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Vocab 1 and 2 Lang
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Achilles' heel def | weak point |
| Achilles' heel (syn) | weakness, flaw, defect, vulnerability |
| Achilles' heel (rel) | infirmity, debility |
| Achilles' heel (cont) | forte, mainstay |
| stentorian (def) | very loud |
| stentorian (syn) | booming, thunderous, thundering, resounding, roaring, sonorous |
| stentorian (rel) | clarion |
| stentorian (cont) | inaudible, muted, subdued |
| mnemonic (def) | assisting memory |
| mnemonic (ent) | Greek Mnemosyne was the appropriate parent for the muses because in the days before writing and knowlege depended upon memory. From Mnemosyne we get mnemonics. |
| mnemonic (syn) | assisting, remembrance, assisting, recollection, assisting reminiscence |
| mnemonic (rel) | assisting retention |
| mnemonic (cont) | amnesiac |
| fathom (def) | understand, figure out, penetrate the meaning of |
| fathom (ent) | fathom comes from old english faethm a measure of the length of outstretched arms |
| fathom (hist) | Our nautical term "fathom"- a measurement of six feet-0 thus comes from the old english word for arm span. By extension this measurement of the water's depth came to mean "to get to the bottom of" a situation or condition, thus to penetrate deeply enough |
| fathom (syn) | know, grasp, comprehend |
| fathom (rel) | apprehend, descern, divine |
| fathom (cont) | misconstrue, misapprehend, misconceive |
| serendipity (def) | ability to make lucky discoveries by chance or accident |
| serendipity (hist) | The English politician and writer Horace Walpole is best known for his novel The Castle of Otranto. In addition to originating the Gothic novel, Walpole coined the word "serendipity" based upon a Persian fairy tale, "The Three Princes of Serendip," whose |
| serendipity (syn) | chance, fortuity |
| serendipity (rel) | happenstance, fortuitousness |
| tawdry (def) | showy and cheap |
| tawdry (hist) | In seventh- century England, a woman named Etheldreda enjoyed wearing ornamental chains and laces around her neck as a girl. After Etheldreda died, her name eventually became shortened to Audry, and she attained sainthood. Particularly marketable items at |
| tawdry (syn) | tasteless, vulgar, flashy, gaudy |
| tawdry (rel) | garish, meretricious |
| pecuniary (def) | relating to money |
| pecuniary (ent) | Pecu, the Latin word for cattle or farm animals, therefore came to be associated with wealth, then money, and eventually entered English as "pecuniary," meaning "having to do with money." |
| pecuniary (syn) | financial, monetary |
| pecuniary (rel) | fiscal, economic |
| impecunious (def) | having little or no money; poor |
| impecunious (ent) | if a person was "without" (im) "cattle" (pecu), that person would be considered poor-hence our word "impecunious" for "poor" or "without money." |
| impecunious (syn) | penniless, indigent |
| impecunious (rel) | destitute, insolvent, improverished, penurious |
| impecunious (cont) | affluent, lucrative, opulent, solvent |
| Spartan (def) | severe, rigorous, disciplined |
| Spartan (syn) | self-denying, plain, spare, restrained, strict, stern, austere |
| Spartan (rel) | abstemious, abstinent, ascetic, stringent, frugal |
| Spartan (cont) | lavish, self-indulgent, hedonistic, sybaritic |
| gadfly (def) | person who continually annoys others |
| gadfly (ent) | Old Norse gaddr meant "spike." |
| gadfly (hist) | A gadfly, commonly known as a horsefly, is a large fly that spikes or stings cattle and horses. The meaning of "gadfly" has metaphorically evolved to refer to a persistently annoying person, especially one who tries to sting or arouse others to action. So |
| gadfly (syn) | critic, pest, faultfinder, goad |
| homage (def) | action of showing respect and honor |
| homage (ent) | Since the vassal or warrior thus became the "man" (from French homme, ultimately from Latin homo) ofthe lord, this ceremony was called homage. |
| homage (hist) | Feudalism was a military and political system in medieval Europe in which a warrior swore loyalty to his lord and in turn would be protected by the lord. The warrior would then become a "vassal" of the lord and receive a gift of land in return for militar |
| homage (syn) | honor, admiration, esteem, reverence, tribute |
| homage (rel) | deference, obeisance, veneration |
| homage (cont) | irreverence, contempt, disdain, scorn |
| spurn (def) | scornfully refuse or reject |
| spurn (ent) | Old English spurnan meant "kick." |
| spurn (syn) | scorn, repel, despise, decline, dissmiss, repudiate |
| spurn (rel) | disdain, rebuff, contemn, repulse |
| spurn (cont) | crave |
| pedigree (def) | ancestry or record of ancestry, line of descent |
| pedigree (ent) | imprint of the foot of a crane. the symbol was called pied de grue (pied= "foot," de = "of,"grue = "crane") in French. Pied de grue also became the name for the historical family chart, into english as pedigree |
| pedigree (syn) | descent, family tree, lineage, genealogy |
| pedigree (rel) | progenitors, forebears, forefathers, heritage |
| pittance (def) | small amount or portion, especially money |
| pittance (ent) | This donation was a pittance, derived from Latin pietas ("piety," "devotion"). |
| pittance (syn) | trifle, insufficiency, ration, minimal wage, modicum |
| pittance (rel) | dole, meager remuneration |
| pittance (cont) | abundance, largess, bounty |
| preposterous (def) | ridiculous, obviously absurd, contrary to reason |
| preposterous (ent) | |
| preposterous (syn) | foolish, nonsensical, silly, unreasonable, irrational, ludicrous |
| preposterous (rel) | fatuous, asinine, implausible, unfeasible |
| preposterous (cont) | plausible, credible, tenable, feasible |
| macabre (def) | gruesome, horrible, causing fear, suggesting horror of death |
| macabre (ent) | danse macabre (French for "dance of death"). |
| macabre (hist) | |
| macabre (syn) | grim, hideous, horrid, dreadful, weird, ghastly |
| macabre (rel) | grisly, eerie, morbid |
| farce (def) | ridiculous, light comedy; slapstick comedy; absurd thing; mockery |
| farce (ent) | light, humorous sketches called farces-from Latin farcire ("stuff")-since they were stuffed between acts. |
| farce (syn) | mockery, absurdity, ridiculousness, nonsense, burlesque |
| farce (rel) | sham, travesty, parody, caricature |
| bombast (def) | speech or writing that sounds grand or important but has little meaning |
| bombast (ent) | "Bombast" also derives from stuffing since men's court costumes in olden times were padded with cotton, this padding being called bombace in the French at that time. |
| bombast (syn) | wordiness, grandiloquence |
| bombast (rel) | magniloquence, rhetoric, pretentiousness, pomposity |
| desultory (def) | random, unmethodical, aimless |
| desultory (ent) | Desultors-from Latin de ("from") and salire ("jump")-were ancient Roman acrobats who leaped from one galloping horse to another. |
| desultory (syn) | unsytematic, unplanned, rambling, haphazard |
| desultory (rel) | digressing, discursive, cursory, erratic, mercurial, capricous |
| desultory (cont) | diligent, persevering, assiduous, sedulous |
| pariah (def) | social outcast |
| pariah (ent) | Within this rigid social stratification, the Paraiyar— who traditionally beat the drum (parai is "drum" in the Indian language of Tamil) at certain festivals-became a class of lowly field hands. and began to pronounce the caste's name as "Pariah." |
| pariah (syn) | outcast, unacceptable person, persona non grata |
| pariah (rel) | ostracized person, reprobate |
| pariah (cont) | bigwig, luminary, cynosure |
Created by:
fmdeitzel