Vocabulary List 10
SESSION 32
Words are the symbols of emotions, as well as ideas. You can show your feelings by the tone you use (“You’re silly” can be an insult, an accusation, or an endearment, depending on how you say it) or by the words you choose (you can label a quality either “childish” or “childlike,” depending on whether you admire it or condemn it—it’s the same quality, no matter what you call it).
In this chapter we discuss ten adjectives that indicate wholehearted approval.
Consider the interesting types of people described in the following paragraphs, then note how accurately the adjective applies to each type.
1. convivial
2. indefatigable
3. ingenuous
4. perspicacious
5. magnanimous
6. versatile
7. stoical
8. intrepid
9. scintillating
10. urbane
IDEAS
put the
kettle on, Polly
They are friendly, happy, extroverted,
and gregarious—the sort of people who will invite you out for a drink, who like
to transact business around the lunch table, who put the coffee to perking as
soon as company drops in. They’re
sociable, genial, cordial, affable—and
the like parties and all the eating and drinking that goes with them.
Adjective: convivial.
you can’t
tire them
Some people apparently have boundless,
illimitable energy—they’re on the go from morning to night, and often far into
the night, working hard, playing hard, never tiring, never getting “pooped” or
“bushed”—and getting twice as much done as any three other human beings.
Adjective: indefatigable
no tricks,
no secrets
They are pleasingly frank, utterly
lacking in pretense or artificiality, in fact, quite
unable to hide their feelings or thoughts—and so honest and aboveboard that
they can scarcely conceive of trickery, chicanery, or dissimulation in
anyone. There is, then, about them the
simple naturalness and unsophistication of a child.
Adjective: ingenious.
sharp as a razor
They have minds like steel traps;
their insight into problems that would confuse or mystify people of less
keenness or discernment is just short of amazing.
Adjective: perspicacious.
no placating necessary
They are most generous about forgiving
a slight, insult or injury. Never do
they harbor resentment, store up petty grudges, or
waste energy or thought on means of revenge or retaliation. How could they? They’re much too big-hearted.
Adjective: magnanimous
one-person orchestras
The range of their aptitudes is truly
formidable. If they are writers, they
have professional facility in poetry, fiction, biography, criticism, essays—you
just mention it and they’re done it, and very competently. Or maybe the range of their abilities cuts
across all fields, as in the case of Michelangelo, who was an expert sculptor, painter,
poet, architect, and inventor. In case
you’re thinking “Jack of all trades…,” you’re wrong—they’re masters of all trades.
Adjective: versatile
no grumbling
They bear their troubles bravely, never
ask for sympathy, never yield to sorrow, never wince at pain. It sounds almost superhuman, but it’s true.
Adjective: stoical
no fear
There is not a cowardly bone in their
bodies. They are strangers to fear,
they’re audacious, dauntless, contemptuous of danger and hardship.
Adjective: intrepid
no dullness
They are witty, clever, delightful;
and naturally, also, they are brilliant and entertaining conversationists.
Adjective: scintillating
city slickers
They are cultivated, poised, tactful,
socially so experienced, sophisticated, and courteous that they’re at home in
any group, at ease under all circumstances of social intercourse. You cannot help admiring (perhaps envying)
their smoothness and self-assurance, their tact and congeniality.
Adjective: urbane
SESSION 33
ORIGINS AND RELATED WORDS
eat, drink, and be merry
The Latin verb vivo, to live, and the
noun vita, life, are the source of a
number of important English words.
Convivo is the Latin verb to live together (con, with); from this, in Latin, was formed the noun convivium, which
meant a feast or a banquet; and from convivium we get our English word
convivial, an adjective that
describes the kind of person who likes to attend feasts and banquets, enjoying
(and supplying) the jovial good fellowship characteristic of such gatherings.
Using the suffix –ity, can you write the noun form of the adjective convivial?
______________________
living it up
Among many others, the following
English words derive from Latin vivo,
to live:
1. vivacious—full of the joy of
living; animated; peppy—a vivacious
personality. Noun: vivacity. You can, as you
know, also add –ness to any adjective
to form a noun. Write the alternate noun
form of vivacious:
___________________________.
2. vivid—possessing
the freshness of life; strong; sharp; life-like—a vivid imagination; a vivid
color. Add –ness to form the noun: ____________________
3. revive—bring
back to life. In the 1960’s, men’s
fashion of the 1920’s were revived. Noun: revival.
4. vivisection—operating
on a live animal. Sect- is from a Latin verb meaning to cut. Vivisection is the process of experimenting on live animals to
discover causes and cures of disease. Antivivisectionists object to the
procedure, though many of our most important medical discoveries were made
through vivisection.
5. Viviparous—producing live
babies. Human beings and most other
mammals are viviparous. Viviparous
is contrasted to oviparous, producing
young from eggs. Most fish, fowl, and
other lower life forms are oviparous.
The combining root in both these
adjectives is Latin pareo,
to give birth (parent comes from the
same root). In oviparous, the first two syllables derive from Latin ovum, egg.
Ovum,
egg, is the source of oval and ovoid, egg-shaped; ovulate, to release an egg from the ovary: ovum, the female
germ cell which, when fertilized by a sperm, develops into an embryo, then into
a fetus, and finally, in about 280
days in the case of humans, is born as an infant.
The adjective form of ovary is ovarian; of fetus, fetal.
Can you write the noun form of the verb ovulate? ____________________
Love,
you may or may not be surprised to hear, also comes from ovum.
No, not the kind of love you’re
thinking of. Latin ovum became oeuf in
French, or with the “the” preceding the noun (the egg), l’oeuf,
pronounced something like LOOF. Zero is shaped like an egg (0), so if
your score in tennis is fifteen, and
your opponent’s is zero, you shout
triumphantly, “fifteen love! Let’s go!”
more about life
Latin viva, life, is the origin of:
1. vital—essential to life; or
crucial importance—a vital matter;
also full of life, strength, vigor, etc.
Add the suffix –ity to form the noun: _______________________. Add a verb suffix to construct the verb
meaning to give life to:
________________________. Finally, write
the noun derived from the verb you have constructed: _________________________.
2. Revitalize is constructed from the
prefix re-, again, back, the root vita, and the verb suffix. Meaning?
______________________. Can you
write the noun formed from this verb? _______________________.
3. The prefix de- has a number of
meanings, one of which is essentially negative, as in defrost, decompose, declassify, etc. Using this prefix, can you write a verb
meaning to rob of life, to take life from?
___________________________. Now write
the noun form of this verb: ____________________________.
4. Vitamin—one of the many
nutritional elements on which life is dependent. Good eyesight requires Vitamin A (found, for
example, in carrots); strong bones need vitamin D (found in sunlight and
cod-liver oil); etc.
Vitalize,
revitalize, and devitalize are
all used figuratively—for example, a program or plan is vitalized, revitalized, or devitalized, according to how it’s
handled.
French life
Sometimes, instead of getting our
English words directly from Latin, we work through one of the Latin-derived or
Romance languages. (As you will recall,
the Romance languages—French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian—are so
called because they were originally dialects of the old Roman tongue. English, by the way, is not a Romance
language, but a Teutonic one. Our tongue
is a development of a German dialect imposed on the natives of Britain by the
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes of early English history. Though we have taken over into English more
than 50 per cent of the Latin vocabulary and almost 30 per cent of the
classical Greek vocabulary as roots and prefixes, our basic language is
nevertheless German.)
The French, using the same Latin root vivo, to live, formed two expressive
phrases much used in English.
1. joie de vivre—Literally joy of living, this phrase describes an immense delight in being alive, an effervescent keenness for all the daily activities that human beings indulge in. People who possess joie de vivre are never moody, depressed, bored or apathetic—on the contrary, they are full of sparkle, eager to engage in all group activities, and, most important, always seem to be having a good time, no matter what they’re doing. Joie de vivre is precisely the opposite of ennui (also of French origin), which is a feeling of boredom, discontent, or weariness resulting sometimes from having a jaded, oversophisticated appetite.
2. bon vivant—A bon vivant is a person who lives
luxuriously, especially in respect to rich food, good liquor, expensive theater
parties, operas, and other accoutrements of upper-class life. Bon
vivant means, literally, a good liver
(one who lives, not the body part); actually a high liver, one who lives a luxurious life. The bon
vivant is of course a convivial
person—and also likely to be a gourmet,
another word from French.
food and
how to enjoy it
The gourmand enjoys food with a sensual pleasure. To gourmands
the high spots of the day are the times for breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight
supper; in short, they like to eat but the eating must be good. The verb form, gormandize, however, has suffered a degeneration
in meaning—it signifies to stuff oneself
like a pig.
A gourmand
is significantly different from a gourmet,
who has a keen interest in food and liquor, but is much more fastidious, is
more of a connoisseur, has a most discerning palate for delicate tastes,
flavors, and differences; goes in for rare delicacies (like hummingbird tongues
and other such absurdities); and approaches the whole business from a
scientific, as well as a sensual, viewpoint.
Gourmet is always a
complimentary term, gourmand somewhat
less so.
The person who eats voraciously, with
no discernment whatsoever, but merely for the purpose
of stuffing himself (“I know I haven’t had enough to eat until I feel sick”),
is called a glutton—obviously a
highly derogatory term. The verb gluttonize is stronger than gormandize; the adjective gluttonous is about the strongest
epithet you can apply to someone whose voracious eating habits you find
repulsive. Someone who has a voracious,
insatiable appetite for money, sex, punishment, etc. is also called a glutton.
REVIEW OF ETYMOLOGY
Prefix, Root, Suffix Meaning English Word
Vivo to live _____________________
Vita life _____________________
-ity noun suffix _____________________
–ous adj. suffix _____________________
-ness noun suffix _____________________
re- again, back _____________________
sectus cut _____________________
anti- against _____________________
pareo to give birth, to produce _____________________
ovum egg _____________________
vita life _____________________
–ize verb suffix _____________________
–ation noun suffix for –ize verbs _____________________
de- negative prefix _____________________
bon good _____________________
–ate verb suffix _____________________
USING THE WORDS