week 22

See the word "pose" in juxtapose? When you juxtapose, you are "posing" or positioning things side by side.The verb juxtapose requires contrasting things placed next to one other: "The collage juxtaposed pictures of Jane while she was growing up and as an adult." Juxtapose is used often when referring to contrasting elements in the arts. "The music juxtaposed the instrumentation of jazz with the harmonies of soul."

Do you like to construct mini airplanes from kits? Work on an assembly line? Piece together Ikea furniture? Then you certainly know how to fabricate, or to put together, things.While fabricate might mean the physical act of construction, it can also mean constructing a falsehood. Watch out — those well versed in the art of fabrication might have an ulterior motive. In the movies, the bad cops sometimes fabricate evidence to make the good guy look guilty. When you tell the teacher the dog ate you

To show that you know something is to acknowledge it. Waving "hello" to acknowledge a friend and nodding your head "yes" to acknowledge that you agree with what's being said are both acts showing knowledge or acceptance of someone or something.

She wants kids, he doesn't? She's married to him, he's married to his work? That's incompatibility right there: the inability of two sides to exist in a harmonious relationship with each other because of their different outlooks and beliefs.

Use the adjective connubial to describe something that relates to marriage or to the relationship between husband and wife, such as connubial bliss or a connubial argument about who will take out the trash.

Indifference is the trait of lacking interest or enthusiasm in things. When you feel indifference for something, you neither like it nor dislike it.If you are a person who feels a lot of indifference, you probably say "eh," a lot. You just don't care much. Indifference can be compared to apathy, which means "lack of concern," though apathy is a little stronger: Apathy means you don't care whether your friends call you; indifference means you don't care what movie you end up seeing — you don't ha

To delude is to trick or fool, often in relation to yourself. If you delude yourself into thinking your mom's chocolate cake is low in fat, you'll be disappointed to find out it's made with two sticks of butter!If you delude someone into thinking something, you are making a fool of them, or making them foolish. The word shares a root with ludicrous which means completely ridiculous. The thing that you foolishly believe is a delusion. Someone with delusions of grandeur has deluded themselves into

If you are able to cope with something, you are able to deal with it. If you can cope with waiting in long lines, you'll get the best seats. If you can cope with the stress, you will be excellent at defusing bombs. Another word to describe the balancing act of a mother who takes care of three children while also working part-time and pursuing a graduate degree is coping. “Understanding does not cure evil, but it is a definite help, inasmuch as one can cope with a comprehensible darkness,” warns

Your mother asks you to pick up your room. You refuse: you demur. Your friend wants to go to the Death Metal Forever concert, but you hesitate: you demur. Whether you strongly object, politely disagree, or hesitate to agree, you demur.If Aunt Tilly offers to knit you a sweater, you might politely demur, being reluctant to accept. When she describes the bunnies she plans for the sweater, you would want to strongly demur, explaining that you plan to move to Texas next week and will no longer need

If you can describe something as possible but not yet actual, choose the adjective, potential. Companies try to reach potential customers through advertising. A potential success is not yet a success but could be if circumstances are right. When a situation has the potential for disaster, it could turn bad easily. You have potential if you have a natural but undeveloped ability to do something and a building with potential will be really nice once it's fixed up.

When you palliate something, you try to make something less bad: “City leaders tried to palliate effects of the trash haulers' strike by distributing extra large garbage cans with tight-fitting lids.”. Palliate doesn’t mean “cure” or “solve.” Instead, something that palliates relieves the symptoms or consequences of something, without addressing the underlying cause. Your dentist might give you pain-killing drugs to palliate the discomfort caused by an impacted molar, but that molar is still the

A plight is a situation that's hard to get out of. Learning about the plight of very poor people trying rebuild their homes after a devastating earthquake might inspire you to send money to a charity.
Plight means predicament. It comes from the word for pleat, which means fold. A plight is a tough bind. You'll usually hear the word plight for groups of people or animals struggling to survive, or struggling for better lives. We talk about the plight of refugees, or the plight of sea birds after a

Appellation means the name or title by which someone is known. Mark Twain is the famous appellation by which everyone remembers author and humorist Samuel Clemens.
An appellation is what people call a person or thing — essentially, its name or title. George Herman Ruth's parents may have known him as George, but the rest of the world knew this famous slugger by his appellation, Babe. If you use the word appellation in a discussion of wine, you'd mean the name of the region or vineyard where the

Cumulative is the total amount of something when it's all added together. Eating a single chocolate doughnut is fine, but the cumulative effect of eating them all day is that you'll probably feel sick.

The prefix "pre-" means “before,” so it makes sense that a prelude is an introductory action, event or performance that comes before a bigger or more momentous one.Today preludes are more like introductions than practice, but you can still think of them as a small warm up to the main event. Preludes are often used in classical music, as well as in novels, to set the tone for the rest of the orchestral piece or story.

Think soldiers in masks secretly infiltrating an enemy stronghold, a covert operation is one that no one but the president and a few generals know is happening.
Covert is the opposite of overt, which means obvious, something in full view. "The teachers weren't impressed by the students' overt attempt to derail the discussion. 'You aren't even pretending to try to like Shakespeare,' she complained."

If you’ve been sick with the flu for a week, barely able to get out of bed, then you’ve got an idea of what it’s like to be incapacitated. Incapacitated means "empty of strength," "helpless," or "powerless."
Incapacitated is an adjective that describes a state where you don’t have the capacity, or ability, to accomplish anything. When someone becomes incapacitated, illness or injury is usually to blame. This adjective is often used in the same manner as disabled.

It's rather difficult to penetrate the meaning of recondite. Fitting, because it's an adjective that basically means hard for the average mind to understand.
If it's really hard to comprehend, then it's safe to say it's recondite. In the same family as "abstruse," "esoteric" and "totally deep, man," recondite is a very serious word that you could use to describe obscure philosophy books, high level mathematical theory, and the series finale of The Sopranos — you know, things that make your brain

Use the adjective chimerical to describe something that is wildly fanciful or imaginative — like the chimerical illustrations of unicorns in a children's book.
A chimera was a fire-breathing monster from Greek mythology made from three different animals: a lion at its head, a goat in the middle, and a serpent at the end. The first surviving mention of the beast is in Homer's The Iliad. From this fantastical creature, English created the adjective chimerical to describe wild figments of the imagi