Vocabulary Mnemonics

Oct. 11, 2025

Matt’s words

Brio (n): vivacity; vigor; verve; being active

Grandpa will always be remembered for his enthusiasm and brio.

Mnemonic: Think of your brioche bread coming alive. This brioche has brio.

Mnemonic 2: Brio is what makes your brioche bread rise.

Potable (adj): drinkable water; as a noun, it means something you drink, as in potent potables.

On the hike we couldn’t find any potable water.

Mnemonic: Potable is close to “portable,” which is what you’d only do with drinking water.

Proscribe (v): to forbid or condemn

Mourning, which would last at least two years for a widow, proscribed any jewelry except pearls and black onyx, with the only gold permitted being the wedding ring. —Judith Martin, Mercury News, 18 Aug. 2025

Because supporting terror organizations is also proscribed, protesters aligned with Palestine Action have since been targeted. —Christian Edwards, CNN Money, 3 Sep. 2025

Mnemonic: Prescribe is “do this.” Proscribe is “don’t do this” (hat tip Merriam-Webster)

Errantry (n): wandering; roving in search of chivalrous adventure

The prologue gives us Don Quixote in his old-fashioned study/bedroom dreaming of knight errantry. —Jeffrey Gantz, BostonGlobe.com, 17 Mar. 2023

Mnemonic: Running errands is just running around. Errantry is running around that involves trees, which is what a knight would do going through the forest

Hugger-mugger (n): secrecy; confusion; muddle

The hugger-mugger style of the attack left many in the bank wondering if this was a robbery or something else.

Mnemonic: Think of a mugger who’s also a hugger. It’s kind of confusing.

Dr. Mom’s words

Gardyloo (interjection): used in Edinburgh as a warning cry during a time when it was customary to defenestrate slops or the contents of chamberpots into the streets below.

The peasant didn’t dodge quickly enough when hearing “Gardyloo!” and was subsequently covered with a disgusting mess.

Mnemonic: “Be on guard…the loo!”

Sally (v): to leap out or burst forth suddenly; to set out, depart (often followed by “forth”)

          (n): a verbal outburst or quip, as well as a venture or excursion, usually off the beaten track; a jaunt

Prices of stocks and bonds, along with long-term interest rates, have oscillated up and down in response to the daily verbal salliesfrom the White House. —Edward Lotterman, Twin Cities, 27 Apr. 2025

He embodied the trope of the small-town kid eagerly sallying forth to seek a new life in the big city.

Mnemonic: Think of Sally sailing forth with the wind at her back. It’s as if she’s leaping forward. Also, you can think of words sailing forth out of your mouth in the form of an outburst or an impulsive remark.

Phoneme (n): the smallest unit of sound in a language that changes a word’s meaning; e.g., the /p/ in “pat” versus the /b/ in “bat.” They don’t, however, have meaning on their own.

The sounds represented by “k” and “g” are different phonemes, but they feel almost the same in your mouth.

Mnemonic: When kids learn to read by the phonics method, you sound out words, as in “c-a-t.” They are voicing the phonemes without realizing it.

Morpheme (n): the smallest unit of meaning or grammatical function in a language; e.g., “un-“, “happy”, “-ness” in “unhappiness.” They are meaningful linguistic units; they can be whole words or parts of words, like suffixes and prefixes.

Mnemonic: Morphemes are phonemes that have morphed into something meaningful.

Shambolic (adj): obviously disorganized or confused

…a shambolic system of public transportation…

England were 2-0 down on the night after a shambolicdisplay saw Kosovare Asllani put Sweden ahead in the first two minutes before Stina Blackstenius doubled their lead just over 20 minutes later. —Oli Gamp, New York Times, 22 July 2025

Mnemonic: A shambolic area has everything in a shambles.

COLOSSAL COMPILATION:

The flighty young dwarf dreamt of sallying forth with brio and errantry to a shambolic place, where inhabitants shouted “Gardyloo” but threw only potable water, took delight in discovering new phonemes and morphemes, and proscribed public hugger-muggery more than once per week.