Week 11_ vocabulary (children literature)

1.      propitious, adjective: presenting favorable circumstances.

By the early 1500s rice was being planted on the Cape Verde island most propitious for agriculture, Santiago.

-- Judith A. Carney, Black Rice

2.      inclement, adjective: harsh; severe -- especially said of the weather.

Molly also noticed that the window frames had grooves of soft lead, less than an inch wide and shaped like blunt hooks, into which the glass could be slotted at night or during inclement weather.

-- Annabel Davis-Goff, The Dower House

3.      kobold, noun: a kind of domestic spirit in German mythology.

Witch, kobold, sprite. . . and imp of every kind.

-- A. J. Symington

4.      knell, noun: the stoke of a bell tolled at a funeral.

The Bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a Knell, That summons thee to Heaven, or to Hell.

-- Shakespeare, Macbeth

5.      cogent, adjective: appealing to the mind or to reason; convincing.

I suggested to the student that she take her refusal as the theme of her term paper and ponder it as carefully as possible. A few weeks later she submitted one of the most cogent, intelligent papers I have read.

-- Denis Donoghue, The Practice of Reading

6.      regale, verb: to entertain with something that delights.

If I've been away, and the boys do remember to ask about my trip, I remark on their thoughtfulness by saying, 'Thanks for asking!' and then regale them with stories about my journey.

-- Lucy Calkins, Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide

7.      mordant, noun: biting; caustic; sarcastic.

He had a mordant wit as well . . . , a bit wicked and waspish even.

-- Janice A. Radway, A Feeling for Books

8.      agog, adjective: in eager desire.

He was now so interested, quite so privately agog, about it, that he had already an eye to the fun it would be to open up to her afterwards.

-- Henry James, The Ambassadors

9.      captious, adjective: disposed to find fault or raise objections.

With the imperturbablest bland clearness, he, for five hours long, keeps answering the incessant volley of fiery captious questions.

-- Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

10.  arbitrage, noun: the nearly simultaneous purchase and sale of an asset in order to profit from price discrepancies.

If the market exchange rate deviates from par, there is opportunity for arbitrage by exchanging the cheaper currency for gold, shipping the gold to the other country, converting the gold into the other currency, and converting the proceeds into the cheaper currency on the market.

-- Milton Friedman, Money Mischief

11.  redoubt, noun: a stronghold.

Evicting the intruders from their mountain redoubts with ground forces alone was beginning to look like a protracted and expensive task.

-- "Kashmir's violent spring", The Economist, May 29, 1999

12.  chichi, adjective: affectedly trendy.

"Going in gangs to those chichi clubs at Maidenhead."

-- E. Taylor, Game of Hide-&-Seek

13.  taw, noun: a large marble.

A still greater favourite is shooting a 'taw', which requires no small dexterity.

-- Grant

14.  vexillology, noun: the study of flags.

This unknown specialist has demonstrated his great knowledge of heraldry and vexillology

-- Occasional Newsletter to Librarians, January 4, 1966

15.  quorum, noun: such a number of the officers or members of any body as is legally competent to transact business.

The extraordinary powers of the Senate were vested in twenty-six men, fourteen of whom would constitute a quorum, of which eight would make up a majority.

-- Akhil Reed Amar, The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction

16.  abscond, verb: to depart secretly.

Pearl, now an orphan (her father having absconded shortly after her conception), has been taken to live with her great-aunt Margaret in the north of England.

-- Zoe Heller, Everything You Know

17.  virtu, noun: love of or taste for fine objects of art; also, productions of art.

The Italian humanist Giovanni Pontano described these objects as "statues, pictures, tapestries, divans, chairs of ivory, cloth interwoven with gems, many-coloured boxes and coffers in the Arabian style, crystal vases and other things of this kind . . . [whose] sight . . . is pleasing and brings prestige to the owner of the house." They all spoke to the wealth, taste and virtu of their owner.

-- John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination

18.  junta, noun: a governmental council or committee, esp. one that rules after a revolution.

The Greek junta that seized power during 1967 mobilized the courts against its foes.

-- Charles S. Maier, Dissolution

19.  gamut, noun: a complete extent or range.

The...stocks were running...up and down the gamut from $1 to $700 a share.

-- Harper's Magazine, 1883

20.  lexicon, noun: a dictionary; also, the vocabulary of a person, group, etc.

Curse words ceased to shock; many moved into the accepted lexicon.

-- Bruce J. Schulman, The Seventies

21.  aestival, adjective: of or belonging to the summer.

You generally get true summer in August: this year it has been unusually æstival.

-- M. Collins

22.  slugabed, noun: one who stays in bed until a late hour.

I found Oriana, as usual, up before me, for I always was a sad slugabed.

-- W. Hurton, Doomed Ship

23.  desultory, adjective: jumping from subject to subject; erratic; inconsistent.

One way or the other, his once voluminous exchanges with Mrs. Swanson dwindled to almost nothing. For a year or two, they consisted of the odd, desultory postcard, then the store-bought Christmas greeting, and then, by 1976, they had stopped altogether.

-- Paul Auster, Timbuktu

24.  irascible, adjective: easily provoked to anger.

His father was an irascible and boastful bully, a heavy drinker and a gambler.

-- Robin Waterfield, Prophet: The Life and Times of Kahlil Gibran

25.  acumen, noun: quickness or keenness of perception or discernment.

The family store gave him a sharp business acumen -- acquired, he would say, by manning the cash register -- that few of his rivals possessed.

-- David Schiff, "Who Was That Masked Composer?", The Atlantic, January 2000