"I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught."
- Winston Churchill

Monday, August 18, 2014

Vocabulary #1



-          Adumbrate: To report or represent in outline
o   Dr. Preston adumbrated the necessity of collaboration in open source learning.
-          Apotheosis : the highest point in the development of something; culmination or climax
o   For many people graduation is the apotheosis of his or her academic career but for him, it was just the beginning.
-          Ascetic: characterized by or suggesting the practice of severe self-discipline and abstention from all forms of indulgence
o   When cutting weight wrestlers have to be ascetic avoiding food and drink as much as possible  
-          Bauble: a shiny trinket or emblem
o   The cluttered room was filled with baubles, mementos of her vast travels.
-          Beguile: to charm or enchant, sometimes in a deceptive way 
o   The crafty salesmen beguiled the tourists into buying his useless baubles.
-          Burgeon: begin to grow or increase rapidly; flourish 
o   His worldly knowledge burgeoned with his extensive travels
-          Complement: a thing that completes or brings to perfection
o   Technology including twitter and blogger complements open source learning.
-          Contumacious: willingly disobedient to authority
o   A lot of freshmen think they can be contumacious because they are in high school now.
-          Curmudgeon: bad tempered person
o   Wrestlers become curmudgeons while cutting weight screaming at everyone in sight
-          Didactic: intended to teach with moral instruction as a motive
o   Many novels are didactic, speaking on many social injustices in our culture.
-          Disingenuous: pretending to know as much about something as one already does
o   The speeder tried to be disingenuous claiming not to know what the speed limit was when he was pulled over.
-          Exculpate: to prove someone’s innocence
o   The autopsy exculpated the suspect, and he was released from jail.
-          Faux pas: an embarrassing act in a social situation
o   When I was little someone called the teacher “mommy” and it was quite the faux pas.
-          Fulminate: to express protest
o   Many people in Ferguson Missouri are fulminating against police brutality and the killing of Mike Brown.
-          Fustian: pretentious speech or writing
o   The teacher thought the student was only being fustian on the first day, and wasn’t actually that smart.
-          Hauteur: disdainful pride
o   In Pride and Prejudice Darcy exemplifies hauteur, refusing to dance with Elizabeth because of her social status
-          Inhibit: hinder restrain or prevent
o   Though he wanted to help, all he did was inhibit getting the job done quickly
-          Jeremiad: a long mournful complaint
o   The day after the test the teacher had to listen to all the students’ jeremiads about how difficult it was.
-          Opportunist: a person who uses circumstances for gain
o   Always the opportunist, Joey saw his chance to participate in a project that would look good on a college application to a college of engineering.
-          Unconscionable: unreasonable
o   His request for $40 billion was unconscionable.

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