Word Czar 🌍

2022-01-19 04:07:10 insouciance

/ɪnˈsuːsiːəns/

➠ noun

the cheerful feeling you have when nothing is troubling you

synonyms : carefreeness, lightheartedness, lightsomeness Open / Comment

2021-05-28 09:34:17 insinuation 

An insinuation is a sly way of saying something, usually something insulting. It can also be a way of worming your way into a group or situation.

"You're dumb!" is an insult. An insinuation is different: it's a way of indirectly saying something. Insinuation evolved from the Latin insinuationem, meaning "entrance through a narrow way.” So an insinuation is like an insult that sneaks in the back door. Mentioning that your cousin could try harder in school could be an insinuation that your cousin’s lazy. Another kind of insinuation is when someone, often through flattery, gets herself accepted by others. Both kinds of insinuations are sneaky. Open / Comment

2021-03-26 22:17:52 If it's the day before a big event and you have no idea what to wear and nothing in your closet is going to cut it, you are facing a sartorial dilemma — one that pertains to clothing, fashion, or dressing. Open / Comment

2020-06-23 15:53:24 perspicacious

Perspicacious is an adjective that means "shrewd" and "wise." A perspicacious child can't be fooled when her parents try to keep a secret by talking in Pig Latin.

The adjective perspicacious is a long word for a short definition: "keen" or "shrewd." This word is descended from the Latin word perspicere, which means "to look closely."

In other words, if you look closely at something you are paying attention to it and know it well.

A definition of perspicacious that is out of date but still relevant is "having keen eyesight" and people who can see clearly are also aware and attentive! Open / Comment

2020-06-14 14:50:48 Recidivism

/rɪˈsɪdɪvɪz(ə)m/



noun

the tendency of a convicted criminal to reoffend.

"the prison has succeeded in reducing recidivism" Open / Comment

2020-04-30 11:10:48 Catharsis

Use the noun catharsis to refer to the experience a person can have of releasing emotional tension and feeling refreshed afterwards.

Conceived by Aristotle as the cleansing effect of emotional release that tragic drama has on its audience, catharsis stems from a Greek verb meaning "to purify, purge."

Today, it can be used to describe any emotional release, including a good long laugh or cry that is followed by a sense of balance and freshness afterwards. Open / Comment

2020-04-29 10:08:10 Triage

Grouping patients based on the severity of their injuries and the likelihood of their survival is called triage.

In a triage situation, urgent cases are seen by doctors first, and non-life-threatening emergencies go last.

You can also apply the sorting and prioritizing of triage to more general situations. If you're overwhelmed with homework, you can perform triage by organizing it into subjects and prioritizing assignments based on their due dates.

The word triage comes from the French word trier meaning to sort. Although the medical sense is now the most common, it wasn't used that way until World War One. Open / Comment

2020-03-23 06:17:04 hunker down

When you hunker down, you settle into a safe, sheltered position. Some people evacuate their homes during a big hurricane, while others hunker down and wait for the storm to pass.

This term is such a popular way to describe taking shelter from a storm that it's become a weather report cliché. You might hunker down in your basement during a tornado watch, but you can also hunker down during an argument, refusing to budge from your stated position. 

Hunker comes from Scottish — it means "crouch on your heels" or "squat." Sometimes the phrase is also used to mean "get to work," like when you hunker down and finish your homework. Open / Comment

2020-03-09 09:52:45 Denizen

A denizen is an inhabitant or frequenter of a particular place: a citizen of a country, a resident in a neighborhood, a maven of a museum, a regular at a bar, or, even, a plant that is naturalized in a region.

The noun denizen comes from words that mean “from” and “within” and is related to “citizen.” Denizen can be used when talking about any person or group of people that have a specific relationship with a place. It was historically used to refer to foreigners who were either naturalized or becoming citizens but now it is used much more generally, as in: "The denizens of my aunt’s neighborhood all have contracts with the same gardener." Open / Comment

2020-02-13 08:34:16 Sommelier

If you want to impress your dining companions at a fancy restaurant, be sure to refer to the special waiter who serves wine as a sommelier.

You're unlikely to see a sommelier unless you eat at an expensive restaurant where there is a carefully selected menu of wine chosen by the sommelier to complement the food. She will also serve and pour the wine into glasses, and often wait for the diners to taste and approve of it.

In French, the word sommelier literally means "butler," and it's been used since the 19th century to mean "wine steward" or "wine waiter." Open / Comment