Week 4_ vocabulary (children literature)

1.          Fulminate, verb: to issue or utter verbal attacks or censures.

This mass culture--global, immediate, accessible, buoyant, with shared heroes, models, and goals--is immensely intoxicating. Ayatollahs fulminate against it; dictators censor it; mandarins try to slam the door on it.

-- Lawrence M. Friedman, The Horizontal Society

2.          Sycophant, noun: one who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people.

I became a sycophant, assuring Nick he was smarter than everyone else put together, smarter than his boss, than the people at the bank, than anyone in his family or mine.

-- Lisa Kleypas, Blue-Eyed Devil

3.          Vitiate, verb: to make faulty or imperfect.

Whatever a "real contradiction" might be, "apparent contradictions" are quite sufficient to vitiate a doctrine of biblical authority that is based on the supposedly apparent reading of the text.

-- Robert M. Price, "The Psychology of Biblicism", Humanist, May 2001

4.          Factious, adjective: addicted to form parties and raise dissensions.

Many nobles sought good government, rather than being factious, and were only forced into war by the king's incompetence.

-- "Cade's Rebellion, History of United Kingdom," Encyclopedia Britannica

5.          Quiescent, adjective: at rest; still; inactive.

Have we had our day and are we . . . just carrying on after the manner of the aged, quiescent, devitalized, uncreative, desiring peace and sleep above all else?

-- Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India

6.          Purblind, adjective: having greatly reduced vision.

But something is fundamentally wrong at Leeds, something that even the most ardent supporters -- and other purblind apologists -- must surely come to recognise.

-- Kevin Mitchell, "How Leeds lost it", The Observer, March 10, 2002

7.          Coxcomb, noun: Obsolete A cap worn by court jesters; adorned with a strip of red. (Now cockscomb).

If thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.

-- William Shakespeare, King Lear

8.          Chicanery, noun: the use of trickery to deceive.

What is more, it can be deliberately adulterated by the farmer with sand, tree sap or ash, although a trained opium buyer can spot these tricks and few farmers dare resort to such chicanery.

-- Martin Booth, Opium: A History

9.          Habitué, noun: one who habitually frequents a place.

In the public house kept by Jesper Darkes, "zealous partizans in the cause of Liberty," as one habitue called them, met day and night, laying plans, discussing whether this man or that could be trusted or whether he was spying for the government, speculating on what could be done when the British military arrived, as it surely would.

-- Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War

10.      Pellucid, adjective: transparent, shining through; also, easily understandable.

The prevailing atmosphere as one cruises Kukulcan Boulevard, the busy strip where most of Cancun's 122 hotels are clustered, remains that of an Orlando or a Las Vegas dropped intact next to pellucid Caribbean waters.

-- Larry Rohter, "What's Doing in Cancun.", New York Times, March 8, 1998

11.      Buss, noun: a kiss; to kiss.

Lucky guesser gets a buss upon his plucky kisser.

-- William H. Gass, Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas

12.      Factitious, adjective: artificial; not authentic or genuine.

I sensed that it was time to step back, take stock, and try to untangle and think through a series of events, a great many of which I had either undergone with impassioned abandon or been asked to write about with factitious enthusiasm (a constant temptation for cultural critics who are expected to celebrate the new).

-- James Miller, Flowers in the Dustbin

13.      Profligate, adjective: shamelessly immoral; also, recklessly wasteful.

Life had to be challenged, attacked every instant, with reckless speed in a Ferrari, with profligate spending, with unrestrained sexuality, with artistic ambitions as monumental as they were impractical.

-- Tag Gallagher, The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini

14.      Bedaub, verb: to besmear; also, to overdecorate.

The patient's signature is less neat than usual, not only because of his agitated state but also, quite possibly, because the pen is so bedaubed with chocolate that it slips through his fingers.

-- Marcel Beyer, "The Karnau Tapes.", Grand Street, Fall 1997

15.      Bifurcate, verb: to divide into two branches.

There it was, a sliver of a million-dollar view: the red towers of the Golden Gate Bridge that bifurcated the waters, marking bay from ocean.

-- Amy Tan, The Bonesetter's Daughter

16.      Contumacious, adjective: obstinate; stubbornly disobedient.

Before a contumacious teenager can be turned into a disciplined, tradition-minded cadet, he or she must be admitted to West Point

-- Bill Kauffman, "The West Point Story", American Enterprise, July 1999

17.      Firmament, noun: the sky; the heavens.

But to judge by the twinkling summer stars that filled the firmament, the dawn was still far off.

-- A. B. Yehoshua, A Journey to the End of the Millennium

18.      Arcane, adjective: understood or known by only a few.

While addressing a problem in the arcane field of mathematical logic, he imagined a machine that could mimic human reasoning.

-- Paul Gray, "Alan Turing", Time Pacific, March 29, 1999

19.      Perfunctory, adjective: done routinely.

His hugs, although expansive and affectionate, did not linger, seemed perfunctory.

-- Susan Bordo, The Male Body

20.      Temerity, noun: unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger.

When English merchants had the temerity to set up a trading post or 'factory' -- junior merchants were known as factors -- the Dutchmen defended their monopoly by massacring them.

-- Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Proudest Day

21.      Superannuated, adjective: old; discharged or disqualified on account of old age.

Jack affects a magicianly air as he limps around on a shepherd's staff and masks his essential sadism by couching his cruel remarks in the hushed oh-wow voice of a superannuated hippie.

-- Stephen Holden, "The Wife.", New York Times, August 16, 1996

22.      Egregious, adjective: outrageously bad.

As far as we're concerned, the most egregious fouls committed during Sunday's Super Bowl will involve tortilla chips and melted cheese.

-- Bonnie S. Benwick and Joe Yonan, "Super Bowl smackdown: Nachos vs. nachos", Washington Post, February 3, 2010

23.      Tutelary, adjective: guardian; protecting.

For the first time in history, a republic welcomed, perhaps even required, the release of the individual from tutelary powers, and in particular from religious authority.

-- Diana Schaub, "On the Character of Generation X", Public Interest, Fall 1999

24.      Condign, adjective: deserved; adequate.

In a story as old as the Greeks, overweening pride brought condign disaster.

-- David Frum, How We Got Here

25.      Lambent, adjective: playing on the surface; flickering.

She wanted to tell him how she felt and feel that lambent look that was better than sunshine, his look of offering all that was in him.

-- Anna Shapiro, "The Scourge", USA Today, July 23, 2001