Carolina Institute for Faith & Culture

Paul Schleifer According to www.dictionary.com, cacophony means “harsh discordance of sound; dissonance; a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds.” The etymology, according to www.etymonline.com, is actually kind of fun: “1650s, […]

Paul Schleifer Enervate is one of those words that means the opposite of what you might think it means. It sounds something like energize, right? So you might think it […]

Paul Schleifer Swank, to English speakers in the US, means “fancy, elegant and showy.” In the UK, swank can also be a verb “to display one’s wealth, knowledge, or achievements […]

Paul Schleifer According to the OED, taciturn means “Characterized by silence or disinclination to conversation; reserved in speech; saying little; uncommunicative.” The first recorded use is from the Tobias Smollett […]

Paul Schleifer According to the OED, evanescent is an adjective describing something “That is on the point of vanishing or becoming imperceptible” or something “That quickly vanishes or passes away; […]

Paul Schleifer This is a new one for me. In fact, it is so new that it draws the red squiggly line under it in MicroSoft Word. Adultescent refers to […]

Paul Schleifer Royal is an adjective that means “of or related to a king, queen, or other sovereign.” There are also noun forms of royal, but the chief one, royals, […]

Paul Schleifer The noun egress means three different but similar things: “the act of going out,” “the place where one goes out,” or “the right to go out.” There is […]

Paul Schleifer Facile is primarily an adjective, but it has a variety of meanings, in part depending upon the type of noun that it is modifying. The OED lists its […]

Paul Schleifer Ameliorate means “to make or become better, more bearable, or more satisfactory; improve (www.dictionary.com). It can be used as a transitive (takes an object: The mediator could not […]

Paul Schleifer Babble is a flexible word. As a verb, it can be intransitive (used without an object) or transitive (used with an object). It means “to utter sounds or […]

Paul Schleifer Histrionic without a final –s is an adjective that means “overly dramatic.” If you add a final –s, you turn it into a noun meaning “melodramatic behavior designed […]