Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Definitions #2

Here are some words I've had to look up recently:

1. Saturnine: Melancholy or sullen; Having or marked by a tendency to be bitter or sardonic.

2. Louche: Of questionable taste or morality; decadent.

3. Palimpsest: A manuscript, typically of papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once;with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible.

4. Noisome: Offensive to the point of arousing disgust; foul.

5. Pernicious: Tending to cause death or serious injury; deadly;Causing great harm; destructive.

6. Toadying: A person who flatters or defers to others for self-serving reasons; a sycophant.

7. Horripilate: The bristling of the body hair, as from fear or cold; goose bumps.

8. Triturated: To rub, crush, grind, or pound into fine particles or a powder; pulverize.

9. Pullulated: To put forth sprouts or buds; germinate; To breed rapidly or abundantly; To teem; swarm.

10. Peregrinations: To journey or travel from place to place, especially on foot.

11. Styptic: Contracting the tissues or blood vessels; astringent; Tending to check bleeding by contracting the tissues or blood vessels; hemostatic.

12. Moribund: Approaching death; about to die; On the verge of becoming obsolete.

13. Mendicants: A beggar; A member of an order of friars forbidden to own property in common, who work or beg for their living.

How many of these words did YOU know?

3 comments:

  1. what about subsume?

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  2. Not a single one. Which books are you reading to come up with these words? I would need a dictionary to understand what I was reading. You are becoming a master of the English language.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Zero! Idon't think I could keep reading a book that had these words in them. I would lose interest if I had to look up all the words. You have a lot of patience.

    ReplyDelete

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