Category: Word of the Day

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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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Word of the Day – Asperity

  • Noun: Asperity
    1. roughness of manner or of temper :  harshness of behavior or speech that expresses bitterness or anger He asked with some asperity just what they were implying.
    2. rigor, severity    … whether hearing herself described as a ‘lovely woman’ softened the asperity of her grief … — Charles Dickens
    3. roughness of surface :  unevenness; also :  a tiny projection from a surface the asperities of the tongue
    4. roughness of sound
  • Synonyms:
    1. harshness
    2. sharpness
    3. abrasiveness
    4. roughness
    5. severity
    6. acerbity
    7. astringency
    8. tartness
    9. sarcasm
  • Usage
    • “Someone Trump deemed fit to be a spokesman for him appeared on television to put a tasty dressing on her employer’s word salad: “What good does it do to have a good nuclear triad if you’re afraid to use it?” To which a retired Army colonel appearing on the same program replied with amazed asperity: “The point of the nuclear triad is to be afraid to use the damn thing .”
  • Encountered

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Word of the Day – Amanuensis

  • Noun:
    1. plural amanuenses –  a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another; secretary
  • Synonyms:
    1. secretary
    2. stenographer
    3. transcriber
    4. scrivener
  • “But his deteriorating eyesight limited his diplomatic travels. By 1654, Milton was completely blind. For the final 20 years of his life, he would dictate his poetry, letters and polemical tracts to a series of amanuenses – his daughters, friends and fellow poets.”
  • Encountered

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Word of the Day – Mendicant

Mendicant

  • Noun: Mendicant
    1. someone (such as a member of a religious group) who lives by asking people for money or food
  • Synonyms:
    1. beggar
    2. monk
    3. panhandler
    4. pauper
    5. vagabound
  • Usage:

‘”This mendicant insists upon speaking to you, and pretends that you will be very glad to see him.”’

  • Encountered:

Reading The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

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Word of the Day – Augury

Augury

  •  Noun: Augury
    1. divination from auspices or omens; also : an instance of this
    2. omen, portent
  • Synonyms:
    1. Bodement
    2. Cast
    3. Forecast
    4. Foretelling
    5. Predicting
    6. Presaging
    7. Prognosis
    8. Prognostic
    9. Prognosticating
    10. Prognostication
    11. prophecy
    12. soothsaying
  • Usage:

“This smile appeared to d’Artagnan to be of bad augury.”

  • Encountered:

Reading The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

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Word of the Day – Cabal

There's_no_cabal

  • Noun: Cabal
    1. the artifices and intrigues of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government); also :  a group engaged in such artifices and intrigues
    2. club, group
  • Synonyms:
    1. clique
    2. faction
    3. coterie
    4. cell
    5. sect
    6. junta
    7. camarilla
  • Usage:

“Does my lord seriously wish me to name any one who was mixed up in the cabals of that day?”

  • Encountered:

While reading Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day