Ad Hoc

Grammar Girl's 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know - Mignon Fogarty 2011


Ad Hoc

Ad hoc is literally Latin meaning “for this.” We use ad hoc in English to describe something temporary, something that was created for a specific purpose or is a one-off. For example, an ad hoc decorations committee could be created for the sole purpose of organizing the prom decorations, and an ad hoc theme song meeting could be called to address the one specific issue of what theme song should be chosen. After their duties are fulfilled, the ad hoc committees disband and the ad hoc meetings adjourn.

It’s my belief that [the CIA’s] assassinations have always been ad hoc efforts, organized usually at the behest of policymakers above the agency—and usually unsuccessful.

—Aldrich Ames, CIA officer who spied for other countries, in William Safire’s book The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time

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Ad Hominem

Don’t worry, the whole book won’t be Latin, but the Latin ad word shows up a couple of times in important phrases. Ad hominem means “to the man” in Latin. We use it in English to describe a particular type of logical fallacy—an argument that attacks the opponent’s character instead of addressing the point of the debate.

An ad hominem attack assumes that just because a person is bad (e.g., a liberal, a conservative, a puppy killer) his or her argument can hold no merit, whereas in reality, a flawed person may still have a good point.

As we all felt keenly throughout the 2010 campaigns, name-calling and ad hominem attacks do more than insult the opponent: They insult the audience, as well.

—Margaret McDonald, American columnist

Anecdote

Anecdote comes from a Greek word that means “unpublished.” Anecdotes are personal stories.

Anecdotes can be useful or deceptive depending on the situation; they can spice up a talk or supply the weak basis for a conclusion. For example, speaking coaches often encourage presenters to engage the audience by including amusing or compelling anecdotes. On the other hand, scientists often caution the public against making too much of mere anecdotal evidence such as the testimonials of a few happy supplement customers when there aren’t any scientific studies proving the supplement works (or doesn’t).

You know everything is not an anecdote. You have to discriminate. You choose things that are funny or mildly amusing or interesting.… Your stories have none of that. They’re not even amusing accidentally!

—Steve Martin playing Neal Page (addressing Del Griffith) in the movie Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Antebellum

The next time you hear a Lady Antebellum song, remember that antebellum literally means “before the war” in Latin (ante = “before”; bellum = “war”). In the United States, antebellum usually refers only to the period before the Civil War; for example, you may read about antebellum architecture or antebellum collectibles that were made during this period. The Old South is sometimes used to describe the antebellum South, although Old South can also have a geographic or political meaning. (You’re much more likely to hear about the antebellum South than about the antebellum North, since there were more changes in the South after the war.)

Cotton was king of the antebellum South, and befitting its regal position many retainers were necessary to bring each year’s crop from the field to its ultimate destination in the North or abroad.

—Marilyn Anne Lavin in William Bostwick, Connecticut Yankee in Antebellum Georgia

Archetype

Archetype comes from a Greek word that means “an original,” in the sense of an original mold, stamp, or template from which copies are made. Archetype is pronounced like architect—with a ki sound in the middle, not a ch sound.

In literature, an archetype is a type of character who appears in stories throughout the ages. The wise wizard (e.g., Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, Dumbledore from Harry Potter) and the hero who can wield a special weapon (e.g., King Arthur and the sword Excalibur, Luke Skywalker and the Jedi sword from Star Wars) are examples of archetypes that are often found in literature. Once you start looking for archetypes, you’ll find them everywhere.

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Carl Jung popularized the archetype as a concept in psychology to represent ideas present in the collective unconscious.

I’m a man, Fleischman. We are born with an image of woman imprinted on our psyches. We spend our whole lives searching for the embodiment of that female archetype. And there she sits! In the flesh! You tell me what man could resist the fantasy of having her as his wife?

—Adam Arkin playing Adam in the TV show Northern Exposure

Austere

Something that is austere is simple, cold, harsh, or severe, especially in a way that limits pleasure or luxury. For example, an ascetic could be said to lead an austere life. A student’s windowless room with only a simple bed and desk could be said to be austere.

Austere comes from Greek roots that mean “bitter, harsh, and dry” (as in how your mouth becomes parched). You can remember at least some of the meanings of austerity by noting that the ster in the middle is part of stern and sterile.

The truth is, there’s nothing very utilitarian about fiction or its creation, and I suspect that people are desperate to make it sound like manly, back-breaking labor because it’s such a wussy thing to do in the first place. The obsession with austerity is an attempt to compensate, to make writing resemble a real job, like farming, or logging.

—Nick Hornby in The Complete Polysyllabic Spree

Banal

Something banal is common, mundane, trivial, or lacking originality. The word often carries a sense of how depressing it is to be confronted with such commonness. It comes from the Old French word ban, which described something that was common to the entire community.

These memories … lay on the far side of a great divide in time, as significant as B.C. and A.D. Before prison, before the war, before the sight of a corpse became a banality.

—Ian McEwan, British writer, in Atonement

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Bellicose

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Bellicose means “warlike,” so a bellicose person or country likes to fight.

In the Star Wars video games and books, an Empire star destroyer ship named Bellicose makes an appearance; and in the Harry Potter books, the violent and sadistic character Bellatrix Lastrange can trace her first name to the same Latin root word as bellicose—bellum, which means “war” and is also the root of belligerent. Think of Bellatrix Lastrange, and you’ve got a good way to remember the meaning of bellicose.

Chinese are losing patience with their erratic and bellicose ally [North Korea].

—William Pesek, Bloomberg News columnist, in an opinion piece for Bloomberg.

Blasphemy

Blasphemy is speaking or writing against something sacred or holy; for example, being irreverent about God is blasphemy. In early years, blasphemers were often put to death—and today, they still are in certain countries.

Blasphemy is an old word, coming to English from a Greek word with the same meaning. The Oxford English Dictionary shows Geoffrey Chaucer as the first English author to use the word with the 1384 line “In blapheme of the gods” in the poem Lenvoy to Scogan (actually an earlier version of the word: blaspheme). At first, blasphemy applied only to religious beliefs, but later its meaning expanded to include speaking against closely held secular beliefs too.

RANDAL GRAVES: Which did you like better? Jedi or The Empire Strikes Back?

DANTE HICKS: Empire.

RANDAL GRAVES: Blasphemy.

—Jeff Anderson (Randal) and Brian O’Halloran (Dante) in the movie Clerks

Bohemian

You’re most likely to hear bohemian used to describe fashion these days, but in addition to dress-up bohemians, there are also real Bohemians—people who come from the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic.

However, bohemian is also used to describe a philosophy or lifestyle that is now disconnected from the Bohemia region. The French, believing Gypsies (Romani) came to their country through Bohemia, were the first to use bohemian to describe Gypsy-like behavior—being carefree, unrooted, poor, and artistic, and generally embracing an unconventional or loose lifestyle. The word has since been applied to many different lifestyles and artistic communities that have some or all of these vague attributes.

Everything everybody does is so—I don’t know—not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and—sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different way.

Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

Canard

A canard is a story—usually a damaging story—that’s false, but purports to be true. It can be a rumor, a hoax, or an out-and-out lie.

Canard also has specialized meanings in aeronautics and cooking, and the cooking part isn’t surprising because canard literally means “duck” in French.

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So how do we get from a word for ducks to an absurd, baseless rumor? Many dictionaries cite the origin as an old French expression to describe a scheme or a hoax that literally means “to sell half a duck.” Clearly, you can’t sell half a duck, or at least not half a live duck, so presumably the story is about a seller who cheated a buyer by selling less than a full fowl.

Don’t you think it’s odd that I, a dragon, should eat homework for lunch? Of course it’s odd, for it never happened. It was a falsehood, a canard, a prevarication. Oh, why beat about the bush. It was a simple lie told by a little girl named Sandy.

—Burgess Meredith voicing Puff in the TV movie Puff the Magic Dragon in the Land of Living Lies

Chronic

Chronic relates to time—it describes something that is persistent or has been going on for a long time—and fittingly, it comes from a Greek word, khronos, that means “time.” Khronos is also the root word for chronology and chronically—other words that relate to time.

In medicine, the opposite of a chronic disease (something that comes on slowly and will progress over a long time) is an acute disease (something that comes on suddenly, is severe, and is likely to end). For example, type II diabetes is a chronic condition and a stroke is an acute condition.

Speaking of chronic conditions, happy anniversary.

—Vivian Blaine playing Miss Adelaide in the movie Guys and Dolls

Correlation

When two things are correlated, they tend to happen together. A common scientific phrase is correlation does not equal causation—a reminder that studies often find that events happen at the same time without proving that one causes the other.

To use a silly example, it’s important to remember that even though the girl you love seems to be scratching her head every time you walk by (the two events are correlated), you are not causing her to scratch her head. Perhaps your schedule means that you walk by at the same time she tends to study statistics, and it’s statistics homework that makes her scratch her head.

The Lunar Effect is a myth. There is no statistical correlation between phases of the moon and human behavior.

—Pauley Perrette playing Abby Scuito in the TV show NCIS: Naval Criminal Intelligence Service

Crescendo

Crescendo comes from an Italian word that means “increasing.” In a musical crescendo, the players gradually get louder until reaching a peak. Other things can also crescendo; political outrage can crescendo, romantic feelings can crescendo, a flurry of activity can crescendo, and a scene in a play can crescendo, for example.

Although it is sometimes used to describe a peak, technically, a crescendo is not the peak, but rather the lead-up to the peak.

Since the middle syllable of crescendo is pronounced “shen,” I always had trouble remembering how to spell the word until I noticed that it’s spelled like descend, which is something of its opposite in meaning.

A mosquito buzzed the King’s ear with sudden crescendo.

—James Clavell in the novel King Rat

Deluge

Deluge means flood, and the word comes from a Latin root that means “to wash away.” A deluge can be a real flood, as in a heavy downpour of rain, or a metaphorical flood, as in a deluge of paperwork that shows up on your desk when you get a new job or a deluge of leaves that fall on your lawn. It can also be a verb; for example, if you work in human resources, you could be the person deluging the new hire with paperwork.

Getting caught in the warm, wet deluge that particular day in that terrible summer full of wars and fires that made no sense was a wonderful thing to have happen. It taught me to understand rain, not to dread it. There were going to be days, I knew, when it would pour without warning, days when I’d find myself without an umbrella. But my understanding would act as my all-purpose slicker and rubber boots. It was preparing me for stormy weather, arming me with the knowledge that no matter how hard it seemed, it couldn’t rain forever. At some point, I knew, it would come to an end.

Finding Fish: A Memoir by Antwone Quenton Fisher

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Demagogue

Demagogue comes from a Greek word that means “the people’s leader,” but today in English it has a negative connotation. Demagogues seek to gain power, fame, money, or influence by inflaming an audience’s emotions and prejudices with distortions and lies. Demagogues are usually persuasive speakers, and in short, they stir up trouble. Demagogue can also be used as a verb to describe the actions of such a person.

A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has been written in the past, though they try often enough.… People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

—Doris Lessing, British Nobel laureate

Diatribe

Diatribe started as a Greek word that meant “to wear away time, study, or discourse” (the root words literally mean “to rub away”) and came to English through Latin, where it had taken on the meaning “learned discourse.” It originally held a similar meaning in English; however, in modern English use, a diatribe is negative—it’s a bitter rant. Angry newspaper opinion pieces and political monologues on talk radio are often described as diatribes.

[Winston Churchill] burst forth into an eloquent diatribe on the shortness of human life, the immensity of possible human accomplishment … in a torrent of magnificent language which appeared to be both effortless and inexhaustible and ended up with the words I shall always remember: “We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glow worm.”

—Violet Bonham Carter, British politician

Disenfranchise

Enfranchise comes from an Old French word that means “to free.” To disenfranchise is to take away a freedom or right.

In a political sense, people are disenfranchised when they cannot vote or their votes are not counted. You can’t make it through a voting season without hearing about disenfranchised voters. More generally, to be disenfranchised can also mean to be denied some right or privilege, to be unrepresented, or to be shut out.

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.

—Helen Keller, deaf and blind American author

Eclectic

Eclectic comes from the Greek word for “selective.” That may seem counterintuitive, since when someone says she has eclectic taste it means she likes a mix of styles, a hodgepodge, but it also means she is free to select whatever style works instead of being limited to just one. For example, someone who is eclectic is free to mix jazz, rock, and country music or free to select an Elizabethan bed and a French country dresser.

Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald’s food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and “retro” clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games. It is easy to find a public for eclectic works.

—Jean-François Lyotard, French philosopher

Elucidate

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Elucidate’s Latin root means “bright” or “to enlighten.” To elucidate something is to figure it out, to metaphorically shine light on it. Scientists often speak of elucidating the mechanism behind some natural process, for example, elucidating the molecular mechanism that triggers an allergic reaction or elucidating the contribution of air pollution to heart disease.

Elucidate shares its Latin root with the word lucid, which means “clear minded.” You can remember the meaning of elucidate by thinking that when you elucidate something it becomes clear (lucid) in your mind.

I remember scrutinizing his face. I remember drinking his face down to the last drop, trying to elucidate the character, the psychology of such an individual. And yet the only thing about him that has remained is my memory of his ugliness.

By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño (translated by Chris Andrews)

Enmity

Enmity is the feeling you have toward an enemy: hatred, hostility, or ill will. I always had trouble remembering whether n or m came first until I linked the words enmity and enemy in my mind. (The word comes to English from Old French and Latin words that mean “enemy.”)

When there’s no evidence of another crime such as a robbery, police may speculate that the motive for murder is “personal enmity”—someone just hated the victims enough to kill them.

It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones.

—Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian philosopher

Epic

Maybe you’ve heard the word epic only in the slang phrase epic fail to describe a colossal disaster? Well, epic also has a literary meaning. For example, writers create epic poems and epic novels.

Epic works tend to be long, but that’s not their only distinguishing characteristic. Epic poems and novels usually feature heroes facing challenges that will determine the fate of the world or have some other sweeping significance.

From these works, we get the meaning of epic that means “large or grand,” as in a project of epic proportions.

Epic comes from a Greek word that means “story, narrative, poem, word, or song.”

My mother was about to make another brilliant maneuver in the legendary battle of the lamp. The epic struggle which follows lives in the folklore of Cleveland Street to this very day.

—Jean Shepherd voicing the adult Ralphie in the movie A Christmas Story

Epitome

Epitome means the embodiment of something—a characteristic, a state, an emotion, or an ideal. If your room is the epitome of cleanliness, it represents everything that means cleanliness to the person who declared it so.

Epitome comes from a Greek word that means “to abridge or cut.” It’s a long stretch from abridge or cut to embodiment, but you can think of it this way: If you have to abridge or cut an entire novel down to just one paragraph, what you’re left with is the single embodiment of the story, the one part that still transmits the meaning. In the same way, the epitome of cleanliness is the best representative of cleanliness after everything else has been cut.

You are the epitome of everything I have ever looked for in another human being. And I know that you think of me as just a friend, and crossing that line is the furthest thing from an option you would ever consider. But I had to say it.

—Ben Affleck playing Holden McNeil in the movie Chasing Amy

Esoteric

An esoteric subject is uninteresting or hard to understand unless you’re part of a select group. English classes such as “Allusions to Greek Mythology in Modern Literature” or math classes such as “Stochastic Processes” could be considered esoteric because they require an understanding of terms and theories that aren’t well known in general society. Esoteric comes from a Greek word that means “inner” or “within,” as in part of the inner circle or within the group.

Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the models. Beware of geeks bearing formulas.

—Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway investment company

Fallacy

A fallacy is a lie or a commonly believed untruth. It comes from a Latin word that means “to deceive.”

In the field of logic, a fallacy is a type of argument that makes the conclusion illogical. Common logical fallacies include appeals to authority, false dilemmas, straw man arguments, and ad hominem attacks.

People who give us their full confidence believe that they have thereby earned a right to ours. This is a fallacy; one does not acquire rights through gifts.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

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Fascism

Benito Mussolini’s regime, which led Italy into World War II, is considered to be the prototypical fascist government, and the word fascism comes into English from the Italian word fascism, which means “group” or “bundle” and was used by the Italians used to describe their political movement.

Fascism exists in different forms, but in general, fascist countries are headed by an all-powerful authoritarian leader and embrace war and patriotism as a way to keep the country unified and strong. Individual rights are abandoned in favor of the needs of the country. Fascism is strongly anticommunist and usually considered a far-right form of government. Inspired by Mussolini, Germany’s World War II Nazi Party also instituted a fascist government.

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Since the 1970s, fascist has also been used as an insult to describe someone who promotes any position in a militant or authoritarian manner (e.g., eco-fascists, airport TSA fascists, antitobacco fascists).

The only thing we hate more than bad manners is the goddamn fascist helmet law.

—John DeSantis playing Tiny in the TV show Dead Like Me

Firmament

Firmament refers to the heavens or the sky. It comes from a Hebrew word that means “expanse” and a Latin word that means “to support or make firm.” You can think of the firmament as an expanse that holds the stars and planets firmly in space.

Large, heavy, ragged black clouds hung like crape hammocks beneath the starry cope of the night. You would have said that they were the cobwebs of the firmament.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

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Fungible

Fungible means “interchangeable” or “able to be used in place of something else.” For example, money is fungible because you can exchange it for other things (goods or other currencies), and sportswriters sometimes describe players as fungible because players have value and can be traded between teams.

Through its Latin root, fungible is related to the word function, so you can think of something that’s fungible as something that functions as a commodity. If you want a more frivolous memory trick, you can think that fungible starts with fun, and it’s fun to spend fungible things like money.

Experts explained how the corporate money that floods into a robust campaign is necessary and fungible. If such dollars cannot be spent in some states because of legal restrictions, they can be—and routinely are—swapped for money given by individual donors elsewhere that lack such restrictions.

—R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post staff writer, in a Washington Post article

Furlough

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Furlough comes to English from a Dutch word that means “permission.” Most commonly, a furlough is a temporary military leave, but it can also be used to describe the situation of workers who have been temporarily laid off. For example, a company or government agency with financial difficulties may furlough workers for a few days each month until the situation improves.

“Sir,” said Mrs. Meade indignantly. “There are no deserters in the Confederate army.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Rhett with mock humility. “I meant those thousands on furlough who forgot to rejoin their regiments and those who have been over their wounds for six months but who remain at home, going about their usual business or doing the spring plowing.”

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Galaxy

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Our galaxy, what we now call the Milky Way, looks like a whitish stripe across the sky, and it was called many things throughout the ages, including the White Way and the Milky Circle. All this white milkiness is how we got the word galaxy: it comes from a Greek word for “milk,” gala, which is also related to the words lactose and lactate. Chaucer was the first author we know of to commit galaxy to print.

The Milky Way galaxy is made up of many solar systems (planets, asteroids, and other objects that revolve around a sun), including the solar system that contains Earth. The reason we can see the Milky Way in the sky even though we are part of it is because our solar system is on the edge of the galaxy, so we’re looking back through the rest of it. All the galaxies together make up the universe.

See yonder, lo, the galaxy which men call the Milky Way, for it is white.

The House of Fame by Geoffrey Chaucer

Genocide

Genocide is the killing of an entire class of people such as a racial group or an ethnic group. When the Nazis tried to exterminate all the Jews during World War II, that was genocide, and sadly, it’s not uncommon to read about attempted genocide in the news today.

Geno is from the Greek word for “race,” and the suffix -cide means “to kill.” Other -cide words include homicide, pesticide, infanticide, and insecticide.

While you were talking about organizing and committees, the extermination has already begun. Make no mistake, my brothers. They will draw first blood. They will force their cure upon us. The only question is, will you join my brotherhood and fight, or wait for the inevitable genocide? Who will you stand with—the humans or us?

—Ian McKellen playing Eric Lensherr in the movie X-Men: The Last Stand

Germane

Germane actually comes from the word german, but it has nothing to do with the country Germany. German meant “from the same parents,” and Shakespeare gave it the metaphorical meaning it has today: something that is related, relevant, or important to the current topic or situation.

MARK SHUBB: We give the audience a choice. We say, you can enjoy a toothpaste commercial, or do you wanna hear folk music?

JERRY PALTER: I think they’ll have already brushed their teeth by that time; it’s not even germane.

—Harry Shearer (Mark) and Michael McKean (Jerry) in the movie A Mighty Wind

Glacier

Glaciers are masses of ice, usually enormous, that are formed over many years in areas where snow falls and then flows downhill. Glaciers advance when snow accumulates and retreat when snow and ice melt. Both processes are usually slow, which has led to the use of at a glacial pace to mean “slowly.” Glaciers can be so almost unfathomably large that their movement seems unrelenting, a meaning that is sometimes found in metaphorical uses of glacier.

Glacier comes from an Old French word for “ice”: glace. Having trouble connecting glace and ice? Think of the simple icing for cakes called a glacé. (It’s made by mixing powdered sugar and water.)

If, when you talk to people, they keep backing away from you, it’s because you’re too close, alright? So don’t keep advancing on them like a human glacier.

—Dave Barry, American humorist

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Gregarious

A gregarious person enjoys the company of others and is happy in a crowd. The word comes from Latin for “part of the flock” as in a flock of birds, and it still has a specialized use in the sciences to describe animals that live in groups and plants that grow in open clusters.

At the times in my life when I was feeling the most gregarious and looking for bosom friendships, I couldn’t find any takers, so that exactly when I was alone was when I felt the most like not being alone.

—Andy Warhol, American artist

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Harbinger

Harbinger comes from Old French and Old German words that meant “to provide shelter or lodging” and later had a sense of someone being sent ahead to arrange accommodations, and in that sense, harbinger is related to the word harbor, as in “to shelter.”

It is still used in English to describe someone who is sent ahead to arrange lodging or to announce an important person’s arrival, but more often it is used metaphorically to describe a sign that foretells the coming of some person or event.

Although this memory trick isn’t tied to the real roots of the words, you can think of a harbinger as a bringer of things.

The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball.

—Bill Veeck, owner of multiple Major League Baseball teams

Hegemony

Hegemony comes from a Greek word that means “leader or authority.” Although it can be used outside of politics, hegemony is most commonly used to describe the power or dominance that one country or state has over others.

There has been talk in Europe about American hegemony being somehow based upon the use of the dollar in the world. I just don’t see that connection at all.

Robert C. Solomon, American professor

The hegemony of e-mail as a business medium is set to be superseded by social networking.

—Maxwell Cooter, TechWorld writer

Hemisphere

A hemisphere is half of a sphere or globe. Usually hemisphere refers to half the earth, such as the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere, but any roughly spherical item can be divided into hemispheres, and occasionally hemisphere will be used even more generally to describe an area of expertise or a realm.

In Greek, hemi means “half,” and sphere comes from a Greek word that means “circle.” You may be familiar with hemi because of advertisements for Hemi trucks. In those cases, hemi refers to the truck’s engine, which has combustion chambers that look like bowls—the indentations that would be left by a hemisphere.

DR. ERIC FOREMAN: He probably just moved. Nobody stays perfectly still during those things.

DR. GREGORY HOUSE: Right, he got uncomfortable and shifted one hemisphere of his brain to a more comfortable position.

—Omar Epps (Foreman) and Hugh Laurie (House) in the TV show House

Hubris

Hubris comes from Greek, where it originally meant “showing too much pride, self-confidence, or insolence to the gods.” Today in English, hubris describes anyone who is arrogant or overly confident, whether or not the gods are involved.

“They didn’t come to crush the city. They came to crush the hubris of its king.”

“That must have hurt,” Oates said.

Umber pinched the bridge of his nose.

Hubris means arrogance, you great buffoon.”

—P. W. Catanese in the novel Dragon Games

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Hypocrite

Hypocrite comes from Greek words that mean “an actor, a pretender” and “to feign.” That makes perfect sense because hypocrites are people who feign to hold a belief or position. Hypocrites say they believe or cherish something, but take actions that are in conflict with those beliefs. For example, if someone campaigns against soda machines in schools for health reasons, but privately sells soda to students, that person is a hypocrite.

I remember that hypocrite is spelled with an e on the end by thinking, “Hypocrites make me say, ’Crikey!’” Crikey is an Australian exclamation of surprise or dismay that’s pronounced “krahy-kee.” The e sound on the end reminds me of the spelling.

You hypocrite! Miss “grown-ups don’t play with toys!” If I went into your apartment right now, would I not find Beanie Babies? Are you not an acquirer of Care Bears and My Little Ponies? And just who is that Japanese feline on your shorts? Hello, Hello Kitty!

—Jim Parsons playing Sheldon Cooper in the TV show The Big Bang Theory

Impunity

Impunity has the same Latin root as punitive and punish, and translated, it literally means “without punishment.” In English, impunity means “exempt from punishment, harm, or consequences” and often carries a sense of boldness or brazenness, a lack of fear of being caught or punished.

You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.

—Jeremy Brett playing Sherlock Holmes in the TV show The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

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Inflation

Inflation comes from a Latin word that means “to blow into,” as in the way you’d blow into a balloon to inflate it. Politicians and bankers often talk about inflation in the monetary sense of the word. If governments rapidly blow money and credit into an economy, everyone has more money to spend, so money is less valuable and vendors raise their prices. That increase in what things cost is called inflation.

“Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.…”

“But we have also,” continued the Management Consultant, “run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship’s peanut.” …

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“So in order to obviate this problem,” he continued, “and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and … er, burn down all the forests.”

The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Innocuous

Innocuous means “harmless, safe, or inoffensive”; it comes from a Latin prefix that means “not” and a root word that means “to harm.” Often innocuous turns up in sentences to describe something that was thought to be harmless, but turned out to be dangerous, or something that is so dull and safe it’s painful.

Apparently they died from overfeeding. Apparently I overfed them. Apparently fish are terrible gluttons with absolutely no self-control who just don’t know when they’ve had enough and will stuff themselves to death with those innocuous little beige flakes imaginatively labeled “fish food.”

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

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Ironic

Irony is difficult to define, but you know it when you see it. What’s ironic in one situation or to one person is not necessarily ironic in all situations or to all people because irony is related to the expected outcome or behavior. For example, a twelve-year-old girl wearing a pink tasseled hat is normal, but a fifty-year-old biker wearing a pink tasseled hat is ironic. It’s all about what’s expected.

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Irony comes from the Greek word for “dissembler” and describes a situation in which something is the opposite of what you expect or what the speaker means.

It was ironic, really—you want to die because you can’t be bothered to go on living—but then you’re expected to get all energetic and move furniture and stand on chairs and hoist ropes and do complicated knots and attach things to other things and kick stools from under you and mess around with hot baths and razor blades and extension cords and electrical appliances and weedkiller. Suicide was a complicated, demanding business, often involving visits to hardware shops.

And if you’ve managed to drag yourself from the bed and go down the road to the garden center or the drug store, by then the worst is over. At that point you might as well just go to work.

Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married by Marian Keyes

Jargon

Jargon originally described the sound made by chattering birds, and from that sense the meaning we know today evolved: specialized words (chattering) that outsiders don’t understand. Most industries have their own jargon—shortcut words or phrases that everyone in the industry understands, but that are meaningless to anyone outside the industry—medical jargon, scientific jargon, art school jargon, and so on. Unless you’re writing for an industry trade journal, avoid jargon.

Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.

—David Ogilvy, British advertising executive

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Jeopardy

Jeopardy means “at risk or in danger.” It comes from an Old French word that described a game with even odds; thus, the outcome was uncertain and either side was in danger of losing. It is almost always preceded by the word in: They were in jeopardy.

No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again. Sometimes I just want it to stay saved. You know, for a little bit? I feel like the maid; I just cleaned up this mess! Can we keep it clean for ten minutes?

—Craig T. Nelson voicing Mr. Incredible in the movie The Incredibles

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Judicious

Judicious means “showing good judgment, taking measured care.” Someone who is judicious is wise, practical, sensible, prudent, and discreet. People can judiciously arrange guests at the table, judiciously choose their words, and judiciously trim their budgets.

Judicious comes from a Latin word for “judgment.”

Advertising—a judicious mixture of flattery and threats.

—Northrop Frye, Canadian literary critic

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Jurisdiction

Rarely can you watch a cop show without seeing two officers argue about who has jurisdiction over a case. Jurisdiction comes from Latin roots that mean “to say (dictio) the law ( juris).” Dictio is also related to the English words diction and dictate.

A jurisdiction is an area over which an authority, such as a police department or a country, has legal control and the right to administer the law.

The offshore ocean area under U.S. jurisdiction is larger than our land mass, and teems with plant and animal life, mineral resources, commerce, trade, and energy sources.

—Tom Allen, American politician

Kibosh

A kibosh is something that silences, stops, or squelches something or someone.

The interesting thing about kibosh is that nobody knows where it came from; its origins are obscure—no Latin or Greek roots to talk about here. The earliest example of the word in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1836, in which Charles Dickens used the phrase “put the kibosh on” someone, which is how you’re still most likely to hear kibosh used today.

One way to keep the [Eccentric Day] crowd limited is the one rule—you have to look eccentric to get in.… What if you’re a little too eccentric? “A lot of people seem to think that being nude is eccentric enough,” he said with a laugh.… “We had to put the kibosh on it,” Reicherts said. Nudism is just not healthy in the cold of December.

—Mark Wedel writing for the Kalamazoo Gazette

Kilometer

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Outside the United States, almost everyone uses the metric system. People don’t talk about how many miles they drove; they talk about how many kilometers they drove.

A meter is a distance a little more than a yard. Kilo means “thousand,” so a kilometer is one thousand meters, which is a little more than half a mile (0.621 miles, to be exact). Other metric measurements include the centimeter (one-hundredth of a meter) and the millimeter (one-thousandth of a meter).

You’ll most commonly encounter kilometers in the United States if you like to run in races. For example, if you participate in a “5K Fun Run,” that’s a five-kilometer race—a tad more than three miles.

Lisa, hello. How are you doing in England? Remember, an elevator is called a “lift,” a mile is called a “kilometer,” and botulism is called “steak and kidney pie.”

—Julie Kavner voicing Marge Simpson in the TV show The Simpsons

Kudzu

Kudzu is an invasive, climbing, flowering vine that grows in the southeastern United States. If you’re from the South, you’re wondering who wouldn’t know what kudzu is, but if you’re not from the South, you may be baffled when you meet a southerner who describes something as “spreading like kudzu.”

The plant is indigenous to China and Japan, and the name kudzu comes from its Japanese name.

In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You’ll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You’ll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers.

—Brad Pitt playing Tyler Durden in the movie Fight Club

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Laconic

From the Greek Lakōn, the name of a region near ancient Sparta. Laconians were known for their terse speech. The most famous example is the Laconian reply to Philip of Maceon’s threat “If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta to the ground.” Their ruler simply responded, “If.”

In English, laconic is still used to describe someone of few words. It sometimes carries a negative connotation.

You can get far in North America with laconic grunts. “Huh,” “hun,” and “hi!” in their various modulations, together with “sure,” “guess so,” “that so?” and “nuts!” will meet almost any contingency.

For Your Eyes Only by Ian Fleming, Scottish writer

Languish

To languish is to stay in a negative state without improving. People can languish in jail, languish with an illness or in a coma, languish in a bad relationship, or languish in college for ten years without choosing a major, for example. Languish comes from Latin words that mean “to be faint, weak, sick, or droopy.” It’s related to the words languid, lax, and slack.

Once upon a time, when I was a child reading fairy tales, I’d ached to have my own adventures. Not that I’d wanted to be some dippy heroine languishing in a tower, awaiting rescue. No, I’d wanted to be the knight, charging into battle against overwhelming odds, or the plucky country lass who gets taken on as an apprentice to a great wizard. As I got older, I’d found out the hard way that adventures are rarely anything like the books say. Half the time you are scared out of your mind, and the rest you’re bored and your feet hurt. I was beginning to believe that maybe I wasn’t the adventurous type.

—Claimed by Shadow by Karen Chance

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Largesse

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Not surprisingly, largesse comes from an Old French root meaning “large.” In English, it refers to generosity or extravagance, especially when it comes to money or gifts. It can describe the state of being generous (Her largesse was legendary) or the gifts themselves (He’s been living on his mother’s largesse). Largesse is the preferred spelling, but largess is also acceptable.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

—Alexander Tyler, Scottish historian

Latitude

Latitude has both a scientific meaning and a general meaning. It comes from a Latin word that means “broad,” which underlies both definitions.

On the globe, lines of latitude run horizontally, or broadly. Latitude is measured in degrees: the line on the equator is 0°, the North Pole is 90° north, and the South Pole is 90° south.

Outside of geography, latitude describes a state of freedom, the broad ability to make your own choices.

The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth.

—Charles Lamb, British essayist

Lethargy

People who are lethargic—suffering from lethargy—are dull and slow. For example, they may lie on the couch and ignore you when you enter the room, or they may show a general lack of interest in the world around them. Lethargy can be caused by illness or emotion, or may simply be someone’s natural disposition. Lethargy comes from Greek words that mean “drowsy” and “forgetful.”

JAMES HACKER: All we get from the civil service is delaying tactics.

SIR HUMPHREY APPLEBY: Well, I wouldn’t call civil service delays “tactics,” Minister. That would be to mistake lethargy for strategy.

—Paul Eddington (Hacker) and Nigel Hawthorne (Appleby) in the British TV show Yes Minister

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Malevolent

Malevolent comes from the Latin prefix male-, which means “evil” (sorry, guys!), and the root volent, which means “to will, wish, or desire,” so someone who is malevolent wants bad things to happen.

We get the opposite word, benevolent, by putting the prefix bene-, which means “good,” in front of the same root.

Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States.

—John Bartlet Brebner, Canadian historian

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Malignant

Malignant comes from the same Latin root word as malign: malignari, which means “malicious or spiteful.” To malign someone is to speak ill of him. Malign sometimes carries a sense that the rumors are untrue.

Like being maligned, something malignant is very bad, whether it’s a tumor, a situation, or a person.

Malignant diseases and situations are aggressive, out of control, and dangerous. In medicine, only malignant tumors are called cancer; less invasive tumors are called benign. Malignant people spread their evil and seek to harm others.

The once powerful, malignant Nazi state is crumbling.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt

Mandate

When you hear politicians talk about having a mandate, they mean the public has given them the authority, direction, or command to take some action. Within a governing structure, a superior ruler such a king or a pope can give a mandate to underlings or followers.

Mandate comes from a Latin word that means “command, order, or commission.” It was a noun first and later became a verb. (Take that, all you people who complain about modern-day verbification of nouns.)

KING ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king.

DENNIS: Listen, strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

—Graham Chapman (King Arthur) and Michael Palin (Dennis) in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail

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Meme

Meme is the youngest word you’ll find in these pages; it was coined in 1976 by scientist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. He modeled meme on a Greek word that means “to copy” and meant for it describe an idea that is transmitted in much the same way as a gene.

Today, meme is often used to describe something that becomes popular or spreads quickly on the Internet. For example, LOLcats (cat pictures with funny captions such as I can has cheezburger?) are an Internet meme.

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We need a name for the new replicator, a noun which conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. “Mimeme” comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like “gene.” I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme.… It should be pronounced to rhyme with “cream.” Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.

—Richard Dawkins, Oxford professor, in The Selfish Gene

Nadir

A nadir is a low point. It comes from an Arabic word that means “opposite to,” and took its meaning from an Arabic phrase that meant “opposite to the zenith.” (A zenith is a high point.) In English, a nadir can be a literal low point or a metaphorical low point such as an emotional or financial trough.

Mexico City’s air pollution reached its nadir in 1991, when the city chalked up only eight days with air quality below hazardous levels.

—Tim Johnson in the Miami Herald

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Nefarious

A nefarious act is evil, wicked, or villainous. Coming from a Latin prefix that means “not” followed by a root that means “divine law,” nefarious has a sense of something that is against the law or is a deep offense against morality.

Worst of all, the majority of these dark criminals who had been caught in nefarious plots against the honour of France were totally unable to speak French.

The Enormous Room by E. E. Cummings

Nepotism

Nepotism is showing favor to your relatives, especially in politics or the workplace. Nepotism comes from the Italian word for “nephew,” which may seem strange until you learn that it acquired its current meaning during a time when Catholic popes regularly appointed their relatives, especially nephews, to powerful and lucrative positions.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’ve done, but in this business, it’s not courage that counts. It’s nepotism that’s important.

—Arte Johnson playing Sydney in the TV show The A-Team

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Obliged

Obliged comes from a Latin word that means “to bind.” It can be a synonym for “obligated” or “required” (I’m obliged to tell you … or I’m obligated to tell you…) or “in your debt” (I’d be much obliged if you told me…), but it can also mean “consented” (He asked nicely, so I obliged).

I’m going to kill you, Harry Potter. I’m going to destroy you. After tonight, no one will ever again question my power. After tonight if they speak of you, they’ll only speak of how you begged for death. And how I, being a merciful Lord, obliged.

—Ralph Fiennes playing Lord Voldemort in the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Obtuse

In math, an obtuse angle is wider than 90 degrees and narrower than 180 degrees. It’s the opposite of an acute angle. Since an acute angle is sometimes thought of as sharp, its opposite, the obtuse angle, is thought of as dull. In fact, obtuse comes from the Latin word for “dull.”

When obtuse is used to describe a person, it also takes its clue from “dull.” An obtuse person doesn’t get your meaning, doesn’t get the joke. He or she is stupid, slow, dimwitted, or dull.

CAPTAIN JEAN-LUC PICARD: You’re going to deny us travel through space?

Q: No, you obtuse piece of flotsam! You’re to be denied existence. Humanity’s fate has been sealed. You will be destroyed.

—Patrick Stewart (Picard) and John de Lancie (Q) in the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

Omniscient

Omniscient comes from the Latin word for “all-knowing,” and someone who is omniscient has godlike knowledge of everything.

In literature, books are sometimes described as having an omniscient narrator, also known as an omniscient third-person narrator. In such stories, the narrator can report on the actions and thoughts of every character and on events beyond the realm or awareness of the characters—in short, on anything. (It is also possible to have a limited third-person narrator who knows the thoughts and actions of one or a few characters in the book, but doesn’t have sweeping knowledge of the world or all the characters as an omniscient narrator would.)

BIG BROTHER: Let me explain something here. Big Brother is a name we use to suggest an omniscient totalitarian presence. It’s not supposed to be taken literally. I’m your oppressor, not your friend.

CITIZEN 43275-B: But is says in the re-education manual that Big Brother is our friend.

BIG BROTHER: That’s just empty political propaganda. It doesn’t mean … It doesn’t mean I wanna hear your stupid knock knock jokes.

—Dan Kern (Big Brother) and Michael Naughton (Citizen 43275-B) in the short movie Me and the Big Guy

Onerous

Onerous comes from a Latin word that means “burden,” and today in English it still means “burdensome” as well as “oppressive or troublesome.” You can remember the meaning by linking the one part of onerous with the idea that all the weight is a burden on one person’s shoulders, like the famous sculpture of Atlas holding the whole world on his shoulders.

The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder.… Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

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Ordinance

Ordinance comes from a Latin word that means “to arrange,” and it refers to a law, rule, or regulation.

Ordinance should not be confused with ordnance—military items for shooting such as artillery, cannons, ammunition, missiles, bombs, and the supplies needed to maintain these items. Ordinance used to include these items, but ordnance evolved into its own term. You can think that when people are at war using ordnance, they’re in a hurry and not focused on spelling, so they dropped the i for convenience.

Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked.

—Robert D. Specht, distinguished mathematician

Penultimate

Penultimate is often mistakenly used to hyperbolically describe something as better than the best, but it properly means “the next to last.” Penultimate comes from a Latin word that means “almost ultimate.” The next to last book in a series, the next to last day of a vacation, and the next to last game in a player’s career are all penultimate items or events.

Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing penultimate about this one. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the proverbial it. After this, there is void … emptiness … oblivion … absolute nothing.

[dramatic pause]

Except, of course, for the sweets trolley and our fine selection of Aldebaran liqueurs. And for once, ladies and gentlemen, there is no need to worry about having a hangover in the morning, for there will be no more mornings.

—Colin Jeavons playing Max Quordlepleen in the TV miniseries A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Plagiarize

I always had trouble remembering how to spell plagiarize until I realized that the middle part is spelled like liar: A plagiarizer is a liar.

To plagiarize is to use someone else’s words or ideas without a proper citation, usually with the intent to pass them off as your own, so the “liar” memory trick fits.

The first English word related to plagiarize is plagiary, which came from a Latin word that described a person who kidnaps, seduces, or plunders.

In British English it is spelled with an s instead of a z: plagiarise.

OK, maybe my dad did steal Itchy. So what? Animation is built on plagiarism. If it weren’t for someone plagiarizing The Honeymooners we wouldn’t have The Flintstones.

—Alex Rocco voicing Roger Meyers Jr. on the TV show The Simpsons

Poignant

Something poignant is painfully moving, keenly felt, or sharply experienced. Poignant comes from a Latin word that meant “to prick” and a later Old French word that meant “to prick or sting” and may be related to the word pungent, which has a similar meaning but is more likely to be applied to a taste or a smell.

What I heard then was the melody of children at play. Nothing but that. And I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita’s absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that chorus.

—Jeremy Irons playing Humbert Humbert in the movie Lolita

Profligate

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A profligate man is shamelessly corrupt, wanton, or recklessly extravagant. For example, profligate liars not only lie, but do it all the time and don’t feel bad about it. They may even enjoy lying. Profligate comes from a Latin word that meant, among other things “ruined, depraved, or corrupt.”

If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men’s failings, and recollect that we, too, [would be] very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal’s natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income.

—William Makepeace Thackeray, British novelist

Pugnacious

A pugnacious person likes to fight in a “Bring on the argument; I’m itching for a quarrel!” kind of way.

Pugnacious comes from a Latin root that means “combative,” which is, in turn, related to a Greek word that means “fist.” If it helps, remember that pugnacious means “belligerent” by imagining a feisty pug dog that’s raring for a fight.

[Conor] Casey was pugnacious from the start and combative throughout. His spirit—and his goal—lifted the Rapids, who managed to come back from an initial deficit only once in 12 games this season.

—Jeffrey Marcus in the New York Times

Quadrant

Quadrant comes from Latin words that mean “the fourth part,” and a quadrant is defined as one quarter of a circle. If you had a pie (cherry, chocolate, pecan—any pie will do) and cut it in half, and then cut each of those pieces in half, you’d have four equal slices, and one slice would be a quadrant of the pie.

DR. GREGORY HOUSE: As I suspected, you have significant losses in the upper right quadrant of your visual field.

EVAN GREER: Are you serious?

DR. GREGORY HOUSE: No, it’s a joke. Two guys go into a bar and one has significant losses in the upper right quadrant of his visual field. And the other one says, “You’re gonna need an MRI to confirm the type and location of the tumor.”

—Hugh Laurie (House) and Jason Lewis (Greer) in the TV show House

Quantitative

Quantitative comes from the Latin word for “quantity.” Quantitative analysis looks at things that can be measured, such as the number of dolphins in a region. Qualitative analysis looks at things that are more subjective, such as how seeing dolphins made tourists feel. Qualitative analysis is more prone to problems with the wording of the question or other things that may subtly bias the participants.

People often confuse quantitative and qualitative, in part because qualitative results can be presented in ways that makes them look quantitative, for example, when researchers ask qualitative questions, but have subjects answer on numerical scales: How happy were you to see dolphins? Answer on a scale from 1 to 10.

We measure the success of schools not by the kinds of human beings they promote but by whatever increases in reading scores they chalk up. We have allowed quantitative standards, so central to the adult economic system, to become the principal yardstick for our definition of our children’s worth.

—Kenneth Keniston, American professor of human development

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Quixotic

Quixotic comes from the name of the literary character Don Quixote from Miguel de Cervantes’s novel The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha (bonus word—a hidalgo is a lower nobleman in Spain), so someone who is quixotic has the characteristics of Quixote—romantic, overly chivalrous, extravagant, foolish, rash, and impractical. (Reading the book will help you understand the word better!)

Even though quixotic is derived from Don Quixote’s name, it is pronounced differently because the word quixotic is an Anglicization of the name. It is pronounced “kwik-sot-ik,” whereas the name is still pronounced much like the original Spanish: “kee-hoh-tee.”

All male friendships are essentially quixotic: they last only so long as each man is willing to polish the shaving-bowl helmet, climb on his donkey, and ride off after the other in pursuit of illusive glory and questionable adventure.

Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

Rancor

Rancor is a feeling of hate, bitterness, hostility, or spite. It comes from a Latin word that has a sense of a bad smell or rankness and is also a root of the word rancid.

In Britain, it’s typically spelled rancour.

Amazing how grimly we hold on to our misery, the energy we burn fueling our anger. Amazing how one moment, we can be snarling like a beast, then a few moments later, forgetting what or why. Not hours of this, or days, or months, or years of this … But decades. Lifetimes completely used up, given over to the pettiest rancor and hatred. Finally, there is nothing here for death to take away.

—Matt Dillon playing Henry Chinaski in the movie Factotum

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Recession

Recession comes from a Latin word that means “to recede,” and has many meanings tied to that root, but the one you’re most likely to encounter is the kind of recession that occurs in an economy. A recession is, in a sense, when an economy recedes from plenty. Unemployment goes up, while spending, production, and income go down.

Many sources define a recession vaguely—as simply a move in this downward direction, or as a downturn less severe than a depression—but in the 1970s, some economists began to quantify the term, defining it as two consecutive quarters in which the gross domestic product falls. (Gross domestic product, also known as GDP, is the value of the goods and services a country produces.)

Recession started being used to describe economic conditions around the beginning of the period that later became known as the Great Depression, presumably because at first people didn’t realize how bad it was going to get.

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It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose your own.

—Harry Truman, American president

Redress

Redress comes from an Old French word that meant “to straighten again,” and today it means “to provide justice, relief, a remedy, or compensation; to right a wrong.” Redress is a more general term than reparation (a financial remedy) or restitution (putting things back as they were before a wrong was committed).

You can’t just lecture the poor that they shouldn’t riot or go to extremes. You have to make the means of legal redress available.

—Harold H. Greene, American judge

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Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the ability to use language persuasively. Excellence at rhetoric can be seen as a noble, valued skill or merely as a way with deception, depending on the ends to which rhetoricians use their linguistic art.

There are easily more than a hundred different rhetorical devices; some of the simplest include word patterns known to engage audiences, such as alliteration (using words that start with the same sounds: Let us go forth to lead the land we love—John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech) and repetition (Yes, we can—repeated seven times in Barack Obama’s presidential victory speech).

Everyone was tired with the old style politicians and their flowery rhetoric. I just told them there are tough times ahead, but that they would be less tough with me in charge.

—Aníbal Cavaco Silva, president of the Portuguese Republic

Romance

I bet you know what romance means, but what about Romance? French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese aren’t called Romance languages because they are the languages of love; they’re called Romance languages because they all can be traced back to Vulgar Latin, the informal, spoken language of Rome. (Classical Latin was the written language used by educated Romans.)

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The similarities between Latin and Romance languages are easy to see, and students of Latin will notice thousands more if they study a Romance language as well.

Latin

pater

French

pere

Spanish

padre

Italian

padre

Portuguese

pai

Ancient Rome: An Introductory History by Paul A. Zoch

Sanguine

Sanguine means “cheerfully optimistic or confidently hopeful” and is sometimes used to describe the happy disposition of youth.

Sanguine comes from a Latin word that means “bloody,” which may seem strange at first, but back in the 1500s when sanguine took on its “happy disposition” meaning, people thought that personality traits, such as sanguinity, came from the four humors, one of which was blood. (The other three humors were yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm.)

No temper could be more cheerful than hers, or possess in a greater degree that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself.

—Jane Austen, describing Mrs. John Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility

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Sans

Sans is a foreign-sounding or old-timey way of saying “without.” It comes from French and Latin words with the same meaning and was popular in Shakespeare’s time.

You may encounter sans in the font description sans serif. Serifs are the little extensions that appear on the end of lines and curves in fonts such as Times New Roman and Georgia (T, T) and sans serif literally means “without serif.” Sans serif fonts such as Helvetica and Arial lack the artistic projections at the ends of the lines and curves (T, T).

I’ve been to New York. It’s like Prague sans the whimsy.

—Seth MacFarlane voicing Brian Griffin in the TV show Family Guy

Sartorial

Sartor is the Latin word for “tailor,” so its derivative, sartorial, refers to clothes. It’s regularly used in news stories describing fashion.

A true Scotsman is said to never wear anything under his kilt. But now Scots are being warned that the sartorial tradition could be both indecent and unhygienic.

—Ben McConville in a story for the Associated Press

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Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude is a German word that combines “harm” and “joy.” It’s the feeling you get when you take pleasure in someone else’s misfortune. Schadenfreude has been used in English for many years, but it seemed to experience a slight increase in use after being defined in a 1991 episode of The Simpsons (“When Flanders Failed”), and then a burst in use around the time of the dot-com bust, perhaps because so many people took pleasure in seeing twenty-year-old overnight millionaires brought down a notch. The word received more support when the musical Avenue Q premiered on Broadway in 2003 and included a song titled “Schadenfreude.”

Winter denial: therein lay the key to California Schadenfreude—the secret joy that the rest of the country feels at the misfortune of California. The country said: “Look at them, with their fitness and their tans, their beaches and their movie stars, their Silicon Valley and silicone breasts, their orange bridge and their palm trees. God, I hate those smug, sunshiny bastards!” Because if you’re up to your navel in a snowdrift in Ohio, nothing warms your heart like the sight of California on fire. If you’re shoveling silt out of your basement in the Fargo flood zone, nothing brightens your day like watching a Malibu mansion tumbling down a cliff into the sea.

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore

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Shrewd

Shrewd used to be a much more negative term than it is today. It comes from a Middle English word that meant “to curse” and it was associated with evil. Today, however, someone who is shrewd is tough, sharp, informed, insightful, and astute—a worthy competitor. You may not enjoy a day at the park with someone who is shrewd, but you’d want him or her on your side in a negotiation, and if you have to go up against someone who is shrewd, you’d better be on your toes.

We’re faced with a shrewd and ruthless gang of outlaws. Their operation is clever and deadly. They wait until a man with a price on his head is jailed, then spring him and use him as a front man for a series of holdups … making sure he is the only one ever recognized. The reward keeps going up. When it reaches three or four thousand dollars, the man is killed. Somebody is hired to collect the reward.

—Thomas Browne Henry playing Mike O’Brien in the movie Gunfight at Comanche Creek

Solstice

A solstice occurs when the sun is farthest from the equator; it happens twice a year, once in summer and once in winter. In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice has the most daylight of the year and the winter solstice has the least daylight of the year.

Solstice comes from a Latin word that means “to stand still” because on a solstice, the sun stops moving in the direction it has been moving. For example, in the Northern Hemisphere, each day the sun will gradually move northward in the sky until the summer solstice, after which the sun will begin to move southward—until the winter solstice, when it will switch again.

Civilizations have often treated solstices as important or sacred days.

We were raised on lentils, brown rice, Neil Young, and solstice celebrations.

Vanishing and Other Stories by Deborah Willis

Sovereignty

Sovereignty is control or power over something, often a country or larger geographical region, but it can also be used in a limited sense to describe an individual having control over his or her body or home. It has more of a sense of independence or autonomy when used in this manner. Sovereignty comes from a Latin word that means “over” as in “to reign over.”

Sovereignty has the word reign in the middle, so connect it in your mind to the idea of a king reigning over his lands.

The moon and other celestial bodies should be free for exploration and use by all countries. No country should be permitted to advance a claim of sovereignty.

—Lyndon B. Johnson, American president

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Sufficient

Sufficient means “enough,” and it comes from a Latin word that means “to make,” as in “to make do” with something. In the phrase self-sufficient, sufficient means “reliant”—that the person is able to take care of himself or herself.

Scientists often talk about the difference between things being necessary and things being sufficient. To use a cooking example, flour is necessary to make bread, but it is not sufficient. Minimally, you also need water with your flour to make the simplest kind of unleavened bread. Together, water and flour are sufficient—enough. It won’t be the tastiest bread in the world, but it will be bread.

TOBY: I’d probably be, like, disemboweled by a ninja.

BREE OSBOURNE: You don’t have to say “like.” “Probably disemboweled by a ninja” is sufficient. And please don’t put your feet up on the dashboard.

—Kevin Zegers (Toby) and Felicity Huffman (Bree) in the movie Transamerica

Taciturn

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Taciturn and tacit are both adjectives that come from a Latin word that means “silent.” Taciturn is usually used to describe people, and tacit is usually used to describe a situation or state. Taciturn people are quiet and reserved—they don’t speak a lot and may be considered dour or grumpy. Tacit often means “implied” or “unspoken.” For example, a taciturn man may give tacit permission for his daughter to go out Friday night by simply shrugging instead of saying “Yes, you can go.”

Her laugh was sad and taciturn, seemingly detached from any feeling of the moment, like something she kept in the cupboard and took out only when she had to, using it with no feeling of ownership, as if the infrequency of her smiles had made her forget the normal way to use them.

—Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian author and Nobel laureate in Leaf Storm

Tangent

Tangent has a conversational meaning and a math meaning, both of which relate to its Latin root—a word that means “to touch.”

In geometry, a tangent is a line that touches one point on a curve. Outside of math, a tangent is an idea or a line of reasoning that goes off in an unrelated or unexpected direction. Just as in math, the topic starts at a point on the conversational “curve” and then proceeds in a different direction.

The other day in my positive psychology class I was talking about oxytocin—AKA the cuddle hormone—and its social benefits. Oxytocin is stimulated by human touch, and I believe research has shown a similar effect from contact with pets. I suppose that’s why we call them pets—because we can and do pet them. I went off on a tangent about why turtles and goldfish are not pets in the literal sense. My students chuckled a bit, and then one of them asked a great question. “What about teddy bears?”

—Christopher Peterson on the Psychology Today blog

Tenacious

Something tenacious has a strong grip either physically or metaphorically. Dough can stick tenaciously to a rolling pin, a person can stick tenaciously to a task, and a child can cling tenaciously to his mother on the first day of preschool.

Tenacious comes from a Latin word that means “holding fast.”

Metaphors are much more tenacious than facts.

—Paul de Man, Belgian philosopher

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Trepidation

Although trepidation no longer requires a sense of trembling, it originally came from the Latin word that meant “to tremble, to be agitated, to be alarmed, or to hurry.”

The Oxford English Dictionary shows the first use of the word in 1605 by Francis Bacon in a piece on scientific philosophy. At that time, it still had its “trembling” meaning: Massive bodies have certain trepidations and wavering, before they fix and settle.

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Today, trepidation still means “a feeling of fearfulness, anxiety, or agitation”; but the trepidatious person need not be quaking.

Being at the center of a film is a burden one takes on with innocence—the first time. Thereafter, you take it on with trepidation.

—Daniel Day-Lewis, British and Irish actor

Ubiquitous

An old joke goes something like this: “Ubiquitous? I keep seeing that word everywhere.” It’s funny (or trying to be funny) because ubiquitous comes from a Latin root that means “everywhere,” and it still means “everywhere” in English. Something ubiquitous is so pervasive that it’s nearly unavoidable—like pollen on a spring day or Starbucks.

Music and light spilled out of so many grand houses that the two seemed at once ubiquitous and united, as if to play a note was to send forth a ray of illumination, and a quartet was enough to set the grandest halls aglitter.

The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen M. Beckett

Unwieldy

The root of unwieldy is wield, which means “to handle” (as in a weapon) or “to control” (as in power) and comes from many old words that meant “to rule.” Therefore, something that is unwieldy is difficult to handle, whether it’s an unwieldy people who are difficult to rule, unwieldy emotions that are difficult to process, or an unwieldy sword that is hard to manage gracefully.

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.

—Henry David Thoreau, American author

Usurp

Usurp comes from a Latin word that meant “to use or seize” and in English still means “to seize,” as in to seize power from another in an illegal way such as through a coup, a mutiny, or an uprising. In olden times, a usurper may have also tried to take the throne by guile while a monarch was away from the kingdom.

It was not because the three-penny tax on tea was so exorbitant that our Revolutionary fathers fought and died, but to establish the principle that such taxation was unjust. It is the same with this woman’s revolution; though every law were as just to woman as to man, the principle that one class may usurp the power to legislate for another is unjust, and all who are now in the struggle from love of principle would still work on until the establishment of the grand and immutable truth, “All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

—Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist

Visage

Visage comes from a Latin word meaning “appearance” and an Old French word meaning “face” and today can refer to a face, a temperament showing on a face, a likeness, or a general outward appearance.

O conspiracy,

Sham’st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,

When evils are most free? O then, by day

Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough

To mask thy monstrous visage?

—Brutus in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

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Wag

You’re certainly familiar with the image of a dog wagging its tail or gossips wagging their tongues, but wag has another meaning—a name for a kidder or mischievous jokester. Dictionary makers are uncertain whether the meaning evolved from the verb wag and the image of a playful dog or the obscure English word waghalter, which described someone who was likely to hang from the halter (gallows).

Hello. I am Homer Simpson. Or as some of you wags have dubbed me, Father Goose.

—Dan Castellaneta voicing Homer Simpson in the TV show The Simpsons

Wallow

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Wallow comes from an Old English word that meant “to roll.” Pigs wallow in the mud—they roll and linger in it. Today, wallow means “to linger in an emotional state or to dwell on something too long.” Like the pigs, people who are wallowing are self-indulgently rolling around in their emotions. Although you can use wallow to describe lingering in a happy place (wallowing in the love of my family), it’s much more commonly used to describe extended dwelling on negative emotions—moping.

The nerve of those Whos. Inviting me down there on such short notice! Even if I wanted to go, my schedule wouldn’t allow it. 4:00, wallow in self pity; 4:30, stare into the abyss; 5:00, solve world hunger, tell no one; 5:30, Jazzercize; 6:30, dinner with me—I can’t cancel that again; 7:00, wrestle with my self-loathing. I’m booked.

—Jim Carrey playing the Grinch in the movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Xeriscape

Please, never call a yard that requires little water a zeroscape; it’s xeriscape, which comes from a combination of the Greek word xeric, meaning “having scant moisture,” and the word scape, which in this case refers to a type of land. I can see why people get confused and think the word is zeroscape, because a xeriscape requires almost zero maintenance, but according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was coined by the Denver Water Department in 1981—and the word is xeriscape.

The root xeric in xeriscape comes from the Greek prefix xer-, which means “dry.” There aren’t many English words that use the xer- prefix. Xeroderma is dry skin, xerography is a type of dry printing, and xerophagy is eating dry food. There are few others.

In some ways, xeriscaping is a return to normal for desert communities.

Greening Your Home: Sustainable Options for Every System in Your House, by Clayton Bonnett

Yiddish

Yiddish is a language spoken in Jewish communities, and the name comes from the German word for Jewish ( jüdisch). High German is considered to be the root language of Yiddish, although Yiddish is written with Hebrew characters and, like English, has also incorporated aspects of many other languages, including Hebrew and Romance and Slavic languages.

Some have debated whether Yiddish is an autonomous language or simply a German dialect. This debate led to the famous quotation cited in a Max Weinreich lecture, “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” Yiddish words you might already know include chutzpah (“nerve”), klutz (“clumsy person”), shmutz (“a little dirt”), and oy vey (exclamation of exasperation).

In a corner of the yard lay a pile of smashed stones on which appeared inscriptions in Hebrew and sometimes Yiddish. These were all that remained of the gravestones. There wasn’t a Jew left in the town, and there hadn’t been one, said Mr. Kichler, since 1945.

Hitch-22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens

Zeal

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Zeal is a disposition or an attitude, an enthusiastic or fervent devotion to a purpose. It often has a negative connotation. For example, a zealot (a word derived from zeal) is usually seen as someone who takes things to an irrational extreme—acts in a fanatical way.

Zeal comes from a Greek word that also meant “zeal.”

Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own.

—Ezra Taft Benson, American statesman and religious leader, in the speech “The Proper Role of Government”