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| Explanation of pedant (noun) meticulous person; fastidious person; strict person; fussy person Sample of pedant One final note from a pedant: a lethal misprint on page 50 has ensured that a generation of students will be informing their tutors that the Socinians were nationalists, rather than rationalists.
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| Explanation of countenance (noun) face; appearance; features; encouragement; support Sample of countenance A slight flush had crept over Albert's unlovely countenance, but still his eyes remained lowered. The walk that defeated me on the way up seemed to take about five minutes coming down, and despite the forced cheery countenance of my friends, I knew I had ruined the day.
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| Explanation of predilection (noun) favorable opinion arrived at beforehand; affinity; liking; fondness Sample of predilection The judges clearly had a predilection for this style, the Second Empire mode as Hitchcock calls it, as out of the total of fourteen prizes for the offices, seven were awarded to designs in this style, including the first and second in each class.
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| Explanation of pseudonym (noun) fictitious name; pen name Sample of pseudonym I wrote three books under this pseudonym before I ran out of steam and out of publishers.
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| Explanation of sagacity (noun) shrewdness; cleverness; wisdom Sample of sagacity Yet it seems inconceivable to be able to do so without investing every creature from worms and viruses, which follow very precise cycles of action, to the higher mammals, with the sagacity and foresight of seasoned desert nomads or intrepid Viking explorers.
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| Explanation of hoax (noun) trick or deception; a practical joke Sample of hoax Mention of the press's glee at the humiliation of the investigators behind this summer's high-profile surveillance project Operation Blackbird, who were fooled by an obvious hoax, brings out Tarr's own nascent conspiracy theory.
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| Explanation of anachronism (noun) something out of place in time (e.g. an airplane in 1492); something that is obsolete or out of date Sample of anachronism The editor recognized an anachronism in the manuscript where the character from the 1500s boarded an airplane. He realized that the film about cavemen contained an anachronism when he saw a jet cut across the horizon during a hunting scene.
Example of anachronism Dictionary.com · Cambridge Dictionaries · Merriam-Webster · Onelook.com · Meaning of anachronism |
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| Explanation of demeanor (noun) behavior; bearing; conduct; appearance Sample of demeanor Dalglish wore the demeanor of a man who had just discovered the cat had been sick in his slippers.
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| Explanation of jargon (noun) incoherent speech; specialized vocabulary in certain fields Sample of jargon The conversation was nothing but jargon, but then the speakers were nothing but cartoon characters who specialize in an oddly bracing form of gibberish. The engineers' jargon is indecipherable to a lay person.
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| Explanation of prelude (noun) introduction; forerunner Sample of prelude Medical supplies are scarce, but as a prelude to this week's talks PNG allowed some to come in from Australia. Could this be a prelude to a trade war even more destructive of world prosperity than a military war?
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