Building a Better Vocabulary

later become the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Diaspora (noun) The movement, migration, or scattering o ...

Lecture 20: Words That Break and Words That Join ż In linguistics, such missing pieces are called lexical gaps. We might expect ...

z English has a large number of synonyms and related words for maw or mouth, including craw, gullet, jaws, muzzle, piehole, gob ...

Lecture 20: Words That Break and Words That Join z 7KH¿UVWPHDQLQJRIcleave, “to split or divide by cutting,” appears in this ...

Concatenation (noun) A series of things that are linked together. z Concatenation refers to a chain-like series of ideas or eve ...

Lecture 20: Words That Break and Words That Join Coterie (noun) A small, often select group of people who associate with one ano ...

6RPH+LJK8WLOLW\*UHHNDQG/DWLQ$I¿[HV Lecture 21 I QRXUHDUOLHUOHFWXUHRQ/DWLQDQG*UHHNURRWVZHLGHQWL¿HGWKUHHPDLQ J ...

/HFWXUH6RPH+LJK8WLOLW\*UHHNDQG/DWLQ$I¿[HV z As you probably suspect, the de- in denude means “away.” The nude comes ...

Ablution (noun) The washing of one’s body, or part of it, especially as a religious ritual. z The second word part of ablution ...

/HFWXUH6RPH+LJK8WLOLW\*UHHNDQG/DWLQ$I¿[HV z Two other words that grew out of this 19th-century fad are bloviate, a v ...

and communist. A capitalist, for example, is “one who believes in” capitalism. z Two -isms that are commonly confused are agnos ...

/HFWXUH6RPH+LJK8WLOLW\*UHHNDQG/DWLQ$I¿[HV z You might hear this word in reference to a protean genius, such as Picas ...

Cranky Words and Cool Words Lecture 22 T he great Mark Twain chronicled human hypocrisy and foibles with wit and sarcasm. He is ...

Lecture 22: Cranky Words and Cool Words z We’ve all probably been a bit rebellious at some point in our lives, but truly fracti ...

rough”), the result is a word that describes your feelings when you’ve been treated with complete and total harshness: annoyed a ...

Lecture 22: Cranky Words and Cool Words FRPSOHWHO\ XQUXIÀHG GXULQJ WKH KDUURZLQJ UHVFXH WKHLU XQÀDSSDEOHGHPHDQRUVDYHG ...

pain. The word stoicism came from the Stoa Poikile, the “Painted Porch,” a colonnaded portico in the agora of ancient Athens whe ...

Lecture 22: Cranky Words and Cool Words The cantankerous Mr. Snyder was so __ that his neighbors were afraid to complain about ...

:RUGVIRU&RXUDJHDQG&RZDUGLFH Lecture 23 I n this lecture, we’ll explore words associated with courage and cowardice. ...

/HFWXUH:RUGVIRU&RXUDJHDQG&RZDUGLFH the human heart and mind, and he refused to let anything stop him from becom ...