning eye. That verb is also an ancestor of the words different and defer.

feign   \FAYN\   verb

     1 : to give a false appearance of : induce as a false impression 

   *2 : to assert as if true : pretend

Example sentence: Had Edward been intentionally deceiving her? Had he feigned a regard for her which he did not feel? (Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility)

Did you know?

     Feign is all about faking it, but that hasn't always been so. In one of its earliest senses, feign meant to fashion, form, or shape. That meaning is true to the term's Latin ancestor: the verb fingere, which also means to shape. The current senses of feign still retain the essence of the Latin source, since to feign something, such as surprise or an illness, requires one to fashion an impression or shape an image. Several other English words that trace to the same ancestor refer to things that are shaped with either the hands, as in figure and effigy, or the imagination, as in fiction and figment.

reverberate   \rih-VER-buh-rayt\   verb

     1 a : reflect  b: repel  c: echo

     2 : to become driven back or reflected

    *3 : to continue in or as if in a series of echoes : resound

Example sentence: The pastor's sermon on the importance of loving one's neighbor reverberated with special meaning during the holidays.

Did you know?

     The letter sequence v-e-r-b in reverberate might make you think at first of such word-related brethren as proverb, verbal, and verbose, all of which derive from the Latin noun verbum, meaning word. In fact, reverberate comes from a much different source: the Latin verb verberare, meaning to whip, beat, or lash, which is related to the noun verber, meaning rod. Reverberate entered the English language in the 15th century, and one of its early meanings was to beat, drive, or cast back. By the early 1600s it began to appear in contexts associated with sound that repeats or returns the way an echo does.

hydromancy   \HY-druh-man-see\   noun

     : divination by the appearance or motion of liquids (as water)

Example sentence: The store has a large section of books about hydromancy and other forms of fortune-telling.

Did you know?

     If you've ever encountered a sorceress or a wizard peering into a scrying bowl as part of a movie or a book, you've witnessed a (fictionalized) version of hydromancy. The word has been used since at least the 14th century to describe the use of water in divination -- examples include predicting the future by the motion of the tides or contacting spirits using still water. Hydromancy is believed to derive ultimately from the Greek words for water (hydor) and divination (manteia); it came to English via the Latin hydromantia. The ancient Greeks who relied on hydromancy also gave us the names for related forms of divination, such as necromancy (using the dead), pyromancy (with fire), and even rhabdomancy, a fancy and now rare word for "divination with wands or rods.

frenetic   \frih-NET-ik\   adjective

     : frenzied, frantic

Example sentence: It's the day after Thanksgiving -- a day described by Amber Veverka (Charlotte [NC] Observer, 10, 2003) as the official, frenetic kickoff for the Christmas shopping season.

Did you know?

     When life gets frenetic, things can seem absolutely insane -- at least that seems to be what folks in the Middle Ages thought. Frenetik, in Middle English, meant insane. When the word no longer denoted stark raving madness, it conjured up fanatical frenetic zealots. Today we're even willing to downgrade its seriousness to something more akin to hectic. But if you trace frenetic back through Anglo-French and Latin, you'll find that it comes from Greek phrenitis, a term describing an inflammation of the brain. Phren is the Greek word for mind, a root you will recognize in schizophrenic.As for frenzied and frantic, they're not only synonyms but relatives as well. Frantic comes from frenetik, and frenzied traces back to phrenitis.

boilerplate   \BOY-ler-playt\   noun

      1: syndicated material supplied especially to weekly newspapers in matrix or plate form

    *2: standardized, formulaic, or hackneyed language

Example sentence: Much to my disappointment, the or-elect's speech consisted primarily of boilerplate and offered no information about his plans for his term in office.

Did you know?

     In the days before computers, local newspapers around the U.S. relied heavily on feature stories, editorials, and other printed material supplied by large publishing syndicates. The syndicates delivered that copy on metal plates with the type already in place so the local papers wouldn't have to set it. Printers apparently dubbed these syndicated plates boiler plates because of their resemblance to the plating used in making steam boilers. Soon boilerplate came to refer to the printed material on the plates as well as to the plates themselves. Because boilerplate stories contained mostly filler and very little hard news, the word acquired negative connotations and gained another sense widely used today: hackneyed or unoriginal writing.

palliate   \PAL-ee-ayt\   verb

     1 : to reduce the violence of (a disease); also : to ease (symptoms) without curing the underlying disease

    *2 : to cover by excuses and apologies

     3 : to moderate the intensity of

Example sentence: Roberta tried to palliate her actions with explanations and apologies, but Donald refused to accept her excuses.

Did you know?

     Long ago, the ancient Romans had a name for the cloak-like garb that was worn by the Greeks (distinguishing it from their own toga); the name was pallium. In the 15th century, English speakers modified the Late Latin word palliatus, which derives from pallium, to form palliate. Our term, used initially as both an adjective and a verb, never had the literal Latin sense referring to the cloak you wear, but it took on the figurative cloak of protection. Specifically, the verb palliate meant (as it still can mean) to lessen the intensity of a disease. Nowadays, palliate can be used as a synonym of gloss or whitewash when someone is attempting to disguise something bad.

fidelity   \fih-DEL-ih-tee\   noun

    *1: the quality or state of being faithful

     2: accuracy in details : exactness

     3 : the degree to which an electronic device (as a record player, radio, or television) accurately reproduces its effect (as sound or picture)

Example sentence: Jake's fidelity to his job was severely tested when he received a tempting offer from another company.

Did you know?

     You can have faith in fidelity, which has existed in English since the 15th century; its etymological path winds back through Middle English and Middle French, eventually arriving at the Latin verb fidere, meaning to trust. Fidere is also an ancestor of other English words associated with trust or faith, such as fiduciary (which means of, relating to, or involving a confidence or trust and is often used in the context of a monetary trust) and confide (meaning to trust or to show trust by imparting secrets). Nowadays fidelity is often used in reference to recording and broadcast devices, conveying the idea that a broadcast or recording is faithful to the live sound or picture that it reproduces.

donnybrook   \DAH-nee-brook\   noun

     *1 : free-for-all, brawl

     2 : a usually public quarrel or dispute

Example sentence: Out on the ice a donnybrook had broken out, and it took quite some time for the referees to separate the brawling hockey players and restore order.

Did you know?

     The Donnybrook Fair was an annual event held in Donnybrook - then a suburb of Dublin, Ireland -- from the 13th to the 19th centuries. The fair was legendary for the vast quantities of liquor consumed there, for the number of hasty marriages performed during the week following it, and, most of all, for the frequent brawls that erupted throughout it. Eventually, the fair's reputation for tumult was its undoing. From the 1790s on there were campaigns against the drunken brawl the fair had become. The event was abolished in 1855, but not before its name had become a generic term for a free-for-all.

uncouth   \un-KOOTH\   adjective

     1 : strange or clumsy in shape or appearance : outlandish 

     2 : lacking in polish and grace : rugged 

    *3 : awkward and uncultivated in appearance, manner, or behavior : rude

Example sentence: Jill liked Chad because he was rebellious and unconventional, but in her parents' minds he was rude and uncouth.

Did you know?

     Uncouth comes from the Old English uncuth, which joins the prefix un- with cuth, meaning familiar, known. How did a word that meant unfamiliar come to mean outlandish, rugged, or rude? Some examples from literature illustrate that the transition happened quite

naturally. In Captain Singleton, Daniel Defoe refers to a strange noise more uncouth than any they had ever heard. In William Shakespeare's _As You Like It_, Orlando tells Adam, If this uncouth forest yield anything savage, I will either be food for it or bring it for food to thee. In Washington Irving's _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow_, Ichabod Crane fears to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! So, that which is unfamiliar is often perceived as strange, wild, or unpleasant. Meanings such as outlandish, rugged, or rude naturally follow.

hermitage   \HER-mih-tij\  noun

     1: the habitation of a hermit

    *2: a secluded residence or private retreat; also: monastery

     3: the life or condition of a hermit

Example sentence: Tired of city life, Dan decided to quit his job and retire to a country hermitage.

Did you know?

     Hermitage is of course related to hermit, a word for one who retreats from society to live in solitude, often for religious reasons. The origins of hermitage and hermit are found in Greek. Eremos (meaning desolate) gave rise to eremia (meaning desert) and eventually to the noun eremites, which was used for a person living in the desert, or, more broadly, for a recluse. The word journeyed from Greek to Latin to Anglo-French to Middle English, where it eventually transformed into hermit. The related hermitage was borrowed into English from Anglo-French in the 14th century. A hermitage can be the dwelling of a hermit (e.g., a mountain shack or a monastery) or simply a secluded home.

circumvent   \ser-kum-VENT\   verb

     1 : to hem in

     2 : to make a circuit around

    *3 : to manage to get around especially by ingenuity or stratagem

Example sentence: The corporation was always trying to circumvent tax laws by exploiting the loopholes.

Did you know?

     If you've ever felt as if someone were circling around the rules, you have an idea of the origins of circumvent – it derives from the Latin circum, meaning circle, and ventus, the past participle of the Latin verb venire, meaning to come. The earliest uses of circumvent referred to a tactic of hunting or warfare in which the quarry or enemy was encircled and captured. Today, however, circumvent more often suggests avoidance than entrapment; it typically means to get around someone or something, as in our example sentence.

epenthesis   \ih-PEN-thuh-siss\   noun

     : the insertion or development of a sound or letter in the body of a word

Example sentence: Professor Seeles explained that epenthesis is the process of adding an extra sound or syllable to a word, as when a child adds a b to family and says FAM-blee.

Did you know?

     If you say athlete as ath-a-lete, you've committed epenthesis. Some people consider the pronunciation to be unacceptable, but there's a perfectly good reason why it occurs; epenthesis is simply a natural way to break up an awkward cluster of consonants. It's easier for some people to

say athlete as three syllables instead of two, just as it's easier for some to insert a b sound into cummerbund, pronouncing that word as cum-ber-bund. Epenthesis has even contributed to the evolution of recognized spelling variants, giving us such options as cumberbund and sherbert (for sherbet). The word epenthesis came to us by way of Late Latin from the Greek verb epentithenai, which means, to insert a letter.

ludic   \LOO-dik\   adjective

     : of, relating to, or characterized by play : playful

Example sentence: Three-year-old Rachel was delighted with her present, a ludic and lively pop-up book about the celebration of Hanukkah.

Did you know?

     Here's a serious word, just for fun. That is to say, it means fun, but it was created in all seriousness around 1940 by psychologists. They wanted a term to describe what children

do, and they came up with ludic activity. That seems ludicrous -- why not just call it playing? -- But the word ludic caught on, and it's not all child's play anymore. It can refer to architecture that is playful, narrative that is humorous and even satirical, and literature that is light. Ludic is ultimately from the Latin noun ludus, which refers to a whole range of fun things -- stage shows, games, sports, even jokes. The more familiar word ludicrous also traces back to the same source.

stringent   \STRIN-junt\   adjective

      1 : tight, constricted

    *2 : marked by rigor, strictness, or severity especially with regard to rule or standard

      3 : marked by money scarcity and credit strictness

Example sentence: The school's stringent policies required students to wear uniforms and forbade sneakers except for sports.

Did you know?

     Words that are synonymous with stringent include rigid, which implies uncompromising inflexibility (rigid rules of conduct), and rigorous, which suggests hardship and difficulty (the rigorous training of firefighters). Also closely related is strict, which emphasizes undeviating

conformity to rules, standards, or requirements (strict enforcement of the law). Stringent usually involves severe, tight restrictions or limitations (the college has stringent admissions rules). That's logical. After all, rigorous and rigid are both derived from rigere, the Latin word meaning to be stiff, and stringent and strict developed from the Latin verb stringere, meaning to bind tight.

whirligig   \WER-lih-ghig\   noun

   *1: a child's toy having a whirling motion

     2 : merry-go-round

     3 a: one that continuously whirls, moves, or changes b: a whirling or circling course (as of events)

Example sentence: The more he earned the more he spent, and Sam felt like he was trapped in a never-ending whirligig of debt.

Did you know?

     English speakers, and particularly children, began spinning whirligigs as early as the 15th century. Since then, whirligig has acquired several meanings beyond its initial toy sense. It even has a place in the name of the whirligig beetle, a member of the family Gyrinidae that swiftly swims in circles on the surface of still water. The word whirligig comes to us from Middle English whirlegigg (whirling top), which is itself from whirlen, meaning to whirl, and gigg, meaning (toy) top.

perpend   \per-PEND\   verb

     1 : to reflect on carefully : ponder

    *2 : to be attentive : reflect

Example sentence: perpend; if you let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip away, you will regret it.

Did you know?

     Perpend isn't used often these days, but when it does show up it is frequently imperative, as in our example sentence. As such, its use can be compared to the phrase mark my words. Perpend arrived in English in the 15th century from the Latin verb perpendere, which in turn comes from pendere, meaning to weigh. Appropriately, our English word essentially means to weigh carefully in the mind. Pendere has several descendants in English, including append, compendium, expend, and suspend. Perpend can also be a noun meaning a brick or large stone reaching through a wall or a wall built of such stones, but that perpend comes from a Middle French source and is unrelated to the verb.

rationale   \rash-uh-NAL\   noun

     1 : an explanation of controlling principles of opinion, belief, practice, or phenomena

    *2 : an underlying reason : basis

Example sentence: One rationale for year-round school is that it reduces the need to review old material forgotten over summer vacation.

Did you know?

     The word rationale appeared in the second half of the 17th century, just in time for the Age of Reason. It is based on the Latin ratio, which means reason, and rationalis, which means endowed with reason. At first, rationale meant an explanation of controlling principles (a rationale of religious practices, for example), but soon it began to refer to the underlying reason for something (as in the rationale for her behavior). The latter meaning is now the most common use of the term. The English word ratio can also mean underlying reason (in fact, it had this meaning before rationale did), but in current use, it more often refers to