week 35

When you make fun of something by imitating it in a humorous way, you're lampooning it. The writers at The Onion, Saturday Night Live and FunnyOrDie.com are all experts in the art of the lampoon.
Lampoon can be both a verb and a noun. To lampoon is ridicule. A lampoon is a parody or satire. Imagine you were frustrated by having your allowance reduced, so you wrote a funny play portraying mom and dad as dictators extracting lots of unfair taxes from their people. That's lampooning.

The noun nonentity refers to a person of no significance or importance. If you are a member of a sports team, but spend all your time sitting on the bench watching the rest of the team play, you will probably feel like a nonentity.A political nonentity has no power, and a social nonentity blends in with the wallpaper. Not only people are considered nonentities; groups or things can be nonentities too. If a nonentity beats a nationally ranked team, that's a real upset.

Your mien is how you present yourself, the impression you make. It's best to keep a low profile but a dignified mien." A person's mien is a look or quality that tells a lot about their personalities or temperaments. A person with a cheerful mien probably radiates happiness and energy, while someone with a serious mien may have an air of being lost in thought.

A person in a stupor is considered barely conscious or stunned; or, if you consult Led Zeppelin lyrics: dazed and confused.
Stupors can be brought on by drugs, alcohol, illness, or shocking news. You might doze off with a lampshade on your head if you’re in a drunken stupor. Medically speaking, a person in this state responds only to pain. You can also be in a stupor if you’re in shock, like if your boss says he's replacing you with a robot, or if Mister Ed the talking horse kicks you in the gut

Whimsical means full of or characterized by whims, which are odd ideas that usually occur to you very suddenly. If you decide at the last minute to fly to Europe, you could say you went there on a whim.
Whimsical can also mean tending toward odd or unpredictable behavior

If you rudely behave as if you have a right to something that you have no right to, you're committing effrontery. When a couple stroll into a crowded restaurant, demand the best table, and threaten the staff unless they're seated right away, that's effrontery.

The verb refute is to prove that something is wrong. When the kids you're babysitting swear they brushed their teeth, you can refute their claim by presenting the dry toothbrushes.Evidence and arguments are used to refute something. So are facts. For example, if children who eat chocolate before going to bed go straight to sleep, that refutes the idea that sugar keeps them up

If you've heard an expression a million times, chances are it's a cliche.from the French which refers to a saying or expression that has been so overused that it has become boring and unoriginal. Think about the expressions "easy as pie," or "don't play with fire," or "beauty is skin deep." These are all cliches. A plot or action sequence in a film or novel can also be called a cliche if it has become dull and predictable through overuse.

A parable is a short and simple story that teaches a religious or moral lesson. The parable of the Good Samaritan and the parable of the Prodigal Son are just two examples of the many parables attributed to Jesus, as recorded in the four gospels.

If you take the news of your brother's death with equanimity, it means you take it calmly without breaking down. Equanimity refers to emotional calmness and balance in times of stress.
If equanimity reminds you of equal, that's because the words have a lot in common. The phrase a level mind also refers to calmness. A near synonym is composure.

What do Santa Claus, Bigfoot, and unicorns have in common? Aside from the fact that they’re completely real, they’re also hirsute: very, very hairy creatures.
All mammals have hair, but the ones that have way more than others, you might call them hirsute. There are hirsute people, like lumberjacks with a jungle of chest hair, bearded ladies at a circus, or just someone with a scraggly hairdo.

A wince is a facial or bodily expression of pain, disgust, or regret. Think of something you've done that was really, really embarrassing or dumb: now feel your face or take a look in the mirror as you wince at the uncomfortable memory.
A moment of pain or a recollection of something painful can make you wince. It's hard not to have a physical response or a wince with a bad memory or a hurt. And wince is both a verb and a noun, so it can be an action or a result. Sometimes people don’t do anythi

The sanctimonious person sounds like a hypocrite when he preaches to a friend about the evils of drugs, while he drinks one beer after another.A sanctimonious person might think he's holy, but their attitude comes across more like "holier-than-thou." Though sanctimonious people might try to act like saints, their actions are far from pure or holy, which just makes them sound like hypocrites.

When you see your mom come back from the salon with bright green spiky hair and your jaw drops to the floor in total shock, you’re flabbergasted. You are really, really shocked — pretty much speechless.
Use the adjective flabbergasted to describe someone who's astounded or surprised for any reason, good or bad. You could be flabbergasted at how astonishingly expensive a parking ticket is, or at how incredibly delicious pineapple pizza is.

A vivacious person is lively and spirited: a vivacious dancer might do a back-flip off the wall and then jump into the arms of her partner.
Some people are just naturally fun to be around; they sparkle, they animate any group they're part of, they're full of life. That, in fact, is the root meaning of the word: it's from Latin vivere "to live." It has more of a sense of playfulness than lively or animated. Even the most sedentary slob can feel revitalized in the presence of a vivacious soul.

To whet is to sharpen. You could whet a knife's blade with a whetting stone, or you could whet your appetite by having some Doritos.
The verb whet can mean "to stimulate or make more acute," and the word is often used in the phrase "whet [your] appetite," which can be used literally or figuratively. You could serve light appetizers to whet everyone's appetite for dinner or you could whet an actor's appetite by giving him a small role that inspires him for greater roles.

The noun countenance means the face or its expression. If you're a great poker player, you probably have a calm countenance.Countenance can also be a verb meaning to tolerate or approve. If someone does something offensive, tell them, "I'm afraid I can't countenance that."

Use debacle to refer to a violent disaster or a great failure. If the flower gardens come toppling down during prom, strangling some students and tripping others, you might call the evening a debacle.
Debacle is often used to describe a military defeat. If your army retreats, that's one thing. If your army is outmaneuvered and ends up huddled in a valley, surrounded on all sides by the enemy, forced to sing 70s sitcom theme songs by their savage captors––that's a debacle.

You can never be too rich or too thin, but you certainly can be too gaunt. It means you look skinny like you're sick, not skinny like you have a personal nutritionist slapping your hand when you reach for a bonbon.
A good way to remember gaunt is that it rhymes with haunt, and gaunt people look pale, drawn, and wasted — like you'd expect a haunting ghost to appear. Another way to remember it is that g- + aunt is like great-aunt, and often when you appear to be gaunt you look like you're old

See that person staring out the window who looks so sad and lost in thought? He is pensive, the opposite of cheery and carefree. If you're pensive, you might simply be thinking hard about something. Having no expression or maybe even frowning can be a result of being so engrossed in your thoughts — it might not reflect a melancholy attitude. Remember this the next time you're about to ask a pensive person, "What's wrong?" It could very well be nothing.