111. Portentous; Inertia

From, “New Rules for the Ways We Watch [the media equation],” by David Carr, 12/24/11, The New York Times:

“But even if the sky is still aloft, there are visible, portentous cracks appearing. The inertia that has kept consumers from bolting from traditional content providers is beginning to erode as a new generation remakes media in its own image.”

Portentous: being a grave or serious matter

Inertia: a tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged; inactivity

110. Moribund

From, “American Firms See Europe Woes as Opportunities,” by Nelson D. Schwartz, 12/25/11, The New York Times:

“At the same time, even the strongest banks, like Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, are suffering significant earnings hits from weak demand for loans, moribund capital markets and new regulations that cut deeply into lucrative fees on debit cards and other products.”

Moribund: in a state of inactivity; on the verge of becoming obsolete

109. Noxious

From, “Break Up Bank of America Before It Breaks Us,” by Mary Bottari, Huffington Post, 12/21/11:

 

"On Monday, Bank of America (BofA) stocks briefly traded for under $5. Yes, you could buy a share of BofA for less than the noxious debit card fee they tried to force down your throat.

BofA is massive, with assets equivalent to 15 percent of U.S. GDP. So why is it trading for the price of a latte?"

Noxious: harmful, poisonous or very unpleasant

108. Polyglot

From, “Brussels: The Chocolate Trail,” by Amy M. Thomas, 12/22/11, The New York Times:

“Chocolate — like fashion, wine and finance — has become a complex cultural phenomenon. There is basic chocolate for the masses, artisanal chocolate for purists and avant-garde creations for connoisseurs. In Brussels, a polyglot city at the geographic and cultural crossroads of Europe, you get it all.

Polyglot: multilingual; widely diverse (as in cultural or ethnic origins)

107. Emanate

From, “The Truth About Wealth,” by Robert Frank, The Wall Street Journal, 12/17/11:

“Who says the rich always get richer?

Despite heated rhetoric emanating from politicians and pundits, the top 1% is hardly a fixed group that enjoys consistent income gains. To the contrary, the wealthiest have become the most crash-prone group in our economy.”

Emanate: spread or come out from a source; produced by; arise;

106. Infuriating

From, Remarks by President Obama on the Economy in Osawatomie, Kansas, 12/6/11:

“Finally, a strong middle class can only exist in an economy where everyone plays by the same rules, from Wall Street to Main Street. As infuriating as it was for all of us, we rescued our major banks from collapse, not only because a full-blown financial meltdown would have sent us into a second Depression, but because we need a strong, healthy financial sector in this country.”

Infuriate: make someone extremely angry and impatient; exasperate; enrage

105. Minutia

Richard Quest (host, Quest Means Business, CNN, 12/20/11) remarked to one of his guests that he did not want to get into the minutiae of the economic regulations.

Minutia (minutiae, plural): small or trivial details

104. Sycophancy

From, “Brian Williams Compares Chelsea Clinton to Tim Russert,” by Noel Sheppard, 11/15/11, Newsbusters.org:

[In November, Chelsea Clinton was hired by NBC to work on the Nightly News. In response to a question about Clinton’s qualifications, Brian Williams (NBC anchor) compared Clinton to Tim Russert (former NBC journalist, now deceased).

The following is an extract from Noel Sheppard’s opinion piece….]

“This level of idolatry and sycophancy from the anchor of America's leading news broadcast though not surprising really is sick-making.”

Sycophancy: fawning flattery

103. Bellicose

From, Quest Means Business, CNN, 12/16/11:

Richard Quest asked his guest, “Why are the French being so bellicose against the British?”

Bellicose: demonstrating aggression and willingness to fight; combative

102. Stodgy

From, “Tweeting Without Fear,” by Elizabeth Holmes, The Wall Street Journal, 12/9/11:

“Who would have thought typing such short messages could be so tricky?

By now, even the stodgiest companies have found their way onto Twitter. They have discovered it isn't just another marketing channel with a funny name, it's more like a conversation they need to join or risk losing influence over how consumers view them or their brands.”

Stodgy: boring, dull and uninspired

101. Antipathy

From, “Gingrich Is Inspiring—and Disturbing,” by Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal, 12/10/11:

“Yet the reservations and criticisms of the politico-journalistic establishment are having zero effect on Gingrich's support. In a Quinnipiac poll this week he moved into a double-digit lead over Mr. Romney in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The antipathy of the establishment not only is not hurting him at this early date, it may be helping him. It may be part of the secret of his rise.”

Antipathy: a deep feeling of dislike; aversion

100. Fractious

From, Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN, 12/14/11:

Morgan asked Brokaw if he thought this was an incredible year for news.

BROKAW: Well, it's been a chaotic year… [constant flow of news on cable, broadcast tv, internet, social media, people talking about it, etc]. So there is really no escaping it…. Having said all that, however, this is one of the most fractious political years that I can remember.

How would you describe the news you’ve been experiencing this year?

Fractious: bad tempered; cantankerous

99. Beleaguered

From, “Indian Rupee Tumbles to Fresh Low,” by Sourav Mishra, 12/14/11, The Wall Street Journal:

“The beleaguered Indian rupee tumbled for a third straight session to a fresh record low against the U.S. dollar Wednesday, tracking weak local stocks and the euro, which fell close to a one-year low in overnight trade.

The dollar was at 53.70 rupees late Wednesday, after touching an intraday high of 53.88 rupees. The greenback's previous record high was 53.515 rupees, hit on Tuesday.”

Beleaguered: besieged with difficulties

98. Gerrymander

From, “Holder Signals Tough Review of New State Laws on Voting,” by Charlie Savage, The New York Times, 12/13/11:

“Mr. Holder also laid out a case for replacing the “antiquated” voter registration system by automatically registering all eligible voters; for barring state legislators from gerrymandering their own districts, and for creating a federal statute prohibiting the dissemination of fraudulent information to deceive people into not voting.”

As we get closer to the US presidential election in November 2012, let’s be alert to words that are used more often within the political realm

Definition from Merriam Webster dictionary:

Gerrymander: to divide (as a state) into election districts so as to give one political party an advantage over its opponents

Etymology: from Elbridge Gerry, former governor of Massachusetts, and salamander; so called from the shape of an election district formed during Gerry's term in office

97. Incredulous

From, “Tommaso the cat inherits 10 million euro,” by Sky News (Australia), Dec 13, 2011:

Tommaso, who goes by his pet name 'Tommasino', was left some 10 million euro by his owner Assunta after her death. He also inherited a manor in an elegant suburb on the outskirts of Rome, two apartments in Rome and Milan, various current accounts and a piece of land in Calabria, in the South of Italy.

After months of following the European economic crisis, Italian newspapers ran incredulous headlines about the cat.

'The cat earns a millionaire inheritance' ran one headline. 'The fairy tale of Tommasino the cat from a stray to a millionaire', said another. One newspaper headline read: 'No children or family, the cat inherits 10 million.'

Ponder: What would you do with 10 million euro?

Incredulous: skeptical; expressing disbelief

96. Burgeoning

From, “Mortgage Burden Looms Over Dutch,” by Matthew Dalton, The Wall Street Journal, 12/5/11:

“Hank Ydema, a 51-year-old freelance writer, and his wife bought a house in 1996 in the Amsterdam suburb of Almere, a town built on land reclaimed from the sea to make room for the region's burgeoning postwar population.

They sold that house in 2003 for €190,000 (about $255,000), a 60% gain, and took out a €330,000 mortgage to buy a larger, three-bedroom house nearby. Now they are going through an amicable divorce and are trying to sell the house.”

Burgeoning: increasing rapidly; flourishing

95. Scurrilous

From, “GOP Is Now a Three-Man Race: Romney vs. Gingrich vs. Gingrich,” by Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post, 12/5/11:

"This is the Gingrich who shamefully lent credence to a scurrilous Forbes cover story by Dinesh D'Souza by saying, "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?""

Scurrilous: making or spreading scandalous claims about someone with the intention of damaging their reputation

94. Unabashed; Relegate

From, “When the Chefs Come Home,” by Julia Moskin, 11/29/11, The New York Times:

“When chefs pretend that what they do in a restaurant kitchen (backed by sous-chefs and 24/7 access to truffles and crab meat) is reproducible at home, it usually ends in tears for the cook. Smarter not to lie: Gorgeous new titles like “Eleven Madison Park” and “Momofuku Milk Bar” are filled with the type of unabashedly professional-caliber recipes that make a young chef famous.”

Unabashed: unapologetic

 …

From the same article above:

 “In a three-star restaurant, a cheap, basic recipe is relegated to family meal; in a home kitchen, it makes a fine Tuesday night dinner, backed by the know-how of a true chef about which flavors matter.”

Relegate: to banish to a lower place; to assign to a place of insignificance

93. Innocuous; Parse; Trawl

From, “Software That Listens for Lies,” by Anne Eisenberg, The New York Times, 12/3/11:

SHE looks as innocuous as Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.

But also like Miss Marple, Julia Hirschberg, a professor of computer science at Columbia University, may spell trouble for a lot of liars. 

That’s because Dr. Hirschberg is teaching computers how to spot deception — programming them to parse people’s speech for patterns that gauge whether they are being honest. 

For this sort of lie detection, there’s no need to strap anyone into a machine. The person’s speech provides all the cues — loudness, changes in pitch, pauses between words, ums and ahs, nervous laughs and dozens of other tiny signs that can suggest a lie. 

Dr. Hirschberg is not the only researcher using algorithms to trawl our utterances for evidence of our inner lives. A small band of linguists, engineers and computer scientists, among others, are busy training computers to recognize hallmarks of what they call emotional speech — talk that reflects deception, anger, friendliness and even flirtation.

Innocuous: harmless; inoffensive

Parse: to examine in a minute way

Trawl: to search through [something] in order to find something

92. Trepidatious

From, “Silence Is Golden,” by Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, 12/6/11:

“Not being a silent movie buff, I was trepidatious about “The Artist.” And a 23-year-old at the Motion Picture Association of America screening here puzzled over why it needed to be silent. But I loved the clever evocation of a primal fear featured in the many iterations of “A Star Is Born,” as well as “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Sunset Boulevard,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” and “All About Eve”: Will you get to the top, only to be devoured by the hot new thing?

Trepidatious: having a fearful or nervous feeling; apprehensive

Evocation: imaginative recreation

Iteration: repetition of a process

91. Venerable

From, “A Venerable Birding Club, at an Epicenter of All Things Feathered,” by Cornelia Dean, 11/28/11, The New York Times:

With this headline, do you think anyone other than ornithologists would be interested in this story?

Venerable: respectable; honorable

Ornithologist: a zoologist who studies birds

90. Denouements

From, “A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses,” a commentary by Marc Pitzke, Spiegel online, 12/1/11:

“Has any of that disrupted Cain's popularity in the media or with his fan base? Far from it. Since Oct. 1, he has collected more than $9 million in campaign donations. Enough to plow through another onslaught of denouements.”

Denouement: 1. the final outcome of the main dramatic complication in a literary work; 2. the outcome of a complex sequence of events

Did Pitzke use the word correctly in this sentence? What word would you suggest?

89. Eradicate

From, “Student’s Death Turns Spotlight on Hazing,” by Lizette Alvarez and Robbie Brown, The New York Times, 11/30/11:

“Dr. White has been trying to champion eradicating hazing from the band for years,” said Timothy A. Barber, a former head drum major who graduated in 2003 and is now the executive director for the Black Archives History and Research Foundation of South Florida. “He took a strong stance. But it goes underground. It happens away from campus, at night. You can’t control it.”

Eradicate: put an end to; destroy

88. Calibrate

 From, “The Life Reports II,” by David Brooks, 11/28/11, The New York Times

“There were many long, detailed essays by people who are experts at self-examination. They could finely calibrate each passing emotion.”

Calibrate: carefully and precisely measure

87. Disparage

 From, “Silvio’s Deluded Postscript,” by Frank Bruni, 11/28/11, The New York Times:

“Back in 2003, when I interviewed him [Berlusconi] over a long dinner, he complained that he had been disparaged on Italian television as a dwarf.”

Disparage: belittle; underestimate

86. Dilapidated

From, “In Myanmar, Government Reforms Win Over Some Skeptics,” by The New York Times, published 11/29/11:

“The waves of change sweeping Myanmar are trickling down to the broken sidewalks and potholed streets of this dilapidated city.

"Automated teller machines, ubiquitous in the world’s major cities but absent here during years of economic stagnation, are now being installed at a handful of banks."

Your challenge is to substitute one-word synonyms for the highlighted words.

Dilapidated: in a state of disrepair or ruin usually as a result of neglect or age

Ubiquitous: present, appearing or found everywhere

85. Conspicuous

From, “Children of the Revolution ,” by Jeremy Page, 11/26/11, The Wall Street Journal:

“The offspring of [China] party leaders, often called "princelings," are becoming more conspicuous, through both their expanding business interests and their evident appetite for luxury, at a time when public anger is rising over reports of official corruption and abuse of power.”

Can you suggest an appropriate synonym?

Conspicuous: standing out to be clearly visible; attracting attention

84. Progenitor

From, “My Man Newt,” by Maureen Dowd, 11/29/11, The New York Times:

“Newt [Gingrich] is the progenitor of the modern politics of personal destruction.”

What one word synonym would you substitute?

Progenitor: A person who originates an artistic, political, or intellectual movement