Recently Added Articles Page #117

mendacious - vocabulary

adjectiveUntrue, false; habitually telling lies, dishonest. For the last week, I've been intimately involved with Jack Nicholson. He's both a charmer and a cliché. Passionate about truth in his art and a mendacious hypocrite in real life. Wildly gen...

meretricious - vocabulary

adjectiveShowy, gaudy, tawdry; deceptively pleasing, based on pretense; also relating to a prostitute, as in a meretricious relationship. “She is charming,” thought Eugène, more and more in love. He looked round him at the room; there was an ost...

meticulous - vocabulary

adjectiveTaking extreme care with minute details; precise; thorough. Moreover, in his tremendous prophecy of this kingdom which was to make all men one together in God, Jesus had small patience for the bargaining righteousness of formal religion. Ano...

mettle - vocabulary

nounCourage or fortitude; also temperament or disposition, as in a woman of fine mettle. In truth, the Geats’ prince gladly trusted his mettle, his might, the mercy of God! Cast off then his corselet of iron, helmet from head; to his henchman gave,...

microcosm - vocabulary

nounA small representative system analogous to the larger system. Thus one can see in the Negro church to-day, reproduced in microcosm, all that great world from which the Negro is cut off by color-prejudice and social condition. In the great city ch...

mien - vocabulary

nounAir, demeanor, or bearing, which shows feeling or character. My Lord advances with majestic mien, Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen.—Alexander Pope Moral Essays: Epistle to Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington (1731)...

militate, mitigate - vocabulary

verbMilitate: to influence strongly. The word militate is intransitive and is usually accompanied by the preposition against. For if it happened that an individual, even when asleep, had some very distinct idea, as, for example, if a geometer should ...

misanthropic - vocabulary

adjectiveCharacterized by a mistrustful scorn or hatred of humankind; having a sneering disbelief in humankind.Note: The noun misanthrope (a person) is a hater of humankind. The noun misanthropy refers to the hatred itself. Wilhelm checked his feelin...

misnomer - vocabulary

nounA name wrongly or mistakenly applied; an inappropriate or misapplied designation or name. Cat-nap is a short nap taken while sitting; cat-ladder a kind of ladder used on sloping roofs of houses; cat-steps, the projections of the stones in the sla...

missive - vocabulary

nounA message in writing; a letter. George read one sentence in this letter several times. Then he dropped the missive in his wastebasket to join the clipping, and strolled down the corridor of his dormitory to borrow a copy of “Twelfth Night.” H...

mitigate, militate - vocabulary

See the discussion under militate, mitigate.Grammar.com's section on Problem Words discusses militate and mitigate. Click here for that discussion....

moribund - vocabulary

adjectiveAbout to die; on the verge of termination or extinction; on the verge of becoming obsolete. Of the twenty or so civilizations known to modern Western historians, all except our own appear to be dead or moribund, and, when we diagnose each ca...

munificent - vocabulary

adjectiveCharacterized by generous motives, extremely liberal in giving. The noun is munificence. Yesterday was a big moment in the annals of congressional munificence. While the Senate was increasing the government's borrowing limit and growing the ...

myriad - vocabulary

nounA vast indefinite number.adjectiveInnumerable. Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men. In the 19th century it began to be used in poetry as an adjective, as in myriad men. Both usages in E...

nausea, nauseate, nauseous, nauseating - vocabulary

nausea, noun; nauseate, verb; nauseous, nauseated, and nauseating, adjectives.Note: Purists insist that nauseous means “causing nausea,” as in the nauseous roller-coaster ride, and that nauseated means “feeling nausea,” as in the nauseated st...

nefarious - vocabulary

adjectiveWicked or villainous in the extreme; vile, heinous. One of the most nefarious aspects of the court of Constantinople (known as the Seraglio and the Sublime Porte) was the all-pervading corruption and bribery that had been raised to a system ...

nihilism, nihilist - vocabulary

nounNihilism: the total rejection of laws and institutions; nihilism is marked by terrorism, anarchy, and other revolutionary activity. In philosophy, nihilism is an extreme form of skepticism, the denial of all existence or the possibility of an obj...

noisome, noisy - vocabulary

adjectiveNoisome: very offensive, particularly to the sense of smell, as in noisome fumes.Noisy: loud.Note: The human ear can detect only one of these words, that is, noisy. The other, noisome, is better associated with the nose. Foul words is but fo...

nonpareil - vocabulary

noun, adjectiveA person or thing without equal, peerless; a small pellet of sugar used for decorating cookies or candy; a bite-sized chocolate covered with these pellets. I see you what you are: you are too proud; But, if you were the devil, you are ...

nostrum - vocabulary

nounA medicine sold with exaggerated claims of its efficacy; quack medicine; snake oil; a scheme, theory, or device, especially one to remedy social or political ills. As to Squire Western, he was seldom out of the sickroom, unless when he was engage...

nuance - vocabulary

nounA slight degree of difference in anything perceptible; a very slight variation or difference in color or tone. Throughout these eight or ten volumes he proves himself to be one of those rare writers who see what they write. As in the case of Tenn...

obdurate - vocabulary

adjectiveUnmoved by pity, persuasion, or tender feelings; stubborn, unyielding; resistant to moral influence. She stood with her bright angry eyes confronting the wide stare, and the set face; and softened no more, when the moaning was repeated, than...

obsequious - vocabulary

adjectiveShowing a servile or fawning readiness to fall in with the wishes or will of another; overly deferential. What guest at Dives’s table can pass the familiar house without a sigh?—the familiar house of which the lights used to shine so che...

obstinate - vocabulary

adjectiveStubbornly or firmly adhering to one’s own view, purpose, or opinion; unyielding in attitude; inflexible persistence, as in obstinate advocacy for higher taxes; not easily controlled, as in obstinate growth of weeds. There are also many ot...

obstreperous - vocabulary

adjectiveResisting restraint or control in a difficult manner; unruly; boisterous, noisy, clamorous. A lunatic may be “soothed,”... for a time, but in the end, he is very apt to become obstreperous. His cunning, too, is proverbial, and great.... ...