Set 13 Flashcards
(12 cards)
axiom
People who believe things easily without having to be convinced are credulous. Sales people are always hoping that someone credulous picks up the phone during a sales call.Credulous comes from the 16th-century Latin credulus, or “easily believes.” A synonym for credulous is gullible, and both terms describe a person who accepts something willingly without a lot of supporting facts. Calling someone credulous can imply that the person is naive and simple. An individual isn’t necessarily insulted by being called credulous, though, because some objects of belief, like religions and unicorns, come with a willing leap of faith for believing in what is unseen.
extrinsic
Extrinsic means not connected to the essential nature of something. New cleats are extrinsic to making the soccer team. How you play is what gets you on the team, whether your cleats are old or new.If the ex in extrinsic makes you think of external or extra you’re on the right track––all these ex words are talking about something that is outside, or above and beyond. You often hear extrinsic paired with its opposite, intrinsic, which means part of something or someone’s essential nature. If being sweet-tempered is intrinsic to your personality, you might not even know how to get mad.
feckless
If a newspaper editorial describes a politician as feckless, you might wonder, “What is feck, and why doesn’t he have any?” In fact, the columnist is accusing the politician of being irresponsible and incompetent.Did you know that most varieties of English are in fact “feck”-less? They don’t contain a word feck, only the negative counterpart feckless. The “feck” in feckless began as a short form of effect used in the Scots dialect. So feckless essentially means “ineffective,” but is also used to describe someone who is irresponsible, incompetent, inept, or without purpose in life.
flounce
the act of walking with exaggerated jerky motions
imperative
When something absolutely has to be done and cannot be put off, use the adjective imperative.Imperative is from Latin imperare “to command,” and its original use was for a verb form expressing a command: “Do it!” is an imperative sentence. It’s still used that way, but it’s more commonly applied to something so pressing it cannot be put off: “Hiring new workers has become imperative.” It has more immediate force than pressing but less than urgent.
impertinent
If someone’s rude without being openly nasty, like a kid in the back row of class quietly heckling his teacher, you can call him impertinent.Impertinent originally meant just what it sounds like, “not pertinent, irrelevant,” but it came to mean “inappropriate, out of place” and therefore “intrusive, presumptuous; behaving without proper respect; insolent.” It still carries a condescending air, so it’s best used of or to a child being snippy to a grownup: “Don’t be impertinent!” The stress is on the second syllable: im-PERT-inent.
impugn
To impugn means to call into question or attack as wrong. If your usually grumpy brother is suddenly nice and sweet, you’ll impugn his motives if you’re smart — he probably just wants something from you.The root of impugn is the Latin pugnare which means “to fight,” so when you impugn, you are fighting or attacking, but by saying that something is false or wrong. If a candidate has a record that cannot be impugned, his or her opponent might go for a character attack. If you take pride in your work, you will be especially insulted if someone impugns your professionalism or integrity.
inane
If something is inane, it’s silly or senseless. If you just want to space out, you won’t mind the inane chatter on TV, as long as it’s on.Inane comes from the Latin inanis, for empty, and you can think of it as empty-headed. We call something inane if it states the obvious, or is really silly in a way that seems unintelligent. If you give your boss a presentation in a bunny suit and sing a song about being happy, she might say, “Get out of here with your inane bunny act!” Other synonyms are stupid, vacuous, ridiculous, pointless.
lilliputian
Something that’s lilliputian is extremely small, like the lilliputian tables and chairs that might surprise you when you visit your kindergarten classroom years later.The word lilliputian comes from Jonathan Swift’s 1726 novel, Gulliver’s Travels. Lilliput is the name of a fictional island whose people, the Lilliputians, stand only about six inches high. In addition to acting as an adjective to describe something that is very small — like the lilliputian cups and plates in a child’s doll house — lilliputian can also be a noun that refers to extremely small people.
pernicious
Pernicious means harmful and subtle, such as a poison gas that causes cancer in those exposed to it over the course of years.Pernicious comes from the Latin perniciosus, for destructive, which in turn comes from pernicies, for death or ruin. You might have heard your parents and teachers talk about the pernicious effects of watching too much TV and playing video games all day––they’ll turn your brain to mush.
proactive
The adjective proactive can describe a person who get things done. If you are proactive, you make things happen, instead of waiting for them to happen to you.Active means “doing something.” The prefix pro- means “before.” So if you are proactive, you are ready before something happens. The opposite is being reactive, or waiting for things to unfold before responding. Think about winter cold season. A proactive person washes his hands and takes vitamins; a reactive person gets sick and takes cold medicine
scurrilous
If something is scurrilous, it’s meant to offend. Scurrilous rumors can give you a bad rep, and scurrilous stories sell tabloid magazines.If something is scurrilous, it doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t true: that celebrity may well be pregnant, on drugs, or getting divorced — or possibly all three — but it does suggest a certain indifference to the truth on the part of the person being scurrilous
