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Lecture 12

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ike many words, pride has various connotations, depending on

how it’s used. You might be justly proud of your accomplishments,

in which case, pride would have a positive connotation. However,

excessive pride can lead to arrogance and haughtiness—words with

distinctly negative connotations. In this lecture, we’ll examine some target

words related to overbearing pride and prideful behavior—words you can

use to describe all the pompous, pretentious jerks; conceited, swollen-

headed windbags; presumptuous, preening peacocks; egotistical, puffed-up

know-it-alls; brash, self-aggrandizing grandstanders; vainglorious showoffs;

and other self-important braggarts, blusterers, boasters, braggadocios, big

talkers, and blowhards in your life.

Supercilious (adjective)

Feeling or showing haughty disdain; displaying arrogant pride, even scorn.

z Supercilious often describes people or facial expressions.

Unfortunately, we’ve all encountered supercilious people—those

who think that they’re better than everyone else. Consider the word

in context: “When we told the supercilious real estate agent our price

range for a house, he rolled his eyes and quickly ended our meeting.”

z The super- in supercilious LV D /DWLQ SUH¿[ PHDQLQJ ³DERYH

or beyond,” as in such words as supervisor, superior, and

superabundance. And cilium actually means “eyelash.” Because

your eyebrows are “above” your eyelashes on your face, an

eyebrow is a supercilium. You can connect this word to supercilious

by visualizing arrogant people who raise their eyebrows in disdain.

z Wonderfully vivid and descriptive synonyms and related words

for supercilious are legion in English, including arrogant, uppity,

haughty, pompous, priggish, pretentious, prideful, patronizing,