The Answer For Two Down

Discursive

2008-01-31T00:31:00.001-05:00

discursive \dis-KUR-siv\, adjective:

1. Passing from one topic to another; ranging over a wide field; digressive; rambling.
2. Utilizing, marked by, or based on analytical reasoning -- contrasted with intuitive.

The style is highly discursive, leap-frogging forwards and backwards across the decades, without ever sacrificing thrust or clarity.
-- Nicholas Blincoe, "Spirit that speaks", The Guardian, August 21, 1999

Rather than being a limiting influence, the time restrictions seem often to have compelled ensembles and soloists to condense and distill arrangements and to edit potentially discursive solo performances.
-- Richard M. Sudhalter, Lost Chords

He is in general a discursive politician: Start him talking and you cannot get him to stop.
-- Dan Balz, "President Endures Embarrassing Week", Washington Post, March 15, 1998

He is an intuitive being who can pierce to the heart of a matter without taking the circuitous route of deeper and more discursive minds.
-- "1962 Man of the Year: Pope John XXIII", Time, January 4, 1963

Discursive comes from Latin discurrere, "to run in different directions, to run about, to run to and fro," from dis-, "apart, in different directions" + currere, "to run."

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(1) After watching segments of the recent Republican debate, McCain being steadfast and direct in his answers and Romney being discursive as he bounced between topics and varied political opinions, it became apparent who the Republican front runner would be.

(2) Throughout my college tenure, I avoided stat and econ classes, fearful the discursive minds of my peers would render me silent and intimidated.

Supplicate

2008-01-29T09:15:00.000-05:00

supplicate \SUP-luh-kayt\, intransitive verb:

1. To make a humble and earnest petition; to pray humbly.
2. To seek or ask for humbly and earnestly.
3. To make a humble petition to; to beseech.

Lehi's list of enemies was long and broad, including not only the British and the Arabs, but respected Jewish leaders like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir, whom they dismissed as weaklings and compromisers prepared to supplicate before the aristocratic count.
-- Tod Hoffman, "Count (Folke) Bernadotte's folly", Queen's Quarterly, December 22, 1996

Their ambassadors would plead, supplicate, cajole, threaten, lobby, or bribe the bureaucrats who were administering the licenses and quotas.
-- Zafar U. Ahmed, "India's economic reforms", Competitiveness Review, January 1, 1999

In this formula, practitioners of religion are more or less powerless over the supernatural beings with whom they deal; they can only supplicate those beings for favours and then await their response.
-- Ronald Hutton, "Paganism and Polemic", Folklore, April 2000

Supplicate derives from the past participle of Latin supplicare, from supplex, "entreating for mercy." The noun form is supplication.

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(1) If it were permissible, I would stand before the ever powerful admissions board noting my skills and presenting my works all to supplicate the delivery of an acceptance letter.

(2) The current status of Democratic primaries will possibly lead Hillary Clinton to supplicate the votes of uncertain Independents.

Pertinacious

2008-01-22T15:38:00.000-05:00

pertinacious \puhr-tin-AY-shuhs\, adjective:

1. Holding or adhering obstinately to any opinion, purpose, or design.
2. Stubbornly or perversely persistent.

When he made up his little [mind] to have or to do anything, all the king's horses and all the king's men could not change that pertinacious little mind.
-- Louisa May Alcott, Good Wives

We were presently attacked by tens of thousands of the most bloodthirsty, pertinacious, and huge mosquitoes that I ever saw or read of.
-- H. Rider Haggard, She

The cabman replied: "If you will excuse me, your coat lapels are badly twisted downward, where they have been grasped by the pertinacious New York reporters."
-- David Walton, "Sherlock Holmes's Maker", New York Times, May 2, 1999

Pertinacious is from Latin pertinax, "having a firm hold, obstinate," from per-, "thoroughly" + tenax, "holding fast, tenacious," from tenere, "to hold."

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At the moment, my brain is banana mush with a sprinkling of nuts because I'm going crazy with grad school applications. But to learn is good. To slack on learning is bad. Therefore thee shall learn. I picked a word I thought would be easier but I'm rather confident I used it all wrong. I'm really hoping to get an A for trying though, right?

(1) My mother's unquestionably pertinacious; leaving multiple voice mails and sending numerous emails to remind me to overnight her Philadelphia mail to Florida. Because, you know, life all but ends without the latest issue of Southern Living.

(2) The pertinacious questioning by opposing counsel left the witness agitated and the jury entertained.

Slake

2008-01-15T09:30:00.000-05:00

slake \SLAYK\, transitive verb:

1. To satisfy; to quench; to extinguish; as, to slake thirst.
2. To cause to lessen; to make less active or intense; to moderate; as, slaking his anger.
3. To cause (as lime) to heat and crumble by treatment with water.
4. To become slaked; to crumble or disintegrate, as lime.

My companions never drink pure water and the . . . beer serves as much to slake their thirst as to fill their stomachs and lubricate conversation.
-- Philippe Descola, The Spears of Twilight

She had the money he gave her (never enough to slake her anxieties).
-- Nuala O'Faolain, Are You Somebody

Slake comes from Middle English slaken, "to become or render slack," hence "to abate," from Old English slacian, from slæc, "slack."

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(1) She reached for the goblet and swallowed down half of the wine to slake her thirst and calm her nerves.

(2) The generous severance package was just enough to slake her uncertainty about surviving the next few months without a job.

Presentiment

2008-01-10T00:38:00.000-05:00

presentiment \prih-ZEN-tuh-muhnt\, noun:

A sense that something will or is about to happen; a premonition.

He'd had a presentiment of this. Yes, he had known that this was precisely what would be said.
-- Nina Berberova, Cape of Storms (translated by Marian Schwartz)

High ranking North Korean officers had "only the barest presentiment" of hostilities until the final orders were issued for the attack.
-- Nicholas Eberstadt, The End of North Korea

Lituma pictured the blank faces and icy narrow eyes that the people in Naccos . . . would all turn toward him when he asked if they knew the whereabouts of this woman's husband, and he felt the same discouragement and helplessness he had experienced earlier when he tried to question them about the other men who were missing: heads shaking no, monosyllables, evasive glances, frowns, pursed lips, a presentiment of menace.
-- Mario Vargas Llosa, Death in the Andes

Presentiment derives from Latin praesentire, "to feel beforehand," from prae-, "before" + sentire, "to feel."

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(1) Albeit erroneously, the media looked to the Iowa Caucus as a presentiment of Hilary Clinton's political demise.

(2) Many financial gurus saw the booming housing market as nothing more than a presentiment of an economic downturn.

Soporific

2008-01-08T16:20:00.000-05:00

soporific \sop-uh-RIF-ik; soh-puh-\, adjective:

1. Causing sleep; tending to cause sleep.
2. Of, relating to, or characterized by sleepiness or lethargy.
3. A medicine, drug, plant, or other agent that has the quality of inducing sleep; a narcotic.

Hamilton's voice droned on, hypnotic, soporific, the gloom beyond the windows like the backdrop of a waking dream.
-- T. Coraghessan Boyle, Riven Rock

They were almost an hour behind in their daily schedule, and both women looked tired after a soporific afternoon of three executive meetings.
-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, News of a Kidnapping

Happily, these three lullaby books offer the sort of comforting bedtime soporific that has delivered generations of children, young and older, into deep, safe slumber.
-- Lisa Shea, New York Times, January 30, 1994

Soporific is from French soporifique, from Latin sopor, "a heavy sleep" + -ficus, "-fic," from facere, "to make."

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(1) Every year I'm required to attend continuing education classes and every year I fight to stay awake, the soporific topic inevitably delivered by someone who is no more interesting than the issue discussed.

(2) I understand that the theatre has to appeal to a wide range of tastes but when producers rely on soporific material like Cyrano de Bergerac, they shouldn't be surprised when attendees (cough, me) fall asleep.

The Way This Will Work

2008-01-07T16:52:00.000-05:00

I hate learning vocabulary the way you hate having your teeth drilled by the dentist or your down there probed by the gynee. It's unpleasant and tedious and similarly leaves me cringing. But enough is enough. It's time to change my ways. And yours too. Yeah, you who can't come up with more than three synonyms for bad. Go on, I double dog dare yah.

So here's the bottom line. A few times a week, I'm posting a word with the definition and some sample sentences according to a respectable source (read: not me). And then I'm going to give a go at a sentence or two of my own. Your role? No, not to point and laugh at my vocab foibles. Your role is to play along. Give it a go. Because ultimately we're all in the same damn sinking boat/dingy/yacht/schooner/sloop.