Week 1_ vocabulary (children literature)

1.      Mishpocha, noun:

an entire family network comprising relatives by blood and marriage and sometimes including close friends; clan.

Levinsky told him he didn't need a lawyer. "Dealing with us is like mishpocha. Who needs a lawyer to talk to mishpocha." Simon learned later they had cheated him, but who cares, who would have cared?

-- Arthur A. Cohen, In the Days of Simon Stern, 1973

2.      Asseverate, verb: to affirm or declare positively or earnestly.

But of course it is! asseverates Herman Woodlife.

-- Miles Kington, "Child slavery: the half-truth", Independent, June 12, 1998

3.      Sentient, adjective:

1) Capable of perceiving by the senses; conscious.

2) Experiencing sensation or feeling.

I can remember very vividly the first time I became aware of my existence; how for the first time I realised that I was a sentient human being in a perceptible world.

-- Lord Berners, First Childhood

4.      Malapropos:

adjective:      

Unseasonable; unsuitable; inappropriate.

adverb:

In an inappropriate or inopportune manner; unseasonably.

Such malapropos wise cracks are driven home with a relentlessly upbeat soundtrack which serenades scenes of human tragedy with bouncy, Disneyesque melodies.

-- Steve Rabey, "Noah's Ark' hits bottom: Miniseries suffers from lack of accuracy", Arlington Morning News, May 2, 1999

5.      Agitprop, noun: propaganda.

Propaganda, especially pro-communist political propaganda disseminated through literature, drama, music, or art.

Despite its explicit program, when the symphony was first performed in 1957 a Russian audience always on the lookout for subtexts quickly interpreted it as being about the crushed Hungarian uprising of the previous year. This officially sanctioned work of agitprop was read as an encrypted denunciation of the Soviet regime.

-- Justin Davidson, "Musical Explosions, Moving and Martial", Newsday, May 22, 1999

6.      Fiat, noun: an arbitrary or authoritative command or order.

He found a provision in the college constitution that said there were to be no executive committees, and arguing that those stodgy impediments to serious change had grown up only by convention and tradition; he abolished them and ruled these faculty meetings by fiat, using each as an occasion to announce what he was going to do next that was sure to stir up even more resentment.

-- Philip Roth, The Human Stain

7.      Nimiety, noun: excess.

What a nimiety of . . . riches have we here! I am quite undone.

-- James J. Kilpatrick, "Buckley: The Right Word", National Review, December 23, 1996

8.      Surreptitious, adjective: done, made, or gotten by stealth; also, marked by stealth.

Now she made a surreptitious glance toward the doorway into the hall.

-- Naeem Murr, The Boy

9.      Pleonasm, noun: the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea.

Dougan uses many words where few would do, as if pleonasm were a way of wringing every possibility out of the material he has, and stretching sentences a form of spreading the word.

-- Paula Cocozza, "Book review: How Dynamo Kiev beat the Luftwaffe", Independent, March 2, 2001

10.  Abominate, verb: to detest intensely.

I had no wish to study or learn anything, and as for Latin, I abominated it.

-- Charles Tyng, Before the Wind

11.  Discursive, adjective: digressive; rambling; also, marked by analytical reasoning.

The style is highly discursive, leap-frogging forwards and backwards across the decades, without ever sacrificing thrust or clarity.

-- Nicholas Blincoe, "Spirit that speaks", The Guardian, August 21, 1999

12.  Countervail, verb: to counteract; also, to offset.

In spite of its keel's weight, and even without the countervailing underwater resistance of its mast, Dubois's boat seemed comfortably stable upside down.

-- Derek Lundy, Godforsaken Sea

13.  Myrmidon, noun: a loyal follower.

The best hotel, and all its culinary myrmidons, were set to work to prepare the feast.

-- Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

14.  Perforce, adverb: by necessity.

It will be an astonishing sight, should it come to pass, and even those of us who have followed every twist and turn of this process will perforce rub our eyes.

-- "Unionists sit tight as the poker game nears its climax", Irish Times, July 10, 1999

15.  Pusillanimous, adverb: cowardly.

You are now anxious to form excuses to yourself for a conduct so pusillanimous.

-- Ann Radcliffe, The Italian

16.  Claque, noun: a group of fawning admirers.

Charles Bukowski suffers from too good a press-- a small but loudly enthusiastic claque.

-- Kenneth Rexroth, "There's Poetry in a Ragged Hitch-Hiker", New York Times, July 5, 1964

17.  Fugacious, adjective: lasting but a short time.

When he proposed the tax in May, Altman thought it would follow the fugacious nature of some flowers: bloom quickly and die just as fast.

-- Will Rodgers, "Parks proposal falls on 3-2 vote", Tampa Tribune, June 27, 2001

18.  Hauteur, noun: haughtiness; arrogance.

My silence, I hoped, would be taken as expressive of the hauteur of a man who was above it all -- a man with a mission, in fact, a mission authorized from somewhere on high.

-- Jeffrey Tayler, Facing the Congo

19.  Somnolent, noun: drowsy; also, tending to cause sleepiness.

Back in the somnolent heat of Bangalore he wrote a revealing novel entitled Savrola.

-- David Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service

20.  Susurration, noun: a whispering; a soft murmur.

Across the road I can make out the grassy park that runs along the sand and hear, in the distance, the steady susurration of the Atlantic Ocean.

-- Michael Dirda, "Excursions", Washington Post, January 2, 2000

21.  Puerile, adjective: juvenile; childish.

Political argument is becoming a puerile cartoon about the moral . . . doing battle with the immoral.

-- George F. Will, "The Costs of Moral Exhibitionism", Washington Post, April 15, 2001

22.  Gelid, adjective: extremely cold; icy.

The weather is gelid on a recent Thursday night--so uninviting that it's hard to imagine anyone venturing out.

-- Letta Tayler, "The Accent's on Brooklyn", Newsday, April 6, 2000

23.  Philomath, noun: a lover of learning; a scholar.

It is precisely for the philomaths that universities ought to cater.

-- Aldous Huxley, Proper Studies

24.  Redoubt, noun: a stronghold.

First, Milosevic himself will be absent, apparently fearful of leaving his redoubt in Belgrade.

-- "Lessons of Balkans Applied to Kosovo", New York Times, February 1, 1999

25.  Extant, adjective: still existing.

The fossil record shows clearly that ancient life was very different from extant life.

-- Paul Davies, The Fifth Miracle