Vocabulary Mnemonics

April 19, 2024

Matt’s words

Erudite: (adj) book smart; scholarly; having academic knowledge

“The erudite professor…” “The erudite young student was at the top of the class.”

Mnemonic: “Err” means to make an error.

Imagine a teacher correcting an erudite student’s paper. He puts a big red checkmark and starts to write “err.” The student panics, thinking he’s made a mistake. But then, the teacher laughs and flips it to “err-udite!”

Because, after all, this kid would never err.

Motif: (n) theme or pattern; a dominant idea (in literature)

“Genetics is a common motif in Michael Crichton novels.”

“The boy’s bedroom had a dinosaur motif.”

“Love is a frequent motif in poetry.”

Mnemonic: Imagine a portrait of Moe from the Simpsons. Give him some big “teef,” or teeth. Put this portrait all over your house. You’ve given the house a “Moe Teef motif.”

Enigma: (n) puzzle; something that is mysterious

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” – Winston Churchill

Mnemonic 1: The Riddler’s name in Batman is E. Nygma.

Mnemonic 2: Create a word puzzle out of the word enigma. Change the g to a question mark and put the dot of the eye below it.

You: “How do you like my enigma?”

Friend: “Is this some kind of puzzle?”

You: “YES!”

Opaque: (adj) not able to be seen through; hard to understand

“An opaque window…” “The opaque accounting used by Enron…”

Mnemonic: Take the “O” at the beginning of the sentence. Stuff all the other letters into it. You can’t see through it because it’s now opaque.

Assuage: (v) make an unpleasant feeling less intense; lessen the intensity of

“Assuage your guilt.” “Assuage an angry mob.”

Mnemonic: Focus on “sway” in the middle of the word. Swaying is a great way to remove unpleasant feelings.

Dr. Mom’s words

Leviathan: (n) very large aquatic creature mentioned in the Bible, or sea monster; something large and powerful, especially a ship

“The hardy but stressed Oklahomans had a Leviathan-sized clean-up job after a tornado ravaged their town.”

Mnemonic: Picture a levee (an embankment to prevent the overflow of water) around Athens, a country with a ton of coastline. The water building up on the other side would get very deep such that it could hold a huge ship or sea creature.

Mitigate: (v) to lessen the harshness, forcefulness, painfulness, or severity of something

“The cad made no attempt to mitigate the damage he had done to his girlfriend’s reputation.”

Mnemonic: You have a gate that slams back really hard every time you let go of it. Your worried someone’s fingers will get smashed, so you put a baseball mitt across the latch so it doesn’t shut all the way.

Noisome: (adj) harmful, offensive (especially to the senses), highly obnoxious or objectionable

“The noisome fans at the hockey game made being there almost unbearable for some of the spectators.”

Mnemonic: From the word itself, see “noise” and “some,” but flip them around: some noise. At ballgames, the announcer often shouts, “Let’s make some noise!” It gets so loud that you think, “He said SOME noise, not that much! This is super obnoxious and might even harm my ears!”

Also, the word “noise” in there looks like “nose,” which will remind you that it also means especially offensive to the senses.

Occlude: (v) to close off or shut off; to obstruct

“Mom put so much makeup on to become a clown at Halloween that she occluded the pores in her face, leaving her with a terrible rash.”

Mnemonic: Compare with “include,” meaning to bring in. The “o” reminds us of a circular forcefield around someone, not allowing us to access them.  

Pinnace: (n) a small boat, propelled by oars or sails, carried aboard a larger merchant ship or war vessel; a tender

“No self-respecting gondoliere in Venice would imagine rowing a pinnace down the canals. A GON-dola is the only way to go.”

Mnemonic: You zip around Venice in a pinnace.

Big sentence:

To assuage and occlude the enigmatic leviathan and mitigate its noisome behavior, the erudite sailor in the pinnace, for some opaque reason, borrowed a strategy from the Moby Dick motif.