PLACATE (PLAY kayt) v to pacify; to appease; to soothe
- The tribe placated the angry volcano by tossing a few teenagers into the raging crater.
- The beleaguered general tried to placate his fierce attacker by sending him a pleasant
flower arrangement. His implacable enemy decided to attack anyway.
PLACEBO (pluh SEE boh) n a fake medication; a fake medication used as a control in tests
of the effectiveness of drugs
- Half the subjects in the experiment received the real drug; half were given placebos. Of the
subjects given placebos, 50 percent reported a definite improvement, 30 percent reported a
complete cure, and 20 percent said, “Oh, I bet you just gave us a placebo.” - Mrs. Walters is a total hypochondriac; her doctor prescribes several placebos a week just to
keep her from calling him so often.
REDUNDANT (ri DUN dunt) adj unnecessarily repetitive; excessive; excessively wordy
- Eric had already bought paper plates, so our purchase of paper plates was redundant.
- Shawn’s article was redundant—he kept saying the same thing over and over again.
An act of being redundant is a redundancy.
- The title “Department of Redundancy Department” is redundant.
THWART (thwort) v to prevent from being accomplished; to frustrate; to hinder
- I wanted to do some work today, but it seemed as though fate thwarted me at every turn;
first, someone on the phone tried to sell me a magazine subscription, and then my printer
broke down, and then I discovered that my favorite movie was on TV. - There’s no thwarting Yogi Bear once he gets it into his mind that he wants a picnic basket;
he will sleep until noon, but before it’s dark, he’ll have every picnic basket that’s in Jellystone
Park.
VOCIFEROUS (voh SIF ur us) adj loud; noisy; expressed in a forceful or loud way
- Her opposition to the bill was vociferous; she used every opportunity to condemn and
protest against it.
VOLITION (voh LISH un) n will; conscious choice
- Insects, lacking volition, simply aren’t as interesting to the aspiring anthropologist as
humans are. - The jury had to decide whether the killing had been an accident or an act of volition.