Decorticate. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg decorticate (dee-KOR-ti-kayt) verb tr.: To remove the outer layer, such as the bark, husk, rind, etc. From Latin decorticare (to peel), from de- (from) + cortex (bark). "The idea, the sensation, the moment of intuition are decorticated and communicated with intimacy and lucidity. " See more usage examples of decorticate in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. Hotmail: A.Word.A.Day--hiemal. Tenacious. Yada yada. Larruping. Purl. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg purl (purl) A:verb intr.: To flow with a rippling motion.noun: The sound or curling motion made by rippling water. B:verb tr., intr: 1.
For A: Of uncertain origin. "The anger purling in her hadn't abated a bit. " "Her mother purls away at a beginner's scarf. " See more usage examples of purl in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. To be sure, the dog is loyal. Dishabille. Monish. Auscultate. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg auscultate (AW-skuhl-tayt) verb tr. To listen to the sounds made by internal organs (heart, lungs, etc.) to aid in the diagnosis.
Back-formation from auscultation, from auscultare (to listen). "A Chinese official has been jailed for two years for deserting a sick beggar in a neighboring county and causing the man's death. ... See more usage examples of auscultate in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. Although the connections are not always obvious, personal change is inseparable from social and political change. Hotmail: A.Word.A.Day--perdure. Prodigious. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg prodigious (pruh-DIJ-uhs) adjective 1. Remarkable in size, quantity, strength, etc. 2. Marvelous. 3. From Latin prodigiosus (marvelous, portentous), from prodigium (portent). "Kurtley Beale just cannot wait to display his prodigious talents at his first World Cup. " "The rodents have prodigious appetites and ability to multiply.
" See more usage examples of prodigious in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. Cunctator. Satyr. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg satyr (SAY-tuhr, SAT-uhr) noun: 1. A lecherous man. 2. After Satyr, a woodland creature in Greek mythology shown as having features of a goat and a horse (pointed ears, horns, tail, etc.) and known for lasciviousness. "Presiding like a twinkly satyr over this parade of sauciness and silicone is Antoine de Caunes, the aforementioned Frenchman. " Hundreds of hysterical persons must confuse these phenomena with messages from the beyond and take their glory to the bishop rather than the eye doctor. Touché. Groundswell. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg groundswell (GROUND-swell) noun: 1. A surge of opinion or feeling about someone or something. 2. Groundswell was the term sailors used for a swelling of the ocean. "A nationwide general strike fuelled by a groundswell of anger brought parts of Spain to a halt yesterday.
" "Waves along the coasts may get as high as 23 feet this weekend due to two significant groundswells. " See more usage examples of groundswell in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. Mayday. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg Mayday or mayday (MAY-day) noun: A distress signal; a call for help. Mayday is an international radio distress signal used by ships and aircraft to call for help. "Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter flew to the aid of a yachtsman who made a mayday call this morning off the coast of Raglan. " "Rooms [at Hotel Bel-Air are] so high-tech I felt like a 747 pilot. See more usage examples of mayday in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. Hotmail: A.Word.A.Day--princesse lointaine. Apollonian. Poseur. Parse. Wastrel. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg "I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
" Those candid words of Samuel Johnson, lexicographer extraordinaire, provide a perceptive observation on the human condition. A language is a mirror of its people. As a disinterested record of the language, a dictionary serves as an accurate window to the culture. Wastrel (WAY-struhl) noun: A good-for-nothing, wasteful person. Via French from Latin vastare (to lay waste), from vastus (desert, empty) + -rel (a diminutive or pejorative suffix). "With Greece at the center of a cyclone that threatens the global economy, foreign citizens believe that their taxes have been raised to bail out the wastrel Greeks. " See more usage examples of wastrel in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.
The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it. Gradgrind.
Gascon. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg gascon (GAS-kuhn) noun: A braggart.adjective: Boastful. After Gascon, a native of the Gascony region in France, from the stereotype of Gascons as boasters. Earliest documented use: before 1771. Were people from Gascony full of boasts and bravado? "Here indeed the King of Cornwall plays the gascon, not the King of Little Britain.
" I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. Schlockmeister. Nosh. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg We are taught to use the right tool for the right job. And when it comes to conferring insults, there's no better tool than Yiddish. It's the language that has given us such jewels as schlemiel and schlimazel, nudnik and schmendrik, schmegeggy and yenta. While Yiddish speakers may seem to have specialized in the art of insult, they do much more than that. Nosh (nosh) verb tr., intr.: To snack or eat between meals.noun: A snack. From Yiddish nashn (to nibble). "We drank from a thermos of sweet tea and noshed on brown bread. " See more usage examples of nosh in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. Baldachin. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg The US military pulls out of Iraq this month.
And that marks the beginning of the end of a more than eight-year-long misadventure that resulted in hundreds of thousands dead, millions of displaced/refugees, trillions of dollars down the drain, and both countries -- the attacker and the attacked -- damaged. The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. What a dreary topic this is. What do we have to show for all that? Baldachin (BAL-duh-kin, BOL-) Also, baldacchino, baldachino (bal-duh-KEE-noh) noun: 1.
English baldachin is derived from Italian baldacchino which is from Baldacco, the Italian name for Baghdad. "A rabbi married the couple a few weeks later, under a baldachin made of four brooms and an old blanket. " See more usage examples of baldachin in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. It is my belief that the writer, the free-lance author, should be and must be a critic of the society in which he lives. Antediluvian. Hegemony. 100 Top SAT Words.
Terrene. Equable. Redolent. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, and if that's true this week we're going to send you a thousand words a day. Artist Leah Palmer Preiss (curiouser AT mindspring.com) has illustrated this week's words in her delightfully whimsical style. Leah makes her home in Raleigh, North Carolina. "I've always been fascinated by the conversation between words and images. "As a longtime fan of A.Word.A.Day, I was very excited when Anu Garg asked me to do a series of curiotypes for this week's words. "If you'd like to see more of my work, including earlier stages of these images and the scientific alphabet mentioned above, please visit my blog, Oddments & Curiosities. " redolent (RED-uhl-uhnt) adjective: 1. From Old French redolent (smelling), from Latin redolens, present participle of redolere (to give off a smell), from re- (intensive prefix) + olere (to smell).
"There's a heavy dose of irony in the title of Wendy Cope's new book of poems, Family Values. Dragoman. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg dragoman (DRAG-uh-man) noun: An interpreter or guide. The word took a scenic route to its present form via French, Italian, Latin/Greek, Arabic, and Aramaic, from Akkadian targumanu (interpreter). Earliest documented use: 1300s. "Soon, Art Buchwald set himself up as the laughing dragoman to American celebrities. "Born in Jerusalem, Wadie Said went from being a dragoman to a salesman in the United States and thence to a hugely successful businessman in Egypt. " Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar. A.Word.A.Day--Yesterday's Word. Cacique. Intuit. Word of the Day | Definition, Word Origins, and Quotes at Dictionary.
Faux pas Synonyms, Faux pas Antonyms. Relevance Relevance ranks synonyms and suggests the best matches based on how closely a synonym’s sense matches the sense you selected. Complexity Complexity sorts synonyms based on their difficulty. Adjust it higher to choose from words that are more complex. Length Length ranks your synonyms based on character count.
Common words appear frequently in written and spoken language across many genres from radio to academic journals. Informal words should be reserved for casual, colloquial communication. noun social error Synonyms for faux pas More words related to faux pas Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group. Cite This Source.