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HACKNEYED (HAK need) adj rendered trite or commonplace by frequent usage

• Every hackneyed phrase began as something other than a cliché; it only ended up on the greeting card circuit because enough people repeated it over and over.
• Despite the often hackneyed writing, some pulp fiction can still be fun to read.

Want to insult a writer? Then call her a hack, which is a writer for hire (and often carries the connotation of being worn out). The word comes from horses that were hired out to drive hackney carriages, or taxicabs.

HALCYON (HAL see un) adj calm and peaceful, prosperous

• I always hated it when the halcyon days of summer were interrupted by the start of school in the fall.

The halcyon was a legendary bird that was thought to be able to calm the waves so that it could nest on the sea.

HALLOW (HAL oh) v to set apart as holy

• The site for the new church was set aside and hallowed in a special ceremony.

As an adjective, hallowed means consecrated, or highly venerated.

• Abraham Lincoln remains one of the nation’s most hallowed heroes.
• Graceland is hallowed ground for Elvis’s legions of fans.

HAPPENSTANCE (HAP uhn stans) n a chance happening or event

• They ran into each other at the grocery aisle of the supermarket by sheer happenstance; neither had planned on it.

HARANGUE (huh RANG) v to deliver a loud, pompous speech or tirade.

• After having been harangued for hours about the superiority of his methods, we should be forgiven for laughing when his demonstration failed.

A harangue is what you deliver when you are haranguing someone.

HARBINGER (HAR bin jer) n anything that foreshadows a future event; an omen; a sign

• Many scientists note that the growing number of hurricanes and tornadoes are harbingers of global climate change.

HARROW (HAR oh) v to distress, create stress or torment

• The sadistic professor loved to harrow his students with harrowing tales of the upcoming final exam that no student in the school’s history had ever passed.

HEDONISM (HEE dun izm) n devotion to pleasurable pursuits, especially to the pleasures of the senses

• Spring break is popularly known as a festival of hedonism when thousands of college students gather for a week of debauchery in the sun.
• He had to give up his hedonistic lifestyle once he had a full-time job; it was just too hard to get up in the morning after a long night of partying.

Someone who embraces hedonism is called a hedonist. For an antonym to hedonist, see the entry for ascetic.

HEGEMONY (hi JEM uh nee) n the consistent dominance or influence of one group, state, or ideology over others

• It has been argued that the United States has achieved global hegemony in the post-Cold War era.
• Many people point to the growing power of multinational corporations as evidence of the hegemony of globalization and capitalism.
• The company’s hegemonic control over the market was threatened by the gains its competitors were making as well as by the changing economy.

HERETICAL (huh RET i kul) adj violating accepted dogma or convention, unorthodox

• Galileo was brought before the Inquisition because of his heretical agreement with Copernicus that the earth moved around the sun.
• The once heretical notion that computers would become more than calculating machines or toys is now so obvious that it’s hard to remember when we ever thought differently.

A heresy is an idea that is heretical.

HERMETIC (hur MET ik) adj airtight, impervious to outside influence

• The tomb’s hermetic seal allowed its contents to be perfectly preserved for thousands of years.
• The hermit’s hermetic existence in a cave kept him from hearing any news of the outside world.
• We discovered that the jar had not been hermetically sealed when we finally identified it as the source of the nasty smell in the cupboard.

Don’t confuse this with hermeneutic, which means explanatory or interpretive.

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Quick Quiz #27

Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.

1.   hedonism	a.  chance event
2.   heretical	b.  trite from overuse
3.   hallow	c.  calm
4.   hegemony	d.  consecrate
5.   harangue	e.  deliver a tirade
6.   happenstance	f.  distress
7.   harrow	g.  devotion to pleasure
8.   halcyon	h.  dominance of one ideology over another
9.   hermetic	i.  unorthodox
10.   hackneyed	j.  airtight
11.   harbinger	k.  omen

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HETERODOX (HET ur uh dahks) adj unorthodox, heretical, iconoclastic

• Einstein’s heterodox theories changed our fundamental understanding of time and space forever.
• The designer’s heterodox assertion that it is perfectly fine to wear white after Labor Day shocked the fashion world.

A heterodoxy is an idea that departs from what is accepted.

HIDEBOUND (HAYD bound) adj narrow or rigid in opinion, inflexible; oriented toward or confined to the past; extremely conservative

• He was hidebound by outdated notions of chivalry.

HIRSUTE (HUR soot) adj hairy, shaggy

• If he hadn’t been so hirsute, the werewolf might have escaped detection forever and settled down into a nice, quiet life in the suburbs.
• My hirsute dog sheds life-size replicas of himself and still has more hair left over.

HOMILY (HAH muh lee) n a sermon or morally instructive lecture, a platitude

• The subject of the minister’s homilies ranged from the importance of compassion to the virtues of brushing one’s teeth three times a day.
• Spare me the homilies; I already know why I should do the right thing.

Homiletics is the art of preaching.

• She was famous for her homiletic skill; people came from all of the surrounding counties to hear her preach.

HOMOGENOUS (hu MAHJ un us) adj same throughout

• The town had so little influx of new people and ideas that its population seemed homogenous to outsiders.
• What seemed like a homogenous coating from a distance was really a swirl of different colors and textures when you examined it up close.

Homogenous is a less common way of expressing the same idea; the current usage of homogenous probably came from the word homogenize, which is to process a liquid so that its particles do not separate.

HORTATORY (HAWR tuh tawr ee) adj Urging to some course of conduct or action; encouraging

• The dean’s hortatory commencement speech encouraged all graduates to seek their own true path.

HUBRIS (HYOO brus) n arrogant presumption or pride

• Icarus was destroyed by the sun god, who melted the wax in Icarus’s wings as punishment for his hubris in daring to fly so close to the sun.
• The company president’s hubris turned out to be his downfall when he ignored all of the warnings of the coming depression, thinking that he could predict the future on his own.

Hubris is frequently used in describing classical and epic characters, such as humans who wish to be gods and kings who think they are infallible, but the word has just as many applications in the modern world.

HYPERBOLE (hy PUR buh lee) n an exaggerated statement, often used as a figure of speech

• I should have realized she was using hyperbole when she promised me the moon and stars; that way I wouldn’t have been disappointed when I only got the moon.

Something or someone that uses hyperbole is hyperbolic.

• His hyperbolic claims for what the company could produce next quarter made him seem unreliable, since everyone knew he was wildly exaggerating.