week 34

You have to wrestle a bit with the longish word cumbersome; it's cumbersome, or kind of long and clumsy, to tumble out in a sentence. It's hard to use it gracefully.
A "cumber" is something that slows you down, and though the words aren't related, "lumber" includes big pieces of heavy wood, which might slow down the person carrying them. Moving lumber is cumbersome, because it's a heavy and awkward job. Getting your laundry down the stairs or putting a Rottweiler in the bathtub can be cumbersome

The adjective unmitigated describes something that is undiminished, unqualified, or absolute. If your new recipe for chocolate cupcakes is met by enthusiastic cheers, you can assume you have an unmitigated success on your hands.Perhaps because of these origins, although unmitigated can be used positively, as in unmitigated success, but the word is often paired more negatively. You knew the wedding was going to be an unmitigated disaster when the bride and groom didn't bother to show up at all, l

Use tenacious to mean "not easily letting go or giving up," like a clingy child who has a tenacious grip on his mother's hand.A strong grip or an unyielding advocate might both be described as tenacious, a word whose synonyms include resolute, firm, and persistent.

To interrogate is to ask someone a bunch of questions. Usually, it’s the police, FBI, or other law-enforcement officials who interrogate suspects, but your father-in-law may interrogate you about your career plans

If your house has a big and comfortable living room, you could say that you have a commodious space for entertaining. Commodious means roomy.

Use the noun calumny to characterize verbal attacks that are meant to destroy reputations or friendships. You've probably seen political ads during election time that rely on calumny to move voters.Calumny comes from the Latin word calvi, meaning "to trick, deceive," which is why it can also describe falsely accusing someone or quoting them out of context with the intent to do them harm. Some political candidates use this tactic against opponents in the hope that voters will be tricked into thin

A pittance is a tiny payment or small reimbursement for work — generally an amount that's inadequate. The restaurant may pay you a pittance, but you can do well if you get a lot of good tips. Although a pittance may have originally meant that you were taking pity on someone with less wealth by giving them money or food, these days when you get a pittance it means that you earn a pitiful wage.

A vigil is when you stay alert to guard something, as when you keep vigil over your hen house when the foxes are out, or a vigil can be solemn — as when a candlelight vigil is held for victims of a tragedy. If you're attending a vigil or keeping vigil, you shouldn't expect to take a nap. The vigil is an apt kind of demonstration for peace movements, as it's calm, non-violent, and solemn, with participants standing quietly — sometimes holding candles.

Something is antiquated when it is so old that it is no longer useful. If your parents believe that you shouldn't use the Internet when you write papers for school, you might call their ideas antiquated.
Something is antiquated when it is so old, it's like an antique or recognizable from another era and has the negative feel of being thoroughly outmoded. Things like typewriters, sealing wax for letters, and ideas of proper etiquette all seem antiquated in modern society. Currently, things get an

The grimace on her face when he asked her to the prom told him her answer was "no" before she said a word. A grimace is a facial expression that usually suggests disgust or pain, but sometimes comic exaggeration.
Picture someone wrinkling his nose, squeezing his eyes shut, and twisting his mouth and you'll have a pretty solid mental image of a grimace. It can be a verb, as in "the class grimaced at the teacher's suggestion of a pop quiz." Or it words as a noun. "The class gave a grimace when the

Unkempt literally means “not combed,” but use it to describe anything with a sloppy appearance. Your hair probably looks unkempt when you roll out of bed in the morning. Keep it that way if you're going for the rock star look.unkempt persists as a popular word to describe anything unpolished, rough, or disorderly. Pig sties, the corrals where pigs live, are usually quite unkempt. That's why your mom keeps calling your messy, unkempt train wreck of a room a pig sty.

If you've been sneaking around with your best friend's boyfriend, that's probably one secret you don't want to divulge, because revealing that tidbit of information will probably cut your friendship short.
Divulge often precedes the word secret, because it means to reveal something, and that something is often of a personal or private nature. A gossip columnist's job is to divulge which celebrities are secretly dating and which ones have been caught in embarrassing situations.

Something that fluctuates varies or changes — it's the opposite of steady. Like the ups and downs of the stock market or the relationship status of a Hollywood starlet.
Fluctuate is a verb that describes movement, sometimes irregular, but often rising and falling in a wave-like pattern. The tides fluctuate according to the weather and season, for example. Your emotions fluctuate depending on what happens throughout the day, and so does your weight.

If you want to call someone a complete stupid while sounding smart yourself, asinine is your go-to word.Asinine takes stupid up a notch. There's someone so delightful in the double-edged quality of asinine behavior. Talking trash about your boss is stupid. Talking trash about your boss in an email they're cc'd on...that's asinine.

If you accidentally leave half a sandwich under your bed for a few days, cover your nose while you sleep because it will probably become quite noisome. This is a fancy way of saying that it will stink.Noisome can refer to anything unpleasant or anything that makes you nauseous. However, it is most often used to describe bad smells. So spray some air freshener, open the windows, and clean out under your bed!

A site is a location. The leader of a Zombie Army might remind his underlings: “Your web site is just a collection of pages at one address on the Web. Your burial site is where you find more soldiers!”

People or things that are disheveled are kind of a mess. Wrinkled clothes, knotted hair, and a chaotic house might earn the adjective disheveled. There are a lot of synonyms for disheveled, including "disordered," "sloppy," and "cluttered." A person can look disheveled when getting up in the morning, and some people even adopt a disheveled look on purpose, trying to appear casual about grooming and dressing while working hard to achieve just the right unwashed and mussed-up style.

A facade is the front of a building, or a kind of front people put up emotionally. If you're mad but acting happy, you're putting up a facade.
This word has to do with the outer layer of something. One sense has to do with the front or outside of a building. The other meaning has to do with people who are hiding something. In both cases, the facade could be deceiving. A building with a gorgeous facade isn't necessarily gorgeous inside

If you want to describe a person who insists on perfection or pays much attention to food, clothing and cleanliness, the right word is fastidious.Fastidious is occasionally used as a compliment to describe someone whose attention to detail gives them good organizing abilities, but it is usually used as a disapproving term.