You’re so impertinent
You’re so impudent
You talk back all of the time
Stupefied
It
dulls my senses
It numbs my state of mind
Where does that get me now
A weak, futile voice in the crowd
Silence, reticence
Be taciturn
Strive to be laconic to the point
Where you don’t
speak
You and me communicate
Strictly by telepathy
Don’t speak
You act belligerent
Savage and truculent
Why must you fight with me
Don’t you know
You’re
just a charlatan
You’re not what you pretend to be
Where does that get you now
Vilified, abused,
denounced by the crowd
Silence, reticence
Be taciturn
Strive to be laconic to the point
Where you don’t
speak
You and me communicate
Strictly by telepathy
Don’t speak
Be serene
Peaceful to the extreme
Embrace tranquility
Embrace tranquility
I’m just a novice
A neophyte
I’m a beginner, this is all so new
Let me be
Your
sanctuary
Let me shelter you
Silence, reticence
Speak easy
Be taciturn
Strive to be laconic to the point
Where
you don’t speak
You and me communicate
Strictly by telepathy
Don’t speak
Don’t speak…
Impertinent [adjective]
DEFINITION 1
rude or overly bold
As your superior officer,
I will not tolerate any impertinent behavior from you warty, pimple-pocked maggots. You’re a disgrace to the Girl Scout
uniform.
SYNONYMS: insolent, impudent
ANTONYMS: polite, respectful
DEFINITION 2
irrelevant
These new facts about an
impending asteroid strike are impertinent to my investigation of who’s been using my toothbrush.
SYNONYMS: unrelated, unimportant
ANTONYMS: pertinent, relevant
Notes Don’t get thrown
by the fact that the word pert appears in the middle of impertinent. Pert means “overly confident,” or “cocky.”
It can also mean “lively.” Although it sounds as though impertinent could be a negation of pert, it’s really
a negation of the word pertain, which means “to relate to.”
Impudent [adjective]
DEFINITION:
offensively bold
When the impudent student
mouthed off for the eighth time, Mrs. Gimmelstob briefly fantasized about quitting her job and running off with Ghoukas, an
Armenian goatherd she met at the track.
SYNONYMS: insolent, impertinent
ANTONYMS: respectful, courteous
Notes: Usually, impudence
is what we call it when the person being disrespectful is younger or in a lower position of authority. A teacher can’t,
for example, behave impudently toward a student (though they can be jerks). Think of the word imp in the first syllable: a
small, troublemaking demon known for mischief but which is no real threat.
Stupefied [verb or adjective]
DEFINITION:
past tense of stupefy, to
stun or make stupid
Alan stupefied Jeanne-Marie
by admitting that he was dating her only to get closer to Nippy, her lovely Yorkshire Terrier.
SYNONYMS: astonished, dumbfounded
ANTONYM: unsurprised
Notes: To stupefy is literally
to shock someone to such a degree that they become stupid—unable to either talk or react intelligently. This word has
an indirect relationship with stupendous, which means “really big.” If something is stupendous, it’s so
big or overwhelming that it stupefies the viewer.
Something stupefying can
inspire a sense of wonder or beauty in addition to simple shock. It tastes great as an adverb, too, especially when you want
to insult someone as in: “That was a stupefyingly ignorant remark.
Futile [adjective]
DEFINITION
producing no result
When Marvin’s efforts
to find a prom date proved futile, he made one out of duct tape, latex, and his mother’s wig.
SYNONYMS: fruitless, vain
ANTONYMS: fruitful, rewarding
Notes: Futile is rarely used
to mean “frivolous,” as when one gets distracted by things of no consequence. Still, the primary meanings of “pointless,”
“useless,” and “fruitless” are the most likely to appear on your test. Hence the utter futility of
our forcing you to read about the alternative meaning, which is also, by the way, totally impertinent.
Reticence [noun]
DEFINITION:
hesitancy to speak or act
Ingmar’s reticence
about his love for Elsie was a mistake; if only he’d spoken up, he might not have spent the last 15 years single, lonely,
and listening to Light FM.
SYNONYMS: taciturnity, restraint
ANTONYM: outspokenness
Notes: Reticence is most
often used to mean “unwillingness to speak.” This can be for whatever reason: people were sworn to secrecy; they’re
scared of sounding stupid by opening their fat mouths; or they’re just tired and want to quit jawing all the time. Whenever
people resist speech, they’re reticent.
It can also mean “an
unwillingness to act,” as in: “I’m reticent about sending in the last of the army; all I’ve got left
are the Fifth Infantry Elite Sewing Corps. And I believe they’re already busy stitching ‘We Won!’ on my
boxers.
Taciturn [adjective]
DEFINITION
using few words, soft-spoken
Because he was so taciturn,
Joey did not call out for help while a swarm of rabid gerbils devoured his little sister.
SYNONYMS: reticent, uncommunicative
ANTONYM: garrulous
Note: Something tacit is
unspoken: “We had a tacit agreement: though we never said it aloud, we all knew that if one of us got busted, we’d
sell the others up the river to avoid jail time.” Taciturn, therefore, means “disinclined to speak.”
When people are described
as taciturn, it can mean that they characteristically express themselves with few words. “Even in death, dad was pretty
taciturn: his last words were simply: “Buh-Bye.”
Strive [verb]
DEFINITION
to exert a great deal of
effort
Strive for greatness and
work hard to achieve your goals. If that doesn’t work, cheat and lie.
SYNONYMS: labor, toil
ANTONYMS: give up, be lazy
DEFINITION 2
struggle, fight against
After a lifetime spent at
sea, striving against hurricanes, pirates, and bouts of scurvy, I’ve come to realize I hate sailing.
SYNONYMS: contend, vie
ANTONYM: be at peace
Notes: Be on the lookout
for the noun form, strife, meaning “struggle,” “conflict,” or “turmoil”: “Decades
of strife had so exhausted the Buttkikians that they shelved their plans for world domination and took a nice long nap instead.”
Laconic [adjective]
DEFINITION:
brief and to-the-point
Laconic by nature, Alfred
needed only one sentence to alienate his friends, family, and an entire religious sect.
SYNONYMS: terse, succinct
ANTONYMS: verbose, rambling
Notes: This word comes from
Laconia, a
region of ancient Greece where the city-state of Sparta was located. Warlike and brutish, the Spartans weren’t renowned for their communication
skills; they preferred to negotiate with the talking end of a spear.
Telepathy [noun]
DEFINITION
the ability to read another’s
thoughts or to communicate by thinking
Using my powers of telepathy,
I’m getting strong vibes that either you want me to be your macho hunk of all American manhood or you’re craving
a cheeseburger.
SYNONYM: mind-reading
Notes: Telepaths are those
who really can read another’s thoughts— those who just say they can are called something else: charlatans.
The suffix -pathy means “emotion.”
Tele- means “far” (that’s why they call it tele-vision). Then it’s easy to put together: telepathy
is “far- feeling.”
Belligerent [adjective]
DEFINITION:
hostile and warlike
In an attempt to change its
image as a belligerent, warlike nation, Germany
is offering free bratwurst and sponge baths to the Czechs.
SYNONYMS: bellicose, violent
ANTONYMS: peaceful, nonviolent
Notes: For this one, as well
as bellicose (see “Amazing”), the prefix is the key. Belli- means “war,” which you’ll sometimes
see used in political science or history books as antebellum (before the war) or casus belli (cause of war).
Truculent [adjective]
DEFINITION:
brutal and savage
After another devastating
defeat, Jets fans had grown so truculent that Security Guard Johnston, forced to control the violence, dusted off his cattle
prod, crooning “Now’s our chance, my pet.”
SYNONYMS: fierce, barbaric
ANTONYMS: calm, sedate
Notes: Don’t get suckered:
this word has nothing to do with trucks. It comes from the Latin trux, a word used to describe the savages who, to the Romans,
included pretty much anybody who wasn’t a Roman.
Charlatan [noun]
DEFINITION:
a con artist or fake
When Abner tried to sell
bottles of his sweat, claiming its scent would attract the opposite sex, most folks suspected he was a charlatan. Grandpa
ordered 60 bottles anyway, just in case it was true.
SYNONYMS: fraud, quack
Notes: We got this word in
a pretty roundabout way although it sounds French, it was originally Italian, ciarla, meaning “to babble or chatter.”
Some speculate that the word was intended to suggest the quacking of ducks—from which it was an easy step to ciarlatano,
a quack.
Vilified [verb]
DEFINITION:
Past tense of vilify, to
speak badly about a person or thing
Because Gandhi resisted the
British Empire’s rule in India,
the British vilified him, cursed his name, and wouldn’t give him any kidney pie at tea.
SYNONYMS: defamed, reviled
ANTONYMS: commended, lauded
Notes: Vilification is no
casual expression of dislike. If you really hate something, you vilify it. That’s
why it sounds so much like vile, which is about as nasty a four-letter word as you can use in the English language without
getting kicked out of class.
If you get stuck on this
one, remember evil or devil, two things worth
vilifying.
Denounced [verb]
DEFINITION
past tense of denounce, to
speak badly about or publicly accuse
Although the member states
of the United Nations loudly denounced the tyrant Boris Popopovich’s unspeakable acts of oppression, they quietly accepted
the millions of barrels of cheap oil he pumped into their economies.
SYNONYMS: defamed, blamed
ANTONYMS: extolled, praised
Notes: Anytime you —flounce,
you’re saying something out loud That’s where we get announce, renounce, and pronounce. To de-nounce, then, is
to say something negative out loud.
The noun form, denunciation,
shows clearly where the word came from: nuntius is Latin for “messenger” or “speaker.”
Serene [adjective]
DEFINITION:
quiet, peaceful
Simone became serene when
she realized it was only
Saturday; she still had two
days to prepare her speech to
Congress, which would surely
bring the nation to its
knees.
SYNONYMS: tranquil, sedate
ANTONYMS: agitated, troubled
Notes: What a lovely, calming
word Don’t you feel the serenity when you say it out loud?
Tranquility [noun]
DEFINITION:
peace and quiet
The tranquility of the Smith
family reunion was shattered when cousin Ernest released his pet cobra into the kiddie pool to distract the others away from
the sweet, sweet fruitcake.
SYNONYMS: calm, serenity
ANTONYMS: turmoil, chaos
Notes: There’s a reason
why they call them tranquilizers Take enough of them and you’ll be mellow for hours, drifting sleepily in front of the
television in a blissful haze of peaceful mindlessness. Not that we would ever encourage such a thing: everyone knows television
rots the brain.
Remember that the word shares
a root with trance, which suggests a peaceful (though sort of disconnected) mind state.
You’ll sometimes see
the word spelled with one I, sometimes with two. Both are correct. Just depends on how lazy you feel.
Novice [noun or adjective]
DEFINITION:
a beginner
As a novice poet, Arthur
wrote himself into a corner when he tried to find a rhyme for the line, “Thou art succulent as an orange.”
SYNONYMS: neophyte, amateur
ANTONYMS: ace, skilled
Notes: The Romans gave us
so much, like the concept of bathing regularly. Back in ancient times, this was a pretty novel idea, since everybody was used
to their apelike stench. Novus, the Latin word meaning “new,” gives us both novel and the word at hand, novice.
People can be novices when
they’re just starting out, but things can also be novice if they’re designed for use by a beginner, as in a novice
ski slope.
Though our novice poet in
the above sentence is both new and bad, the word novice does not necessarily imply badness. Only newness.
Neophyte [noun]
DEFINITION:
a beginner
Neophyte skiers should never
try the expert slopes; those mangled lumps scattered along the tree line were once human beings like you, with thoughts and
feelings and absolutely no idea how to turn.
SYNONYMS: novice, tyro
ANTONYMS: expert, pro
Notes: Ain’t it good
to know you’ve got so many ways to say a simple thing? Neophyte and novice are exact synonyms. Which one you choose
says a lot about you and about how many friends you’re likely to have.
Sanctuary [noun]
DEFINITION:
a place of refuge or safety
Thank heavens a sanctuary
has been created to protect the world’s least attractive mollusk, the poisonous, flesh- eating slime sucker.
SYNONYMS: haven, shelter
Notes: A sanctuary can be
a physical place or a state of being It’s often used to describe a place, like a church or temple, that is protected
because it is considered holy. Another common meaning is “a protected natural area,” such as a wildlife sanctuary.
