Friday Vocabulary

1. bariatric — of or related to treatment of obesity and associated conditions He was too tall to use the ordinary walker whilst recovering from surgery, so they gave him a bariatric rollator instead, as that device could be adjusted to suit his great height.   2. carceralism — philosophy of or belief in prisons …

Friday Vocabulary

1. holism — theory or system asserting that the whole is greater than the parts From this youthful belief in a spiritual and psychological holism he moved to an even more radical reductionism, preaching that all so-called ‘elevated states’ stemmed from a combination of a mere three substances found within brain chemistry.   2. pig …

Friday Vocabulary

1. equipollent — of equal power; logically equivalent The first mistake in Wilber’s reasoning came when he declared that this negation was equipollent with absence, whereas even a schoolchild could have told him that not getting dessert was not the same as getting nothing at all.   2. misease — [archaic] misery, discomfort, suffering The …

Friday Vocabulary

1. temerarious — reckless, rash, heedless On the other hand, as a result of his temerarious purchase of Dogecoin he’s now a multi-billionaire.   2. shawm — medieval double-reed woodwind with a conical shape For the nonce we made merry, dancing to the strains of the sackbuts, shawms, and pipes.   3. brassie (also brassey) …

Friday Vocabulary

1. matrix — womb, uterus That thou shalt set apart unto the LORD all that opens the matrix, and every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast; the males shall be the LORD’s. [Exodus 13:12 (KJV)]   2. hederated — decorated or crowned with ivy Under new management, however, the intriguing hederated adornment …

Friday Vocabulary

1. agita — irritation, upset, anxiety; indigestion Me? I lose it completely—but Hélène doesn’t let the agita get to her at all.   2. hobeler (also hobbler) — light horseman, retainer who supplied his own hobby (a small horse or pony) All told we were able to assemble four score men-at-arms and sixty hobelers, with …

Friday Vocabulary

1. bleb — vesicle, blister; bubble of air in fluid But the original insight was confirmed only when scientists inspected the steam blebs of ancient lava flows beneath the microscope.   2. assort — to distribute like things according to type Our first day in the creaking house found us assorting the heaps of material …