jeopardize (verb | JEP-er-dyze)
To jeopardize something or someone is to put them at risk or in danger.
// The wrong decision could seriously jeopardize the success of the project.
Did You Know?
Imagine you’re a contestant on a game show, and your task is to provide a question as a response to this statement from the host: “This word was once controversial, and in 1870 a grammarian called it ‘a foolish and intolerable word,’ a view shared by many 19th-century critics.” If you answered, “What is jeopardize?,” you might be going home with some money! The preferred word back then was jeopard, which first appeared in print in the 14th century. The upstart jeopardize didn’t arrive until the late 16th century, and took a while to catch on. In 1828, Noah Webster himself declared jeopardize to be “a modern word, used by respectable writers in America, but synonymous with jeopard, and therefore useless.” Unfortunately for the champions of jeopard, increased usage of jeopardize ultimately put the former word in jeopardy. Jeopard is now only rarely heard.
emancipation (noun | ih-man-suh-PAY-shun)
Emancipation refers to the act of freeing someone from the restraint, control, or power of another. It is used especially for the act of freeing someone from slavery.
// Jomo Kenyatta played a key role in the emancipation of Kenya from European rule in the 1960s and became the first president of the newly independent nation.
To emancipate someone (including oneself) is to free them from restraint, control, or the power of another, and especially to free them from bondage or enslavement. It follows that the noun emancipation refers to the act or practice of emancipating. The Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, for example, ordered that enslaved people living in the Confederate states be released from the bonds of ownership and made free people. It took more than two years for news of the proclamation to reach the enslaved communities in the distant state of Texas. The arrival of the news on June 19 (of 1865) is now celebrated as a national holiday—Juneteenth or Emancipation Day.
convivial (adjective | kun-VIV-ee-ul)
Convivial means "relating to, occupied with, or fond of feasting, drinking, and good company."
// A convivial atmosphere filled the gallery, with good food in abundance, and wine and conversation both flowing freely.
// The guests' convivial chatter filled the hall.
Convivial is a cheerful word that typically suggests a mood of full-bellied delight in good food, good drink, and good company, which Charles Dickens aptly captures in his novel David Copperfield: "We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish of fish; the kidney-end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat; a partridge, and a pudding. There was wine, and there was strong ale. ... Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I never saw him such good company. He made his face shine with the punch, so that it looked as if it had been varnished all over. He got cheerfully sentimental about the town, and proposed success to it." Convivial traces back to the Latin word convivium, meaning "banquet," which in turn comes from the verb vivere, meaning "to live." The word is in good company, as vivere has breathed plenty of life into the English language; other common descendants include survive, revive, vivid, and vivacious.
litmus test (noun | LIT-mus-TEST)
A litmus test is something (such as an opinion about a political or moral issue) that is used to make a judgment about whether someone or something is acceptable.
// At our family’s Thanksgiving dinner, the litmus test for good mac and cheese is whether or not it is baked.
It was in the 14th century that scientists discovered that litmus, a mixture of colored organic compounds obtained from lichen, turns red in acid solutions and blue in alkaline solutions and, thus, can be used as an acid-base indicator. Six centuries later, people began using litmus test figuratively. It can now refer to any single factor that establishes the true character of something or causes something to be assigned to one category or another. Often it refers to something (such as an opinion about a political or moral issue) that can be used to make a judgment about whether someone or something is acceptable or not.
bemuse (verb | bih-MYOOZ)
If you are bemused by something, you are confused or bewildered by it, and often also somewhat amused.
// The contestant seemed somewhat bemused by the question, but gave the correct answer.
In 1735, British poet Alexander Pope lamented, in rhyme, being besieged by “a parson much bemus’d in beer.” The cleric in question was apparently one of a horde of would-be poets who pestered Pope with requests that he read their verses. Pope meant that the parson had found his muse—his inspiration—in beer. That use of bemused harks back to a 1705 letter in which Pope wrote of “Poets … irrecoverably Be-mus’d.” In both letter and poem, Pope used bemused to allude to being inspired by or devoted to one of the Muses, the Greek sister goddesses of art, music, and literature. The lexicographers who followed him, however, interpreted “bemus’d in beer” as meaning “left confused by beer,” and their confusion gave rise to the “bewilder” sense of bemuse. The newer (and very common) use of bemuse to mean “to cause to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement” is a topic of some dispute.
wherewithal (noun | WAIR-wih-thawl)
Wherewithal refers to the means, skills, resources, or money that is needed to get or do something.
// The company does not have the financial wherewithal to expand into other markets at this time.
If wherewithal sounds like three words smashed together, that’s because it is—sort of. Wherewithal combines where and withal, an adverb from Middle English that is itself a combination of with and all. In the past, wherewithal was used as a conjunction meaning "with or by means of which" and as a pronoun meaning "that with or by which." Today, however, it is almost always used as a noun to refer to the means or resources a person or entity has at their disposal. It refers especially to financial resources, but other means such as social influence, ability, and emotional capacity may also be termed as "wherewithal."
noisome (adjective | NOY-sum)
Noisome is a formal and literary word used to describe things that are very unpleasant or disgusting; it is used especially to describe offensive smells. Noisome can also mean “highly obnoxious or objectionable” as in “we were put off by their noisome habits.”
// The noisome odor of a trash can in the alley was so strong that even diners seated inside the adjacent restaurant complained to staff.
Noisome looks and sounds like a close relation of noisy, but it’s not. While noisy describes what is excessively loud, noisome typically describes what is excessively stinky. (It is also used to describe things offensive to the senses generally, as well as things that are highly obnoxious, objectionable, or simply harmful.) Noisome comes from the synonymous Middle English noysome, which combines the suffix -some, meaning “characterized by a specified thing,” and the noun noy, meaning “annoyance.” Noisy, incidentally, comes ultimately from Latin nausea, meaning “nausea.”
flotsam (noun | FLAHT-sum)
Flotsam refers to the floating pieces that remain after a shipwreck, or more broadly to any floating debris or wreckage. It is also used figuratively to refer to miscellaneous or unimportant material, often in the phrase "flotsam and jetsam."
// Driftwood and other flotsam washed onto the beach.
// Their apartment was adorned with the flotsam and jetsam of thrift stores and yard sales.
English speakers started using flotsam, jetsam, and lagan as legal terms in the 16th and 17th centuries, with flotsam itself dating to the first years of the 17th. The three words were used to establish claims of ownership of the three types of seaborne, vessel-originated goods they named. Flotsam was anything from a shipwreck (the word comes from Anglo-French floter, meaning "to float"), and jetsam and lagan were items thrown overboard to reduce the cargo weight of a ship. Lagan was distinguished from jetsam by having a buoy attached so the goods could be found if they sank. In the 19th century, when flotsam and jetsam took on extended meanings, they developed synonymous applications and are today often paired, lagan having mostly been left at sea.
sumptuous (adjective | SUMP-shuh-wus)
Sumptuous is used to describe things that are very expensive, rich, luxurious, or magnificent.
// The celebratory meal was a sumptuous feast of dishes from our host’s homeland.
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens may be a few of your favorite things, but are they sumptuous? Alas, though the best things in life are often free, sumptuous is a child of the Latin word sumptus, meaning “expense,” and it typically describes things that can only be had at some significant expense. A sumptuous lifestyle, for example, is more likely to involve silver-white bling than a silver-white winter that melts into spring. Sumptus has another English relation, this one tied even more closely to conspicuous consumption: sumptuary laws are largely historical regulations limiting extravagant expenditures and habits, especially on moral or religious grounds. (The sump is consumption is coincidental; that word comes from consume, which has its roots in Latin sumere meaning “to take up, take.”)
oblige (verb | uh-BLYJE)
To oblige a person or entity to do something is to require or force them to do it, either because of a law or rule, or because it is necessary. To simply oblige someone is to do them a favor.
// The law obliges the government to release certain documents to the public.
// When my friend said he needed someone to taste test his new recipe for the cooking competition, I was happy to oblige.
If you are obliged by a rule or law you are metaphorically bound by it—that is, you are required to obey it. The idea of binding links the word to its Latin source, ligāre, meaning “to fasten, bind.” But in other common uses, the idea of binding is somewhat masked: it is applied when someone is bound by a debt for some favor or service, as in “We’re much obliged to you for the help,” but in the phrase “happy to oblige” it simply expresses a willingness to do someone a favor, as in “They needed a ride and we were happy to oblige.”
restive (adjective | RES-tiv)
Restive can describe a person or group feeling impatience or uneasiness, or it can describe someone who is stubbornly resistant to control.
// The audience grew increasingly restive as the speaker droned on and on.
// The school's focus on artistic expression helps restive youths stay engaged in their learning.
Restive is descended from the Anglo-French verb rester, meaning "to stop, resist, or remain." Its initial meaning in the 15th century was "stubbornly resisting control or guidance; obstinate in refusal," and for some time the word was primarily applied to animals such as horses. Over the next few centuries, restive gained additional, closely related meanings (such as "inflexible," "sluggish," and "persistent") and the word often described people as well as animals. In the 19th century this semantic drift extended to encompass the meaning "marked by impatience or uneasiness." Although the original "balky" sense of restive hasn't died out completely, it is overshadowed by this more recent "fidgety or impatient" one. Some usage guides still recommend against using restive in this modern sense, despite well over a century and a half of skilled writers employing it. If you're among the restive (earlier meaning) ones who balk at new meanings of words, we apologize if this news makes you feel restive (newer one).
impetus (noun | IM-puh-tus)
Impetus refers to a force or impulse that causes something (such as a process or activity) to be done or to become more active. It is often used with for and sometimes with to.
// Her work provided the major impetus behind the movement.
// The tragic accident became an impetus for changing the safety regulations.
// The high salary and generous benefits package were impetus enough to apply for the job.
Impetus provides the “why” for something: it can be understood as a driving force (as when winning a competition is the impetus for training), an incentive (as when increased skills serve as an impetus for taking a class), or encouragement (as when difficulties are the impetus for improvements). But its root packs more of a wallop: Latin impetus means “assault” as well as “impetus,” and it comes from impetere meaning “to attack.” (Impetere itself comes from petere, meaning “to go to, seek.”) If these origins seem a tad aggressive for such a genteel-sounding word as impetus, consider phrases and idioms like light a fire under someone and push comes to shove, both used when a strong impetus is provided for someone to act, decide, or accomplish something.
I'm glad that knowing the Latin origins isn't an important imperial imperative.
expunge (verb | ik-SPUNJ)
To expunge something is to remove it completely, whether by obliterating it, striking it out, or marking it for deletion. Expunge is most commonly applied in cases in which documentation of something is removed from an official record.
// Due to an error, the charges were expunged from their record.
In medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, a series of dots was used to mark mistakes or to label material that should be deleted from a text, and those deletion dots—known as puncta delentia—can help you remember the history of expunge. Puncta comes from the Latin verb pungere, which can be translated as “to prick or sting” (and you can imagine that a scribe may have felt stung when their mistakes were so punctuated in a manuscript). Pungere is also an ancestor of expunge, as well as a parent of other dotted, pointed, or stinging terms such as punctuate, compunction, poignant, puncture, and pungent.
verbose (adjective | ver-BOHSS)
Someone described as verbose tends to use many words to convey their point. Verbose can also describe something, such as a speech, that contains more words than necessary.
// The article documenting their meeting presented an odd exchange between a verbose questioner and a laconic interviewee.
There's no shortage of words to describe wordiness in English. Diffuse, long-winded, prolix, redundant, windy, repetitive, rambling, and circumlocutory are some that come to mind. Want to express the opposite idea? Try succinct, concise, brief, short, summary, terse, compact, or compendious. Verbose, which falls solidly into the first camp of words, comes from the Latin adjective verbōsus, from verbum, meaning "word." Other descendants of verbum include verb, adverb, proverb, verbal, and verbicide ("the deliberate distortion of the sense of a word").
galumph (verb | guh-LUMF)
To galumph is to move in a loud and clumsy way.
// I could hear them galumphing around in the attic in search of old family photo albums.