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Monday, August 15, 2022

In other words, Wardisms and such

  • academician, noun. A member of an association or institution for the advancement of arts, sciences, or letters; an academic or intellectual.
  • amerce, verb (used with object). Punish with a fine.
  • apropos, adjective. Very appropriate to a particular situation.
  • archaic, adjective. Very old or old-fashioned; from an earlier period.
  • bibliopoly, noun. The profession of selling of books, especially rare, decorative, or secondhand volumes; bookselling.
  • charade, noun. An absurd pretense intended to create a pleasant or respectable appearance.
  • comme il faut, adjective. Being in accord with conventions or accepted standards; proper (from the French, literally, as it should be).
  • comport, verb. Conduct oneself, behave; accord with, be in agreement with.
  • demolish, verb. To strip of any pretense of merit or credence; to destroy by breaking apart.
  • de rigueur, adjective. Required by etiquette or current fashion.
  • disingenuity, noun. The quality of being disingenuous, dishonest; an underhand dealing.
  • encomium, noun. Warm, glowing praise; a formal expression of praise (from the Latin, derived from the Greek ἐγκώμιον, meaning the praise of a person or thing).
  • eviscerate, verb. To deprive of vital content or force; to remove an organ from (a patient).
  • exurb, noun. (North American) A district outside a city, especially a prosperous area beyond the suburbs.
  • false friend, noun. A word or expression that has a similar form to one in a person's native language, but a different meaning (for example English magazine and French magasin). False friend translates the French faux ami.
  • germane, adjective. Relevant to a subject under consideration.
  • homonym, noun. (Phonetics) A word pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not, as heir and air; a homophone.
  • jargogle, verb. To confuse or bamboozle
  • lexeme, noun. (Linguistics) A lexical unit in a language, as a word or base; vocabulary item.
  • lexis, noun. (Linguistics). The vocabulary of a language, as distinct from its grammar; the total stock of words and idiomatic combinations of them in a language; lexicon.
  • linguistic, adjective. Related to the science of language, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.
  • mauvaise honte, noun. False shame or modesty (a borrowing from French).
  • perforce, adverb. Used to express necessity or inevitability.
  • picayune, adjective. Of little value or importance; paltry. trivial.
  • plebe, noun. A member of the common people; (at the U.S. Military and Naval academies) a member of the freshman class.
  • pronominal, adjective. Relating to or serving as a pronoun.
  • sophistry, noun. A false argument; sophism.
  • woofling, adjective. Of the nature of or characterized by a low snuffling, snorting, or growling sound.
  • yeoman farmer, noun. A man who farms or cultivates his own land.

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