Did You Know?
Pity poor King Tantalus of Lydia. The mythic monarch offended the ancient Greek gods, and was sentenced, according to Homer's Odyssey, to suffer in Hades the following punishment: to stand neck-deep in water, beneath overhanging boughs of a tree heavily laden with ripe, juicy fruit. But though he was always hungry and thirsty, Tantalus could neither drink the water nor eat the fruit: anytime he moved to get them, they would retreat from his reach. Our word tantalize is taken from the name of the eternally tormented king.
abject (adjective | AB-jekt)
Abject usually describes things that are extremely bad or severe. It can also describe something that feels or shows shame, or someone lacking courage or strength.
// Happily, their attempts to derail the project ended in abject failure.
// The defendants were contrite, offering abject apologies for their roles in the scandal that cost so many their life savings.
// The author chose to cast all but the hero of the book as abject cowards.
Did you know?
We’re sorry to say you must cast your eyes down to fully understand abject: in Middle English the word described those lowly ones who are rejected and cast out. By the 15th century, it was applied as it still is today to anything that has sunk to, or exists in, a low state or condition; in modern use it often comes before the words poverty, misery, and failure. Applied to words like surrender and apology, it connotes hopelessness and humility. The word’s Latin source is the verb abicere, meaning “to throw away, throw down, overcome, or abandon.” Like reject, its ultimate root is the Latin verb jacere, meaning “to throw.” Subject is also from jacere, and we’ll leave you with that word as a way to change the subject.
fugitive (noun|FYOO-juh-tiv)
Fugitive refers to a person who runs away to avoid being captured or arrested.
// The FBI regularly updates and circulates its list of most wanted fugitives, and asks communities where they might be seen to be careful and on the lookout.
Fugitive entered English as both a noun and an adjective in the 14th century, coming ultimately from the Latin verb fugere, meaning “to flee.” As a noun, it originally referred, as it still does today, to someone who flees a country or location to escape persecution or danger, as from war, making it synonymous with another fugere descendent, refugee. The noun soon expanded beyond those fleeing peril to individuals (such as suspects, witnesses, or defendants) trying to elude law enforcement especially by fleeing the pertinent jurisdiction. The adjective fugitive describes those literally running away or intending flight, but also has multiple figurative uses, being applied to that which is elusive, of short duration, or of transient interest, among other things.
meritorious (adjective | mair-uh-TOR-ee-us)
What It Means Meritorious is a formal adjective used to describe something that is deserving of honor, praise, or esteem.
// She was honored for her meritorious service to the city.
Did you know? People who demonstrate meritorious behavior certainly earn our respect, and you can use that fact to remember that meritorious has its roots in the Latin verb merēre, which means "to earn." (Merēre is also the source of the English noun and verb merit.) Nowadays, the rewards earned for meritorious acts are likely to be of an immaterial nature—gratitude, admiration, praise, etc.—but that wasn't always so. The history of meritorious recalls a reward more concrete in nature: cold, hard cash. In Latin, meritorious literally means "bringing in money."
devise (verb | dih-VYZE)
What It Means To devise is to invent or plan something that is difficult or complicated in some way.
// The siblings devised a plan to clean the house from top to bottom with hopes of getting their parents to let them go to the concert.
There’s something inventive about devise, a word that stems from Latin dividere, meaning “to divide.” By the time devise was being used in English, its Anglo-French forebear deviser had accumulated an array of senses, including “divide,” “distribute,” “arrange,” “order,” “plan,” “invent,” and “assign by will.” English adopted some of these and added new senses, such as “imagine” and “guess,” that have fallen out of use over time. Today devise is most commonly used as a synonym of invent or plot in situations where the objective is difficult or complicated. Note that devise is often confused with another dividere (and deviser) descendent: device refers to a technique, method, tool, or small machine or gadget. One way to help keep their spellings straight is to remember that ice, usually a noun, is found at the end of the noun device, not the verb devise.
utmost (adjective | UT-mohst)
Utmost describes something that is the greatest or highest in degree, number, or amount.
// The safety of employees is of utmost importance.
// Olympians push themselves to the utmost limit when training.
Utmost, which typically communicates that something is of the greatest or highest in degree, number, or amount, is commonly found modifying words like importance, concern, and respect. But utmost can also indicate that something is, literally or figuratively, farthest or most distant—that it is outmost, as in “the utmost point.” Utmost in fact traces back to the Old English word ūtmest, a superlative adjective formed from the adverb ūt, meaning “out.” Utmost can also function as a noun referring to the highest attainable point or degree, as in “the inn provides the utmost in comfort and luxury.” The noun also often occurs in phrases such as “we did our utmost to help” where it means “the highest, greatest, or best of one’s abilities, powers, and resources.”
hubris (noun | HYOO-bris)
Hubris is a formal and literary word that refers to a great or foolish amount of pride or confidence.
// The project's failure was predictable, given the inexperience and unbridled hubris of those leading the effort.
English picked up both the concept of hubris and the term for that particular brand of cockiness from the ancient Greeks, who considered hubris a dangerous character flaw capable of provoking the wrath of the gods. In classical Greek tragedy, hubris was often a fatal shortcoming that brought about the fall of the tragic hero. Typically, overconfidence led the hero to attempt to overstep the boundaries of human limitations and assume a godlike status; in response, the gods inevitably humbled the offender with a sharp reminder of human mortality. Take, for example, the story of Phaethon, a mortal son of the sun god Helios. In his hubris, Phaethon drives his father's sun chariot into the heavens but loses control of its horses. The chariot begins to scorch the earth, and Zeus strikes Phaethon down with a thunderbolt.
jettison (verb | JET-uh-sun)
When you jettison something, you get rid of it either because it is not needed or because it is impeding your progress or otherwise weighing you down.
// Now that the purchase of the building has been finalized, we'll revamp what we want to keep and jettison the rest.
// The approach of the storm forced them to jettison their vacation plans.
Jettison comes from the Anglo-French noun geteson (literally “action of throwing”), and ultimately from the Latin verb jactare, meaning “to throw.” The noun jettison refers to a voluntary sacrifice of cargo to lighten a ship’s load in time of distress, and is the source of the word jetsam, the word for goods that are so jettisoned; that word is often paired with flotsam (“floating wreckage”). These days you don’t have to be on a sinking ship to jettison something: the verb also means simply “to get rid of.”
logy (adjective|LOH-ghee)
Like sluggish and groggy, logy describes a person who is not able to think or move normally because of being tired, sick, etc., or something that moves slowly and ploddingly.
// The heavy meal left me feeling logy and in need of a nap.
The origins of the word logy (sometimes spelled loggy) likely lie in the Dutch word log, meaning "heavy," a relation of the ancient German adjective luggich, meaning "lazy." The word shares no history with the log of campfires, which is centuries older and has probable Scandinavian roots. Likewise, it has no etymological connection to groggy, which describes someone weak and unsteady on the feet or in action. That word ultimately comes from the nickname of an English admiral: "Old Grog," concerned with the health of his crew, served diluted rum to his sailors, who returned the favor by dubbing the rum mixture grog. (Modern grog is typically rum, or another liquor, cut with water and served warm, sweetened, and with lemon.)
panacea (noun | pan-uh-SEE-uh)
A panacea is something that is regarded as a cure-all—that is, something that will make everything about a situation better.
// The new program should help with the city’s housing crisis, but it’s no panacea.
The maxim “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” isn’t true, but belief in a miraculous botanical “cure for whatever ails ya” has existed for millennia and is at the root of the word panacea. In current use, panacea most often refers to a remedy—medical or otherwise—that inevitably falls far short of what some claim or hope it can do, but the word’s Latin and Greek forebears referred to plants with legit healing properties, including mints and yarrows. Both the Latin word panacēa and its Greek antecedent panákeia (from the word panakēs, meaning “all-healing”) were applied especially to flowering herbs (genus Opopanax) of the carrot family used to treat various ailments.
There are many rpg games that use panacea as an item that usually removes most or all status effects (poison, paralysis, etc.)
sui generis (adjective|soo-eye-JEN-uh-ris)
Sui generis is a formal adjective used to describe someone or something in a class or group of its own, or in other words, unlike anyone or anything else.
// As a scholar, she is sui generis, head and shoulders above everyone else in her field.
Many English words ultimately trace back to the Latin forms gener- or genus (which are variously translated as “birth,” “race,” “kind,” and “class”). Offspring of those roots include general, generate, generous, generic, and gender. But sui generis is truly a one-of-a-kind genus descendant that English speakers have used to describe singular things since the late 1600s. Its earliest uses were in scientific contexts, but where it once mostly characterized substances, principles, diseases, and even rocks thought to be the only representative of their class or group, its use expanded by the early 1900s, and it is now used more generally for anything that stands alone.
That looks/sounds like a name coming from Star Wars (or some other sci-fi)
embellish (verb|im-BELL-ish)
To embellish something is to make it more appealing or attractive with fanciful or decorative details.
// The gift shop had cowboy shirts and hats embellished with beads and stitching.
// As they grew older, the children realized their grandfather had embellished the stories of his travels abroad.
Embellish came to English, by way of Anglo-French, from the Latin word bellus, meaning "beautiful." It's in good company: modern language is adorned with bellus descendants. Examples include such classics as beauty, belle, and beau. And the beauty of bellus reaches beyond English: its influence is seen in the French bel, a word meaning "beautiful" that is directly related to the English embellish. And in Spanish, bellus is evidenced in the word bello, also meaning "beautiful."
brouhaha (noun|BROO-hah-hah)
Brouhaha is a synonym of both uproar and hubbub that refers to great excitement or concern about something.
// A brouhaha erupted over the bill, even though the opposing party stood to gain just as much from its passage.
The English language borrowed brouhaha directly from French in the late 19th century, but its origins beyond that are uncertain—not the subject of a noisy brouhaha but perhaps a little modest debate. What’s less arguable is that brouhaha is fun to say, as are many of its synonyms, including hubbub, williwaw, hullabaloo, bobbery, and kerfuffle. Many of these, like brouhaha, tend to suggest a certain judgment that the reason for all the foofaraw is a bit silly, or at least not worth getting all worked up about. A dad joke, for example, might cause a brouhaha, even though it’s really no reason for an uproar to brew. Haha!
facile (adjective|FASS-ul)
Facile is a formal adjective that is used disapprovingly to describe something that is too simple, or that doesn’t show enough thought or effort. Facile can also be used for something done or achieved in a way that is considered too easy or that is easily accomplished or attained. It is sometimes used approvingly, however, for someone or something that works, moves, or performs well and very easily.
// This problem requires more than just a facile solution.
// After winning a facile victory over their archrivals, the team became the easy favorite to secure the championship.
// The local author has received numerous plaudits for being a wonderfully facile writer.
If you’ve been fretting over how to use the word facile properly, we’re here to put your mind at ease. The word’s origins provide a major clue and are quite easy to trace: facile glided into English (via Anglo-French) from the Latin adjective facilis, meaning “easy, accommodating, nimble,” ultimately from facere, “to make, bring about, perform, do.” And indeed, facile can be used as a synonym for easy in some situations, though it is more formal and usually carries with it something extra—namely, excess. Something described as facile, such as an argument, is too easily made or done, as in “offered only facile answers to complex questions,” implying undue haste or shallowness. And facile tears are too easily produced by the person shedding them, suggesting they are lacking in sincerity. But although facile often bears a whiff of tut-tutting judgment, such is not always the case: it can be used positively to describe someone who is poised and assured, with an easy grace, as in “a facile lecturer.” Similarly, a writer whose words flow easily and fluidly on the page may be said to pen “facile prose.”
@Adragayle I wonder if an altercation at a frat party is a brohaha?