The Vocabulary Thread

[Matthew Jones]

Vocabulary September 20th

Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Avidity - keen eagerness

Bellicose - favoring or inclined to start quarrels or wars

Billets - a brief letter

Cowslip - a common European primrose with fragrant yellow flowers

Diffident - hesitant in acting or speaking through lack of self-confidence

Source: Oxford English Dictionary:

Doff - to remove an item of clothing

Equanimity - calmness and composure, esp. in a difficult situation

Hackneyed - unoriginal and trite

Ignominious - deserving or causing public disgrace or shame

Magnanimity - generosity

Millstone - a heavy and inescapable responsibility

Ministrations - the provision of assistance or care

Modish - conforming to or following what is currently popular and fashionable

Prevaricate - to act or speak in an evasive way

Ribald - referring to sexual matters in an amusingly rude or irreverent way

Roseate - rose-colored

Sepsis - the presence in tissues of harmful bacteria and their toxins, typically through infection of a wound

Villanelle - a pastoral or lyrical poem of nineteen lines, with only two rhymes throughout, and some lines repeated

Vicissitude - a change of circumstance or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant