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10 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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ACUMEN |
Keen, accurate judgment or insight. If you have acumen, you are very sharp at what you do. You hope your accountant and your surgeon are both known for their acumen. If you are able to make pointed decisions, if you have a sharp intellect, if you make good strategic moves, if you are successful in your field, or if your business instincts are spot-on, you have acumen. Even if you inherit an entire wholesale furniture dynasty from your grandfather, you could end up with nothing if you don’t have his business acumen. "Google’s acumen in acquiring and attempting to integrate many diverse businesses within the company in a relatively short period of time is unprecedented." |
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ADULTERATE |
To reduce purity by combining with inferior ingredients. The heiress adulterated herself by sleeping with the chauffeur. If you adulterate something, you mess it up. You may not want to adulterate the beauty of freshly fallen snow by shoveling it, but how else are you going to get to work? Whenever something original, pure, fresh, or wholesome is marred, polluted, defaced, or otherwise made inferior, it has been adulterated. Your grandfather may, for instance, believe that bartenders adulterate the name “Martini” by applying it to combinations of vodka, chocolate or anything other than a mixture of five parts gin to one part dry vermouth, on the rocks, with a twist. |
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AMALGAMATE (or AMALGAMATION) |
To combine several elements into a whole. To amalgamate is to combine different things to create something new. Institutions — such as banks, schools, or hospitals — often join forces and amalgamate with one other. But other things — like musical genres — get amalgamated as well. A school board might decide to amalgamate two schools into one school due to a decrease in the student population, but amalgamating their mascots would be impossible. "This includes the recent decision to amalgamate the company’s men’s and women’s luxury products into a single label." "Target decided to amalgamate the boy's and girls' toy sections." |
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ARCHAIC |
If you use the adjective archaic you are referring to something outmoded, belonging to an earlier period. Rotary phones and cassette players already seem so archaic! |
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AVER |
To state as a fact; to declare or assert. To aver is to declare something is true or to state. This verb has a serious tone, so you might aver something on a witness stand or you might aver that you won't back down to a challenge. The word can have the sense of formally declaring something is true, but it can also mean to report positively: "The grandmother averred that her granddaughter would make a fine veterinarian because of her love and caring for animals." "Considering that a few hours after this exchange Trump publicly averred that Megyn Kelly was menstruating, we’d guess that… he was not." "Clark and others go farther, averring that white, Gentile support for Israel qualifies a conservative for the label." |
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BOMBASTIC (or BOMBAST) |
Pompous; grandiloquent. Ostentatious. Lofty. To be bombastic is to be full of hot air — like a politician who makes grand promises and doesn't deliver. Bombastic evolved as an adjective to describe something (or someone!) that is overly wordy, pompous, or pretentious, but the adjective is most often used to describe language (speech or writing). "Some of his less bombastic policies—including reforming the tax system and printing money to boost investment—sound plausible." Bombast is a noun meaning pretentious or boastful talk. If your football coach is known for his bombast, he probably gives a pompous speech before each game about the greatness of the team and, of course, his coaching. |
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DIATRIBE |
A harsh denunciation. It's pretty overwhelming when you ask your friend a seemingly innocuous question, like "Do you like hot dogs?" and she unleashes a diatribe about the evils of eating meat. A diatribe is an angry, critical speech. |
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DISSEMBLE |
To disguise or conceal; to mislead. To behave unnaturally. To dissemble is to hide under a false appearance, to deceive. "When confronted about their human rights record, the Chinese government typically dissembles." "In the meantime, Whole Foods continues to fiddle and dissemble." "Her partner began to equivocate and dissemble, leading her to believe he was hiding a second life -- one that most definitely did not include her." |
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ENDEMIC |
Native. Characteristic of or often found in a particular locality, region, or people. Palm trees are not endemic to Hawaii. Rainbows are endemic to Hawaii. Eucalyptus trees are not endemic to Hawaii. Silversword is endemic to Hawaii. Ants are not endemic to Hawaii. |
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EVANESCENT |
Tending to disappear like vapor; vanishing. A beautiful sunset, a rainbow, a wonderful dream right before your alarm clock goes off — all of these could be described as evanescent, which means “fleeting” or “temporary.” "In the course of four movements, this evanescent material acquired mass: droplets of melody and harmony precipitated from the air." |
