Set 12 Flashcards
(12 cards)
bucolic
As an adjective, bucolic refers to an ideal country life that many yearn for. If your parents wanted to raise you in a bucolic environment, you may find yourself living 45 minutes away from the nearest movie theater or person your age. Not ideal.You wouldn’t know it to look at it, but bucolic is a distant relation of cow, and all bucolic’s meanings can be connected to the bovine creature. Bucolic ultimately comes from the Greek boukolos, cowherd or herdsman. A bucolic could be a short poem about pastoral (cow) life or a country person, who is stereotyped as a cowherd. Used as an adjective, bucolic can refer to an idealized rural life (think life with cows) or to herdsmen (more cows). And that’s no bull.
cachet
Certain high-end brands have a particular cachet, or respectability. People just know they are the finest of their kind.The word cachet comes from the French cachet meaning “seal affixed to a letter or document,” and if something has cachet, it’s as if it has a seal of approval from society. If you start a design company selling cachets for people to seal their letters with fancy wax, try getting some celebrities to endorse it. Then your cachets will have cachet — and that’s fancy.
callow
If you’re a rookie or new to something, you could be described as callow — like callow freshmen in high school or the callow receptionist who can’t figure out how to transfer a call.The word callow comes from the Old English word calu, which meant “bald or featherless.” It was used to describe young, fledgling birds. Over time, the meaning expanded to include young, inexperienced people. You’ll most often see the adjective paired with the noun youth. Think of the callow youth as people who haven’t tested their wings yet.
demarcate
set, mark, or draw the boundaries of something
elegiac
If there’s one song on your playlist that always brings tears to your eyes, maybe it’s because it has an elegiac quality. Elegiac means “mournful or sad.”The adjective elegiac is useful when you’re talking about music, a movie, a book, or another work of art that has a sorrowful tone. Sometimes elegiac specifically refers to something or someone that’s gone: a person who’s died, or a time in the past, especially if you feel a sense of longing for it. You can speak in an elegiac way, or sing an elegiac tune. The word comes from the Greek elegos, “poem or song of lament.”
ethos
Ethos, a noun, is the fundamental set of beliefs that you, or a society, or group live by. A free spirit might live by the ethos of “anything goes.”The noun ethos refers to how you, or a group, or a society chooses to live and is the particular rules and characteristic values that organize people. This also means that a different group might have a different ethos. An example is that in some cultures the individual is highly valued while in others the group might be considered central. In literary studies ethos has a moral element attached to it but sociology describes ehos.
flippant
When a parent scolds a teenager for missing a curfew or blowing off a test and the teen snaps back, “Whatever,” you could say the teen is being flippant. His reply was casual to the point of sarcasm and disrespect.When it first showed up in the English language around the 17th century, flippant meant glib and talkative. But over the years it has developed a more negative connotation. Today flippant is used to describe a blasé attitude or comment in a situation that calls for seriousness. Make a flippant comment about your friend’s mother and the odds are good that they’ll be offended.
immutable
If you can’t change it, it’s immutable. There are many things in life that are immutable; these unchangeable things include death, taxes, and the laws of physics.The adjective immutable has Latin roots that mean “not changeable.” The Latin prefix for not is in, but the spelling changes when the prefix is put before the consonant m. It is im before a root word starting with m as in immutable. If you learn this rule, you’ll know the immutable fact that immutable begins with i-m-m.
invidious
Something can be described as invidious when it is resentful, discriminatory or envious, as in: “Fred was angered by the invidious gossip about his divorce being spread by his ex-wife’s allies.”Choose Your Words:insidious / invidiousNeither insidious nor invidious are happy words: insidious describes something that lies in wait to get you, and invidious is something offensive or defamatory. Cancer can be insidious, lurking in your body without your knowing it. Invidious doesn’t hide; it’s hateful right away. Continue reading… The adjective invidious is used to describe an act, thought, opinion or critique that is full of ill will or prejudice. It comes from a Latin word that means “hostile.” When the captain of a cheerleading squad says nasty things about an opposing cheer captain’s new party dress, those are invidious comments.
nascent
Nascent describes the birth or beginning of something, for example a civilization, a trend, an idea, or an action. It can also imply a future promise, like the nascent government of a new country.You’re in the future looking back at the first time you learned the definition of the word nascent. Your nascent efforts to use the word felt awkward, but you quickly felt comfortable with it, especially after you learned how to pronounce it: “NAY-sent.” Now you use the word all the time: “the nascent hopes of your little sister;” your “nascent hula hooping gang;” and “a nascent confidence in your vocabulary.”
soupcon
If you ask the waiter for a soupcon of hot sauce on your omelet, he will give you a dash of Tabasco, provided he knows what soupcon means.It’s hard for English speakers not to think of soup when they see this word, especially since it can mean a trace of something (such as a flavor), but the ancestor of soupçon is the same one that gives us suspicion and suspect, the Latin suspectionem: the common theme is that of an idea formed from scant evidence.
tryst
A meeting is when people get together for any reason. But when they are sneaking to meet, notably as secret lovers, it’s called a tryst.The origin of the word tryst comes from Middle English, and originally referred to a designated hunting station. Today it has come to refer to mainly romantic meetings, often with a secretive feel to it. (That’s appropriate — aren’t we all hunting for love?) The word tryst might also suggest a hint of danger or intrigue. Perhaps the most romantic tryst in literature was the meeting between Romeo and Juliet — and just look where they ended up!
