Learn 100 new words

assiduous – adj. – marked by careful unremitting attention or persistent application

belicose ‘be-li-kOs’ – adj. – favoring or inclined to start quarrels or wars

ruminuate – ‘ROO-muh-nayt’ – verb – 1. mediate muse
2. to chew repeatedly for an extended period
Example sentence:
After meeting with her counselor, Meg passed the afternoon ruminating on the question of what to do with her life.

orotund – ‘OR-uh-tund’ – adj. 1. marked by fullness, strength, clarity of sound: sonorous
2. pompous, bombastic
eg. Josh cleared his throat dramatically, then did a dead-on impression of the professor’s orotund, patronizing speech.

mercurial – adj. – 1. of, relating to, or born under the planet Mercury
2. having qualities of eloquence, ingenuity, or thievishness attributed to the god Mercury or to the influence of the planet Mercury
3. characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood

Job’s comforter – noun – a person who discourages or depresses while seemingly giving comfort and consolation
eg:
When Tracey’s second interview didn’t go well, more than one Job’s comforter remarked that she probably would have hated the job anyway.

réchauffé ‘ray-SHOH-fay’ noun 1. rehash 2. a warmed over dish of food
Example sentence:
“[It] is a réchauffé, . . . lifted and stitched from ‘The Gastronomical Me’ and other books.” (Victoria Glendinning, The New York Times Book Review, June 9, 1991)

gadarene – ‘GAD-uh-reen’ – adj. – headlong, precipate
Example:
Ross has criticized his company for joining the gadarene rush into the global market.

I am subscribed to Dictionary.com’s Word Of The Day feature via my RSS feed, even though I usually don’t make much of an effort to study the words, since I’ve got my own schedule going here. My schedule starts with the first ten “words of the day” ever (see previous posts).

Just now, I clicked on my bloglines RSS feed “word of the day”, and the word was “emolument” – the same word of the day as was the very first dictionary.com word! I’ll see if the next word is the next one on my list. If it is, I’ve found the loop – go me!

1. emolument – wages; compensation.
2. palindrome – something that reads the same backward as forward
3. deprecate – to disapprove or belittle.
4. bivouac – an encampment overnight, with little or no shelter.
5. umbrage – offense; resentment. Shade.
6. incipient – beginning to exist or appear.
7. dapple – a spot or blotch. A spotty or blotchy appearance.
8. pugnacious – quarrelsome.
9. capitulate – to surrender under agreed conditions.
10. susurrus – a whispering or rustling, murmuring sound.

I already knew what some of these words meant, but it was nice to review them. I went to Dictionary.com’s word of the day and at previous words. May 1999 is when they started doing it, so I took the first ten words from that.

I have included links to the words in case I forget how to pronounce them, or which words are verbs as well as nouns, and for the information of anyone reading this post.

I plan to review these every day until I feel like adding more words.

culpable – deserving blame

plauddits (n) – praise or the appluase of an audience

cynosure – a person or thing that is the center of attention or admiration

credulous – having or showing too great a readiness to believe things (aka guilible)

supine – (of a person) lying face upward OR failing to act or protest as a result of moral weakness or indolence

of course! i’ll make them this summer. it really should be its own goal.

ameliorate – make something bad or unsatisfactory better

nexus – a connection or series of connections linking two or more things

apposite – appropriate, suitable, “apt in the circumstances or in relationship to something”

bruiser – a person who is tough & aggressive & enjoys a fight or argument

indefatigable – persisting tirelessly (adjective)

torpor – a state of physical or mental inactivity

ostensible – stated/appearing to be true but not necessarily so

never a bad thing. when i write i get stuck with the same dull-gern adjectives and assume they’re the only applicable word. i was reading “gillead” over break on my train ride home from Portland [excellent book so far (another one i got about 1/3 through and then allowed school to interupt)] and just kept thinking “i should look that up”, “i should look that up”, “i should look that up” every oooo 5 pages or so.

it’s time to learn 100 new words.. and maybe i’ll retain 5 or 10 and use them in every day conversation.

Everyone wants to build their vocabulary, right? Yeah.

Random thing: I think it helps to have very specific goals (“Stop drinking pop”, “Exercise 5 times a week,” “Eat either an apple or an orange once per day”) instead of vague goals (“Lose weight.”) That way you can hold yourself accountable and have your eyes on a target. It’s like practical versus theoretical. Concrete versus abstract. Specific versus vague. Anyway.