Word Challenge: Your Creativity is My Motivation Continued

ANCILLARY	serving as an aid
TYRO	new to an activity
INCIPIENT	only partly in existence
ASPERITY	harshness of manner
MORDACIOUS	caustic, biting

Lets hear 'em!

Daily Dose of Diction

Todays Formidable Five:

1. Dearth- lack; scarcity

2. Inveigle-to win over by deception, coaxing, flattery

3. cogent- convincing

4. specious- seeming true, but actually being fallacious; misleadingly attractive; plausible but false

5. guy- (noun or verb) a rope, cord or cable attached to something as a brace or guide; to steady or reinforce using a guy.

Please enjoy these words in any creative or non-creative fashion. The ultimate goal, as selfish as it sounds, is to improve my GRE score. The personal benefits to your contribution are innumerable, not excluding tax-exempt status for your gift of time. Please contact my accountant for tax forms.

For you Wordies (like foodies, people who love words)

diligent; persistent; hard-working

sedulous

calm; sluggish; unemotional

phlegmatic

exhibiting a fawning attentiveness

obsequious

causing drowsiness; tending to induce sleep

soporific

disgrace; contempt; scorn

opprobrium

Vocabulary Respite

A passive activity for recovery purposes:

Vocabulary Quiz: Matching game. Drag the word to match the definition.

Keep those wheels greased.

The picture is just for pure goodness.

Day 5 of the Vocabulary Challenge that has become the Platform for Creative Writing Exhibitionists

Here are the words that must be included in your "piece":

1. spurious- (adj.) lacking authenticity or validity; false; counterfeit

2. mendacity- (n.) the condition of being untruthful

3. obfuscate- (v.) to deliberately make obscure; to make confusing

4. trenchant- (adj.) sharply perceptive; keen; penetrating

5. inimical- (adj.) damaging; harmful; injurious

Again, for your reading pleasure, click on the comments link to read the daily entries. Damn, my GRE score had better improve!

Day 4 Vocab Challenge: 3 weeks to GRE.

5 more:

antediluvian (adj.) ancient; outmoded (literally, before the flood)

Cadge (v.)to get something by taking advantage of someone

irascible (adj.) prone to outburts of temper; easily angered

occlude (v.) to close or obstruct

peccadillo (n.) small sin or fault

Make sure to read the comments after each day's challenge. There are several great entries. Lots of creativity going on at the Juniper Tree these days.

Day 3 Vocab Challenge

Okay. So I didn't give you much time before bed, but it is the Sabbath. If you get a chance, here are 5 new words. Create at your own risk!

1. Rapacious	Greedy, ravenous.
2. Venal	Open to bribery; mercenary.

3.Ineffable

Incapable of being expressed; indescribable or unutterable.

4. Penury

Extreme poverty.

5. Taciturn

Habitually untalkative.

Choose your verbs wisely.

25 Day Vocabulary Challenge Continues: Day 2

Wow! I have some prolific friends! Please see yesterdays contributions by clicking on the comment link.

Thanks for facing this challenge with me. I wouldn't last two days without you! Too bad the $150 registration fee for the GRE isn't quite motivation enough. But, it really does underline my ideology in regards to community: we need it like water.

So, with no further ado:

Todays 5 Graduate Record Exam Vocabulary Challenge:

1. diurnal (adj.)-existing during the day

2. dyseptic (adj.)-suffering from indigestion; gloomy and irritable

3. effrontery (n.)- impudent boldness; audacity

4. equivocate (v.)- to use expressions of double meaning in order to mislead

5. adumbrate (v.)- to foreshadow vaguely or intimate; to suggest or outline sketchily; to obscure or overshadow

Again, please share an ode, an editorial, or any other genre of writing that uses these words in context (even 5 disconnected sentences). Why? Cause you love to exercise your mind and you love to help me study for the GRE!

Word Challenge: Your Creativity is My Motivation

There's really nothing like studying for the GRE to humble me. I think my first practice math score put me at 3rd grade mastery level. I have a little more than 3 weeks left to study, and I am avoiding it every chance I get.

For motivation, I thought I would put a little activity out there for my faithful readers to participate in. I can only think of something for the verbal portion, but if someone can come up with an inspiring algebra/geometry (TOTAL oxymoron) exercise, I'd be all ears.

Okay, here its is: Each day, for the next 25 days, I will list 5 GRE vocabulary words (and their definitions.). The best paragraph, poem (please, no haikus...that will absolutely not help one iota), or written piece of any kind that demonstrates understanding and creativity -and, ultimately, cements the definition of the words in my mind-, wins! So, you don't really win anything tangible, but the intangibles are limitless!

Todays words are:

truculent-(adj.) fierce and cruel, eager to fight

obdurate-(adj.) unyielding; hard-hearted; intractable

aver- (v.) to state as fact; to declare or assert

probity- (n.) adherence to highest principles; complete and confirmed integrity; uprightness

paean- (n.) a song or hymn of praise and thanksgiving

Hope you have fun with these words! And, don't forget, this is for a good cause. Be moved by Luther's charge: In all things charity!

Post Away!