Vocabulary Mnemonics

August 31, 2024

Matt’s words

Surreptitious (adj): stealth; done, made, or acquiared by stealth; secret

He surreptitiously slipped the money into his pocket.

His surreptitious acts have finally been brought to light.

Mnemonic: Picture a thief climbing up the side of the building. If a police officer saw him, he might shout, “Sir, up there!” which sounds like the beginning of surreptitious.

Ephemeral (adj): lasting for a very short time; momentary, fleeting

Florida’s ephemeral winters make it a popular destination for retirees.

Mnemonic: Keeping in mind the idea of “short time,” shorten the word itself to “F-M.” “I have an F-M problem,” or “My F-M needs are not being met.” Someone could ask, why don’t you just say ephemeral, and you reply that it is too long. Shorten it to F-M, in keeping with the meaning of the word.

Nonplussed (adj): confused, baffled, perplexed, puzzled (People think it means unexcited about something, but that’s incorrect.)

The teacher was nonplussed when her top student couldn’t do basic math.

I was nonplussed to see a cat riding a bicycle.

Mnemonic: Imagine you take a math test. The teacher gives you a test which includes non-plusses. You’re used to adding, but here’s you’re seeing “non-plusses” and are very confused. All these non-plusses are leaving you nonplussed.

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

AI is an inchoate technology; the U.S. was an inchoate country in its early days.

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

Mnemonic: Picture the word, and notice “inch” at the beginning. Think about an inch being just a little distance, so when you’re an inch into something you’re right at the beginning.

Sangfroid (n): French word for composure, coolness, or ice water in the veins

During the shootout, the goalie showed remarkable sangfroid.

As shots were fired around him, the general demonstrated amazing sangfroid.

Mnemonic: “Sangre” and “sang” mean blood in Spanish and French, respectively, as with “frio” and “froid” meaning cold. Put those together to get ice water in the veins.

Dr. Mom’s words

Obstreperous (adj):resisting control or restraint; noisy, boisterous, unruly

The obstreperous students were so disruptive they had to be removed from the library.

Mnemonic: Notice “strep” in the word. If you’re behaving in an unruly, noisy way, you might get a sore throat, or strep. (Not really, but you can imagine it.) Similarly, too much yelling at those obstreperous students could cause the teacher to get “strep” throat.

Embellish (v):to adorn, as if by ornamentation; add detail or bling to something; to add details to a story

Mom embellished her ball gown by adding sequins and feathers, perhaps unwisely stepping over the line into gaudiness.

Mnemonic: Think about “bell” in the middle of the word. Imagine an enormous number of bells, a zillion of them. You’ve really blinged up a tree so it is adorned in an exaggerated way. It’s embellished with lots of bells.

Screeve (n): to write a letter begging for something; to draw on the pavement with chalk in such a way as to obtain charity from others

Screeving outside the entrance to the amusement park usually led to at least a few donations.

Mnemonic: Make a combination of “screed,” a written piece of information, a rant, and “peeved,” that feeling of being upset about something. So you write a begging letter, a screeve, a begging screed to address your peeve.

Pinnace (n): a small boat propelled by oars or sails (no engine or motor), carried aboard a larger vessel like a tender on a cruise ship

No self-respecting gondoliere in Venice would imagine rowing a pinnace down the canal; a gondola is the only way to go.

Mnemonic: Think of zipping around Venice in a pinnace. (Assuming you’re not a gondoliere, you don’t have a problem with this!)

Enervate (v): to deprive of force or strength; to weaken or destroy the vigor of something

The Marines hoped to enervate the enemy by relentlessly pummeling him on every side.

Mnemonic: When you first see enervate, you might see that it begins like “energy” and think about power or strength. But “Vate!” It’s not like energy; it’s the exact opposite. Something is weakened, not strengthened or full of energy.

BIG sentence:

Fighting a nonplussed, enervating feeling over the inchoate version of the non-embellished screeve that I was surreptitiously roped into writing about an obstreperous pinnace captain summoned all the sangfroid I could muster such that the emotion was ephemeral, thankfully.