Category: Word of the Day

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Word of the Day – Artifice

artifice

  • Noun: Artifice
    1. clever or artful skill :  ingenuity
    2. an ingenious device or expedient
    3. an artful stratagem :  trick
    4. false or insincere behavior <social artifice>
  • Synonyms:
    1. Trickery
    2. Deceit
    3. Deception
    4. Duplicity
    5. Guile
    6. Cunning
    7. Artfulness
    8. Wiliness
    9. Chicanery
  • Usage:

“The queen, although astonished at this language, to which she was not accustomed from her courtiers, argued from it a happy omen of the zeal with which D’Artagnan would serve her in the accomplishment of her project. It was one of the Gascon’s artifices to hide his deep cunning occasionally under an appearance of rough loyalty.”

  • Encountered:

While reading Twenty Years After by Alexandre

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Word of the Day – Succubus

  • Noun: Succubus
    1. A female demon believed to have sexual intercourse with sleeping men.succubus_by_d3vilusion-d7k7bbd
    2. Any demon or evil spirit.
    3. A strumpet or prostitute.
  • Synonyms:
    1. Beast
    2. Monster
    3. Vampire
    4. Villain
  • Usage:

 “He was like a worn small rock whelmed by the successive waves of his voice. With his body he seemed to feed the voice that, succubus like, had fleshed its teeth in him.”

  • Encountered:

While reading The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

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Word of the Day – Apparatchiks

  • Adjective:  Apparatchiks

    1. a member of a communist party apparat.
    2. a blindly devoted official, follower, or member of an organization (such as a corporation or political party)
  • Synonyms:
    1. comrad
    2. sympathizer
    3. party drudge
  • Usage
    • “Now, this was never true, and in an era of rising inequality and declining traditional industries, some of the biggest beneficiaries of these safety net programs are members of the Trump-supporting white working class. But the modern G.O.P. basically consists of career apparatchiks who live in an intellectual bubble, and those Reagan-era stereotypes still dominate their picture of struggling Americans. ”
  • Encountered
    •  Paul Krugman editorial in the New York Times

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Word of the Day – Didactic

  • Adjective: Didactic
    1. designed or intended to teach
    2. intended to convey instruction and information as well as pleasure and entertainment
    3. making moral observations
  • Synonyms:
    1.  Instructive
    2. Instructional
    3. Educational
    4. Educative
    5. Informative
    6. Informational
    7. Edifying
    8. Improving
    9. Perceptive
    10. Pedagogic
    11. Moralistic
  • Usage:

“I used to say this to Joey and Charlotte about my father himself when I got a little older, but they were always didactic, and said it was naughty of me.”

  • Encountered:

While reading The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler

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Word of the Day – Succubus

  • Noun: Succubus
    1. A female demon believed to have sexual intercourse with sleeping men.
    2. Any demon or evil spirit.
    3. A strumpet or prostitute.
  • Synonyms:
    1. Beast
    2. Monster
    3. Vampire
    4. Villain
  • Usage:

“He was like a worn small rock whelmed by the successive waves of his voice. With his body he seemed to feed the voice that, succubus like, had fleshed its teeth in him.”

  • Encountered:

While reading The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

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Word of the Day – Punctilious

  • Adjective: Punctilious
    1. very careful about behaving properly and doing things in a correct and accurate way
  • Synonyms:
    1. Meticulous
    2. Conscientious
    3. Diligent
    4. Scrupulous
    5. Careful
    6. Painstaking
    7. Rigorous
    8. Perfectionist
    9. Methodical
    10. Particular
    11. Strict
  • Usage:

“This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.”

  • Encountered:

While reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Word of the Day – Pasquinade

  • Noun: Pasquinade
    1. a satire or lampoon, originally one displayed or delivered publicly in a public place.
  • Synonyms:
    1. Burlesque
    2. Lampoon
    3. Satire
    4. Farce
    5. Parody
  • Usage:

“Most of those reports were a nightmare—grotesque, circumstantial, eager and untrue. When Michaelis’s testimony at the inquest brought to light Wilson’s suspicions of his wife I thought the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy pasquinade — but Catherine, who might have said anything, didn’t say a word.”

  • Encountered:

While reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Word of the Day – Supercilious

  • Adjective: Supercilious
    1. having or showing the proud and unpleasant attitude of people who think that they are better or more important than other people
  • Synonyms:
    1. Arrogant
    2. Haughty
    3. Conceited
    4. Disdainful
    5. Overbearing
    6. Pompous
    7. Condescending
    8. Superior
    9. Patronizing
    10. Imperious
    11. Proud
    12. Snobbish
    13. Snobby
    14. Smug
    15. Scornful
    16. sneering
  • Usage:

“He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner.”

  • Encountered:

While reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Word of the Day – Prolix

  •  Adjective: Prolix
    1. unduly prolonged or drawn out :  too long
    2. marked by or using an excess of words
  • Synonyms:
    1. long-winded
    2. verbose
    3. wordy
    4. pleonastic
    5. discursive
    6. rambling
    7. long-drawn-out
    8. overlong
    9. lengthy
    10. protracted
    11. interminable
  • Usage:

“Wintergreen determined the outcome by throwing all communications from General Peckem into the wastebasket. He found them too prolix.”

Encountered:

While reading Catch-22  by Joseph Heller

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Word of the Day – Apoplectic

  • Adjective:  Apoplectic

    1. medical :  of, relating to, or causing apoplexy or stroke; also :  affected with, susceptible to, or showing symptoms of apoplexy or stroke Note: Use of apoplectic in medical contexts relating to stroke still occurs but is now generally considered dated.
    2.  of a kind to cause or apparently cause stroke an apoplectic rage
    3.  extremely enraged was apoplectic over the news
  • Synonyms:
    1. angered
    2. angry
    3. ballistic
    4. enraged
  • Usage
    • “McCarthy surprised viewers earlier this season when she appeared as apoplectic White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, and it’s a cameo we’ve looked forward to since. ”
  • Encountered

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