Barron's 1100 Words You Need to Know (MCQ Test + PDF) Week 23 - Day 1
NEW WORDS
- heterogeneous [het´ ər ə jē´ nē əs]
“The family is heterogeneous enough to make quite a good party in itself.” Rose Macauley, The World My Wilderness
- gamut [gam´ ət]
“At one end of the gamut of slang’s humor is what Oliver Wendell Holmes called ‘the blank checks of a bankrupt mind.’” Bergen Evans, “Now Everyone is Hip About Slang”
- perspicacious [pėr´ spə kā´ shəs]
“Nobody deserves the Lifetime Achievement Award more than Army Archerd, who is not only perspicacious, but a gentleman as well.” Liz Smith, Newsday, 6/2/99
- analogous [ə nal´ ə gəs]
“Not with the brightness natural to cheerful youth, but with uncertain, eager, doubtful flashes, analogous to the changes on a blind face groping its way.” Charles Dickens, Hard Times
- maladjusted [mal´ ə jus´ tid]
“The natural assumption is that the teenage killers at Columbine H.S. were maladjusted youngsters but some neighbors denied that.” Letters to the Editor, Washington Post, 7/14/99
TODAY’S IDIOM
the distaff side—women (distaff was a staff used in spinning)
The men had brandy on the porch, while the distaff side gathered to gossip in the kitchen.
