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» Noun
» One who boasts about his patriotism and favors a warlike foreign policy.
» In 1877, British Prime Minister Disraeli sent the fleet to Gallipoli to slow up the Russians. A singer wrote a ditty called "By Jingo" in honor of that action.
»» The senator lost because his constituents rejected his jingoistic policies. |
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» Noun
» Rake; seducer; lover.
» Lothario was an amorous character in an eighteenth-century play, The fair Penitent.
»» I tried out for the role of the young lothario, but they cast me as the butler. |
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» Noun
» A bitter verbal attack.
» Philip II of Macedon wanted to make Greece into a monarchy. He was opposed by the great orator, Demosthenes, who denounced Philip in devastating speeches that came to be known as philippics.
»» My philippic against higher taxes was r eported on the local radio station. |
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» Adjective
» Designed to secure conformity; drastic.
» An ancient Greek robber named Procrustes tied his victims to a bed and then, to make them fit the bed, stretched the short ones and hacked off the limbs of the taller ones.
»» Your procrustean attitude does not allow for disagreement. |
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» Adjective
» Changeable, taking on different forms.
» In Greek mythology, Proteus was a sea god who could change his appearance at will.
» In Harry Potter, the Protean charm allows to change the form of objects.
»» I resent your protean propensity for changing your mind whenever you feel like it. |
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» Noun
» A victory that is exceptionally costly.
» Pyrrhus defeated the Romans in 279 B.C., but his losses were terribly heavy.
»» The workers seemed to triumph at the end of the strike, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. |
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» Noun
» Substandard use of words; violation of good manners.
» Derives from Greek inhabitants of colony of Soloi who used a slangy dialect.
»» There are some word forms that my teacher rejects as solecisms but I feel are acceptable. |
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» Noun
» One who is font of luxury and soft living.
» Sybaris was a fabulously wealthy Italian city, symbolic of the good life.
»» Rudy was criticized for living as a sybarite while others of his family were starving. |
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» Adjective
» Excessively greedy
»» The avaricious broker was persecuted by the attorney general. |
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» Adjective
» Deadly, sinister
»» I saw the baleful look on the gang leader's face, and I knew I we were in for trouble. |
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» Adjective
» Warlike, of a quarrelsome nature.
»» Although our landlord sometimes sounds bellicose, he is actually very soft-hearted. |
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» Adjective
» Bad-tempered, bitter.
» Comes from French word bilis ("bile"), the fluid secreted by the liver.
»» Twenty years in his company's complaint department gave Ted a bilious attitude toward the public. |
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» Adjective
» Arrogant; disagreeably conceited
»» My uncle's bumptious personality has caused him to be fired from several good jobs. |
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