Recently Added Articles Page #127

suasion - vocabulary

nounThe act of urging, advising, or persuading; an instance of persuasion. All gentle cant and philosophizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in this world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immu...

subjugate - vocabulary

verbTo bring under total control or subjection; to conquer, master, or enslave. To ask strength not to express itself as strength, not to be a will to dominate, a will to subjugate, a will to become master, a thirst for enemies and obstacles and triu...

substantive - vocabulary

adjectiveBelonging to the real nature of a thing, essential; possessing substance, having practical importance. In law, substantive pertains to provisions of law dealing with rights and duties, as distinguished from procedural provisions, which dicta...

subterfuge - vocabulary

nounA device or conduct used to evade a rule, escape a consequence, or hide a course of conduct; something used to hide the true nature of conduct or event. Men felt a chill in their hearts; a damp in their minds. In a desperate effort to snuggle the...

supercilious - vocabulary

adjectiveExhibiting haughty, arrogant contempt or superiority for those considered unworthy. In a quick turn of her head, in a frank look, a boyish pout, in that proud glance from lowered lids, so pitying and yet so distant that in others it would be...

superfluous - vocabulary

adjectiveBeing more than is needed or sufficient; excess. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.—Henry David Thoreau “Conclusion” Walden (1854)...

supplant - vocabulary

verbTo force out another, through strategy or schemes; to take the place of. Socialists propose to supplant the competitive planning of capitalism with a highly centralized planned economy. Our aim is frankly international and not narrowly patriotic ...

supposition - vocabulary

nounConjecture, assumption; something that is supposed; an opinion based on incomplete evidence. Another and far more important reason than the delivery of a pair of embroidered gloves impelled Hester, at this time, to seek an interview with a person...

surfeit - vocabulary

nounExcess, an excessive amount, as in a surfeit of political speeches; overindulgence in eating and drinking; general disgust caused by excess.verbTo supply with anything to excess; to feed to fullness or satiety. At banquets surfeit not, but fill; ...

surrogate - vocabulary

nounA person appointed to act for another, a deputy; a substitute; a surrogate mother. In law, in some states, a surrogate is a judicial officer charged with probating wills and administering estates.As an adjective, regarded as, or acting as, a surr...

sycophant - vocabulary

nounA servile flatterer, especially of those in authority or influence; a fawning parasite. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenie...

tableau - vocabulary

nounA picture, of a scene; a vivid description; an arrangement of inanimate figures representing a scene from real life, all costumed and posed. In a play, a time in a scene when all actors freeze and then resume the action. The simple tableau is so ...

tacit - vocabulary

adjectiveUnderstood, without being expressed; implied, as in a tacit agreement; silent, as in a tacit partner. In all conversation between two persons, tacit reference is made, as to a third party, to a common nature. That third party or common natur...

taciturn - vocabulary

adjectiveDisinclined to conversation; reserved in speech; not talkative. Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn.—Paul Klee The Diaries of Paul Klee (1965)...

tangible - vocabulary

adjectivePerceptible by touch; material or substantial; real, actual, not imaginary, not vague.Note: A tangible asset is something you can see and touch and, you hope, sell. Examples include gold bars, silver coins, houses, and land. “Collecting as...

tantamount - vocabulary

adjectiveEquivalent to (but not the same as), amounts to, might as well be the same as. Most women of [the World War II] generation have but one image of good motherhood—the one their mothers embodied. . . . Anything done “for the sake of the ...

temerity - vocabulary

nounRecklessness, boldness, rashness; fearless daring. The old man trusts wholly to slow contrivance and gradual progression; the youth expects to force his way by genius, vigour, and precipitance. The old man pays regard to riches, and the youth rev...

temporize - vocabulary

verbTo gain time or delay acting by being indecisive or evasive; to comply with the time or the occasion, to yield ostensibly to current opinion; to produce a compromise; to come to terms. The third European peace is within reach and the fourth can b...

tenacious - vocabulary

adjectiveUnyielding, holding fast, keeping a firm grip, stubborn, obstinate. Isabel was perfectly aware that she had not taken the measure of Pansy’s tenacity, which might prove to be inconveniently great; but she inclined to think the young girl w...

tenet - vocabulary

nounAn opinion, principle, dogma, or doctrine a person or group believes or maintains as true. A central tenet of modern feminist thought has been the assertion that “all women are oppressed.” This assertion implies that women share a common lot,...

therefore, therefor - vocabulary

adverbTherefore: serves as a conjunctive adverb or as a regular adverb. When it joins two clauses, it must be preceded by a semicolon and followed by a comma: The court upheld the lower court; therefore, the appellant lost once again. When it serves ...

torpor - vocabulary

nounApathy, sluggish inactivity, a state of suspended physical activity, lethargic indifference. Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt.—William Cobbet...

tortious, tortuous, torturous - vocabulary

adjectiveTortious: a legal word that refers to an act that gives ground for a lawsuit based on tort law.Note: The words torturous and tortuous come from the same Latin root “torquere,” which means “to twist.” But their meanings today are dist...

tractable - vocabulary

adjectiveEasily led or controlled, as in a tractable child or tractable voters. The parole board scene, like many other sequences here, attests to the filmmakers' skill at unobtrusively entering the prisoners' world and at avoiding trite, melodramati...

transitive verb - vocabulary

nounNote: The transitive verb is a good thing to know. Because many experienced writers usually know its ins and outs, I’ve included a brief discussion here.Here’s an excerpt from the Parts of Speech section of Grammar.com:Verbs with ObjectsAs Am...