Recently Added Articles Page #126

prolix - vocabulary

adjectiveVerbose, wordy, extended to unnecessary and tedious length. In a succinct 354 pages (shockingly brief for the normally prolix [Susan] Faludi), she argues that in the months and years following the 9/11 attacks, the rhetoric surrounding vario...

propitious - vocabulary

adjectivePresenting favorable conditions; favorably inclined, auspicious. The time is now propitious, as he guesses, The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired. Flushed and...

prosaic - vocabulary

adjectiveUnimaginative, dull, commonplace, matter-of-fact; vapid; humdrum; tiresome. It is better to have a prosaic husband and to take a romantic lover.—Stendhal (Marie Henri Beyle) “Various Fragments” De l’Amour (1822)...

proscribe - vocabulary

verbTo denounce or condemn something as dangerous or harmful; to prohibit, forbid. The public is harmed when lawmakers proscribe the use of a product that has been proved safe and useful. Inevitably, manufacturers will turn to—and consumers will be...

prostrate - vocabulary

adjectiveLying prone, or with the head to the ground, as in a gesture of humility, adoration, or subservience; physically weak or exhausted; utterly depressed or disconsolate.verbTo cast oneself on the ground in humility, adoration, or subservience; ...

prototype - vocabulary

nounThe model or original on which something else is based or formed; a thing or person serving to illustrate typical qualities of a larger class or group; something analogous to a later thing. The Ancient Mariner seizes the guest at the wedding feas...

protract - vocabulary

verbTo prolong, draw out, lengthen the duration of.Note: The past-participial adjective protracted often appears, as in protracted negotiations. That life protracted is protracted woe.—Samuel Johnson The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Tenth Satire of ...

proverbial - vocabulary

adjectiveDerives from the noun proverb, which means a popular saying, usually of ancient and unknown origin, that expresses a commonplace truth. In the Bible, a proverb is a profound saying. The word proverbial thus means widely referred to, as if th...

prowess - vocabulary

nounExceptional strength, skill, and courage in battle; superior skill or ability. I am really greatly pleased at your standing so high in your form, and I am sure that this year it is better for you to be playing where you are in football. I suppose...

prurient - vocabulary

adjectiveInclined to lascivious or lustful thoughts and desires. Nothing is more repulsive than a furtively prurient spirituality; it is just as unsavory as gross sensuality.—Carl Jung Marriage as a Psychological Relationship (1925)...

puerile - vocabulary

adjectivePertaining to childhood; childish, immature, or trivial. The idea that leisure is of value in itself is only conditionally true. . . . The average man simply spends his leisure as a dog spends it. His recreations are all puerile, and the ...

punctilious - vocabulary

adjectiveStrictly observant of the rules or forms prescribed by law or custom; precise, scrupulous. His courtesy was somewhat extravagant. He would write and thank people who wrote to thank him for wedding presents and when he encountered anyone as p...

punitive - vocabulary

adjectivePertaining to punishment.Note: In law, punitive damages are awarded in civil suits to punish the wrongdoer and serve as an example to deter others from similar, egregious conduct. Punitive damages are in excess of the actual damages suffered...

purport - vocabulary

nounThe meaning or sense or import, as in the main purport of the article; also the purpose or intent, as in the purport of the trip to Italy.verbTo present, especially deliberately, the appearance of being something; to profess or claim, often false...

pusillanimous - vocabulary

adjectiveWithout spirit or bravery; lacking courage; timid; faint-hearted. A Prince is despised when he is seen to be fickle, frivolous, effeminate, pusillanimous, or irresolute, against which defects he ought therefore most carefully to guard, striv...

query - vocabulary

verbTo inquire, to submit a question.nounAn inquiry, a question. To the query, “What is a friend?” his reply was “A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”—Aristotle Quoted in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, “Aristotle,” by Diogenes Laertiu...

queue - vocabulary

verbTo get in line.nounA file of persons waiting in order of their arrival, as for admittance.Note: The word queue appears more frequently in Great Britain than in America. An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.—George M...

quiescent - vocabulary

adjectiveBeing quiet, at rest, still, motionless, as in quiescent thoughts. There is a brief time for sex, and a long time when sex is out of place. But when it is out of place as an activity there still should be the large and quiet space in the con...

quintessence - vocabulary

nounThe most essential part of anything; the pure essence of a substance; the most typical example of something. O my lady Dulcinea of Toboso! the sun of all beauty, the end and quintessence of discretion, the treasury of sweet countenance and carria...

raillery - vocabulary

nounGood-humored satire, ridicule, or banter. There is a simple but effective test of satire, one that hails back to Aristotle. "Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor," he said, "for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspici...

rapacious - vocabulary

adjectiveDisposed to seize by violence or by unlawful or greedy methods; extremely greedy, predatory, extortionate. The American goes to Paris, always has, and comes back and tells his neighbor, always does, how exorbitant and inhospitable it is, how...

ravenous - vocabulary

adjectiveExtremely hungry, voracious, famished. The will to domination is a ravenous beast. There are never enough warm bodies to satiate its monstrous hunger. Once alive, this beast grows and grows, feeding on all the life around it, scouring the ea...

recant - vocabulary

verbTo formally withdraw or disavow one's belief, position, or statement about something previously believed or maintained. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other...

recapitulate - vocabulary

verbTo repeat again the principal points of; to summarize. “But, for heaven’s sake, don’t get hot!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, touching his brother-in-law’s knee. “The matter is not ended. If you will allow me to recapitulate, it was like ...

recluse - vocabulary

nounOne who lives in seclusion, often for religious meditation.Note: The adjective form is either recluse or reclusive. Henry David Thoreau and Charles Darwin form both a spectacular comparison and contrast. Both Thoreau and Darwin were voyagers. One...