Intresting International Origins Flashcards
(10 cards)
Kowtow
Nope, kowtow is not a giant truck for pulling bovines, but rather a word that comes from the imperial courts of China. When a person kowtowed to the emperor, or any eminent mandarin for that matter, he or she knelt and touched the ground with his or her forehead. Such a gesture was intended to showrespect and submission.
Today, kowtow has a negative connotation and implies that a person is acting in a subservient or sycophantic manner.
Paul kowtowed to his boss so often the boss herself soon became nauseated by his sycophancy.
“Kowtow” sounds like “kneel down.”
overly submissive.
Someone is humiliating themselves to gain favor.
🔹 He refused to kowtow to the boss’s unreasonable demands.
🔹 The politician kowtowed to wealthy donors for campaign funding.
Powwow
No, it’s not kowtow’s cousin.
Today’s meaning is a lot more subdued, and far less fun. Any informal discussion or colloquy is regarded as a powwow.
You and your co-worker can have a mid-afternoon powwow over coffee. A
political leader can have a powwow with his cronies (I’m presuming they’d favor cigars over coffee).
**casual meeting, discussion, or conference **
Before the team takes the field, the coach always calls for a powwow so that he can make sure all the players are mentally in the right place.
“Powwow” = Wow! Let’s powwow!
“Wow, we need to talk!”
🔹 Let’s have a quick powwow before the presentation.
🔹 The team had a powwow to finalize the game plan.
🔹 After the disagreement, the partners had a powwow to clear things up.
Junta
Junta means to join and comes via Portugal and Spain. But this joining was in no way peaceful.Whenever military groups joined forces to usurp the existing regime, they would form a military junta.
Today, junta can refer to the aggressive takeover by a group.
As dangerous of a threat as North Korea is, some analysts believe that were a junta suddenly to
gain power, it could be even more unpredictable and bellicose than the current leadership.
Imbroglio
It may sound like an exotic vegetable or a pungent pasta dish, but it’s neither. Imbroglio comes to us
via mid-18th century Italian and has nothing to do with the kitchen. Instead it is related to the verb
embroil and describes a confusing, and potentially embarrassing, situation.
A confused, complicated, or embarrassing situation
Quagmire
The chef cook-off featured one gourmand who had the unfortunate distinction of mixing the wrong broths, creating an imbroglio that viewers will not soon forget.
🔹 The politician tried to distance himself from the financial imbroglio.
🔹 What started as a minor disagreement quickly turned into a full-blown imbroglio.
🔹 The company’s leadership was caught in an imbroglio over misuse of funds.p
Juggernaut
To many, this word was forever immortalized in X-Men 2, when one of the main characters, Juggernaut, ran through walls, pulverizing them. This power to knock over and destroy anything in one’s path can also be traced to the original juggernaut, a word that comes to us via Hindi. A juggernaut was a large temple vehicle—and when I mean large, I mean humongous—under which followers of Krishna would supposedly throw themselves.
Today, the word juggernaut doesn’t necessarily include any grisly sacrifices, but refers to any large force that cannot be stopped.
Napoleon was considered a juggernaut, until he decided to invade Russia in winter; within weeks his once seemingly indomitable army was decimated by cold and famine.
Schadenfreude
Schadenfreude is one of those words that at first glance may seem gratuitous. After all, do we really need a word that literally translates from the German as harm-joy? Unfortunately, a twisted quirk of
human nature is that we can sometimes take joy in the suffering of others.
Luckily, German has provided us a word to use if we ever see someone cackling sardonically at the suffering of others.
A feeling of pleasure or satisfaction that comes from seeing someone else’s misfortune or pain.
From his warm apartment window, Stanley reveled in schadenfreude as he laughed at the figures
below, huddled together in the arctic chill.
🔹 She felt a twinge of schadenfreude when her arrogant coworker was reprimanded.
🔹 His smile hinted at schadenfreude as the rival team lost spectacularly.
🔹 Social media often reveals our hidden schadenfreude over celebrity scandals.
Amuck
To run amuck (also spelled amok) is to run about frenzied. While this word comes to us via Malay, you don’t have to live on the Malaysian peninsula to witness people running amuck.
To behave in a frenzied, uncontrolled, or chaotic manner
bhatbhateni
Wherever the bowl-cut teen-idol went, his legions of screaming fans ran through the streets amuck, hoping for a glance of his boyish face.
🔹 The protesters ran amuck, smashing windows and overturning cars.
🔹 Rumors ran amuck on social media, causing widespread panic.
🔹 He let his emotions run amuck, shouting at everyone in the room.
Pariah
This word means an outcast.
It comes from Tamil
A social outcast; someone who is rejected or shunned by society, a group, or a community.
paraya - alone
The once eminent scientist, upon being inculpated for fudging his data, has become a pariah in the research community.
🔹 After the scandal, he became a pariah in political circles.
🔹 Once a celebrated artist, she died a forgotten pariah, abandoned by her peers.
Nabob
A nabob is a wealthy, influential person.
The nabobs can be seen, heads a bobbing, driving by in their Italian sports cars, listening to techno.
Zeitgeist
Translated literally from German, zeitgeist means “time-ghost”. In terms of an actual definition, zeitgeist means spirit of the times.
The spirit or mood of a particular period in history, especially as shown by the ideas, beliefs, culture, or attitudes of the time.
What’s trending in the spirit of the times? That’s the zeitgeist.
Each decade has its own zeitgeist—the 1990’s was a prosperous time in which the promise of the American Dream never seemed more palpable.
The zeitgeist of the 2000’s was a curious admixture of fear and frivolity; when we were not anxious over the state of the economy and the world, we escaped into reality T.V. shows, either those on popular networks or the ones we would create ourselves on YouTube.
🔹 The novel captures the zeitgeist of the 1960s — rebellion, freedom, and social change.
🔹 The rise of social media is part of the digital zeitgeist shaping how we connect.
🔹 Minimalist design reflects the zeitgeist of modern sustainability and simplicity.
