Vocabulary Mnemonics

February 1, 2025

Matt’s words

Ennui (on wee) (n): boredom

But rather than play up the murders’ shocking gore or give momentum to Lois’ investigation, the first few episodes are content to linger in the investigator’s ennui.—Alison Herman, Variety, 4 Oct. 2024

The ennui of security guard duties…

Mnemonic: Think “ennui” is “non-whee!”

Debutante (n): a young woman making here societal debut; happens when the girl “comes of age”

The 2024 debutantes, including Lucia Ponti on the front row, center… —Emma Bocchi, Vogue, 6 Dec. 2024

The debutante’s ball…

Mnemonic: The beginning of the word has “debut.”

Lurid (adj): sensational; vivid

The lurid details of their trysts…

Can also describe the color orange (a loud color). Lurid pants…

Mnemonic: You try to lure someone into your story by giving lurid details

Picayune (n and adj): Small and of little importance; something trivial

I first heard this word when hearing about The Times Picayune newspaper in New Orleans. It’s named after a coin of little value.

Observers believe a flood of intervention into D.C. laws — from the sweeping to the picayune— is more likely than a total revocation of home rule (though there is a longshot bill for that, too). —Cuneyt Dil, Axios, 18 July 2024

Mnemonic: Kind of sounds like “picky you.”

Sycophant (n): self-seeking follower; flatterer; tries to please to gain an advantage 

And swirling all around were coteries of agents, managers, execs, and moneymen; publicists and journalists, gawkers and sycophants. —Daniel Fierman et al., Entertainment Weekly, 9 June 2006

If managers claim they want honest opinions, why do they always hire sycophants?

Mnemonic: Pull “psycho fan” out of the word – someone who will be a maniacal fan.

Dr. Mom’s words

Litotes (lye’ tuh teez) (n): ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary

You won’t be sorry you let me come with you.

It’s not uncommon for people to faint the first time they watch a surgery.

Not a bad deal or No small thing.

Mnemonic: Think of a “light tease” of someone. It’s just a simple, common (thus, light) thing to do, but it also teases the other person to think twice. For example, when someone does something really well, you say, “That’s not terrible, I have to say.” You’ve played with them a little, or made them think. You teased them.

Conch (n): a tropical marine mollusk with a spiral shell that may bear long projections and have a flared lip

OR a sometimes disparaging appellation for a native of the Florida Keys.

Dolphins in Shark Bay have also been seen picking up conchshells with fish inside them. —Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover Magazine, 18 Nov. 2022

Mnemonic: If you were conked on the head by a Conch wielding a conch, you’d feel it. It’s very spiky. You’d know you’re in Conch nation.

Dolorous (adj): causing, marked by, or expressing misery or grief

She told such dolorous stories during our lunches that I left utterly depressed.

Mnemonic: From the Latin “dolor,” which means “pain” or “grief.” Imagine your dull cousin Dolores. It’s painful to spend time with her because she is so drab, dull, uninteresting. You end up grieving that you are there with her!

Chimera (n): an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts; in Homer’s Iliad, it was a fire-breathing dragon with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. Also, an illusion or fabrication of the mind, especially an unrealizable dream; also, a hybrid created through fusion of a sperm and an egg from different species

A fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayer. John Donne

Economic stability in that country is a chimera.

Mnemonic #1: You  look in the “mera” (mirror), and “Chi-yi-yi!” what you see seems like a fabrication of the mind. You can hardly imagine it (for better or worse).

Aperture (n):an opening, as a hole, gap, crack, slit; also, in photography, the opening in a lens that admits the light

The spelunker entered the cave through a narrow aperature.

The Sharp shooter has a relatively fast aperture, producing clean shots at the wide or 85mm telephoto (3X zoom) focal length. —Ben Sin, Forbes, 3 Jan. 2025

Mnemonic: Apert comes from “apart,” to open.

COLOSSAL COMPILATION:

Though it may be a chimera, I nonetheless hold out hope that my dolorous, sycophantic neighbor Dora, the one who tells lurid stories filled with sarcastic litotes that focus on picayune flaws in others and views life through a negative aperture of ennui, may return to being the unabashed Conch and delightful debutante I once knew.