Week 4: vocabulary

1.      prolix: wordy.

It was a cumbersome book, widely criticized for being prolix in style and maddeningly circular in argument.

-- Simon Winchester, "Word Imperfect", The Atlantic, May 2001

2.      cavalcade: a procession.

Behind him he sensed the progress of the cavalcade as one by one the carriages wheeled off the Dublin road.

-- Stella Tillyard, Citizen Lord: The Life of Edward Fitzgerald, Irish Revolutionary

3.      celerity: quickness; swiftness.

Though not in the best of physical form, he was capable of moving with celerity.

-- Malachy McCourt, A Monk Swimming: A Memoir

4.      obloquy: ill repute.

There he remained, weeping indignantly at her stream of obloquy, bitterly ashamed of his tears, until it was time for supper.

-- Jonathan Keates, Stendhal

5.      extol: to praise.

Let your deeds themselves praise you, for here I leave them in all their glory, lacking words to extol them.

-- Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha

6.      frisson: a brief moment of intense excitement.

When we think a story hasn't been invented, there's an extra frisson in reading it.

-- "Too true", Independent, April 12, 1998

7.      malediction: a curse.

A conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.

-- Joseph McCarthy, quoted in Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, by Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes

8.      lenity: the state or quality of being lenient.

The criminal suspect is pressured by remorse or hope of lenity or sheer despair to fess up.

-- Richard A. Posner, "Let Them Talk", The New Republic, August 21, 2000

9.      unctuous: marked by a false or smug earnestness or agreeableness.

She recalled being offended by the "phoniness" that stemmed from the contradiction between her mother's charming, even unctuous public manner and her anger in private.

-- Daniel Horowitz, Betty Friedan And the Making of 'The Feminine Mystique'

10.  expatiate: to speak or write at length.

He had told her all he had been asked to tell--or all he meant to tell: at any rate he had been given abundant opportunity to expatiate upon a young man's darling subject--himself.

-- Henry Blake Fuller, Bertram Cope's Year

11.  nescience: lack of knowledge or awareness.

The ancients understood that too much knowledge could actually impede human functioning -- this at a time when the encroachments on global nescience were comparatively few.

-- Cullen Murphy, "DNA Fatigue", The Atlantic, November 1997

12.  desideratum: something desired.

A technical dictionary . . . is one of the desiderata in anatomy.

-- Alexander Monro, Essay on Comparative Anatomy

13.  indomitable: incapable of being subdued or overcome.

Because of his strength and toughness as well as his constant attention to the welfare of his army, his soldiers affectionately called him Old Hickory. Hickory was as tough a substance as they knew, and General Andrew Jackson was, in their minds, indomitable.

-- Robert V. Remini, The Battle of New Orleans

14.  raconteur: 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

15.  sunder: to break apart.

As the issue of slavery threatened to sunder the United States, President Abraham Lincoln, using biblical language, warned that "a house divided against itself cannot stand."

-- Morris B. Abraham, "Using the bully pulpit at the United Nations", Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 20, 1997

16.  peccadillo: a slight offense; a petty fault.

No peccadillo is too trivial: we learn that the mogul once blew his top because his laundry came back starched (" 'Fluff and fold!' he screamed").

-- Eric P. Nash, "High Concept", New York Times, May 10, 1998

17.  extricate: to free or release from a difficulty or entanglement.

Sean introduced himself and then extricated his hand from Ronan's persistent grasp in order to show him the photo.

-- Naeem Murr, The Boy

18.  aspersion: a damaging or derogatory remark.

Orley had once been forced to resign from a local men's club for casting aspersions on the character of another member's wife.

-- Thomas A. Underwood, Allen Tate: Orphan of the South

19.  levity: frivolity.

They sat there in their formal bargeman's rig . . . looking solemn: they were part of a ceremony, and levity, winking, whispering, smiling, had no place in it.

-- Patrick O'Brian, The Hundred Days

20.  mellifluous: flowing sweetly or smoothly.

The balladeer whose mellifluous voice serenaded two generations of lovers.

-- Margo Jefferson, "Unforgettable", New York Times, December 26, 1999

21.  logorrhea: excessive talkativeness.

Mr. King, who possesses an enviable superabundance of imagination, suffers from a less enviable logorrhea .

-- Michele Slung, "Scare Tactics.", New York Times , May 10, 1981

22.  arrogate: to claim or seize without right or justification.

A measure to abolish or radically restrict the ability of ministers to arrogate powers to themselves would be a necessary adjunct to the list of proposals on "open government/parliament".

-- Mike Marqusee, "Stumped for success", New Statesman & Society, January 19, 1996

23.  forlorn: sad and lonely because deserted, abandoned, or lost.

Henry had felt guilty at abandoning his sister; he had married not once but twice, leaving Rose forlorn.

-- Anita Brookner, Visitors

24.  comport: to bear or conduct (oneself); behave.

Help me, O Lord, to comport myself as a man tomorrow in the day of battle.

-- Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

25.  farrago: an assortment; a medley.

From the moment the story of the Countess of Wessex and the Sheikh of Wapping broke, there has been a farrago of rumour, speculation and fantasy of which virtually every newspaper should be ashamed.

-- Roy Greenslade, "A sting in the tale", The Guardian, April 9, 2001