Recently Added Articles Page #121

inane - vocabulary

adjectiveLacking sense, ideas, or significance; silly; empty or void. Anna made no answer. The conductor and her two fellow-passengers did not notice under her veil her panic-stricken face. She went back to her corner and sat down. The couple seated ...

inanimate - vocabulary

adjectiveLacking the qualities associated with living organisms; sluggish, dull. “Do you call that happiness—the ownership of human beings?” cried Miss Stackpole. “He owns his tenants, and he has thousands of them. It is pleasant to own somet...

inchoate - vocabulary

adjectiveNot yet completed or fully developed; just begun, incipient; not organized, lacking order. Until an employee has earned his retirement pay, or until the time arrives when he may retire, his retirement pay is but an inchoate right; but when t...

incipient - vocabulary

adjectiveBeginning to appear or exist, in an initial stage, as in an incipient disease. [Brent] Scowcroft predicted "an incipient civil war" would grip Iraq and said the best hope for pulling the country from chaos would be to turn the U.S. operation...

indolent - vocabulary

adjectiveLaziness; having or showing a disposition to avoid exertion or work. In pathology, causing little or no pain, as in an indolent sore slow to heal. Miss Bingley was engrossed by Mr. Darcy, her sister scarcely less so; and as for Mr. Hurst, by...

ineffable - vocabulary

adjectiveIncapable of being expressed or described in words, as in ineffable joy; not to be spoken because of its sacredness, unutterable, as in the ineffable name of the deity. He began with being a young man of promise; at Oxford he distinguished h...

inexorable - vocabulary

adjectiveUnalterable, unyielding, as in an inexorable truth; unrelenting, not to be moved, persuaded, affected by entreaties or prayers, as in an inexorable bill collector. And never has this lesson been taught with sterner and more unpitying force t...

infer, imply - vocabulary

verbInfer: to derive by reasoning, to conclude or judge from evidence or premises.Imply: to suggest or indicate a conclusion without its being explicitly stated; to involve as a necessary circumstance, as in speech implies a speaker. Note: Infer is s...

ingenuous, disingenuous - vocabulary

adjectiveIngenuous: candid, frank, or open in character or quality; characterized by an inability to mask feelings, not devious.Disingenuous: the dis- prefix establishes the negative; thus, not candid, not frank, not open in character or quality; ins...

ingratiate - vocabulary

verbTo win confidence or good graces for oneself, especially through deliberate effort. “Yes, this is a monument he is setting up here,” said Anna, turning to Dolly with that sly smile of comprehension with which she had previously talked about t...

inimical - vocabulary

adjectiveAdverse in effect or tendency, harmful, unfavorable; unfriendly, hostile. In other words, Mr. Dimmesdale, whose sensibility of nerve often produced the effect of spiritual intuition, would become vaguely aware that something inimical to his ...

insatiable - vocabulary

adjectiveIncapable of being satisfied or appeased, as in an insatiable thirst for fine wine. Sonia said this as though in despair, wringing her hands in excitement and distress. Her pale cheeks flushed, there was a look of anguish in her eyes. It was...

inscrutable - vocabulary

adjectiveIncapable of being analyzed, investigated, or scrutinized; impenetrable, not easily understood; unfathomable; mysterious, as in an inscrutable smile; incapable of being seen through, as in the inscrutable depths of the ocean. We have as yet ...

insidious - vocabulary

adjectiveIntended to beguile or entrap, as in an insidious plot; stealthily deceitful or treacherous, as in an insidious foe; proceeding in a seemingly harmless way but actually with dangerous effect, as in an insidious disease. She was terror-strick...

insipid - vocabulary

adjectiveLacking interesting, stimulating, or distinctive qualities, as in an insipid, boring speaker; without a sufficient taste to be pleasing, as in an insipid meal. Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two e...

intrepid - vocabulary

adjectiveFearless, courageous, and bold. Unchecked, the tourist will climb over the fence and come right into your house to take pictures of you in your habitat. Cities mindful of tourists have built elaborate “tourist traps” which, luckily, work...

intrinsic - vocabulary

adjectiveBelonging to a thing by its nature, inherent, as in the intrinsic value of gold. And yet, beyond that, she hardly knew what he had—save of course his intrinsic qualities. Oh, he was intrinsic enough; she never thought of his even looking f...

invective - vocabulary

nounAn utterance intended to cast censure or reproach; vehement denunciation; an insulting word or utterance. The art of invective resembles the art of boxing. Very few fights are won with the straight left. It is too obvious, and it can be too easil...

inveigh - vocabulary

verbTo utter vehement censure or invective, to protest strongly (often followed by against). Senate Democrats who oppose President Bush's Iraq policy spoke today against Condoleezza Rice's nomination to be secretary of state, signaling that they inte...

invidious - vocabulary

adjectiveCalculated to cause ill will or resentment; hateful, as in invidious remarks; offensively or unfairly injurious, as in invidious discrimination; tending to cause animosity. The invidious effects of such mass, roundup urinalysis is that it ca...

lackadaisical - vocabulary

adjectiveWithout vigor, determination, or interest; lethargic; listless; indolent.Note: This word is not pronounced with an x, as in laxadaisical. Start the word with lack. Those who stop obey orders. Able-bodied, clean-minded women we want also—mo...

liable, libel - vocabulary

adjectiveLiable: legally responsible; subject or susceptible to; likely or apt. Note: Liable is often interchangeable with likely in constructions with a following infinitive where the sense is that of probability: The Sox are liable (or likely) to s...

literal - vocabulary

adjectiveInvolving or being the strict or primary meaning of the word or words; not figurative; not metaphorical; actual or factual, not exaggerated.Note: Many people use literal when they don’t mean it, as in We were literally dead from exhaustion...

loquacious - vocabulary

adjectiveTalkative, tending to talk too much, chattering, babbling, garrulous. I found it not difficult, in the excitement of Mr. Chillip’s own brain, under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from this topic to his own affairs, on whic...

macrocosm - vocabulary

nounThe great universe or world, the universe considered as a whole; the total complex structure of something. This monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future, turns out to be the macrocosm of microcosm me.—John Steinbec...