Even though I like to think I have a good English vocabulary, I regularly encounter words with which I am totally unfamiliar, or though I may of heard of them, with which I am unsure of the definition. In order to keep on learning I am posting a word of the week and keeping this list of words to share with you. When possible I will also show you the source where I originally encountered the word.
ad hominem:Latin for "to the man". This is an attempt to refute a logical point by a personal attack on the person making it.
Example: You can't listen to Rich's software analysis because he never finishes a project.
When researching this word a little bit, I found something interesting and amusing that is called "Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement, available here. It lists an ad hominem attack is the second worse kind of disagreement, second only to name calling.
beadle: a church official. I encountered this word in Dickens in The Pickwick Papers.
cantonment: temporary military building or reserve. Example: The US Army established a cantonment in the Oklahoma territory while fighting the Indians. I first encountered this word in the book The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley.
celerity: speed or quickness. Example: He exhibited impressive celerity for someone of his age. I first encountered this word in the book 36 Arguments for the Existence of God by Rebecca Goldstein.
farinaceous: made from grain.
immiscible Something that doesn't mix with something else. The way I like to remember it is "unmixable", because it sorts of sounds like unmixable.
retrograde: backwards motion or motion opposite to the natural order of things. I'm not sure if this was the original use of the word, but you hear it applied to the planets. At certain points in their orbit they appear (from our vantage point) to be going backwards and this is described as retrograde motion.
peripeteia: a reversal of fortune or circumstances. From Greek to "fall around".
unctuous: characterized by affected, exaggerated, or insincere earnestness.
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