Vocabulary

Vocabulary

#flashcards

• we watch these wavering, ever more ghostly, anonymous beings dissolve before our eyes
  • Wavering (adjective)

Definitions

• Moving unsteadily back and forth; fluctuating or vacillating in decision or movement.
  • 💡 "His wavering attention made it difficult to concentrate on the task."
• Appearing weak, flickering, or unsteady, like a faint light or image.
  • 💡 "The candle's wavering flame cast eerie shadows on the wall."

Related Forms

• Waver (verb): to move back and forth; to be indecisive.
• Unwavering (adjective): not wavering; steady or resolute.

Etymology

"Wavering" originates from the Old English word "wafian," meaning "to wave or flutter." The sense of indecision or fluctuation in this context evolved later.

Similar Words, Phrases

• Hesitant, indecisive, vacillating, fluctuating.

• And yet the morning after I defended my dissertation (or maybe that same night), my first reaction was that I had lost something priceless, something I’d never get back: my freedom

• rather farcical system that exists solely to replicate itself and yet manages to fail more than 95 per cent of the time

• I saw the committee’s report, which was excellent, practically dithyrambic

Dithyrambic (adjective)

Definitions

• Pertaining to, resembling, or characteristic of a dithyramb; wildly enthusiastic, passionate, or rhapsodic.
  • 💡 "His speech was dithyrambic, full of emotional fervor and praise."

Related Forms

• Dithyramb (noun): a wild, passionate, or enthusiastic piece of writing, speech, or music.
• Dithyrambically (adverb): in a manner that is wildly enthusiastic or fervent.

Etymology

The term "dithyrambic" comes from the Greek "dithyrambos," referring to a hymn sung in ancient Greece in honor of the god Dionysus, characterized by its enthusiastic and passionate style.

Similar Words, Phrases

• Eulogistic, laudatory, rhapsodic, enthusiastic.

• one of the many social occasions, so common in student life, that disappear when we enter the workforce, plunging most of us into a stupefying and radical solitude

Stupefying (adjective)

Definitions

• Astonishing or shocking to the point of causing temporary loss of awareness or consciousness.
  • 💡 "The magician's stupefying trick left the audience in awe."
• So dull or monotonous as to cause mental numbness or boredom.
  • 💡 "The endless, stupefying paperwork made the job feel even more tedious."

Related Forms

• Stupefy (verb): to stun, shock, or overwhelm.
• Stupefaction (noun): the state of being stupefied.

Etymology

Derived from the Latin "stupēfacere," which is a combination of "stupēre" meaning "to be stunned" and "facere" meaning "to make."

Similar Words, Phrases

• Dumbfounding, numbing, boring, soporific.

• were supposed to succeed one another until they ended, like an apotheosis, with the last relationship, this one conjugal and final, which would lead, via the begetting of children, to the formation of a family

Conjugal (adjective)

Definitions

• Pertaining to marriage or the relationship between spouses.
  • 💡 "They attended a retreat to strengthen their conjugal bond."

Related Forms

• Conjugality (noun): the state of being related to marriage.
• Conjugally (adverb): in a manner related to marriage.

Etymology

"Conjugal" comes from the Latin "conjugal," which is derived from "conjux," meaning "spouse."

Begetting (verb)

Definitions

• To father or bring into existence by reproduction.
  • 💡 "In many cultures, begetting children is seen as an important part of life."
• To cause; to bring about.
  • 💡 "His revolutionary ideas were instrumental in begetting a new movement in art."

Related Forms

• Beget (verb): to give birth to; to create or produce.
• Begotten (past participle): having been given birth to.

Etymology

"Begetting" comes from the Old English "begietan," which means "to get, obtain, acquire."

Similar Words, Phrases

• Producing, generating, siring, fathering.

• it was painfully clear that she had been through the wringer

Wringer (noun)

Definitions

• A machine with rollers for squeezing water from wet clothes, mops, or other articles.
  • 💡 "My grandmother used to use a wringer to dry clothes."
• A difficult or stressful situation or experience that is very demanding or exhausting.
  • 💡 "After the intense interview, he felt like he had been through the wringer."

Related Forms

• Wring (verb): to squeeze or twist something to force liquid out of it.
• Wrung (past tense of wring): to have squeezed or twisted.

Etymology

The term "wringer" comes from the Old English "wringan," meaning "to press, bend, or twist." It's related to the action of squeezing out water or liquid.

Similar Words, Phrases

• Ordeal, trial, hardship, gauntlet.

Her buttocks and breasts were no more than sacks of emaciated flesh, shrunken, flabby and pendulous

Emaciated (adjective)

Definitions

• Abnormally thin or weak, especially because of illness or a lack of food.
  • 💡 "The patient appeared emaciated after months of battling the disease."

Related Forms

• Emaciate (verb): to become extremely thin or weak.
• Emaciation (noun): the state of being abnormally thin or weak.

Etymology

Derived from the Latin "emaciatus," past participle of "emaciare," meaning "to make lean, waste away."

Shrunken (adjective)

Definitions

• Reduced in size; diminished or contracted, often as a result of drying, loss of moisture, or aging.
  • 💡 "The shrunken sweater no longer fit after it was accidentally washed in hot water."
• Appearing reduced in size or vigor.
  • 💡 "His face looked shrunken and tired."

Related Forms

• Shrink (verb): to become or make smaller in size.
• Shrunkenness (noun): the state of being shrunken.

Etymology

"Shrunken" is the past participle of "shrink," which comes from the Old English "scrincan," meaning "to draw in, shrivel up."

Flabby (adjective)

Definitions

• Soft, loose, and fleshy, often due to a lack of muscle tone.
  • 💡 "After months of neglecting his workout routine, his muscles turned flabby."

Related Forms

• Flabbiness (noun): the state of being flabby.
• Flabbily (adverb): in a flabby manner.

Etymology

"Flabby" is derived from the Middle English word "flabbe," meaning "something that hangs loose," and is possibly of imitative origin, reflecting the sound of something soft and fleshy being shaken.

Pendulous (adjective)

Definitions

• Hanging down loosely and swinging freely.
  • 💡 "The branches of the willow tree were pendulous over the stream."

Related Forms

• Pendulously (adverb): in a manner that hangs down loosely or swings.
• Pendulousness (noun): the quality of being pendulous.

Etymology

"Pendulous" comes from the Latin "pendulus," meaning "hanging down," which is derived from "pendere," meaning "to hang."

Similar Words, Phrases

• Drooping, sagging, dangling, limp.

If I broke up with these girls, it was more out of a sense of discouragement, of lassitude: I just didn’t feel up to maintaining a relationship, and I didn’t want to disappoint them or lead them on.

• lassitude

  • physical or mental tiredness: Shareholders are blaming the company's problems on the lassitude of the CEO

• Lassitude

  • physical or mental tiredness
  • Shareholders are blaming the company's problems on the lassitude of the CEO

• Two young women, of varying race, would alert him to the oversight and, this accomplished, would stop at nothing until they liberated his organ from its temporary abode

• Chantal Delouze, the president of Paris III, had always struck me as a dyed-in-the-wool lesbian, but I could have been wrong, or maybe she bore a hatred towards men that expressed itself in fantasies of domination

• nothing less than a political shift in the leadership of the French university system could ever rouse him

• Had he considered throwing his hat into the ring with a little anti-Zionist agitation?

• he remained the same socialist who had attended Zola’s soirees in Medan as a young man

• indifference with which society, quite reasonably, greeted his imprecations

• two North African girls seated together in the back left row, both in black burkas, their eyes protected by mesh. They looked pretty irreproachable to me

• but that phrase the balance of power always sounds impressive in conversation, as if you’d been reading Clausewitz and Sun Tzu

• We were about to hear the belchings of Nirvana

• My articles were clear, incisive and brilliant

• He knew how to shrug off an insult, how to settle a fight when it started turning into a brawl, and how to give the whole proceeding a dignified, democratic veneer

• François has always detested Bloy

• and I confess that all his blather about the spiritual and the sacred leaves me cold

• sexual indiscretions were pretty much the only things my colleagues and I ever talked about

• Place de Clichy was completely enveloped in flames

• For some reason, I’d pictured my young colleague in pared-down, minimalist surroundings,

• one of the frock-coated grandees who had commissioned the painting

• people stick with whatever metaphysical system they grow up in

• easily eclipsing the ashen Renaud Dély, whose Observateur had failed to predict the upset

• Or at any rate, they were more checked out than ever

• It was the first time, in all the ten years I’d known her, that I realised she had once been a woman – that she still was a woman, in a sense – and that once upon a time a man had felt desire for this squat, stumpy, almost frog-like little thing

• The same goes for security, and what’s more the Muslims can actually bring order to the banlieues

• You think the Socialists will give in?

  • vs give up

• The Sorbonne would be a huge coup – Saudi Arabia is ready with an almost unlimited endowment

• For the last twenty years he has been unwaveringly pro-Muslim

• He shook his head, as if incredulous

• Yes, that’s what they all say,’ he sneered

• Lempereur -> He was a kind of éminence grise, a political leader, in a clandestine movement. Everyone knows there are girls who go for that kind of thing.

• All of a sudden, as I stood in front of the Rapid’Jus (whose concoctions kept getting more and more complicated: they had coconut–passion fruit–guava, mango–lychee–guarana, and a dozen other flavors, all with bewildering vitamin ingredients)

• The morel soufflé was a lost cause

• I was pondering the question when my mobile phone rang, and oddly enough it was her. I stammered in surprise, I’d never actually expected her to call

• series of petty annoyances – clogged sink, slow Wi-Fi, points on my licence, dishonest cleaning woman, mistakes in my tax return

• Our lips and tongues met in a long, voluptuous kiss

• she was naked under her skirt, and it was so short that I could see the outline of her hairless, unabashed pussy

• They’d take my credits. But what am I going to do in Israel? I don’t speak a word of Hebrew. France is my country. -> Myriam

• Myriam’s regular breathing added a slow accompaniment to the discreet gurgle of percolation

• Ben Abbes had the kindly look of a neighbourhood grocer – which is just what his father had been, a Tunisian neighbourhood grocer

• Marine Le Pen counter-attacked at twelve thirty. Brisk and blow-dried, shot from below, with the Hôtel de Ville rising up behind her, she was almost beautiful

• As her father was uncorking a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, it suddenly occurred to me that for the last twenty years Myriam had had dinner with her parents every night, that she helped her little brother with his homework, that she took her little sister shopping for clothes

• In the old days, people lived as families, that is to say, they reproduced, slogged through a few more years, long enough to see their children reach adulthood, then went to meet their Maker

• I also realised, with a kind of incredulous stupefaction, that the TV was still on, still tuned to iTélé

• The idea that political history/history could play any part in my own life was still disconcerting, and slightly repellent

• I didn’t have the heart to disabuse her, but that struck me as improbable in the extreme.

• I even found the walking shoes – American, high-tech, never worn – that I’d bought a year before, when I thought I might take up hiking

• François Hollande had already voted in his ‘fiefdom’ of Corrèze

• That’s the moment when society takes a deep breath and decongests

• two young North Africans, dressed in the typical uniform of the banlieues

• I tried the radio again, just in case, but still there was nothing – only the crackle of static

• At the rear of the hotel was a terrace surrounded by rose bushes, with small round tables and wrought-iron chairs, where they must have served breakfast.

• One of the houses was really big, practically a palace, with groin-vaulted arcades and turrets

• It would be even better if you were a couple, I told myself with sombre relish.

• Huysmans’ era had seen its own share of political strife

• ‘There’s a sort of legend, going back to the early noughties, that we have access to secret polls that never see the light of day

• These days the old mayor of Pau, who’d been beaten practically every time he ran for office over the last thirty years, was cultivating an image of integrity, with the connivance of various magazines

• He had drunk almost as much as I had, and still he could recite whole stanzas of Péguy by heart. I had to admit, I was impressed

• I felt her moving away from me in space and across the centuries while I sat there in my pew, shrivelled and puny.

• In spite of everything, it bothered me to think of her being buried in a potter’s field

• Mass retail was nothing if not opportunistic

• Women were wearing a new garment, a kind of long cotton smock

• in a much less spectacular way than those in La Défense or Les Halles – Italie 2 had always attracted a fair amount of riff-raff

• He clearly found the situation embarrassing, and he added, unprompted, that the new administration hadn’t interfered at all with the content of his course.

• The longer I listened without any sign of indignation, the more he relaxed, and in the end he invited me for coffee.

• Obviously, that’s all changed. I guess you could say things are organised differently now. I got married,’ he added, rather brusquely

• The health problems that regularly assailed me were painful, but they were minor

• She only perked up, vaguely, when we got to sodomy.

• Her studio was tasteful and impeccably furnished

• It soon became clear that although their doctrine was avowedly anti-capitalist

• From my window I could see ten high-rises, a few hundred medium-sized buildings

• and railway security guards fanned out over the platforms so that no one would be tempted to light a cigarette

• I saw that the negotiations to bring Algeria and Tunisia into the EU were proceeding apace,

• The guest master speaks to our guests, he’s still in contact with the world. It’s like a sort of airlock, or a halfway step, before the monk takes the plunge into his vocation of silence

• ‘Life should be a continual loving exchange, in tribulations or in joy,’

• a heart hardened and smoked dry by dissipation

• I had called ahead for a taxi, and now I found myself with almost an hour to kill

• A long, hushed conversation ensued.

• At least he’d have the consolation of two graceful, charming wives to distract him from the anxieties facing the exhausted businessman

• I decided that the really prudent thing was to go out and buy another bottle

• We shared a little moment of silence after this declaration, which was made with just the necessary drop of unction

• Aware that this might have sounded melodramatic, he stirred imperceptibly in his chair

• It sounded off the cuff, but I had a feeling that, in reality, this invitation explained and justified all the rest.

• mezes

  • I didn’t have much to talk to him about, the field of medieval literature being basically terra incognita to me, so I wisely accepted several mezes – they were excellent, the hot and the cold ones, too
  • after a dozen mezes and four glasses of wine, I suddenly saw the problem: we were all men

• all talking with great intensity, except for one middle-aged man with a hooked nose and a fat, scowling face

• An old, thin, very tall man with a long salt-and-pepper beard went up to the prince

• It had a light sheen and looked immensely soft

• I already told you, there is no more secretary of universities,’ his companion growled

• but in the end all they had to do was take some flunkey and introduce him,

• I must have spent a long time in this reverie

• and that this maison particulière was historic to boot

• He left the room, presumably to see about the wine

• His rejection of the modern world was just as vehement as Nietzsche’s

• And in both you find the same incredible profligacy, the same profusion of ideas, all simply flung onto the page

• The canapés were delicious, spicy but not too

• But he was living at a time when the European nations were at their apogee, when they commanded vast colonial empires

• I didn’t have the heart to disabuse him

• even though geometrically his proof didn’t make any sense, it took my mind off my plumbing

• Thanks to the simpering seductions and the lewd enticements of the progressives

• As I perused these letters, I suddenly got the feeling that I had to go to Brussels

• I walked home without really thinking, in a sort of reverie