Vocabulary Mnemonics

Nov. 29, 2025

Matt’s words

Buoyant (adj): capable of floating; also, light hearted, cheerful, gay

The buoyant spirit is also aided by Karla Grotting’s effervescent choreography, the Seuss-faithful designs of Tom Butsch and David Kay Mickelsen, and a nine-piece pit orchestra that enhances the moods with some effective musical underpinning beneath the dialogue. — Rob Hubbard, Twin Cities, 8 Nov. 2025

Mnemonic: A buoy is a floating object. It “stays up” out of the water. Metaphorically, being buoyant is being “up” as in cheerful and happy.

Cavil (v): to raise trivial and frivolous objection

The bride caviled about every word in the wedding invitation.

Mnemonic: Think of a “cavil gavel.” The judge usually pounds a gavel when there are objections in the courtroom, and he/she raises a cavil gavel when those objections are frivolous or trivial.

Cheeseparing (n): miserly, economizing; cheap

Henry IV may recall how the portly Falstaff remembered the thin Justice Howe “like a man made after supper of a cheeseparing.” –Merriam-Webster

Mnemonic: Think of someone who is so miserly he consumes every last bit of the “cheese parings,” or remaining bits when using cheese.

Clement (adj): mild, as in the weather

We’re hoping for some inclement weather on our vacation.

Mnemonic: Inclement weather is blustery, story, etc., so clement weather is the opposite.

Desiderata (n): something desired as essential

The Trump administration has sought nothing less than a reformulation of U.S. policy on a two-state solution, bringing it in line with Netanyahu’s desiderata. —Foreign Affairs magazine

Mnemonic: The word begins like “desire” and ends with “ata,” like the plural ending of “data.”

Mom’s words:

Ichthyology: (n) the study of fishes

Modern ichthyology considers this fish to be a species complex, i.e., that it consists of several closely related species. Collins Dictionary

Mnemonic: You know “theology” is related to one’s belief system.  “Ich” sounds a little like “fish,” so one who studies fish would definitely have a “fish-theology.”

Efface (v): to eliminate or make indistinct by wearing away the surface; to cause to vanish

In museums, you often see coins with dates effaced by wear.

Mnemonic: If you had a large E painted on your face, you’d want it off. You’d erase it.

Naiad (n): “nay-id” any of the nymphs in classical mythology living in and giving life to lakes, rivers, springs, and fountains; also, an aquatic insect nymph, as of a dragonfly, damselfly, or mayfly.

The lovely Arcadia region, lush with cypress, poplar, and olive groves, bears traces of the virgin wilderness where nymphs, naiads, and the horned god Pan once frolicked. —Thomas Linkel, National Geographic, 18 July 2019

Mnemonic: Just remember the famous swimmer Diana Nyad. She lived in the water, too, like the naiads that frolic in real waters all around us.

Meldrop (n): a drop of mucus at the end of one’s nose

But looke againe on the other part of snotty nosd Gentlemen, with their drouping mustaches covering their mouth, and becomes a harbroy to meldrops, and a sucking sponge to al the watery distillations of the head…  (he will not spare but drinke with any bodie whatsoever, and after hee hath washed his filthie beard in the cup, and drawing out dropping, he wil suck the haire so hartily with his vnder lip).
—Simion Grahame, The Anatomie of Humors, 1609

Mnemonic: Picture a “smell drop.” You have this drop of mucus on the end of your nose that you can’t stop smelling because it’s right there.

Wrest pin (n): a pin in a stringed instrument (think harp or piano) around which the ends of the strings are coiled; used in tuning

The trade was supplied with Pianoforte wire, wrest pins, hoppers, keys, felts, and every requisite for repairing Pianofortes.
—The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 Feb. 1853

Mnemonic: A wrest pin is wresting the wire away from where it is very forcefully.

COLOSSAL COMPILATION:

The book was a desideratum, a literary wrest pin about two ichthyologists, both of whom were captivated by stories of buoyant, clement-weather naiads with nary a meldrop between them, but one of whom was so cheeseparing that he caviled vehemently about the effacing of even worthless coins.