RELAX, REFRESH YOUR ENGLISH KNOWLEDGE – 3
(This collection is made from Marriem-Webster)
1.
Nimiety \nih-MYE-uh-tee\ noun
Meaning
: excess, redundancy
Example Sentence
"To avoid receiving a nimiety of kitchenware," advised the
bridal guide, "be sure to register for a wide range of gifts for your
guests to choose from."
Did you know?
There's no scarcity of English words used for too much of a good thing —
words like "overkill," "plethora," "superfluity,"
"surfeit," "surplus," and "preponderance," to
name a few. In fact, you might just feel that "nimiety" itself is a
bit superfluous. And it's true — we've never used the word excessively, though
it has been part of our language for nearly 450 years. (We borrowed it from
Late Latin "nimietas," a noun taken, in turn, from the Latin
adjective "nimius," meaning "excessive.") Superfluous or
not, "nimiety" still turns up occasionally. For example, in his 1991
book Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction, about "the habitual longing to
purchase, read, store, admire and consume books in excess," author Tom
Raabe blames one bookstore's "nimiety of overstuffed chairs" for
exacerbating this condition.
2. Umpteen \UMP-teen\ adjective
Meaning
: very many : indefinitely numerous
Example
Sentence
"Oh, I've been there umpteen times," drawled Melanie, when I
excitedly told her about my plans to go to
Did you know?
"I'll go to bed and I'll not get up
for umpty-eleven months." You know the feeling. The speaker here is
war-weary Bill, a character in Patrick MacGill's early 20th-century novel The
Great Push. His "umpty" originated as military slang around 1905 and
stood for an indefinite number, generally largish. (It was probably created by
analogy to actual numbers such as "twenty.") Soon, there followed
"umpteen," blending “umpty” and "-teen." "Umpteen"
usually describes an indefinite and large number or amount, while the related
“umpteenth” is used for the latest or last in an indefinitely numerous series.
We only occasionally use "umpty" these days (and even more rarely
"umptieth"), but you're bound to hear or read "umpteen" and
"umpteenth" any number of times.
3. Morass \muh-RASS\ noun
Meaning
1 : marsh, swamp
2 a : a situation that traps, confuses, or impedes *b : an overwhelming or confusing mass or
mixture
Example Sentence
For Diane and Oscar, trying to adopt a baby meant getting lost in a
morass of paperwork, but they knew it would be worth it.
Did you know?
We won’t swamp you with details: “morass”
comes from the Dutch word “moeras,” which itself derives from an Old French
word, “maresc,” meaning “marsh.” “Morass” has been part of English for
centuries, and in its earliest uses it was a synonym of “swamp” or “marsh.”
(That was the sense Robert Louis Stevenson used when he described Long John
Silver emerging from “a low white vapour that had crawled during the night out
of the morass” in
4. Bird-dog \BURD-dog\ verb
Meaning
1 : to watch closely
*2 : to seek out : follow, detect
Example Sentence
Scores of college recruiters bird-dogged the 7-foot high school senior
for their basketball programs.
Did you know?
People began using “bird-dog” as a verb meaning “to closely watch someone or something” or “to doggedly seek out someone or something” in the early 20th century. Both meanings reflect skills likely to be possessed by a well-trained bird dog. By the 1940s, “bird-dogging” was being used specifically as a term for stealing someone else’s date. And, not long after that, it began to be used for the scouting out of customers or prospective talent. The noun “bird dog” is also used as a name for the date stealers and scouts who do the bird-dogging.
5.
Corvée \KOR-vay\ noun
Meaning
*1 : unpaid labor (as toward constructing roads) due from a feudal
vassal to his lord
2 : labor exacted in lieu of taxes by public authorities especially for
highway construction or repair
Example Sentence
“He was also entitled to … district corvées which helped to maintain,
repair, and defend royal property….” (Bernard F. Reilly, The Medieval
Did you know?
Under the
6. Exclave \EKS-kleiv\ Noun
Meaning
: a portion of a country separated from the main part and constituting
an enclave in respect to the surrounding territory
Example Sentence
Technically, the state of
Did you know?
You probably won't be surprised to learn that the key to "exclave" is found in "enclave." "Enclave" itself ultimately derives from the Latin word for "key," which is "clavis." It was adopted in the mid-19th century from Middle French "enclaver" ("to enclose"), which in turn derives (through Vulgar Latin) from "in-" and "clavis." "Exclave" was formed about twenty years later by combining the prefix "ex-" and the "-clave" of "enclave." Other "clavis" descendants in English include "autoclave," "clavicle," "conclave," and "clavichord" (“an early keyboard instrument in use before the piano”).
7. Impuissant \im-PWISS-unt\ Adjective
Meaning
: weak, powerless
Example
Sentence
Jonah was a relentless bully who sought to intimidate any impuissant
student that he could find in the schoolyard.
Did you know?
Both the adjective "impuissant" and the noun "impuissance" came to English from Middle French. They are derived from the prefix “in-” (meaning "not") and the noun “puissance,” which means "power" and is a word in English in its own right. “Puissance” derives from the verb “poer,” meaning "to be able" or "to be powerful," and is ultimately related to the same Latin roots that gave us words such as "power" and "potent." While both "puissant" and "impuissance" first appeared in English during the 15th century, "impuissant" did not make its first appearance in our language until 1629.
8. Fortitude \FOR-tuh-tood\ noun
Meaning
: strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear
pain or adversity with courage
Example Sentence
Due to the hot weather, the road race was more a test of fortitude than
of athletic ability.
Did you know?
"Fortitude" comes from the Latin word “fortis,” meaning "strong," and in English it has always been used primarily to describe strength of mind. For a time, the word was also used to mean "physical strength" — Shakespeare used that sense in The First Part of King Henry the Sixth: "Coward of France! How much he wrongs his fame / Despairing of his own arm's fortitude." But despite use by the Bard, that second sense languished and is now considered obsolete.
9. Jeopardize \JEP-er-dyze\ verb
Meaning
: to expose to danger or risk : imperil
Example Sentence
"I'm not willing to jeopardize my friendship with Camille by lying
to her," said Luis.
Did you know?
It may be hard to believe that "jeopardize" was once
controversial, but in 1870 a grammarian called it "a foolish and
intolerable word," a view shared by many 19th-century critics. The
preferred word was "jeopard," which first appeared in print in the
14th century. (The upstart "jeopardize" turned up in 1582.) In 1828,
Noah Webster himself declared "jeopardize" to be "a modern word,
used by respectable writers in
10. Obeisance \oh-BEE-sunss\ noun
Meaning
1 : a movement of the body made in token of respect or submission : bow
*2 : acknowledgment of another’s superiority or importance : homage
Example Sentence
The people paid obeisance to their god by kneeling at the shrine.
Did you know?
When it first appeared in English in the late 14th century, “obeisance”
shared the same meaning as “obedience.” This makes sense given that “obeisance”
can be traced back to the Anglo-French verb “obeir,” which means “to obey” and
is also an ancestor of our word “obey.” The other senses of “obeisance” also
date from the 14th century, but they have stood the test of time whereas the
obedience sense is now obsolete.
Sir
ReplyDeleteThanks for refreshing English knowledge 🙏