Showing posts with label mixed words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mixed words. Show all posts

Friday, June 6, 2008

Today's Match The Following


muster
coagulate
bedaub
denigrate
inveigle


besmear

clot
rally
persuade
defame


muster - To call (troops) together, as for inspection.
Synonyms: muster up, rally, summon, come up
Usage: It was the strongest fortress France possessed, and if the king had better sense, he would have sent all the ships he could muster to protect it.

coagulate - To cause transformation of (a liquid or sol, for example) into or as if into a soft, semisolid, or solid mass.

Synonyms: clot
Usage: The medical students watched blood coagulate as part of their lesson in clotting reactions.

bedaub - To smear; soil.

Synonyms: besmear
Usage: The natives were discernible, not merely to the eye but to the nostrils, by the awful odors of the rancid grease with which they bedaub their bodies.

denigrate - To attack the character or reputation of; speak ill of; belittle.

Synonyms: defame, derogate, disparage
Usage: He helped you a great deal on this project; don't take all the credit and denigrate his influence.

inveigle
- To win over by coaxing, flattery, or artful talk.

Synonyms: cajole, coax, sweet-talk, wheedle, persuade
Usage: Unless he can inveigle someone to buy his old car, he won't have enough money for new one.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/booksellers/press_release/100words/

The editors of the American Heritage® dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know.

"The words we suggest," says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, "are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language."

The following is the entire list of 100 words:

abjure
abrogate
abstemious
acumen
antebellum
auspicious
belie
bellicose
bowdlerize
chicanery
chromosome
churlish
circumlocution
circumnavigate
deciduous
deleterious
diffident
enervate
enfranchise
epiphany
equinox
euro
evanescent
expurgate
facetious
fatuous
feckless
fiduciary
filibuster
gamete
gauche
gerrymander
hegemony
hemoglobin
homogeneous
hubris
hypotenuse
impeach
incognito
incontrovertible
inculcate
infrastructure
interpolate
irony
jejune
kinetic
kowtow
laissez faire
lexicon
loquacious
lugubrious
metamorphosis
mitosis
moiety
nanotechnology
nihilism
nomenclature
nonsectarian
notarize
obsequious
oligarchy
omnipotent
orthography
oxidize
parabola
paradigm
parameter
pecuniary
photosynthesis
plagiarize
plasma
polymer
precipitous
quasar
quotidian
recapitulate
reciprocal
reparation
respiration
sanguine
soliloquy
subjugate
suffragist
supercilious
tautology
taxonomy
tectonic
tempestuous
thermodynamics
totalitarian
unctuous
usurp
vacuous
vehement
vortex
winnow
wrought
xenophobe
yeoman
ziggurat


'
abjure :
to renounce or deny under oath

belie :
1. to show to be untrue: the facts belied the theory
2. to misrepresent: the score belied the closeness of the match
3. to fail to justify: the promises were soon belied

chicanery :
trickery or deception

chicanery

decidious :
1. (of a tree) shedding all leaves annually
2. (of antlers or teeth) being shed at the end of a period of growth

enervate :
1. To weaken or destroy the strength or vitality of: "the luxury which enervates and destroys nations" Henry David Thoreau. See Synonyms at deplete.
2. Medicine To remove a nerve or part of a nerve.

Usage Note: Sometimes people mistakenly use enervate to mean "to invigorate" or "to excite" by assuming that this word is a close cousin of the verb energize. In fact enervate does not come from the same source as energize (Greek energos, "active"). It comes from Latin nervus. Thus enervate means "to cause to become 'out of muscle'," that is, "to weaken or deplete of strength."




facetious :
Playfully jocular; humorous: facetious remarks.


gamete :
a cell that can fuse with another in reproduction, having one set of choromosomes [Greek gametē wife]


hegemony :
the dominance or leadership of one social group or nation over others;
"the hegemony of a single member state is not incompatible with a genuine confederation"; "to say they have priority is not to say they have complete hegemony"; "the consolidation of the United States' hegemony over a new international economic system"

impeach :
1. a. To make an accusation against.
b. To charge (a public official) with improper conduct in office before a proper tribunal.
2. To challenge the validity of; try to discredit: impeach a witness's credibility.

jejune :
1. simple and unsophisticated
2. dull and uninteresting [Latin jejunus empty]