{"id":3751,"date":"2016-12-21T08:48:16","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T08:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/?p=3751"},"modified":"2016-12-30T16:37:24","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T16:37:24","slug":"featured-phrases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/?p=3751","title":{"rendered":"Featured Phrases"},"content":{"rendered":"

| These are words we didn’t know before we started this site that we got from Merriam Webster’s Word of the Day feature. There’s a lot! But that’s ok. We know them now. Thanks for being around, Merriam Webster<\/a>! <\/span><\/p>\n

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daedal \\DEE-dul\\ – adjective<\/span><\/p>\n

1 a: skillfull, artistic
\n1 b: intricate
\n2: adorned with many things<\/p>\n

The filmmaker makes daedal use of lighting effects and camera angles to create a noirish atmosphere.<\/p>\n

“Applying makeup on trains \u2026 is not easy. That innumerable Japanese women choose to do so while commuting should, therefore, be seen as a testament to their steady hands as well as that country’s steady trains. Indeed, undertaking such a daedal exercise on the Indian railway system\u2014or any other public transport\u2014would be foolhardy unless the intention is to emerge looking like Heath Ledger as the Joker.”
\n\u2014 The Economic Times, 29 Oct. 2016<\/p>\n

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gallimaufry \\gal-uh-MAW-free\\ – noun<\/span><\/p>\n

a heterogeneous mixture : jumble<\/p>\n

The essay collection covers a gallimaufry of subjects, from stamp collecting to Portuguese cooking.<\/p>\n

“Upon entering the gallery, one of the first things that catches my eye is a gallimaufry of vibrant, oversized collages.”
\n\u2014 Rosalie Spear, The Las Vegas Weekly, 29 Mar. 2016<\/p>\n

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obstreperous \\ub-STREP-uh-rus\\ – adjective<\/span><\/p>\n

1 : marked by unruly or aggressive noisiness : clamorous<\/p>\n

2 : stubbornly resistant to control : unruly<\/p>\n

After two months at sea with dwindling food supplies and declining confidence in the captain, the ship’s crew became obstreperous and began to plot a mutiny.<\/p>\n

“It is Rob she calls for when crankily refusing to go to bed, and when Alan attempts to calm her she grows only more obstreperous.” \u2014 Charles Isherwood, The New York Times, 9 Nov. 2015<\/p>\n

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obnubilate (\\ahb-NOO-buh-layt\\ \u2013 verb<\/span><\/p>\n

becloud, obscure<\/p>\n

“The writer’s essay includes some valid points, but they are obnubilated by his convoluted prose style.
\n“Early street lighting had the disconcerting effect of obnubilating as well as illuminating urban space.” \u2014 Matthew Beaumont, Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London, 2015<\/p>\n

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sub rosa (\\sub-ROH-zuh\\) \u2013 adverb<\/span><\/p>\n

in confidence : secretly<\/p>\n

“For 30 years he kept notes, almost sub rosa, finally publishing his work with his own funds just before his death.” \u2014 Jeannette Ferrary, The New York Times Book Review, 31 May 1987<\/p>\n

“Now, when you say you think they will test it, do you think they will test it openly, essentially, or that they will try to do something sub rosa and wait to be caught?” \u2014 Margaret Warner, on PBS.org, 9 Sept. 2015<\/p>\n

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ABULIA (ay-BOO-lee-uh) \u2013 noun<\/span><\/p>\n

abnormal lack of ability to act or to make decisions<\/p>\n

“Abulia is a motivational deficit that is associated with apathy, loss of will, and lack of initiating behaviors.” \u2014 Handbook of the Neuroscience of Language, 2008<\/p>\n

“The remoteness of the country house made him feel isolated and displaced\u2014feelings that worsened his abulia and melancholy\u2014so he decided to move back closer to town, where he felt more at home.” \u2014 Adam Sobsey, Independent Weekly (Durham, North Carolina), March 7, 2007<\/p>\n

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PERSEVERATE (per-SEV-uh-rayt) – verb <\/span><\/p>\n

1 : to repeat or recur persistently
\n2 : to go back over previously covered ground<\/p>\n

To ensure the accuracy of his or her data, the scientist necessarily perseverates, repeating each experiment many times and comparing the results.<\/p>\n

“In a world of sport, where we perseverate on numbers and titles to measure success, Duval’s self-measurement is refreshing.” \u2014 Bill Dwyre, Chicago Tribune, July 19, 2012<\/p>\n

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MYTHOMANIA (mith-uh-MAY-nee-uh) – noun<\/span><\/p>\n

an excessive or abnormal propensity for lying and exaggerating<\/p>\n

The idea of trust is an important theme in the book; the reader is never sure of the extent of the protagonist’s mythomania.<\/p>\n

“The pathological liar \u2026 cannot help lying, even when the lie causes harm. It is this aspect of mythomania that distinguishes it as an illness rather than a habit.” \u2014 Gloria Wall, Journal Review (Crawfordsville, Indiana), April 27, 2012<\/p>\n

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FATIDIC (FAY-tid-ik) – adjective <\/span><\/p>\n

of or relating to prophecy<\/p>\n

I hope the dream I had last night about losing my wedding ring doesn’t prove fatidic.<\/p>\n

“Shakespeare strews his plays with portents; Pushkin probes his life forfatidic dates; but no writer can have been more fascinated by patterns in time than Nabokov.” \u2014 Brian Boyd, Stalking Nabokov: Selected Essays, 2011<\/p>\n

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JEUNESSE DOR\u00c9E (zheuh-ness-dor-RAY) – noun<\/span><\/p>\n

young people of wealth and fashion
\nIt was clear that the magazine was targeting the jeunesse dor\u00e9e based on its ads for expensive trendy clothes and profiles of the hottest nightspots.<\/p>\n

“On a walk in Montreal’s Little Burgundy neighborhood, the streets were quiet but inside restaurants were buzzing and the city’s jeunesse dor\u00e9ewere shoulder-to-stylish-shoulder at gallery openings.” \u2014 Christopher Muther, Boston Globe, October 18, 2014<\/p>\n

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CLERISY (KLAIR-uh-see) – noun<\/span><\/p>\n

intellectuals who form an artistic, social, or political vanguard or elite: intelligentsia<\/p>\n

The book’s author claims that a successful society must have both a strong commitment to democratic ideals and a well-established clerisy.<\/p>\n

The situation was so dire that it required nothing less than scientific experts freed from constitutional strictures to run the government and the elevation of intellectuals and artists to the status of a new cultural clerisy.” \u2014 Daniel DiSalvo, The Washington Times, February 18, 2014<\/p>\n

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DEROGATE (DAIR-uh-gayt) – verb <\/span><\/p>\n

to cause to seem inferior : disparage
\nIt is easy to derogate the prom committee for its lackluster theme now, but nobody came forward with any better ideas while it was being discussed.<\/p>\n

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ESURIENT (ih-SUR-ee-unt) – adjective <\/span><\/p>\n

hungry, greedy
\nNo one was surprised that the esurient media mogul planned to expand his empire into the social-media marketplace.
\n“She sat opposite him \u2026, as plump and indifferent to his presence as an old tabby cat whose esurient eye was wholly focused on a particularly toothsome mouse.” \u2014 Pamela Aidan,An Assembly Such as This: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, 2006<\/p>\n

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EPENTHESIS – ih-PEN-thuh-sis – noun <\/span><\/p>\n

the insertion of a sound or letter in the body of a word<\/p>\n

“When Yogi Bear talks about swiping ‘pick-a-nick’ baskets in Jellystone Park, it sounds as if he’s just having fun, but he’s also demonstrating ‘epenthesis,’ inserting a vowel to avoid the consonants bumping up against each other.” \u2014 Ruth Walker, The Christian Science Monitor, August 15, 2012<\/p>\n

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HOMONYMOUS – adjective <\/span><\/p>\n

(1) having the same designation
\n(2) of, relating to, or being homonyms<\/p>\n

“We always called the elder Michael “Big Mike” to distinguish him from his homonymous son.<\/p>\n

“Weezer’s latest disc and its third to be self-titled (it’s being referred to as ‘The Red Album’ just as the previous pair of homonymous albums are commonly called the ‘Blue’ and ‘Green’ albums, respectively) has no shortage of the kind of pure pop melodies that endeared Weezer to millions of geek-rock kids back in the mid-’90s.” \u2014 Jonathan Perry, The Boston Globe, September 23, 2008<\/p>\n

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DUPLICITY – \\doo-PLISS-uh-tee\\ – noun <\/span><\/p>\n

the disguising of true intentions by deceptive words or action
\nIn a shameful act of duplicity, Jerry took the money he was entrusted to donate to the homeless shelter and instead used it to buy drugs.<\/p>\n

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GADABOUT – noun <\/span><\/p>\n

a person who goes from place to place in social activity
\n“Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston star as an undead European gadabout and a reclusive Detroit rocker who reignite their centuries-old love affair.” \u2014 Good Times Weekly (Florida), May 23, 2014<\/p>\n

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NEBBISH – noun <\/span><\/p>\n

a timid, meek, or ineffectual person
\nHe is a nebbish who might be played effectively by Woody Allen. He attracts the sympathy of lower-echelon mammals but finds it difficult to relate to dogs and human beings.
\n— Evan Hunter, “American Mayhem, Soviet Intrigue”, New York Times , October 9, 1983<\/p>\n

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FILCH – verb <\/span><\/p>\n

to appropriate furtively or casually; to steal (something that is small or that has little value)<\/p>\n

(Shia) LaBeouf directed a 2012 short film, HowardCantour.com. Until Dec. 16, one would have imagined that he wrote the film, too. But no, as BuzzFeed revealed (as though the saga lacked intellectual-property intrigue!), he had filched the plot from ‘Justin M. Damiano,’ a 2007 comic by artist Daniel Clowes.” \u2014 From a post by Jack Dickey on TIME.com, December 23, 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

| These are words we didn’t know before we started this site that we got from Merriam Webster’s Word of the Day feature. There’s a lot! But that’s ok. We know them now. Thanks for being around, Merriam Webster! ========================================================================================== daedal \\DEE-dul\\ – adjective 1 a: skillfull, artistic 1 b: intricate 2: adorned with many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[399,400,397],"class_list":["post-3751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literature-and-original-works","tag-diction","tag-vocabulary","tag-word-choice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3751"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3795,"href":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751\/revisions\/3795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weshareinterests.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}