Big 😶 Words
There are lots of BIG words (we don't know the meaning of) in the dictionary and these are just a few of them …
- Apophenia
- Noun: the tendency to see patterns where none exist, to draw connections and to make non-existant links. All conspiracy theories are examples of apophenia.
- Emotionally and intellectually weak people and those with schizophrenia are prone to it.
- Eponym; Eponymous
- Noun: a person, place or thing after which/for someone/something is, or is believed to be, named.
- Adjectives derived from the word eponym include eponymous and eponymic.
- Used to name time periods, places, innovations, biological nomenclature, astronomical objects, works of art, media and tribal names.
- Gerund; Gerunds
- Noun: a verb form which functions as a noun, in Latin ending in -ndum (declinable), in English ending in -ing e.g., ‘do you mind my asking?’
- Allegory; Allegories
- Noun: a story, poem, or picture interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one e.g., A Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory of a spiritual journey.
- Similar: parable, analogy, apologue, metaphor
- Axioms
- Noun: a statement taken to be true, serving as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments.
- Similar: postulate, assumption
- Axiomatic
- Adjective: self-evident or unquestionable e.g., ‘it is axiomatic that dividends have to be financed.’
- Similar: self-evident, given, undeniable, apodictic, indemonstrable
- Imbrication
- Noun: an overlapping of edges (as of roof tiles or snake scales); a decoration or pattern showing imbrication.
- Expository
- Adjective: intended to explain or describe something e.g., ‘an expository prologue.’
- Postulate; Postulates
- Verb: suggest or assume the existence, fact, or truth of (something) as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief e.g., ‘his theory postulated a rotatory movement for hurricanes.’
- 3rd person present: postulates.
- Noun: a thing suggested or assumed as true as the basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief e.g., ‘perhaps the postulate of Babylonian influence on Greek astronomy is incorrect’.
- Similar: suggest, advance, posit, hypothesise, propose, presuppose, predicate.
- Exemplar
- Noun: a typical or good example of something e.g., ‘an exemplar of a house of that period’.
- Elegy; Elegies
- Noun: a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead e.g., (in Greek & Latin verse) a poem written in elegiac couplets.
- Similar: lament, dirge, plaint, requiem, keening, coronach, threnody, threnode.
- Polemical
- Adjective: expressing or constituting a strongly critical attack on or controversial opinion about someone or something e.g., ‘a polemical essay’.
- Metaphysics
- Noun: the branch of philosophy dealing with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, identity, time and space e.g., ‘they would regard the question of the initial conditions for the universe as belonging to the realm of metaphysics or religion’; an abstract theory with no basis in reality e.g., ‘the very subject of milk pricing involves one in a wonderland of accounting practice and a metaphysics all its own.’
- Epistemology
- Noun: the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity and scope and the distinction between justified belief and opinion e.g., ‘he grappled with metaphysics and epistemology in his writings and sermons’.
- Nascent
- Adjective: (especially of a process or organisation) just coming into existence and beginning to display signs of future potential e.g., ‘the nascent space industry’.
- Similar: budding, embryonic, incipient, fledgling, emergent, burgeoning.
- Anathema; Anathemas
- Noun: something or someone that one vehemently dislikes e.g., ‘racial hatred was anathema to her’.
- Similar: abhorrent, odious, repellent, abhorrence, aversion, bane, bugbear, bête noire, pariah, or, a formal curse by a pope or a council of the Church excommunicating a person or denouncing a doctrine e.g., ‘the Pope laid special emphasis on the second of these anathemas.’
- Legerdemain
- Noun: a sleight of hand, deceitful cleverness; trickery eg., ‘financial legerdemain’.
- Sclerotic
- Adjective: of or having sclerosis, becoming rigid and unresponsive; losing the ability to adapt, relating to the sclera.
- A noun: sclerotic; sclerotics
- Analogous
- Adjective: having similar features to another thing and therefore able to be compared with it e.g., ‘the emergency vehicle for the International Space Station is analogous to a lifeboat.’
- Obscurantism
- Noun: the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known e.g., ‘I've been accused of obscurantism and wilful misdirection.’
- Obverse; Obverses
- Noun: the opposite or counterpart of a fact or truth e.g., ’true solitude is the obverse of true society.’
- Noun: the design or inscription on the principal side of a coin.
- Adjective: facing the observer or opponent; having the base narrower than the top; constituting the obverse of something.
- Dipsomania
- Noun: alcoholism, specifically in a form characterised by intermittent bouts of craving.
Source: Oxford dictionaries, Wikipedia.
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