Daily Word List – 12 January, 2017 – Definition | Synonyms | Use in a Sentence

1. Capacious
(adj):
Having a lot of space inside.

Synonyms: (roomy)
ample, commodious, roomy, spacious, voluminous.

Use: The Malabar,
that huge sea monster, in whose capacious belly so many human creatures lived
and suffered, had dwindled to a walnut-shell, and yet beside her bulk how
infinitely small had their own frail cockboat appeared as they shot out from
under her towering stern!

2. Egalitarian
(adj):
Characterized by social equality and equal
rights for all people.

Synonyms: equal, democratic,
impartial.

Use: In the
increasingly egalitarian Britain of the postwar years, Britain’s monarchy found
itself subject to a questioning, scarcely articulated, of the utility of an
expensive royal household.

3. Tactile
(adj):
perceptible to the sense of touch.

Synonyms:
touchable, palpable, tangible.

Use: The delicacy
of the tactile sense varies on different parts of the skin; it is greatest on
the forehead, temples and back of the forearm.

4. Provenance
(n):
place or source of origin.

Synonyms:
birthplace, origin, home.

Use: Many
supermarkets display the provenance of their food products.

5. Gravitas
(n):  Seriousness in
bearing or manner; dignity.

Synonyms: seriousness,
dignity, sobriety.

Use: He uttered
this … with great majesty, or, as he called it, Gravitas.

6. Indolent
(adj):
Habitually lazy, procrastinating, or
resistant to physical labor/labour.

Synonyms: lazy, inactive,
inert.

Use: The indolent
girl resisted doing her homework.

7. Vet
(v):
To thoroughly check or investigate
particularly with regard to providing formal approval.

Synonyms:
analyze, test, audit, check.

Use: The FBI vets
all nominees to the Federal bench.

8. Supercilious
(adj):
showing contemptuous indifference.

Synonyms:
arrogant, stuck up, bossy, Cavalier.

Use: Monica owns
the supercilious character.

9. Gumption
(n):  Boldness of
enterprise; initiative or aggressiveness.

Synonyms: guts;
spunk; initiative, acumen, nerve.

Use: 1936
Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (“Gumption” was used as one of
Scarlett O’Hara’s defining personality traits.) “What qualities are in
those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that
go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality ‘gumption.’ So I
wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn’t.”

10. Languor
(n):  a state of the body
or mind caused by exhaustion or disease and characterized by a languid feeling.

Synonyms:
dullness, sluggishness; lack of vigor; stagnation, inactivity.

Use: languor of
convalescence.