Building a Better Vocabulary

And the van comes from the Latin vanesco, meaning “to vanish.”

In your vocabulary notebook, make a note that evanescent things

vanish quickly.

Feckless (adjective)

1. Weak and ineffective.


2. Worthless, lazy, and irresponsible.

z )HFNOHVV comes from a Scottish word, IHFN, which was a shortened

form of effect and meant “effect, value, and vigor.” If you add the

VXI¿[less to IHFN, you get “without effect, value or vigor.”

3URÀLJDWHQRXQ

Someone who is given to wildly extravagant and grossly self-indulgent

behavior.

Generating New Words
z New words are introduced into English every day, although not all
of them survive. When a new word is coined and is in the process
of entering common use, it’s called a neologism. This word comes
IURPWKH*UHHNSUH¿[neo-, meaning “new,” and the Greek noun
logos, meaning “word.”

z Nonce words are those invented for a particular occasion; they are

typically used spontaneously and just once. One of the most famous

of all nonce words came from the classic 1964 Disney musical

Mary Poppins: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

z A language might also expand its lexicon by borrowing words

from another language. We discussed this phenomenon in the two

lectures that explored such words as insouciant from French and

JHPWOLFKNHLWfrom German.