Week 13_ vocabulary (children literature)

1.      potable, adjective: drinkable; also, a beverage, especially an alcoholic one.

He indicates the places for peculiar edibles, and exquisite potables.

-- Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature

2.      crepuscular, adjective: pertaining to twilight.

I've been through their checkout and noted its resemblance to Hades - the crepuscular gloom, the dungeon lighting, the mile-long shuffling queue, the glum, sickly faces, the trolleys piled high with flat-pack cardboard units.

-- John Walsh, "btw", Independent, February 12, 2005

3.      doppelganger, noun: a ghostly double.

But my primary interest here is not the machinations of science itself but the fascinating life and times of its dark doppelganger, the mad scientist, in all his overreaching glory.

-- David J. Skal, Screams of Reason

4.      chimerical, adjective: merely imaginary; fanciful.

Her name is Dulcinea; her country El Toboso, a village in La Mancha; her degree at least that of Princess, for she is my Queen and mistress; her beauty superhuman, for in her are realized all the impossible and chimerical attributes of beauty which poets give to their ladies.

-- Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote

5.      sybarite, noun: a person devoted to luxury and pleasure.

And when the final blessing of a perfect French cook appeared to make our domestic picture complete, we became utter sybarites, frank worshippers of the splendors of the French cuisine.

-- Samuel Chamberlain, Clémentine in the Kitchen

6.      gourmand, noun: one who enjoys good food in great quantities.

Her husband was stigmatised as a 'gourmand' who excessively enjoyed 'the pleasures of the table'.

-- Andrew Motion, Keats

7.      animadversion, noun: harsh criticism or disapproval.

No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion.

-- Samuel Johnson, Rambler No. 155, September 10, 1751

8.      desuetude, noun: disuse.

The exercise of rights which had practically passed into desuetude.

-- John Richard Green, Short History of the English People

9.      pusillanimous, adjective: cowardly.

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

-- Ann Radcliffe, The Italian

10.  inculcate, verb: to teach and impress by frequent repetition or instruction.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to inculcate in those who do not want to know, the curiosity to know; I think it is also impossible to kill this need in those who really want to know.

-- T. V. Rajan, "The Aha! Factor", The Scientist, March 21, 2002

11.  mien, noun: demeanor; also, aspect; appearance.

He raised and answered the question with the dispassionate mien of a professor advising a student on a course of study.

-- Edith Anderson, Love in Exile

12.  garrulous, adjective: talkative; also, wordy.

The garrulous ancient was for once holding his tongue.

-- William Black, Madcap Violet

13.  aggrandize, verb: to make or make appear great or greater.

It looks to me instead that one rising power center . . . is seeking to aggrandize itself by discrediting the principal alternative.

-- David Frum, "Diary", National Review, April 30, 2003

14.  sojourn, verb: to dwell for a time; also, a temporary stay.

As chance would have it, Degas's five-month sojourn in New Orleans coincided with an extraordinarily contentious period in the stormy political history of the city.

-- Christopher Benfey, Degas in New Orleans

15.  bombast, noun: pompous or pretentious speech or writing.

It was partly this gift for nuance that caused Kempton to notice, while reviewing the work of Whittaker Chambers, something undeniably authentic beneath the bombast and self-pity.

-- "Age of Ideology: Murray Kempton on the 30's", New York Times, January 31, 1999

16.  cupidity, noun: eager or excessive desire, especially for wealth.

Curiosity was a form of lust, a wandering cupidity of the eye and the mind.

-- John Crowley, "Of Marvels And Monsters", Washington Post, October 18, 1998

17.  berate, verb: to scold severely or angrily.

Monsieur couldn't bear to be touched, and if I stretched out my foot and accidentally brushed against him in my sleep he would wake me up and berate me for half an hour.

-- Christine Pevitt, Philippe, Duc D'Orleans

18.  supererogatory, adjective: going beyond what is required or expected; also, superfluous, unnecessary.

The best opera directors accept this primacy of music in creating theatrical illusion; the worst ones swamp it with overblown stage effects which make the music, as it were supererogatory.

-- Terry Teachout, "Words, music, opera", Commentary, December 1, 1995

19.  encomium, noun: expression of praise.

He brought in the bread, cheese and beer, with many high encomiums upon their excellence.

-- Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop

20.  sardonic, adjective: scornful, mocking.

Emery was a strange man: highly intelligent, witty in a sardonic way, and a snob, who didn't consider me worth bothering about until I became music director of the Royal Opera in London.

-- Georg Solti, Memoirs

21.  raconteur, noun: one who excels in telling stories and anecdotes.

He has an excellent raconteur's mind, memory, vocabulary and tongue, brings in a story just at the right time, in the right manner, serves his anecdotes perfectly either piping hot or ice-cold as tragedies.

-- Anatole Pohorilenko and James Crump, When We Were Three

22.  polymath, noun: a person of great or varied learning.

A century after Aristotle, in 240 B.C., a brilliant polymath, Eratosthenes, is appointed chief librarian of the Museum at Alexandria--the most cosmopolitan city and center of learning in the Mediterranean world.

-- Alan Gurney, Below the Convergence

23.  extempore, adjective: without premeditation or preparation.

Kelso had already delivered his short paper, on Stalin and the archives, at the end of the previous day: delivered it in his trademark style--without notes, with one hand in his pocket, extempore, provocative.

-- Robert Harris, Archangel

24.  blandishment, noun: flattering speech or action.

But she had not risen at all to the law fellow's blandishments, his attempts to interest her in his ideas and persuade her to set forth her own.

-- John Bayley, Elegy for Iris

25.  hugger-mugger, noun: secret; also, muddled, disorderly.

I followed him to that hugger-mugger cabin he had hidden in the oaks on the other side of the swale and nipped behind the trees.

-- Roy Parvin, The Loneliest Road in America