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26 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
DRACONIAN

adj
Exceedingly harsh; very severe.

NYT:
No matter how draconian the penalties and how extensive the enforcement, many people produce and use marijuana.
LACONIC

adj
Using few words, concise, terse.

NYT:
...he is laconic to the point of being monosyllabic when it comes to his emotions...
SPARTAN

adj
a. Rigorously disciplined.
b. Simple, frugal, or austere

NYT:
Ours was a Spartan household: no chocolate, cookies or extraneous sugar.
HALCYON

adj
Calm, peaceful; happy, prosperous, idyllic.

NYT:
In the halcyon days of our remembered childhoods we played fabulous games of imagination in our neighborhood backyards.
SOPHISTRY

noun
A plausible but misleading, deceptive or fallacious argument.

NYT:
But to argue that the big powers or the U.N. should not intervene anywhere unless they intervene everywhere is pure sophistry.
CHIMERICAL

adj
1. Created by or as if by a wildly fanciful imagination; highly improbable.
2. Given to unrealistic fantasies; fanciful.

NYT:
...Israel has a perfect right to do whatever it thinks necessary to guard against any possible threat, no matter how chimerical or far-fetched....
OSTRACIZE

verb
Exclude (a person) from favour, common privileges, or a particular social group; refuse to associate with.

NYT:
The world community must ostracize and punish any country that harbors or offers sanctuary to these international criminals.
IMPECUNIOUS

adj
Lacking money; penniless; poor

NYT:
It is not uncommon, of course, for impecunious artists to reuse the same canvas when money for materials is scarce and no ready market exists for their work ...
December 16, 1980
NEFARIOUS

adj
Wicked, iniquitous, villainous.

WSJ:
In the first half of this year, 61% of the Web's top 100 sites delivered something malicious to visitors because a hacker broke in and planted something nefarious...
JOVIAL

adj
Characterized by mirth, humour, or good cheer; convivial.

NYT:
That Saturday, a jovial security guard had to pause from dancing to Eric B and Rakim to check ID's.
JOCULAR

adj
Fond of joking; speaking or acting in jest or merriment.

WSJ:
Jocular, wisecracking and surprisingly subdued, the performer was eager to engage with the audience of about 1,000 people...
DIRGE

noun
A song of mourning sung at a funeral etc. or in commemoration of the dead; a slow mournful song; a lament.

NYT:
Naila remembered the woman, who sang a beautiful dirge at her grandfather's funeral.
MAUDLIN

adj
Excessively or tearfully sentimental

NYT:
Though his romantic outpourings had struck me as emasculating, oversweet and maudlin, I realized there was also something admirable about them.
QUIXOTIC

adj
Showing or motivated by naive idealism, chivalry, or romanticism; impracticable.

NYT:
Because of the president’s quixotic quest for bipartisanship, he refused to take a firm stand in favor of the public option.
MARTINET

noun
1. A rigid military disciplinarian.
2. One who demands absolute adherence to forms and rules.

NYT:
The Prince of Wales is a rigid martinet concerning all questions of etiquette and precedence,
FIASCO

noun
A complete failure.

NYT:
This costly and tragic fiasco might well have been prevented if recorders had pinpointed the cause when the acceleration problems first started to appear years ago.
DEBACLE

noun
1. A sudden, disastrous collapse, downfall, or defeat; a rout.
2. A total, often ludicrous failure.

NYT:
Toyota, which passed General Motors Co as the world's top carmaker with a reputation of quality and reliability, has been mired in a recall debacle of unprecedented scale....
BOWDLERIZE

verb
To remove material that is considered offensive or objectionable from (a book, for example).

NYT:
So they wrote to Tom Hughes asking him to Bowdlerize his " Book for Boys " by excising the passages referring to beer drinking and other nefarious practices ...
GALVANIZE

verb
1. To stimulate or shock with an electric current.
2. To arouse to awareness or action; spur

NYT:
Even some Internet experts are skeptical that Google’s stand will galvanize a broader effort to liberalize China’s free-speech or human rights policies.
PICAYUNE

adj & noun
(adj)
1. Of little value or importance; paltry; trivial.
2. Petty; mean.

(n)
A five-cent piece or other coin of small value; colloq. an insignificant or mean person or thing.

NYT:
The picayune details of my life — bills, appointments, deadlines — had been suspended during my last few months at home...
MAVERICK

adj & noun
(n)
1. An unbranded calf or yearling.
2. An unorthodox or independent-minded person; an individualist

(adj)
unorthodox, independent-minded.


NYT:
Suddenly, Mr. Jeffords's maverick ways -- especially his disagreements with Mr. Bush on tax cuts and education -- posed a direct threat to the president, and many of his colleagues privately and publicly expressed their irritation.
JUGGERNAUT

noun
1. Something, such as a belief or institution, that elicits blind and destructive devotion or to which people are ruthlessly sacrificed.
2. An overwhelming, advancing force that crushes or seems to crush everything in its path

NYT:
China is often depicted as a juggernaut of sorts, its untroubled and unfettered rise into the ranks of global powers a fact that lesser nations can only watch with awe and trepidation.
SERENDIPITY

noun
The making of happy and unexpected discoveries by accident or when looking for something else; such a discovery.

NYT:
Some books are shelved in an orderly fashion, others are piled high, begging for the serendipity of accidental discovery
ZENITH

noun
1. The point of the heavens directly overhead
2. The highest or culminating point in power, prosperity, etc.

NYT:
During the Romantic period, the art of opera reached its zenith, producing grand spectacles and offering many showcases for spectacular singing.
APEX

noun
1. The highest point; the vertex
2. The usually pointed end of an object; the tip

NYT:
"The Hurt Locker" never hit wide release, boasting 535 theaters at its theatrical apex.
NADIR

noun
1. The point of the heavens diametrically opposite to the zenith; the point directly below an observer.
2. The lowest point (of something); the place or time of greatest depression or degradation.

NYT:
At the nadir of the financial crisis, gold was the safe haven for people worried the world was ending.