Monday, June 6, 2011

Some Interesting Vocab Words 4.0

Welcome back to the fourth installment of "Some Interesting Vocab Words" (catchy name, eh?)!  Here I present you with yet more vocab words.  This post is super long, because I've been irresponsible and let the pile of vocab words pile on in my inbox.
  • callow: inexperienced or immature. 
  • pecksniffian, which is an adjective describing a person that hypocritically and smugly affects benevolence and high morals/principles.  Isn't that a great word or what?
  • Toothsome may be a word many people already know the main meaning of (the most common definition is "pleasing to the taste").  Toothsome can also mean attractive and appealing, and this definition can also imply having sex appeal.
  • Intestable means "not legally qualified to make a will, as by reason of not being of age or being mentally unable to".  Elements that fit in this set include infants, lunatics, and flowers.
  • For the word "claque", think "clap".  A claque is a group of people hired to applaud a performer (the afterthought in my email also noted that these people may be hired to applaud, they may also be hired to heckle a rival performer).
  • Moirologists are the opposites of members of a claque; moirologists are hired to mourn at a funeral.
  • A pangram is a sentence, verse, etc. that contains every letter of the alphabet.  I have a short anecdote: in third grade, my class did an exercise where everybody wrote a pangram.  I wrote the one with the least letters!
  • To foist is the force upon, introduce, or bring fraudulently or unjustifiably.
  • Coming from the Latin verb neco, necare, necavi, necatus meaning "to kill," the term necrology is used to describe the list of people that have died within a certain period of time, or merely as a synonym for an obituary.
  • Foofaraw is flashy and frivolous ornamentation or decoration.  It can also be a fuss over unimportant matters.  Doesn't this word just remind you of fluffy kittens or puppies?
  • A longueur part of a book, play, poem, musical composition, etc. is a dull and tedious section.  After these longueur parts always seem so much longer than they are.
Call these words ludicrous, call them inane, whatever: just make sure to use them.  Don't let this list go to waste!

    1 comment:

    1. The fact that flowers are intestable suggests that at one point, a flower tried to make a will.... (Little shop, little shop of horrors...) for anyone who's seen it, you know what I mean. If you haven't, you really don't want to. probably the creepyest show in existance. (even more than "Goosebumps," which are designed for that purpose)

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