S
- The decision to invest in Brussels sprouts turned out to be a sagacious one, since shortly thereafter it was discovered that they contain a powerful aphrodisiac.
Sagacious means like a sage, who is a person recognized as having great wisdom. Sage can also be an adjective, meaning wise.
- His sage advice to grow a beard changed my whole life for the better, since I no longer looked as if I were fourteen.
- Magazines containing salacious material are kept behind the counter in the bookstore, so you’ll have to ask the clerk if you want to see them.
- Tabloids rely in large part on the public’s salacious curiosity in order to stay in business, and our titillation seems to overcome our outrage often enough for it to work.
- The salient fact that I had failed to notice at first was that my ride had left me stranded at the club with no way to get home.
- The salient root sticking several inches out of the ground caught my foot and caused me to fall unceremoniously on my butt.
- Carrots are salubrious for your eyes, since they contain a lot of vitamin A.
- His was not the most salubrious of lifestyles, since he lived on donuts and two hours of sleep a night.
Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.
| 1. rhetoric |
a. repeal |
| 2. reticent |
b. determined |
| 3. salient |
c. quiet |
| 4. rescind |
d. feeling awe |
| 5. reverent |
e. art of using language |
| 6. sagacious |
f. authoritative rule |
| 7. salubrious |
g. feel remorse |
| 8. resolute |
h. wise |
| 9. rue |
i. causing sexual desire |
| 10. rubric |
j. conspicuous |
| 11. risible |
k. promoting health |
| 12. salacious |
l. hilarious |
| 13. restive |
m. impatient |
- Paul was dismayed to hear the teacher say that she thought summer school would be salutary for his math skills.
- The physical therapy she had undergone was having a salutary effect on her knees; she could almost walk without discomfort now.
- His sanctimony was laughable, since he was the most self-absorbed, ruthless jerk I’d ever met.
Sanctimonious means hypocritically pretending to be pious or being excessively pious.
- Spare me your sanctimonious blather; you’re no better than I am.
This one can be confusing, since it has two, nearly opposite, meanings: approval and penalty.
- Without the sanction of the planning commission, we cannot proceed with the renovation.
- Since he received the publisher’s sanction to reproduce part of the book in his installation, he was able to proceed with the planned opening of the exhibit.
- Sanctions were one of the tools used by the international community to pressure South Africa into ending its practice of apartheid.
- After receiving the official sanction of the ethics committee, the lawyer was disbarred.
Sanction can also be used as a verb. Up until the last few decades it only meant to encourage or approve, but it has recently come to mean to punish as well.
- His sanguine attitude was baffling to me, since it seemed clear that he was going to lose the race.
- She was so sanguine of success that she booked the honeymoon suite before she had even proposed.
According to Aristotle, sanguine personalities were caused by too much blood. This book contains vocabulary words based on three other personality types that he identified based on bodily fluids … can you find the rest?
- Her energy was sapped by the wasting fever; every day she felt a little weaker.
As a noun used informally, a sap is a gullible person, a fool.
- I can’t believe I was such a sap that I believed she would call even though I saw her throw my phone number out the window.
A sap can also be a blackjack (a short, leather-covered club) or to hit somebody with such a weapon.
- Newspapers worldwide commented on the sartorial splendor of the royal wedding.
- Her sartorial elegance ensured that she was always on the front cover of one fashion magazine or another.
- He had a perpetual craving for chocolate that no amount could satiate, not even pounds of the stuff.
- After the eight-course meal, I was satiated; in fact, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t eat again for days.
Sate is a synonym of satiate.
- Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is a famous satire in which the protagonist meets strange peoples in his travels, each representing a different aspect of humanity.
- His attempts to satirize his boss in the company newsletter were not appreciated. His boss did not like satirical work when she was its object.
- Pedro’s saturnine countenance made me think he was either very unhappy or suffering from a bad case of indigestion.
- The saturnine principal scared the students with his dark glares, but really he was a pretty nice guy underneath the brooding exterior.
Saturnine is similar in definition to melancholy. Like mercurial, it draws its name from astrology and the gods associated with certain planets.
- She had such a scintillating personality that she was always the life of the party.
- He was such a scintillating conversationalist that all those who heard him were enthralled by his every word.
- He felt a little guilty about the scurvy trick he had pulled on his friend to get her to loan him a hundred dollars by saying he needed it to visit his dying mother.
“Avast ye scurvy dog” is a common comment to hear one pirate say to another. Scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency that was a familiar part of a sailor’s life before the days of refrigeration, canning and supplements, so it makes sense that pirates would incorporate this into their vocabulary as an insult.
- His sedulous efforts to organize the conference were rewarded when the entire event went off perfectly.
- After years of hard work, he found the missing piece to the puzzle he had so sedulously sought, which allowed him to solve the mystery of the pilot’s disappearance.
- The fishermen were extremely surprised when they caught a mermaid in their seine.
Seine also means to fish using a seine, and the Seine is a river in the middle of Paris in which people might seine…or something like that.
Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.
| 1. scurvy |
a. causing improvement |
| 2. sap |
b. self-righteousness |
| 3. sanguine |
c. cheerful, confident |
| 4. satire |
d. weaken the vitality of |
| 5. salutary |
e. diligent |
| 6. saturnine |
f. work ridiculing human vice |
| 7. sanctimony |
g. gloomy |
| 8. satiate |
h. despicable |
| 9. seine |
i. a large net |
| 10. sanction |
j. overindulge |
| 11. sedulous |
k. authoritative approval |
| 12. sartorial |
l. witty |
| 13. scintillating |
m. pertaining to clothing |
- Some people have looked at pictures of the sere surface of Mars and imagined the possibility of terraforming that might change the arid landscape into something habitable by humans.
- Even the sere vegetation at the edge of the desert sent forth new shoots when the brief rains came.
- He wrote the seminal text on robotics; people still study it sixty years later.
- The seminal idea that had taken root in his mind years earlier grew into the plans for the invention that was to make him a millionaire.
- Running into her at the cafe was completely serendipitous; he hadn’t expected to see her again.
- Winning the lottery is the ultimate serendipitous event.
- The archaeologist was able to find enough shards of pottery at the site that she could piece them together to form the contours of the original bowl.
- He tried to collect the shards of his dignity after his pants fell down in the middle of his speech.
- Her simpering praise for the famous actress made me want to throw up.
- He simpered some feeble attempt at an apology that no one believed.
As a noun, simper is the silly smile itself.
- The evil overlord’s sidekick figured he deserved a sinecure after years of faithful and often gory service.
- The job was hardly a sinecure; not only was there a ton of work, but there was also no job security.
This word was first applied to priests without churches (or without parish duties of curing souls), who were said to have beneficium sine cura.
- The singular events of the past week had me thinking I’d lost my mind; first my pet turtle presents me with a list of demands, and then it starts raining humans instead of cats and dogs.
- He was singularly ill-suited to ballet since he had two left feet.
- We were mesmerized by the sinuous waving of the cobra as the snake charmer sang to it.
- The sinuous pattern on the vase was like a river winding back and forth.
- It became increasingly difficult to follow the argument as her sinuous logic wound around and around itself.
- I was looking forward to getting back to the porch and having a julep to slake my thirst.
- His anger slaked somewhat when he realized he had simply parked his car in the wrong spot, and that no one had stolen it.
- I managed to get my pants all wet by sitting on the sodden ground.
- Sodden with drink and sleep, he could barely form a sentence.
Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.
| 1. singular |
a. withered |
| 2. shard |
b. smirk |
| 3. seminal |
c. exceptional |
| 4. sinuous |
d. quench |
| 5. simper |
e. like a seed |
| 6. sinecure |
f. soaked |
| 7. sere |
g. position requiring little work |
| 8. sodden |
h. broken piece |
| 9. slake |
i. winding |
| 10. serendipitous |
j. fortuitous |
- By soldering the broken pieces together, I was able to repair the light fixture.
- The charismatic general managed to solder all the factions together into one cohesive army.
- It was nice of her to be so solicitous of my comfort as to offer me the couch, but I was fine sleeping on the floor.
- Her solicitous boyfriend hovered at her elbow all evening, trying to anticipate her every wish, which she started to find somewhat annoying after about five minutes.
- After being solvent for the first time in years, I celebrated my solvency by gambling. After losing, I had once again become insolvent and had to borrow rent money from my parents.
- I’m such a sucker for sophistry; I can never see through the convincing surface to the false logic underneath.
- The environmentalists claimed that the distinction between “strategic harvesting” and “clear cutting” was merely a political sophistry designed to hide the lumber industry’s plans.
The Greek root soph gave rise to many English words about knowledge—either the love of it, the possession of it, or the lack of it. Philosophy is a love or pursuit of knowledge, and someone with great knowledge of the world might be called sophisticated. Sophistry is somewhat on the opposite path … as is sophomoric.
- You may call my humor sophomoric, but you laughed at all my jokes, so either I’m funny or you’re as immature as I am.
- Her sophomoric posturing just made her seem pretentious and silly rather than worldly and wise as she had intended.
Sophomoric literally means of or pertaining to a sophomore.
- The economics professor’s lectures were amazingly soporific; five minutes listening to him would cure any case of insomnia.
Soporific can also be used as a noun.
- She hoped a glass of warm milk would be a sufficient soporific to get her daughter to go to sleep at long last.
- The sordid tale of deceit and betrayal in the criminal underworld became an immediate bestseller.
- Without any sanitation at all, the sordid slums at the edge of town were likely to suffer another cholera epidemic.
- Her approval, though sparsely given, made me feel I had accomplished something important.
- The sparsely wooded hill looked naked in the winter, without the lush growth of the spring and summer to cover it.
- The specious “get rich quick” promises of pyramid schemes have suckered countless people over the years.
- The teenager’s specious argument for why she should be allowed to stay out past curfew failed to convince her parents.
Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.
| 1. sordid |
a. immature |
| 2. specious |
b. financially sound |
| 3. solder |
c. faulty logic |
| 4. solicitous |
d. seeming true but actually false |
| 5. sophistry |
e. concerned and attentive |
| 6. soporific |
f. join together |
| 7. solvent |
g. not dense |
| 8. sparse |
h. filthy |
| 9. sophomoric |
i. causing drowsiness |
- Olivia was an incorrigible spendthrift; she bought things she would never use and didn’t even particularly like.
Spendthrift can also be an adjective.
- Their spendthrift extravagance soon exhausted their small bank account.
- The patient became particularly splenetic whenever his spleen was bothering him, so the nurses stayed out of his room those days.
- Her boss became splenetic whenever anyone asked him about a raise; nothing seemed to irritate him more.
Splenetic also means relating to the spleen, which was the seat of ill temper in classical knowledge.
- The sporadic nature of the thunderstorms made them very difficult to predict.
- We hoped that the weird appearance of horns on Kurt’s forehead would remain sporadic, which would help us pretend he wasn’t really growing them.
- His spurious claim that he had found the fountain of youth was soon proven to be the fraud everyone had suspected.
- It was years before anyone discovered that the painting attributed to the young Picasso was spurious, having been painted by a not very famous artist who made his living by painting those pictures you find in hotel rooms.
- The squalid living conditions the migrant laborers were forced to endure were simply inhuman; no one should have to live like that.
Squalor is a wretched or filthy condition.
- Why she was willing to live in squalor, no one could figure out, but she seemed happy enough with two months’ worth of dishes in the sink and refuse lying all around.
- I would hate to see you squander your talents by making vacuum cleaner bags for the rest of your life instead of the art you really want to create.
- He squandered his fortune as quickly as he had made it, ending up exactly where he started.
- The flow of blood from the cut was so slight that half a tissue was all that was needed to stanch it.
- All attempts to stanch the hemorrhaging of the company’s coffers were futile; the money just kept pouring out as costs increased exponentially.
Don’t confuse this with staunch, an adjective, meaning firmly committed. To make it really confusing, sometimes stanch is spelled staunch, and vice versa, but you should be able to figure out the word’s meaning from context.
- The population of the town had been static for years; no one had moved in or out, been born or died in the whole place.
- She couldn’t stay static for more than five minutes at a time before she started bouncing off the walls again.
Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.
| 1. splenetic |
a. bad-tempered |
| 2. stanch |
b. occurring occasionally |
| 3. spendthrift |
c. use irresponsibly |
| 4. sporadic |
d. waster of money |
| 5. squander |
e. wretched and dirty |
| 6. squalid |
f. false |
| 7. spurious |
g. not moving or changing |
| 8. static |
h. stop a flow |
- Her plan was to spend three months in Paris and come back steeped in French culture, but all she ended up with was a fuchsia beret from the souvenir shop.
- The old castle is steeped in history; you can practically feel it oozing out of every corner as you walk around.
- Her grandfather’s stentorian voice could be heard from anywhere in the house, and when he issued a command, everyone moved immediately.
- Is it absolutely necessary to keep the stereo on at such a stentorian volume that people five blocks away can hear it?
- I hate to stint on dessert, so I always save room for at least two portions.
- Since I didn’t want to stint on her birthday, I got her a cake and a present.
Stinting, and its opposite, unstinting are the adjectives that mean restraining and bestowed liberally, respectively.
- Her unstinting support for my lemonade stand, both supplier of the product and most loyal customer, gave me my start as an entrepreneur.
Stint as a noun means a length of time spent in a specific way, as in a stint in the military, in the White House, or as a roadie.
- Lorelei’s stoic indifference to the pain of her dislocated shoulder was disconcerting; it was impossible to tell anything was wrong from the expression on her face.
Stoicism is the noun.
- Vulcans, such as Mr. Spock, practice stoicism, exercising extremely tight control over their emotions.
- Ian’s stolid nature and formidable physique make him perfect for a job as a Buckingham Palace guard.
If you associate this word with solid, you have a built-in memory aid; stolid people show little animation or emotion.
- Our attempt to make a cake with striated frosting to look like a beach ball wasn’t very successful; all the bands of color ran together until it was just one big blob.
- It was initially a bit strange to drive over the grooves on the roads where the asphalt had been striated to provide better traction when it rained.
Striations are the bands themselves.
- When one of the struts supporting the wing of the old seaplane broke, we thought we were going to be swimming home.
- When the struts on our car started to wear, we could feel very tiny bumps on the road.
Strut can also be used as a verb to mean brace or support.
- Stupefied by the blow to his head, Scott just kept bumping into more and more things, getting more and more dazed.
- We were stupefied by the sight of a hippopotamus dancing with a kangaroo.
- Rodney planned to stymie Jake’s chances of winning the cooking contest by switching the salt and sugar when he wasn’t looking.
- His plans to become a professional race car driver were stymied when he failed his driving test for the third time.
Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.
| 1. stint |
a. stun |
| 2. striated |
b. extremely loud |
| 3. steep |
c. striped |
| 4. stolid |
d. be sparing |
| 5. stupefy |
e. supporting structure |
| 6. stentorian |
f. completely soak |
| 7. strut |
g. unaffected by pleasure or pain |
| 8. stymie |
h. thwart |
| 9. stoic |
i. impassive |
- You could have knocked me over with a feather when my next-door neighbor, the sweet little old grandmother, was served with a subpoena to appear in a federal racketeering case.
Subpoena can also be used as a verb.
- The prosecutor subpoenaed the kingpin’s hairdresser to testify before the grand jury.
- The subtle flavors of the sauce were difficult to detect individually, but together they created a unique and delicious dish.
- We had to admire the subtlety of her scheme; she had managed to steal half the gold in the treasury before anyone even knew it was missing.
- Although he had vowed to keep his introduction succinct, he still ended up speaking for a longer time than all of the main speakers combined.
- This sentence is succinct.
- The brief rain did not provide much succor to the farmers who were losing their crops to drought.
- The town’s inhabitants sought succor in the emergency shelters during and after the hurricane.
- Of the sundry items for sale, the young boy was most interested in the elaborate water pistol.
- My backpack is filled to overflowing with sundry items, but somehow I can never find what I need.
If you’ve heard the phrase torn asunder, you are familiar with the etymology of this word. Sundry originally meant separate or distinct, but now also means various.
- The snotty salesperson looked at the clothes I was wearing with a supercilious expression and apparently decided I wasn’t worth her time, so she went back to filing her nails.
- I was extremely surprised when he told me he had initially taken my shyness for superciliousness; luckily he later changed his mind and realized I wasn’t stuck-up after all.
- The admonition only to eat one of the cupcakes was superfluous; no one would have wanted a second.
- Tim and Shane’s new plan for saving money was to stop any superfluous spending, but they quickly realized that everything they spent money on was necessary.
- We spent hours supine on the floor looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars we had pasted on the ceiling.
- Our supine acceptance of the corruption taking place all around us means we have few to blame for the consequences other than ourselves.
Supine means lying face up and prone means lying face down.
- I was quickly supplanted in my ex-girlfriend’s affections by her new beau, and a month later she didn’t even remember my name.
- Some people have argued that as e-mail supplants letter writing, whole new modes of thinking and communicating are being born.
Match each word in the first column with its definition in the second column. Check your answers here.
| 1. sundry |
a. court order |
| 2. subpoena |
b. not obvious |
| 3. supplant |
c. concise |
| 4. succor |
d. relief in time of distress |
| 5. succinct |
e. miscellaneous |
| 6. supercilious |
f. disdainful |
| 7. supine |
g. exceeding what is necessary |
| 8. subtle |
h. inactive |
| 9. superfluous |
i. supercede |
- The suppliant expression on the boy’s face would have melted anyone’s will to refuse him what he wanted.
- Stubbornly, the band refused the suppliant crowd’s plea for them to play their hit song; they were simply too sick of playing it night after night.
As a noun, a suppliant is the same thing as a supplicant.
- A long line of supplicants awaited the magistrate each Thursday, which is when he heard petitions for assistance from the very poor.
A supplicant is supplicating when he or she begs for something. Supplication is related to application, or the act of bringing yourself close to something. In supplication, though, there is the element of folding the legs under, or kneeling, that gives the sup- prefix.
- The girls surfeited themselves with candy and cookies at the birthday party, and all came home with stomachaches.
Surfeit is also a noun, meaning excess, overindulgence.
- A surfeit of cooks is said to spoil the broth.
- The young basketball player has an entourage of sycophants, all hoping to gain his favor and receive expensive gifts when he becomes rich.
- She had been surrounded by sycophants her whole life, so she had never received any honest criticism of her behavior.
- Snowboarding is a synthesis of skateboarding, surfing, and skiing.
- As much as he tried to find a synthesis of his desires to stay up late and wake up early, he was never able to do both.