Posts Tagged ‘Dictionary’
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engram \EN-gram\, noun: 1. The supposed physical basis of an individual memory in the brain. 2. A presumed encoding in neural tissue that provides a physical basis for the persistence of memory; a memory trace. What I found was that I did not retain a single specific engram of tying a shoe, or a pair [...]
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palingenesis \pal-in-JEN-uh-sis\, noun: 1. Rebirth; regeneration. 2. In biology, embryonic development that reproduces the ancestral features of the species. 3. Baptism in the Christian faith. 4. The doctrine of transmigration of souls. His acquaintance with the family dated from their social palingenesis, when, after obscure prosperity in a southern suburb, they fluttered to the northern [...]
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whilom \HWAHY-luhm\, adjective: 1. Former; erstwhile. adverb: 1. At one time. To complete the emasculation of this whilom doughty people, the Austrian had sold them, on moderate terms, the privilege of not furnishing recruits to the imperial army. – Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma When this ceremony was over Mrs. Ebley found herself conversing with [...]
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apocopate \uh-POK-uh-peyt\, verb: To omit the final sound or sounds of (a word.) Mary B. Robinson has directed with great assurance and fluidity – perhaps a bit too much of the latter; I wish she had not seen fit to make so many speeches overlap and apocopate one another. — John Simon, “Houses Divided,” New [...]
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Brain food
zetetic \zeh-TEH-tic\, adjective: Proceeding by inquiry; investigating It was not dogmatic and scholastic, but zetetic and critical: it did not seek to lay down and inculcate ready-made philosophical doctrine, but to afford direction to investigation and independent thought. – Friedrich Paulsen, James Edwin Creighton, Albert Lefevre, Immanuel Kant, his life and doctrine But the truth [...]
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Brain food
piquant \PEE-kuhnt\, adjective: 1. Agreeably stimulating, interesting, or attractive. 2. Agreeably pungent or sharp in taste or flavor. 3. Of an interestingly provocative or lively character. His cook would catch it if his sauces weren’t/ Piquant and sharp, and all his equipment/ To hand. And all day in his hall there stood/ The great fixed [...]
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tarry \TAR-ee\, verb: 1. To remain or stay, as in a place; sojourn. 2. To delay or be tardy in acting, starting, coming, etc. 3. To wait. “It would be well,” he added, “to let this man go in again, as usual, and for him to tarry in the lodges, giving notice to the gentle [...]
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impedimenta \im-ped-uh-MEN-tuh\, noun: Baggage or other things that retard one’s progress. With the ladies, therefore, matters soon assumed vivid and definite shape; they became clearly and irrefutably materialized; they stood stripped of all doubt and other impedimenta. – Nikolaĭ Gogol, Dead Souls Amid all the usual impedimenta of a life, he came upon an unexpected [...]
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rataplan \rat-uh-PLAN\, verb: 1. To produce the sound as of the beating of a drum. noun: 1. A sound of or as of the beating of a drum. 2. A tattoo, as of a drum, the hooves of a galloping horse, or machine-gun fire. When his breath returned, he called aloud to space: “My drum [...]
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Brain food
bathos \BEY-thos\, noun: 1. Triteness or triviality in style. 2. A ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax. 3. Insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness. After one character undergoes a particularly lightning-speed change in temperament, the director lays on a ludicrously coincidental plot twist with sentimental bathos that nearly swamps everything that has [...]
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