1. vicissitudes — ups and downs, recurring changes And as he stood there in the sunshine contemplating the various and impenetrable vicissitudes of life, he was stung behind the ear by a gnat. 2. scabrous — having a rough surface, scaly; difficult, harsh; obscene, indecent He blamed his rubicund and scabrous complexion upon the …
Tag Archives: bonus word
Friday Vocabulary
1. poll — human head; the part of the head where grows the hair His encounter with the irate barber left him with a poll looking like a golf fairway covered with diseased fescue and dangerous divots. 2. puckfist — [archaic] braggart I’d not give a farthing for the whole puckfist band of pusillanimous …
Friday Vocabulary
1. tempestivity — timeliness, quality of occurring at the proper season or time You return from the wars with rare tempestivity, for your younger brother even this week has filed a writ with the sheriff laying claim to your mother’s property. 2. purler — spectacular fall; [obsolete] resounding blow sending one to the ground …
Friday Vocabulary
1. zone — girdle, belt, cestus Such his charm and then his force that at the end of this unequal warfare she threw away her virgin zone and ever after they cleaved together like the antient Mother and Father of our human race. 2. haycock — hay heaped into a cone We sat against …
Friday Vocabulary
1. tantalum — element with atomic number 73, a silver-grey rare metal The replacement of carbon filaments with tungsten, tantalum, or osmium was an important economic measure for the city, due to the significantly less current required to produce the same illumination. 2. cocker — patron or promoter of cockfights; spaniel breed trained to …
Friday Vocabulary
1. confute — prove someone or something to be wrong But why should we waste so much time confuting this obviously fallacious argument, when the refutation is all around us in the natural world? 2. fiduciary — of a relationship in which one person holds property on behalf of another Naturally he agreed to …
Friday Vocabulary
1. mythomane — habitual liar, person compelled to fantasy or exaggeration Perhaps the same deep-rooted psychological propensity towards lying made him the excellent salesman he became; certainly his skill and experience as an unusually clever mythomane helped him as an active bigamist—or perhaps one should say ‘trigamist’, though of course he never solemnized his relationship …
Friday Vocabulary
1. dyspathy — antipathy, opposite of sympathy By the strange alchemy of sympathy and dyspathy, these two rivals who by common judgment should have been uncompromising enemies were instead courteous and understanding adversaries. 2. cincture — girdle, belt; enclosure He had gathered the rough buffalo hide he wore over his shoulders in a hempen …
Friday Vocabulary
1. scrimer — fencer, swordsman; fencing master Unlike the young braggarts who fancied themselves scrimers and focused on feathers and pose, the bladesman before me stood flatfooted, his rapier steadily pointed at my head and main gauche held loosely at his side, and I knew from his calm confidence that I had a true challenge …
Friday Vocabulary
1. modiste — fashionable milliner or dressmaker Lady Sieveport’s headwear, a très au courant doll hat with feathers reminiscent of a crashing wave, gave proof of the modiste‘s expertise as a saleswoman, even if the hat itself seemed a feeble example of the milliner’s art. 2. enthymeme — logical argument with one premise or …