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rendered trite or commonplace by frequent usage
Every hackneyed phrase began as something other than a cliche; it only ended up on the greeting card circuit because enough people repeated in over and over. |
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calm and peaceful, prosperous.
The halcyon was legendary bird that was thought to be able to calm the waved so that it could nest on the sea. |
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to set apart as holy
The site for the new church was set aside and hallowed in a special ceremony. |
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| to deliver a loud, pompous speech or tirade. |
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to distress, create stress or torment.
The sadistic professor loved to harrow his tudents with harrowing tales of the upcoming final exam that no sutdent in the school's history has ever passed |
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devotion to pleasurable puruits, esp. to the pleasures of the senses.
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. |
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the consistent dominance or influence of one group, state, or idealogy over others.
It has been argued that the United Statse has achieved global hegemony in the post-Cold War ara. |
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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. |
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irtight, impervious to outside influence
The hermet's hermetic existence in a cave kept him from hearing any news of the outside world. |
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| unorthodox, heretical, iconoclastic |
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hairy, shaggy.
My hirsute dog sheds life-size replicas of himself and still has more hair left over. |
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a sermon or morally instructive lecture, a platitude.
Spare me the homilies; I already know why I should do the right thing. |
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arrogant presumption or pride
Icarus was destroyed by the sun god, who melted the wax in Icarus' wings as punishment for his hubris in daring to fly so close to the sun. |
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