Week 5: vocabulary
1. lachrymose: given to causing tears.
The game is perpetuated by the sons in a sometimes
vicious sibling rivalry that inevitably subsides into lachrymose reconciliation.
-- Arthur Gelb
and Barbara Gelb, O'Neill: Life With Monte Cristo
The criminal is not concerned with influencing or
affecting public opinion: he simply wants to abscond with his money or
accomplish his mercenary task in the quickest and easiest way possible so that
he may reap his reward and enjoy the fruits of his labours.
-- Bruce
Hoffman, Inside Terrorism
Unless some light is shed on shady dealings and some
probity restored, more young lives will be blighted and careers choked off.
-- Norman
Lebrecht, Who Killed Classical Music?
On stage she seemed to become transformed, and the
contrast was even more noticeable given her shy, taciturn character, shrouded
in the impalpable veil of gloom that always surrounded her.
-- Pino
Cacucci, Tina Modotti: A Life
Those close to Clark from childhood were not surprised at
how quickly he recognized the lucrative financial opportunities commercial
announcing afforded, for Clark had demonstrated a proclivity for
entrepreneurship as a youth.
-- John A.
Jackson, American Bandstand: Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock 'n' Roll
Empire
6. demagogue: a leader who
obtains power by means of appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the
populace.
A consummate demagogue, McCarthy played upon cold war
emotions and made charges so fantastic that frightened people believed the
worst.
-- Arthur
Herman, Joseph McCarthy
He did so, having previously warned his friends and
relations not to drink the water. 'He also declared that none of his community
could exculpate themselves from this accusation, as the plot was communicated
to all and all were guilty of the above charges.'
-- Philip
Ziegler, Black Death
If they lingered too long, Clarice hurried them along in
the same annoyed way she rushed recalcitrant goats through the gate.
-- Kaye
Gibbons, On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon
There was an exception to this in the form of Mrs. Edna
Parsons, a formidable Englishwoman who had once been the Prince's nanny and now
served as proctor, supervising his behaviour. She was about fifty and true to
her quondam profession, she could be quite strict.
-- David
Freeman, One of Us
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
Probably only one in a hundred girls who give birth
clandestinely even knows that an edict of King Henry II, now fallen into
desuetude, once made their action punishable by death.
-- Nina
Rattner Gelbart, The King's Midwife
As we survey Jewish history as a whole from the vantage
point of the late twentieth century, Judah Halevi's phrase "prisoner of
hope" seems entirely apposite . The prisoner of hope is sustained and
encouraged by his hope, even as he is confined by it.
-- Jane S.
Gerber (Editor), The Illustrated History of the Jewish People
His careless manners and jocund repartees might well seem
incompatible with anything serious.
-- William
Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico
Studying the firmament --the night vault that sparkles
with thousands of flickering lights--is older than recorded history.
-- William E.
Burrows, This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age
Example: We all know what it is to have a half-warmed
fish ["half-formed wish"] inside us.
His hugs, although expansive and affectionate, did not
linger, seemed perfunctory .
-- Susan
Bordo, The Male Body
17. beholden: obliged;
indebted.
Kate was quite fond of him and knew he was grateful to her for all the help and hospitality she and Oliver had given him during his period of gloom and puzzlement after his wife's defection, but she did not want him to feel beholden to her.
Kate was quite fond of him and knew he was grateful to her for all the help and hospitality she and Oliver had given him during his period of gloom and puzzlement after his wife's defection, but she did not want him to feel beholden to her.
-- Mary
Sheepshanks, Picking Up the Pieces
There should be polyglot waiters who can tell us when the
train starts in four or five languages.
-- Hamerton,
Intelligent Life
abjure, on his knees, his heretical views that the Earth
moves around the Sun.
-- Alan
Gurney, Below the Convergence
Jane reflexively accommodates my fears and desires, as I
do hers; together, man and wife, we collude in a mutual conspiracy to shelter
and protect one another from our own and each other's inevitable and final
abandonment.
-- Donald
Antrim, The Verificationist
In 1788 . . . George III succumbed to the first attack of
madness, the violent symptoms of which required the appointment of his oldest
son, the Prince of Wales, as Regent. The King regained his reason the following
year and resumed power, but already the high living "Prinnie" and his
dissolute friends had changed the tone of the court.
-- Benita
Eisler, Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame
His writings, speeches, and decisions supply crucial
evidence but also contain mendacious elements, gaps, and camouflage.
-- Richard
Breitman, Official Secrets
He put in a strong plea for clemency, begging the king to
spare the alchemist's life.
-- Janet
Gleeson, The Arcanum: The Extraordinary True Story
He was no longer an ebullient, energetic adolescent.
-- Linda
Simon, Genuine Reality: A Life of William James
By the early 1500s rice was being planted on the Cape
Verde Island most propitious for agriculture, Santiago.
-- Judith A.
Carney, Black Rice
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