Vocabulary Mnemonics

June 9, 2024

Matt’s words

Sclerotic: (adj) grown rigid or unresponsive with age (physiologically); unable to adapt or compromise

“The sclerotic economy refused to grow,” or “The sclerotic nature of politics…”

Mnemonic: Think of someone who has MS (multiple sclerosis). They have a hard time moving around due to stiffening of their bodies.

Mountebank: (n) a charlatan or person who deceives others, usually for money

“There is nothing a dedicated mountebank won’t promote.”

“The doctor was nothing but a mountebank, pushing pills on the elderly.”

Mnemonic: Think of a mountain bank where outlaws go hide their money.

Inchoate: (adj) something is just getting started, not fully formed; in the early stages

“The inchoate democracy,” or “AI is an inchoate technology.”

“She had an inchoate suspicion that her husband was having an affair.”

Mnemonic: Picture the word. It looks like “inch,” even though it’s not pronounced that way. Think of just going an inch into something.

Deracinate: (v) to uproot or to remove or separate from a native environment or culture

“The Nazi invasion deracinated many villages,” or “The refugees were a deracinated people.”

Mnemonic: “De-race.” You have a race of people who are uprooted. It can be hard to keep their identity. “Derace…” could sound like “erase.”

Pandiculation: (n) the act of stretching and yawning, usually when you wake up

“After a long pandiculation, she was ready to get up,” or “As the lecture droned on, the classes pandiculations grew more frequent.”

Mnemonic: Break the word down, pan-dic-u-la-tion, and focus on the “dic” part. Think of famous Dick Clark, the one who would watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve. He’s getting older, and he lays down on a “pan” and does this big stretch and yawn to keep going for the night.

Dr. Mom’s words

Bellicose (adj): inclined to fight, having a disposition to fight

Sentence: “Bellicose rhetoric between hostile nations is likely to lead to military action.”     

Mnemonic: Where does belligerent Bellicose Billy, the bully, like to belt his opponents? In the belly and nose.

Root word “bellum” means war, so antebellum means before the war.   

Paragon (n): a person or thing regarded as a perfect example of a particular quality.

Sentence: “Sir Galahad is often depicted as a knight of the highest character, a paragon of virtue.”

Mnemonic: You have a “pair of gons.” One is the perfect embodiment of what a gon should be, and the other is measured against it, trying to achieve the standard.

Accrete (v): to gradually increase by accumulation; to coalesce

Sentence: “The wax on the candle accreted until, I swear, it looked just like Aristotle!”

Mnemonic: Crete is a Greek island, one of 29,372! You can’t possibly remember all their names, so you say, “I have a Crete here, a Crete there, a Crete, Crete, Crete, everywhere! You keep accumulating Cretes; the number gradually increases until you accrete all the Cretes.

Banal (adj): lacking in qualities that make for spirit and character; dull, trite, uninspiring

Sentence: “The banality of the sitcom makes it unwatchable; it’s way too vanilla and cliche.”

Mnemonic: Think of “ban Al.” You decide to ban Al because his every utterance is b-a-n-a-l, boring and numbing and lame.

Acronym (n): a word formed by the initial letter(s) of each part of a phrase that is pronounceable as a word. (An initialism is the same thing but unpronounceable, such as FBI.

Sentence: “Thank goodness there’s an acronym for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, SCUBA. I’d never remember what the sequence otherwise.”

Mnemonic: Acronyms can reinforce one’s new young memories

BIG sentence:

“The bellicose, sclerotic leader, a paragon of a mountebank, became increasingly tyrannical as he deracinated his subjects from their homes and, adding insult to injury, drove them to pandiculation with his banal speeches in which he recited an accretion of inchoate acronyms just to torture them.”