English Vocabulary and Etymology 2016/10/20(Week6)

▲The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer under British rule. Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America. John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was passed on July 2 with no opposing vote cast. A committee of five had already drafted the formal declaration, to be ready when Congress voted on independence.

▲Doubting Thomas

A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience—a reference to the Apostle Thomas, who refused to believe that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the ten other apostles, until he could see and feel the wounds received by Jesus on the cross.

▲Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and A Child's Garden of Verses.
A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks as the 26th most translated author in the world. His works have been admired by many other writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Bertolt Brecht, Marcel Proust, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, Cesare Pavese, Emilio Salgari, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins".
⬦Robert Louis Stevenson’s dictum

►Our affections and beliefs are wiser than we; the best that is in us is better than we can understand; for it is grounded beyond experience, and guides us, blindfold but safe, from one age on to another.

►Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

►Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly and purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.

▲This Is the Moment

This is the Moment is a song by Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse, and is the centerpiece of Frank Wildhorn and Steve Cuden's musical Jekyll & Hyde. Actors from the Broadway production like Robert Cuccioli, René Froger and David Hasselhoff sing it in the key of E.

⬦Lyrics

This is the moment!

This is the day,

When I send all my doubts and demons

On their way!

Every endeavor,

I have made - ever -

Is coming into play,

Is here and now - today!

This is the moment,

This is the time,

When the momentum and the moment

Are in rhyme!

Give me this moment -

This precious chance -

I'll gather up my past

And make some sense at last!

This is the moment,

When all I've done -

All the dreaming,

Scheming and screaming,

Become one!

This is the day -

See it sparkle and shine,

When all I've lived for

Becomes mine!

For all these years,

I've faced the world alone,

And now the time has come

To prove to them

I've made it on my own!

This is the moment -

My final test -

Destiny beckoned,

I never reckoned,

Second Best!

I won't look down,

I must not fall!

This is the moment,

The sweetest moment of them all!

This is the moment!

Damn all the odds!

This day, or never,

I'll sit forever

With the gods!

When I look back,

I will always recall,

Moment for moment,

This was the moment,

The greatest moment

Of them all!

▲Prefix

⬥dis- lack of, not, apart, away

For example, distend, dismiss

⬥alter- to change (something), make different in some way

For example, alternate, alterable

⬥nova- new, star

For example, novation

⬥contra- against, in opposition

For example, contradict, contrary

⬥in- that is within, in, into, upon, on, at, among, about, during

For example, inside, inter

▲Vocabulary

☆Week10, Week11, Week12

✪peruse (v) late 15c., "use up, wear out, go through," from Middle English per- "completely" (see per) + use (v.). Meaning "read carefully" is first recorded 1530s, but this could be a separate formation. Meaning "read casually" is from 19c. Related: Perused; perusing.

✪premonition (n) mid-15c., from Anglo-French premunition, Middle French premonicion, from Late Latin praemonitionem (nominative praemonitio) "a forewarning," noun of action from past participle stem of Latin praemonere "forewarn," from prae "before" (see pre-) + monere "to warn" (see monitor (n.)).

✪desist (v) mid-15c., from Middle French désister (mid-14c.), from Latin desistere "to stand aside, leave off, cease," from de- "off" (see de-) + sistere "stop, come to a stand" (see assist). Related: Desisted; desisting.

✪recoil (v) early 13c. (transitive) "force back, drive back," from Old French reculer "to go back, give way, recede, retreat" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *reculare, from Latin re- "back" (see re-) + culus "backside, bottom, fundament." Meaning "shrink back, retreat" is first recorded c. 1300; and that of "spring back" (as a gun) in 1520s. Related: Recoiled; recoiling.

✪pertinent (adj) late 14c., from Anglo-French purtinaunt (late 13c.), Old French partenant (mid-13c.) and directly from Latin pertinentem (nominative pertinens) "pertaining," present participle of pertinere "to relate, concern" (see pertain). Related: Pertinently.

✪wan (adj) Old English wann "dark, dusky, lacking luster," later "leaden, pale, gray," of uncertain origin, and not found in other Germanic languages. The connecting notion is colorlessness. Perhaps related to wane. Related: Wanly; wanness.

✪frustrated (adj) "disappointed," 1640s, past participle adjective from frustrate.

1712, jocular formation from fluster (v.) + frustrated. Related: Flustration.

✪salient (adj) 1560s, "leaping," a heraldic term, from Latin salientem (nominative saliens), present participle of salire "to leap," from PIE root *sel- (4) "to jump" (source also of Greek hallesthai "to leap," Middle Irish saltraim "I trample," and probably Sanskrit ucchalati "rises quickly").
It was used in Middle English as an adjective meaning "leaping, skipping." The meaning "pointing outward" (preserved in military usage) is from 1680s; that of "prominent, striking" first recorded 1840, from salient point (1670s), which refers to the heart of an embryo, which seems to leap, and translates Latin punctum saliens, going back to Aristotle's writings. Hence, the "starting point" of anything.

✪inert (adj) 1640s, "without inherent force, having no power to act or respond," from French inerte (16c.) or directly from Latin inertem (nominative iners) "unskilled, incompetent; inactive, helpless, weak, sluggish; worthless," used of stagnant fluids, uncultivated pastures, expressionless eyes. It is a compound of in- "without, not, opposite of" (see in- (1)) + ars (genitive artis) "skill" (see art (n.)). In chemistry, "having no active properties, neutral" (1800), specifically from 1885 of certain chemically inactive, colorless, odorless gases. Of persons or creatures, "indisposed or unable to move or act," from 1774.

✪poignant (adj) late 14c., "painful to physical or mental feeling" (of sauce, spice, wine as well as things that affect the feelings), from Old French poignant "sharp, pointed" (13c.), present participle of poindre "to prick, sting," from Latin pungere "to prick, pierce, sting," figuratively, "to vex, grieve, trouble, afflict," related to pugnus "a fist" (see pugnacious). Related: Poignantly.
The word disguises a linguistics trick-play, a double reverse. Latin pungere is from the same root as Latin pugnus "fist," and represents a metathesis of -n- and -g- that later was reversed in French.

✪garbled (adj) by 1620s of spices; by 1774 of language; past-participle adjective from garble (v.).

✪fruitless (adj) mid-14c., "unprofitable," from fruit + -less. Meaning "barren, sterile" is from 1510s. Related: Fruitlessly; fruitlessness.

✪inundate (v) 1620s, back-formation from inundation, or else from Latin inundatus, past participle of inundare "to overflow, run over" (source also of Spanish inundar, French inonder). Related: Inundated; inundating.

✪phlegmatic (adj) "cool, calm, self-possessed," and in a more pejorative sense, "cold, dull, apathetic," 1570s, from literal sense "abounding in phlegm (as a bodily humor)" (mid-14c., fleumatik), from Old French fleumatique (13c., Modern French flegmatique), from Late Latin phlegmaticus, from Greek phlegmatikos "abounding in phlegm" (see phlegm).

A verry flewmatike man is in the body lustles, heuy and slow. [John of Trevisa, translation of Bartholomew de Glanville's "De proprietatibus rerum," 1398]

✪zealous (adj) "full of zeal" (in the service of a person or cause), 1520s, from Medieval Latin zelosus "full of zeal" (source of Italian zeloso, Spanish celoso), from zelus (see zeal). The sense "fervent, inspired" was earlier in English in jealous (late 14c.), which is the same word but come up through French. Related: Zealously, zealousness.

✪comprehensive (adj) "containing much," 1610s, from French comprehénsif, from Late Latin comprehensivus, from comprehens-, past participle stem of Latin comprehendere (see comprehend). Related: Comprehensively (mid-15c.); comprehensiveness.

✪coerce (v) mid-15c., cohercen, from Middle French cohercer, from Latin coercere "to control, restrain, shut up together," from com- "together" (see co-) + arcere "to enclose, confine, contain, ward off," from PIE *ark- "to hold, contain, guard" (see arcane). Related: Coerced; coercing. No record of the word between late 15c. and mid-17c.; its reappearance 1650s is perhaps a back-formation from coercion.

✪corroborate (v) 1530s, "to give (legal) confirmation to," from Latin corroboratus, past participle of corroborare "to strengthen, invigorate," from assimilated form of com "with, together," here perhaps as "thoroughly" (see com-) + roborare "to make strong," from robur, robus "strength," (see robust).
Meaning "to strengthen by evidence, to confirm" is from 1706. Sometimes in early use the word also has its literal Latin sense, especially of medicines. Related: Corroborated; corroborating; corroborative.

✪elapse (v) 1640s, from Middle French elapser, from Latin elapsus, past participle of elabi "slip or glide away, escape," from ex "out, out of, away" (see ex-) + labi "to slip, glide" (see lapse (n.)). The noun now corresponding to elapse is lapse, but elapse (n.) was in recent use. Related: Elapsed; elapsing.

✪sporadic (adj) 1680s, from Medieval Latin sporadicus "scattered," from Greek sporadikos "scattered," from sporas (genitive sporados) "scattered, dispersed," from spora "a sowing" (see spore). Originally a medical term, "occurring in scattered instances;" the meaning "happening at intervals" is first recorded 1847. Related: Sporadical (1650s); sporadically.

✪conjecture (v) early 15c., from conjecture (n.). In Middle English also with a parallel conjecte (n.), conjecten (v.). Related: Conjectured; conjecturing.

✪lurid (adj) 1650s, "pale, wan," from Latin luridus "pale yellow, ghastly, the color of bruises," a word of uncertain origin and etymology, perhaps cognate with Greek khloros "pale green, greenish-yellow" (see Chloe), or connected to Latin lividus (see livid).
It has more to do with the interplay of light and darkness than it does with color. It suggests a combination of light and gloom; "Said, e.g. of the sickly pallor of the skin in disease, or of the aspect of things when the sky is overcast" [OED]; "having the character of a light which does not show the colors of objects" [Century Dictionary]. Meaning "glowing in the darkness" is from 1727 ("of the color or appearance of dull smoky flames" - Century Dictionary]. In scientific use (1767) "of a dingy brown or yellowish-brown color" [OED]. The figurative sense of "sensational" is first attested 1850, via the notion of "ominous" (if from the flames sense) or "ghastly" (if from the older sense). Related: Luridly.

✪rash (n) "eruption of small red spots on skin," 1709, perhaps from French rache "a sore" (Old French rasche "rash, scurf"), from Vulgar Latin *rasicare "to scrape" (also source of Old Provençal rascar, Spanish rascar "to scrape, scratch," Italian raschina "itch"), from Latin rasus "scraped," past participle of radere "to scrape" (see raze). The connecting notion would be of itching. Figurative sense of "any sudden outbreak or proliferation" first recorded 1820.

✪diatribe (n) 1640s (in Latin form in English from 1580s), "discourse, critical dissertation," from French diatribe (15c.), from Latin diatriba "learned discussion," from Greek diatribe "employment, study," in Plato, "discourse," literally "a wearing away (of time)," from dia- "away" (see dia-) + tribein "to wear, rub," from PIE root *tere- (1) "to rub, turn, twist" (see throw (v.)). Sense of "invective" is 1804, apparently from French.

✪ilk (adj) Old English ilca "the same" (pron.), from Proto-Germanic *ij-lik (compare German eilen), in which the first element is from the PIE demonstrative particle *i- (see yon) and the second is that in Old English -lic "form" (see like (adj.)). Of similar formation are each, which and such, but this word disappeared except in Scottish and thus did not undergo the usual southern sound changes. Phrase of that ilk implies coincidence of name and estate, as in Lundie of Lundie; it was applied usually to families, so that by c. 1790 ilk began to be used with the meaning "family," then broadening to "type, sort."

✪inhibition (n) late 14c., "formal prohibition; interdiction of legal proceedings by authority;" also, the document setting forth such a prohibition, from Old French inibicion and directly from Latin inhibitionem (nominative inhibitio) "a restraining," from past participle stem of inhibere "to hold in, hold back, keep back," from in- "in, on" (see in- (2)) + habere "to hold" (see habit (n.)). Psychological sense of "involuntary check on an expression of an impulse" is from 1876.

✪placard (n) late 15c., "formal document authenticated by an affixed seal," from Middle French placquard "official document with a large, flat seal," also "plate of armor," from Old French plaquier "to lay on, cover up, plaster over," from Middle Dutch placken "to patch (a garment), to plaster," related to Middle High German placke "patch, stain," German Placken "spot, patch." Meaning "poster" first recorded 1550s in English; this sense is in Middle French from 15c.

✪integral (adj) late 15c., "of or pertaining to a whole; intrinsic, belonging as a part to a whole," from Middle French intégral (14c.), from Medieval Latin integralis "forming a whole," from Latin integer "whole" (see integer). Related: Integrally. As a noun, 1610s, from the adjective.

✪utopia (n) 1551, from Modern Latin Utopia, literally "nowhere," coined by Thomas More (and used as title of his book, 1516, about an imaginary island enjoying the utmost perfection in legal, social, and political systems), from Greek ou "not" + topos "place" (see topos). Extended to any perfect place by 1610s. Commonly, but incorrectly, taken as from Greek eu- "good" (see eu-) an error reinforced by the introduction of dystopia.

✪schism (n) late 14c., scisme, "dissention within the church," from Old French scisme, cisme "a cleft, split" (12c.), from Church Latin schisma, from Greek skhisma (genitive skhismatos) "division, cleft," in New Testament applied metaphorically to divisions in the Church (I Corinthians xii.25), from stem of skhizein "to split" (see shed (v.)). Spelling restored 16c., but pronunciation unchanged. Often in reference to the Great Schism (1378-1417) in the Western Church.

✪anathema (n) 1520s, "an accursed thing," from Latin anathema "an excommunicated person; the curse of excommunication," from Ecclesiastical Greek anathema "a thing accursed," a slight variation of classical Greek anathāma, which meant merely "a thing devoted," literally "a thing set up (to the gods)," such as a votive offering in a temple, from ana "up" (see ana-) + tithenai "to put, place" (see theme).
By the time it reached Late Latin the meaning of the Greek word had progressed through "thing devoted to evil," to "thing accursed or damned." Later it was applied to persons and the Divine Curse. Meaning "act or formula of excommunicating and consigning to damnation by ecclesiastical authority" is from 1610s.
Anathema maranatha, taken as an intensified form, is held to be a misreading of I Corinthians xvi.22 where anathema is followed by Aramaic maran atha "Our Lord hath come" (see Maranatha), apparently a solemn formula of confirmation, like amen; but possibly it is a false transliteration of Hebrew mohoram atta "you are put under the ban," which would make more sense in the context. [Klein]

✪flamboyant (adj) 1832, originally in reference to a 15c.-16c. architectural style with wavy, flame-like curves, from French flamboyant "flaming, wavy," present participle of flamboyer "to flame," from Old French flamboiier "to flame, flare, blaze, glow, shine" (12c.), from flambe "a flame, flame of love," from flamble, variant of flamme, from Latin flammula "little flame" (see flame (n.)). Extended sense of "showy, ornate" is from 1879. Related: Flamboyantly.

✪expunge (v) c. 1600, from Latin expungere "prick out, blot out, mark (a name on a list) for deletion" by pricking dots above or below it, literally "prick out," from ex- "out" (see ex-) + pungere "to prick, pierce," related to pugnus "a fist" (see pugnacious). According to OED, taken by early lexicographers in English to "denote actual obliteration by pricking;" it adds that the sense probably was influenced by sponge (v.). Related: Expunged; expunging; expungible.

✪truncated (adj) late 15c., past participle adjective from truncate. Originally in heraldry; modern senses are post-1700.

✪jaunty (adj) also janty, jantee, etc., 1660s, "elegant, stylish," an imperfect or jocular attempt to render into English the contemporary pronunciation of French gentil "nice, pleasing," in Old French "noble" (see gentle). Meaning "easy and sprightly in manner" first attested 1670s. The same French word otherwise was Englished as genteel. Related: Jauntily; jauntiness.

✪ostentatious (adj) 1701, from ostentation + -ous. Earlier in a similar sense were ostentative (c. 1600); ostentive (1590s). Related: Ostentatiously; ostentatiousness (1650s).

✪timorous (adj) early 15c., from Middle French timoureus (14c.), from Medieval Latin timorosus "fearful," from Latin timor "fear, dread, apprehension, anxiety; religious awe, reverence," from timere "to fear, be afraid, dread," of unknown origin. Some early senses in English seem to show confusion with Middle English temerous "rash" (see temerity). Related: Timorously; timorousness.

✪fractious (adj) "apt to quarrel," 1725, from fraction in an obsolete sense of "a brawling, discord" (c. 1500) + -ous; probably on model of captious. Related: Fractiously; fractiousness.