6. 100 Top Action Verbs for Presenters, Professors, Preachers, Poets, Playwrights, and Pundits Searching for Savoir Faire
Abdicate
(1) abandon; cede; demit; discard; relinquish; renounce; repudiate; resign; surrender (especially from a powerful position)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Many British kings abdicated their crowns.
(1) Abdicating the throne is a serious matter for a monarch.
(1) “Napoleon, pressured to abdicate by his marshals in 1814, declared, ‘Why is it always Wellington?’”
—Black, Jeremy. Military History, Volume 22, Issue 3, Spring 2010: pg. 66.
(1) “Power abdicates only under the stress of counter-power.”
—Martin Buber, German Jewish Biblical translator, philosopher, and interpreter (1878–1965)
Collocates to: duties, office, position, responsibilities, throne
Aberrate
(1) diverge from the expected; diverge or deviate from the straight path
Abide
(1) bear; continue; endure; go on being; put up with; stomach; take; tolerate
(2) hold; remain; stand fast; stand for; stay
(3) to remain with someone; to stay
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Gadhafi’s government had lost all legitimacy and lied when it declared Friday it would abide by a cease-fire.”
—Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State (1947–), qtd. in Associated Press 2011
(1) “I am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment the sober second thought of the people.”
—Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th U.S. President (1822–1893)
Collocates to: agreement, by, certain, law, longer, must, regulations, rules, shall, standards, terms
Abduce
(1) allege; cite; to advance evidence for
(2) draw away; to abduct
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “If we abduce the eye unto either corner, the object will not duplicate.”
—Sir Thomas Browne, English author (1605–1682)
(1) The project management team must abduce reasons for the cost overruns when there was no indication at the last stage gate of any such overage.
(2) prove someone is not responsible for
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Enron’s ‘firing’ of Arthur Andersen as its auditor on Thursday, and the finger-pointing leading to it, amounts to a lovers’ quarrel. Andersen, we now know, had been troubled for some time by Enron’s accounting, but not so troubled that it was willing to risk losing such a lucrative client. So it submissively signed off on deceptive earnings reports. Last week’s dismissal by Andersen of its lead Enron auditor, David Duncan, and its attempt to blame him for the destruction of Enron-related documents do not begin to absolve the firm.”
—Editors. “The Enron Hearings: Cleaning Up After the Debacle,” New York Times, February 1, 2002.
Collocates to: blame, does, guild, himself, ourself, responsibility, sins, yourself
Absterge
(1) clean; cleanse; purge; wipe away
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Under this administration, there appears to be a belief that many terrorists can absterge their crimes in civil court with lenient sentences.
Accentuate
(1) accent; emphasize; heighten; intensify
(2) make more noticeable; play up; stress something
(3) mark with an accent
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Delete the negative; accentuate the positive!”
—Donna Karan, American fashion designer (1948–)
(1) “A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life.”
—Godfrey Harold Hardy, English mathematician (1877–1947)
Collocates to: differences, opportunities, positives, shapes
Adumbrate
(1) foreshadow; give a general description of something but not the details; obscure; overshadow; predict; prefigure; presage; summary
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) The global political troubles adumbrated an eventual world-wide economic recession.
(1) It is never good for a manager to adumbrate news of a partial lay-off to just a few employees.
Advocate
(1) advance; back; be in favor of; bolster; defend; encourage; promote; sponsor; support
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Occasionally advocating the minority position may be a good strategy.
(1) “Can one preach at home inequality of races and nations and advocate abroad good-will towards all men?”
—Dorothy Thompson, American journalist and radio broadcaster (1893–1961)
(1) “Those who advocate common usage in philosophy sometimes speak in a manner that suggests the mystique of the ‘common man.’”
—Bertrand Russell, English logician and philosopher (1872–1970)
Affirm
(1) acknowledge; affirm; announce; asseverate; assert; avow; confirm; establish; insist; pronounce; state; validate; verify
(2) encourage; support; sustain; uphold
—Johnson, W. Brad and Charles R. Ridley. The Elements of Mentoring, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004: pg.10.
(1) “The more I read, the more I meditate; and the more I acquire, the more I am enabled to affirm that I know nothing.”
—Voltaire, French philosopher and writer (1694–1778)
(1) “Man is born a predestined idealist, for he is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to persist in affirming the worth of an end is to make an ideal.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, American physician, poet, writer, humorist, and professor (1809–1894)
Agglomerate
(1) accumulate; cluster; gather together; jumbled collection
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Common property campesino communities fit very uncomfortably in the neoliberal discourse, but in the Mexican context, ejidos and comunidades agrarias are irrevocable, at least in the short and medium term. The reformers, therefore, also created new legal mechanisms for private capital to associate with common property through joint ventures, made it easier to agglomerate land within ejidos, and established new mechanisms for associations of individuals within ejidos and comunidades to exploit common properties (Wexler and Bray 1996; Cornelius and Myhre 1998; World Bank 1995, 69).”
—Koolster, Dan. “Campesinos and Mexican Forest Policy During the Twentieth Century,” Latin American Research Review, Volume 38, Issue 2, 2003: pg. 94.
Aggrandize
(1) exalt; increase; make greater; make larger; puffery
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) It is merely aggrandizing when the firm’s advertising is nothing more than puffery.
(1) The firm’s public statement of the incident appeared to be an aggrandized version of their mission statement.
Alleviate
(1) assuage; ease; facilitate; improve; lessen; lighten; make bearable; to relieve
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The new technologies that we see coming will have major benefits that will greatly alleviate human suffering.”
—Ralph Merkle, American inventor of cryptographic hashing and a researcher and speaker on molecular nanotechnology (1952–)
(1) “We have discovered that the scheme of ‘outlawing war’ has made war more like an outlaw without making it less frequent and that to banish the knight does not alleviate the suffering of the peasant.”
—C.S. Lewis, British scholar and novelist (1898–1963)
Collocates to: concerns, pain, poverty, some, suffering
Ameliorate
(1) correct a mistake; improve; make better; tolerate
(2) correct a deficiency or defect; take action that make up for one’s negative or improper actions; to make right a wrong
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Kathy demonstrated her strength of character by ameliorating the errors in the project which she caused before anyone else discovered them.
(1) Phillip ameliorated the issues in the business plan prior to the meeting with the investors.
(1) “For more than 100 years, psychologists have attempted, with modest success, to ameliorate mental problems from depression to low intelligence by changing patients’ attitudes and by exploring their childhood angst. Now, pharmacological approaches are used, also with only moderate success. Recent evidence suggests a more fruitful path tied to the fact that human behavior—sexual orientation, alcoholism, intelligence, the propensity for violence—has a genetic component.”
—Nemko, Marty. “Choosing the Career Path Less Traveled,” U.S. News & World Report, Volume 146, Issue 4, May 1, 2009: pg. 22.
Collocates to: conditions, economic effects, efforts, help, might, prevent, problems
Articulate
(1) convey; enunciate; express thoughts, ideas, or feelings coherently; pronounce; put into words; say; speak clearly; speech; utter
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “For the past 30 years, a group of social scientists around the world—from pioneers like Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, at the University of Rochester, to a new generation of scholars such as Adam Grant, at Wharton—have articulated a more subtle view of what motivates people in a variety of settings, including work.”
—Pink, Daniel. “A Radical Prescription for Sales,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2012: pg. 77.
(1) “Leaders articulate a lucid sense of purpose, create effective leadership teams, prioritize, and sequence their initiatives carefully, redesign organizational structures to make good execution easier, and most importantly, integrate these tactics into one coherent strategy.”
—Wheeler, Steven, Walter McFarland, and Art Kleiner. “A Blueprint for Strategic Leadership,” Strategy+Business, Issue 49, Winter 2007: pg. 46.
Assuage
(1) appease; erase doubts and fears; mollify; pacify; satisfy; soothe
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Judy was extremely annoyed, angry, and fearful that Tom showed up unannounced. She had previously kept him away by a restraining order; to avoid further trouble and to assuage her, Tom left.
(1) I worked to assuage my own guilt over the incident.
(1) “I’ve never know any trouble that an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.”
—Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788–1860)
Collocates to: anger, anguish, anxiety, concerns, consciences, curiosity, doubt, fears, feelings, guilt, hunger, hurt, loneliness, pride, worries
Attune
(1) accustom to; adjust; bring into accord with someone or something; regulate; standardize
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Kantor makes the case that being attuned to the signals of a conversational system—an approach he calls “structural dynamics”—is the first step toward becoming a far more prescient and effective leader.”
—Kliener, Art. “Building the Skills of Insight,” Strategy + Business, http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00154?gko=d4421&cid=TL20130117&utm_campaign=TL20130117, accessed January 17, 2013.
Collocates with: nature, ourselves, senses, themselves, tools, ways
Augur
(1) betoken; bode; divine; forebode; foreshadow; foretell; portend; predict
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) The improved weather augured for a better hunting season.
(1) A growing third-party movement is auguring for a far greater voter turnout in the next election.
(1) “These readings augur well in the very near term for supportive bond price action. We, however, still look for core inflation to tick up modestly and for overall labor market conditions to improve gradually.”
—Chris Sullivan, chief investment officer at the United Nations Federal Credit Union and UNFCU Financial Advisors
Collocates to: does, future, might, not, poorly, well
Author
(1) created; pen; scribe; source; write
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Managing a global enterprise requires a CEO who is adept at balancing many interests.
(1) Managers need to use a balanced approach in handling worker disputes.
Bestride something like a Colossus
(1) to be a giant in some endeavor or field; to be preeminent
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves.”
—William Shakespeare, English poet and playwright (1564–1516); excerpt from Julius Caesar
Bloviate
(1) speak pompously and at length; to hold forth in a pompous self-centered way; to orate verbosely
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) It seems as though elected officials are really good at only one thing—they love to bloviate.
(1) To bloviate is not recommended when you are among experts on the current topic.
(1) “Warren Harding invented the word ‘normalcy,’ and the lesser known ‘bloviate,’ meaning one imagines, to spout, to spew aimless verbiage.”
—John Ashbery, U.S. poet and critic (1927–)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Broaching the topic of addiction with a family member is heart-wrenching but an act of love.
(1) “The essays as a whole reflect the influence of anthropological concepts as well as studies conducted since the early 1980s by cultural historians of Europe and the United States (such as Lynn Hunt’s work on the French Revolution). They broach a wide range of topics: popular religious celebrations, the delightful subject of street songs and dance, work and labor conditions, the notion of public space and its use, educational reform, civic festivals, and village bands.”
—Murray, Pamela. “Diverse Approaches to Nineteenth-Century Mexican History,” Latin American Research Review, Volume 32, Issue 3, 1997: pg. 187, 6p.
Burn one’s boats
(1) burn one’s bridges; choose a killing ground; commit to a course of action; cut oneself off from all means or hope of retreat; go for broke; irreversible course of action; nail one’s colors to the mast; to put oneself in a position from which there is no going back
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) In 310 BC, Agathocles of Syracuse sailed his army to Carthage and burned his boats so his soldiers knew that the price of failure would be their death.
Cachinnate
(1) laugh convulsively or hard; laugh loudly or immoderately
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) There are some unconfirmed eyewitness accounts that Joseph Stalin would cachinnate loudly after he had finished berating and verbally terrorizing someone he believed was a weakling or coward.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) If people were not in such a good mood during the Christmas season, cadging by many charities would not be so successful.
Collocates to: drinks, food, free, from, lift, try
Calumniate
(1) charges or imputations; slander; traduce; utter maliciously false statements
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “I am not to order the natural sympathies of my own breast, and of every honest breast to wait until the tales and all the anecdotes of the coffeehouses of Paris and of the dissenting meeting houses of London are scoured of all the slander of those who calumniate persons, that afterwards they may murder them with impunity. I know nothing of your story of Messalina. What, are not high rank, great splendour of descent, great personal elegance and outward accomplishments ingredients of moment in forming the interest we take in the misfortunes of men?”
—Bromwich, David. “The Context of Burke’s Reflections,” Social Research, Volume 58, Issue 2, Summer 91: pg. 313–354.
Collocates to: afterwards, person, slander, that, those, who
Captivate
(1) enchant; enthrall; fascinate; infatuate; intense romantic attraction
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “All kinds of beauty do not inspire love; there is a kind that only pleases the sight but does not captivate the affections.”
—Cervantes, Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547–1616) Don Quixote
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Sharon was the champion for the new compensation plan.
(1) “We cannot be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of the weapons of war.”
—Jimmy Carter, 39th U.S. President (1924–)
(1) “Champion the right to be yourself; dare to be different and to set your own pattern; live your own life and follow your own star.”
—Wilfred Peterson, American author (1900–1995)
Cogitate
(1) consider; deliberate; meditate; muse; ponder; reflect; ruminate
Concinnate
(1) show skill and harmony, especially in a literary work; to show an elegant arrangement
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) President John F. Kennedy demonstrated his communications skill with his ability to concinnate, especially when composing his speeches.
Confabulate
(1) chat, converse, or talk informally
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau if birds confabulate or no.”
—William Cowper, English poet (1731–1800)
Conflagrate
(1) enflame; enkindle; ignite; kindle; start to burn
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “In fact, she was the one who got him the job with Janus. And he’s the one who’s supposed to investigate this. Dammit. By the time Rebecca arrived at the refinery, the automatic fire-suppression systems had dealt with the resultant conflagration, which barely had a chance to conflagrate. The different section chiefs started reporting in that their sections were okay, with the obvious exception of Yinnik regarding the refinery. One of T’Lis’s assistants said the computer core was fine.”
—DeCandido, Keith R. A. A Singular Destiny, First Edition, New York: Pocket Books, 2009.
Conjure
(1) appeal; beg; make earnest or urgent appeal
(2) ring or summon into being as by magic
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) She conjured him to give up the life of drugs.
(1) “No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human beast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.”
—Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis (1856–1939)
Connote
(1) imply meanings or ideas beyond the explicit meaning; suggest or convey a meaning
(2) involve as a condition or accompaniment
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Hal Rothman explained how Las Vegas was built on industries of vice by offering visitors something they could not have at home, and it thus took on the label of ‘Sin City.’ Las Vegas, he wrote, ‘is a code for self-indulgence and sanctioned deviance’ (2002, xviii). Indeed, ‘vice’ is common in the local vernacular in reference to the activities for which the city is known. Of course, ‘vice’ and ‘sin’ connote different things to different religions and cultures.”
—Rowley, Rex. “Religion in Sin City,” Geographical Review, Volume 102, Issue 1, January 2012: p76–92.
Collocates to: came, differently, does, names, necessarily, status, term, uses
Countervail
(1) avail against; balance; compensate; equalize; make up for
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “In doctrinal form, this is known as the universal destination of goods, which fixes a social mortgage or claim on all property, tangible or intellectual. It is not collectivism, which has never produced enough wealth to distribute. Universal destination calls, rather, for a broader view of wealth and a robust array of forces and institutions to countervail pure capitalism. The anti-debt crusade, which seemed almost utopian a few years ago, has given us a useful sketch of that new global vision.”
—Bole, William. “Forgiving Their Debts,” America, Volume 182, Issue 10, March 2000: pg. 17.
Declaim
(1) recite or read in public with studied or artful elegance
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The fact that I couldn’t recall the last name of even one of our daughter’s so-called friends made me feel guiltier than ever. How can you call yourself a good mother, I could already hear the police declaim, when you don’t even know who your daughter’s friends are?”
—Fielding, Joy. Missing Pieces, NY: Bantam Books, 1997.
Collocates to: against, banners, here, honeyed, now-grown, orations, scantly, soliloquy, vainly
Deem
(1) assess; hold; judge; regard; take for; view as
—Plato, Classical Greek philosopher and mathematician (472 BC–347 BC)
(1) “I deem it the duty of every man to devote a certain portion of his income for charitable purposes; and that it is his further duty to see it so applied as to do the most good of which it is capable.”
—Thomas Jefferson, American founding father, 3rd U.S. President (1743–1826)
Defuse
(1) cease or ease danger of menacing situation
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) The ability to defuse a potentially tense confrontation is not typically in a manager’s job description.
(1) “Every once in a while, you meet someone who really knows how to ‘read a room.’ This is the individual, usually a seasoned executive leader, who can walk into a tense meeting and sense why two would-be collaborators are butting heads, why a third manager hardly speaks, and why a fourth seems to be protecting some unspoken priority. Then, with a few words, the room-reader can defuse the problem, get people back on track, and move the team to a new level of productivity.”
—Kliener, Art. “Building the Skills of Insight,” Strategy + Business, http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00154?gko=d4421&cid=TL20130117&utm_campaign=TL20130117, accessed January 17, 2013.
(1) “The House defused one potential debt crisis Wednesday, while a top Republican set the stage for a broader debate over whether it is possible to actually balance the U.S. budget in coming years.”
—Hook, Boles, and O’Connor. “Passing Debt Bill, GOP Pledges End to Deficits,” Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2013.
Delimit
(1) define; demarcate; determine; fix boundaries; restrict; set limits; state clearly
(1) “Speech sounds cannot be understood, delimited, classified, and explained except in the light of the tasks which they perform in language.”
—Roman Jakobson, Russian linguist and literary theorist (1896–1982)
Denote
(1) announce; designate; indicate; mean; represent; signify; symbolize
(2) allude to; convey; express; imply; mean; refer to
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Accordingly, humanities has come to denote not just poems and stories but all refined art, including painting, music, sculpture, film, and the like. As a result, humanistic now means arty—in other words, refined, cultivated, and effete.”
—Hocutt, Max. “Humanities? No. Liberal Arts? Yes,” Springer, Winter 90/91, Volume 4, Issue 1, pg. 59, 9p.
(1) “In commercial circles, the term Power Center has come to denote strip malls dominated by large stores with little space for small merchants.”
—Morganfield, Robbie. “Faith and Finances: Power Center Seen as Model for Urban Life,” Houston Chronicle, Sept 10, 1995: pg. 37.
Depict
(1) describe; get a picture of; give a picture of; illustrate; picture in words; portray; present a lifelike image; represent; show
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Robert depicted the story in his eloquent speech.
Describe
(1) account; delineate; depict; explain something; outline; report; to give an account of something by giving details of its characteristics
—Kouzes, James and Berry Posner. The Leadership Challenge, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995: pg. 10.
(1) “If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.”
—Albert Einstein, American theoretical physicist (1879–1955)
(1) “In argument, similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.”
—Franz Kafka, German writer (1883–1924)
Designate
(1) assign; delegate; design; doom; indicate; intend; point out or specify
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my path violently and recklessly, all things which alter my plans and intentions, and change the course of my life, for better or for worse.”
—Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist (1875–1961)
Discern
(1) behold; catch; descry; differentiate; discriminate; distinguish; have insight; make out; perceive; pick out; recognize; see things clearly; separate mentally from others; spot
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
—Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychotherapist and psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology (1875–1961)
(1) “The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second, to know that which is true.”
—Lactantius Caecilius Firmianus Lactanius, North Africa, early Christian author (240–320)
Disclose
(1) bring into view; communicate; divulge; make known; release; reveal; unveil
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “In Atlanta, Delta, Newell-Rubbermaid, and Equifax have boosted contributions to defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s. Coca-Cola and SunTrust are among companies replacing their traditional pensions with cash-balance plans. Coca-Cola and SunTrust say the moves aren’t pension freezes since they’re switching to cash-balance plans, which are also defined-benefit plans. However, in filings with the Securities Exchange Commission, both companies disclose that they have frozen or are freezing portions of their older pension plans.”
—Grantham, Russell. “Traditional Pensions All But Retired: Financial Crisis Forces Firms to Freeze Plans,” Atlanta Constitution and Journal, July 5, 2009: pg. 1A.
Collocates to: companies, declined, details, failed, information, required, status
Disseminate
(1) broadcast; circulate; distribute; propagate; publish; scatter; spread
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Propaganda has a bad name, but its root meaning is simply to disseminate through a medium, and all writing therefore is propaganda for something. It’s a seeding of the self in the consciousness of others.”
—Elizabeth Drew, American political journalist and author (1935–)
(1) “The actions performed by great souls to spread, promote, and disseminate knowledge to every strata of society is a great service to mankind.”
—Sam Veda, American yoga wear designer (1945–)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Dissuading the protesters was the priority of the police.
(1) “The shortness of life cannot dissuade us from its pleasures, nor console us for its pains.”
—Marquis de Vauvenargues, French moralist and essayist (1715–1747)
(1) “Cultures contain many cues and inducements to dissuade the individual from approaching ultimate limits, in much the same way that a special warning strip of land around the edge of a baseball field lets a player know that he is about to run into a concrete wall when he is preoccupied with catching the ball. The wider that strip of land and the more sensitive the player is to the changing composition of the ground under his feet as he pursues the ball, the more effective the warning. Romanticizing or lionizing as individualistic those people who disregard social cues and inducements increases the danger of head-on collisions with inherent social limits. Decrying various forms of social disapproval is in effect narrowing the warning strip.”
—Thomas Sowell, American writer and economist (1930–)
Educe
(1) come to conclusion; derive; evoke; solve a problem based on thoughtful consideration of facts
(2) deduce; draw out; elicit; infer
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “In other words, ‘apartheid’ becomes shorthand for the most egregious instances of systemic and overt racism that necessarily and automatically educe (or should educe) severe international condemnation.”
—Editors. “The Ethnicity of Caste,” Anthropological Quarterly, Volume 78, Issue 3, Summer 2005: pg. 543–584, 42p.
Edify
(1) educate; enlighten; illuminate; improve; inform; instruct; teach
(2) to uplift morally, spiritually, or intellectually
Elaborate
(1) complex; complicate; convolute; detail on; dilate; expatiate on; fancy; intricate
(2) amplify; develop; enlarge; expand on
(3) produce by effort
(4) develop in great detail; work out carefully
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”
—Joseph Priestley, English chemist and clergyman (1733–1804)
Collocates to: an, ceremony, costumes, declines, expensive, network, rituals, schemes, system
Elicit
(1) bring out; call forth something; extract; obtain
(2) cause to be revealed; draw forth; evoke
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.”
—James Buchanan, 15th U.S. President (1791–1868)
(1) “When you make speeches, you elicit expectations against which you will be held accountable.”
—Bill Bradley, American retired NBA basketball player and senator (1943–)
Collocates to: design, information, likely, questions, response, sympathy
Embody
(1) exemplify; express; personify; represent; represent abstract; stand for; symbolize
—Forbes, Steve and John Prevas. Power, Ambition, Glory, NY: Crown Business Press, 2009: pg. 6.
(1) “Laws that do not embody public opinion can never be enforced.”
—Elbert Hubbard, American editor, publisher, and writer (1856–1915)
(1) “If we want the world to embody our shared values, then we must assume a shared responsibility.”
—William Jefferson Clinton, 42nd U.S. President (1946–)
Collocates to: culture, essence, ideals, institutions, principles, spirit, values
Emulate
(1) copy; follow; imitate; work or strive to copy something admired
(2) try often by copying or imitating a model
(3) rival successfully
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) If you want to emulate someone, pick a role model whom society, and not just you, admires.
(1) Many foreign companies attempt to emulate American manufacturing but never manage to match the quality.
(1) “What do we lose by another’s good fortune? Let us celebrate with them or strive to emulate them. That should be our desire and determination.”
—Sri Sathya Sai Baba, Indian spiritual leader (1926–2011)
(1) “When you see a worthy person, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy person, then examine your inner self.”
—Confucius, Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
(1) “Former Deloitte & Touche chairman Michael Cook courageously resigned from a males-only club frequented by his customers when he made a public commitment to the advancement of women. Other firms later emulated Deloitte’s women’s initiative.”
—Kanter, Rosabeth. “Courage in the C-Suite,” Harvard Business Review, December 2011: pg. 38.
Ensure
(1) follow; guarantee; make certain; make sure
(2) make safe; protect; secure
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Despite genuine efforts to ensure fairness, some businesses may be inadvertently overlooking bias that creeps in at initial job placement. Others may underestimate early managers’ impact on employees’ career trajectories. And others may have neglected the topic of gender equality in recent years, considering it an issue of the past.”
—Carter, Nancy and Christine Silva. “Women in Management: Delusions of Progress,” Harvard Business Review, March, 2010: pg. 21.
Envision
(1) conceive; conjure; dream; fancy; feature; ideate; imagine; picture; see; vision; visualize
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) If you could envision the best customer service operation, what would it be like?
(1) “The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.”
—Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austrian-born American actor and governor (1947–)
(1) “The heroes of the world community are not those who withdraw when difficulties ensue, not those who can envision neither the prospect of success nor the consequence of failure—but those who stand the heat of battle, the fight for world peace through the United Nations.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey, 38th American U.S. Vice President and U.S. Senator from Minnesota (1911–1978)
(1) “The world is changing...Networks without a specific branding strategy will be killed...I envision a world of highly niched services and tightly run companies without room for all the overhead the established networks carry.”
—Barry Diller, American media executive (1942–)
Evince
(1) reveal or indicate the presence of a particular feeling or condition; show plainly
(2) indicate; make manifest without a doubt
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Most community colleges evince a strong interest in how their various publics view their program offerings. However, for an organization like a community college, both shaping and changing an image are difficult tasks.”
—Cowles, Deborah. “Understanding and Measuring the Public’s Image of a Community College,” Community College Review, Spring 91, Volume 18, Issue 4, pg. 21.
Exalt
(1) animate; boost; elevate; enliven; glorify; inspire; intensify; invigorate; laud; proclaim; raise high; to praise or worship somebody or something
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage.”
—Samuel Johnson, English writer (1709–1784)
(1) “Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.”
—Edward R. Murrow, American broadcast journalist (1908–1965)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The most excellent and divine counsel, the best and most profitable advertisement of all others, but the least practiced, is to study and learn how to know ourselves. This is the foundation of wisdom and the highway to whatever is good. God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself.”
—Pierre Charron, French 16th-century Catholic theologian and philosopher (1541–1603)
(1) “I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly combat.”
—Plato, Classical Greek philosopher and mathematician (424–327 BC)
(1) In spite of the legal status in some states, most medical experts exhort people to avoid marijuana.
Extol
(1) admire; command; eulogize; exalt; laud; praise; worship
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Many are always praising the by-gone time, for it is natural that the old should extol the days of their youth; the weak, the time of their strength; the sick, the season of their vigor; and the disappointed, the spring-tide of their hopes.”
—George Caleb Bingham, American realist and artist (1811–1879)
(1) “That sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.”
—Sydney Smith, English clergyman and essayist (1771–1845)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.”
—Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Supreme Court (1954–)
Collocates to: can, data, findings, from, motion, results, track
Forge
(1) come up with a concept, explanation, idea, theory, principle, or theory; contrive; create
(2) beat; make out of components
(3) move ahead or act with sudden increase in motion or speed
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “People are more inclined to be drawn in if their leader has a compelling vision. Great leaders help people get in touch with their own aspirations and then help them forge those aspirations into a personal vision.”
—John Kotter, former professor at the Harvard Business School and an acclaimed author (1947–)
(1) “The President’s offer is very much in keeping with the history of insisting that negotiation consists of the other side giving him everything he wants. That approach has given him the reputation as the modern president least able to forge a consensus.”
—Strassel, Kimberley. “This Unserious White House, Opinion,” Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2012: pg. A13.
(1) “We forge the chains we wear in life.”
—Charles Dickens, English writer and social critic (1812–1870)
(1) “Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”
—Patrick Henry, American lawyer, patriot, orator, and symbol of the American struggle for liberty (1736–1799)
Galvanize
(1) activate; animate; electrify; fire up; incite; motivate; rouse; spur; stimulate into action; stir up
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Fear has a lot of flavors and textures. There is a sharp, silver fear that runs like lightning through your arms and legs, galvanizes you into action, power, motion.”
—Jim Butcher, American author of Grave Peril (1971–)
(1) “There are some men whom a staggering emotional shock, so far from making them mental invalids for life, seems, on the other hand, to awaken, to galvanize, to arouse into an almost incredible activity of soul.”
—William McFee, English writer (1881–1961)
Guide
(1) channel; conduct; direct; funnel; point
(2) escort; lead; pilot; route; show; steer; supervise; surround; usher
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) A true leader both guides and follows.
(1) “The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.”
—Winston Churchill, British orator, author, and prime minister (1874–1965)
Go down the line
(1) all in; all out; compete with dead earnest; do whatever is necessary; full steam; give or take no quarter; go balls out; go down swinging; go for broke; go for the fences; go for gold; go for all the marbles; go full bore; go great guns; go the distance; go the limit; go toe to toe; go to the wall; make the maximum effort; valiant try
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) A manager’s dream team includes members who would go down the line.
Hang tough
(1) don’t back down; hold to one’s position; stick to one’s position on something no matter what
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Taking a controversial position is lonely so make sure you’re right, and then go ahead and hang tough.
Hunker down
(1) assume a defensive position to resist difficulties; become determined not to budge from an opinion or position; circle the wagons; get in defensive position; prepare for bad news or prolonged assault; prepare for siege; take shelter, literally or figuratively
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “While many businessmen were hunkering down for another bust after the lean years of the Second World War and the Great Depression before it, Taylor and company correctly reckoned it was the dawn of an era of prosperity and growth.”
—Richard Siklos, American newspaper writer and author
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “In the last five years, though, an expanding number of computer scientists have embraced developmental psychology’s proposal that infants possess basic abilities, including gaze tracking, for engaging with others in order to learn. Social interactions, combined with sensory experiences gained as a child explores the world, set off a learning explosion, researchers hypothesize.”
—Bower, Bruce. “Meet the Growbots,” Science News, Volume 179, Issue 3, January 29, 2011: pg. 18.
(1) “I hypothesize that the Katrina event has made people think pretty seriously about infrastructure and its vulnerability.”
—Stuart Elway, American business executive
Collocates to: led, may, might, reasonable, researchers, therefore, we
Ignite
(1) burn; combust; conflagrate; flare up; glow; inflame; kindle; light up; stimulate or provoke
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Leaders can’t ignite the flame of passion in others if they don’t express enthusiasm for the compelling vision of their group.”
—Kouzes, James and Berry Posner. The Leadership Challenge, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995, pg. 11.
(1) “Without inspiration, the best powers of the mind remain dormant; [there] is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.”
—Johann Gottfried Von Herder, German poet, critic, theologian, and philosopher (1744–1803)
Collocates to: fire, help, inflation, passion, spark, war
Imagine
(1) assume; conjecture; form a mental image of something; guess; suppose; think, believe, or fancy
(1) He imagined the entire project before committing it to paper.
(1) “The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.”
—Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, and critic (1854–1900)
(1) “Imagination is everything. It is a preview of life’s coming attractions.”
—Albert Einstein, American theoretical physicist (1879–1955)
Imbue
(1) indoctrinate; instill
(2) drink; endow; fill; infuse; permeate or take in moisture
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Education would be so much more effective if its purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school, every boy and girl should know how much they don’t know and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.”
—Sir William Haley, British newspaper editor and broadcasting administrator (1901–1987)
(1) “Many companies, of course, benefit greatly from the mental and emotional investment of their creators. They thrive on the founders’ passion and on the passion of like-minded employees. Their products or services—born of extreme attention to detail—are often of the highest quality. And founders with strong personalities may imbue their progeny with distinctive identities that can be exploited in marketing.”
—Singer, Thea. “Our Companies, Ourselves,” Inc., Volume 28, Issue 11, November 2006: pg. 38–40, 3p.
Collocates to: consciousness, life, meaning, personality, significance, with
Imply
(1) connote; hint; mean; signify; suggest strongly
—Margaret Deland, American novelist, short-story writer, and poet (1857–1945)
(1) “But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, and they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
—Dr. Carl Sagan, American astronomer, writer, and scientist (1934–1996)
Implore
(1) appeal; ask for; beg; beseech; entreat; implore; make earnest or urgent request; plead; pray; press; request; solicit; supplicate
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “When Lacy’s not in meetings, he’s on the phone trying to motivate people to get involved. He appears on television news shows and on radio talk shows to sound off about youth violence. He appears at City Council meetings to implore city leaders to make the city’s children a priority.”
—Walker, Thaai. “In the Name of the Daughter: The Murder of an Oakland Teenager Spurs Her Father to Fight for Change,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 13, 1993: pg. 1.
Collocates to: admit, aid, god, eyes, forgiveness, guilt, leaders, members, stop
Improve
(1) ameliorate; amend; better; build up; develop; employ; enhance in value; enrich; expand; further; help; increase; make better; meliorate; perfect; raise to a better quality; upgrade use
(2) convalesce; get better; get stronger; get well; make progress; mend; perk up; rally; recover
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The research shows that in almost every case, a bigger opportunity lies in improving your performance in the industry you’re in, by fixing your strategy, and strengthening the capabilities that create value for customers and separate you from your competitors. This conclusion was reached after analyzing shareholder returns for 6,138 companies in 65 industries worldwide from 2001 to 2011.”
—Hirsh, Evan and Kasturi Rangan. “The Grass Isn’t Greener,” Harvard Business Review, January–February 2013: pg. 23.
(1) Sam found two ways of improving the efficiency of the CAD software.
(1) Engineering improved upon the original design of the device.
(1) “When you are through improving... you are through.”
—Arab Proverb
(1) “The ‘inside-out’ approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self—with your paradigms, your character, and your motives. The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves recede making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.”
—Stephen R. Covey, American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker (1932–2012)
Infer
(1) assume; conclude or suppose; conjecture; deduce; extrapolate; gather; judge; reason; reckon; surmise; understand
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “From a drop of water, a logician can infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.”
—Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr., Scottish writer (1859–1930)
(1) “It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: We have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, lecturer, and essayist (1803–1882)
Infuse
(1) bathe; fill; fix an emotion or feeling; fortify; imbue; immerse; impart; implant; inculcate; inspire; instill; introduce; penetrate; permeate
(2) brew; saturate; soak; souse; steep; suffuse
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”
—Maya Angelou, American poet (1928–)
(1) “An occupation earns the right to be a profession only when some ideals, such as being an impartial counsel, doing no harm, or serving the greater good, are infused into the conduct of people in that occupation. In like vein, a business school becomes a professional school only when it infuses those ideals into its graduates.”
—Barker, Richard. “No, Management Is Not a Profession,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2012: pg. 54.
Inspire
(1) breathe life into; encourage, give inspiration; have an exalting influence; influence or impel; invigorate; motivate; produce or arouse a feeling in others; stimulate
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Shawn Kent Hayashi asks a profound question ‘Are you inspiring?’ Then through practical, real life examples, she demonstrates how leaders can develop from being motivational to inspirational through the power of conversations.”
—Seybold, Meghan. Praise for Conversations for Creating Star Performers, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2012.
(1) Her courage inspired the other employees to work even harder.
(1) “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, lecturer, and essayist (1803–1882)
(1) “To inspire others, you have to know what motivates them, and you have to be inspired yourself about the topic you are discussing. To be a leader and developer of others, you have to be inspiring.”
—Hayashi, Shawn Kent. Conversations for Creating Star Performers, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2012: pg. 7.
(1) “Leadership is the ability to inspire confidence and support among people who are needed to achieve organizational goals.”
—DuBrin, Andrew. Leadership Research Findings, Practice, and Skills, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998: pg. 2.
(1) “Few business narratives are more evocative that that of the inspired leader boldly pursuing an extraordinary innovative idea.”
—Gaovondarajan, Vijay and Chris Trimbla. “Building Breakthrough Businesses Within Established Organizations,” Harvard Business Review, May 2005, pg. 58.
Collocates to: ability, awe, confidence, continue, educate, fear, generation, helped, motivate, others, trust
Instigate
(1) cause a process to start; enkindle; enkindle action; ignite; initiate change; spark
(2) cause trouble; provoke; stir up things
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Change is inevitable. This much we know. But don’t we occasionally feel the urge to instigate change rather than simply let it happen, as if we had no say in the matter?”
—Editors. “Time for a Change,” Town and Country, Volume 164, Issue 5360, May 2010.
(1) “Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy.”
—Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullian, Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa (660AD–220 AD)
Collocates to: change, conflicts, investigation, social reform
Iterate
(1) say or utter again; repeat
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) To iterate a point made previously, customer retention is our main marketing priority.
Jawbone
(1) using persuasion rather than force to get someone to do what you want
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) The U.S. has tried continually to jawbone the government of Pakistan to weed out Al-Qaida supporters within its military.
Kindle
(1) arouse; fire; light; provoke; stir to action
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The fire you kindle for your enemy often burns yourself more than them.”
—Chinese Proverb
(1) “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed from one another. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbors, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the probe.”
—Voltaire, French philosopher and writer (1694–1778)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “And give to dust that is a little gilt, More laud than gilt o’er-dusted.”
—William Shakespeare, English dramatist, playwright, and poet (1564–1616)
Manumit
(1) emancipate; free; set at liberty
Mentor
(1) give assistance in career or business matters; provide advice or guidance
Collocates to: assigned, became, coach, facility, former, friend, long time, mentee, relationship, role, served, spiritual, student, teacher
Militate
(1) contend; have a substantial effect on; make war or fight against; weigh heavily on
Mitigate
(1) appease; change from one point or position; make less serious, severe, or intense; to soften one’s position
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The GOP would have to swallow hard on the defense cuts, though Mr. Obama will be under huge pressure to take action to mitigate the damage to the military.”
—Strassel, Kimberly. “Potomac Watch,” Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2012: pg. A15.
Collocates to: bad news, conflict, damage, danger, disaster, disruption, effect, harm, hazard, impact, loss, result, risk, threat, worst
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer and more copious one’s vocabulary and greater one’s awareness of the fine distinctions and subtle nuances of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to be one’s thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the words for them grow together. If you do not know the words, you hardly know a thing.”
—Henry Hazlitt, American philosopher, literary critic, and journalist (1894–1993)
Objectify
(1) externalize; make objective or concrete; represent an abstraction as if in bodily form
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The ‘Thong Song,’ a rap homage to butt-baring bikinis, was released in 1999, several years after I graduated from an ideologically feminist all-women’s college. Still, I can imagine the predictable feminist reaction it would have caused among my classmates. They would have decried the song as a kind of chest-beating battle cry, a reprehensible demonstration of how men (or ‘the patriarchy’) objectify and humiliate women. In fact, many of my cohorts would have used very fancy sociological language to explain that the patriarchy designed the tether-like thong to represent a leash, collar, or strangulation device, bound tightly around women’s genital regions, thus signifying male ownership of the female anatomy.”
—Voss, Katrina. “Evolution and the Thong-Burqa Continuum,” Humanist, Volume 70, Issue 5, September–October: pg. 22–23.
Collocates to: decisions, difficulty, discourse, efforts, impartial, men, must, spectator, women
Obviate
(1) anticipate to prevent difficulties or disadvantages; avert; hinder; preclude; prevent
Optimize
(1) make the best or most effective use of a situation or resource
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Fully understanding a company requires knowledge of its social structure and informal networks, and optimizing performance requires social investments.”
—Kanter, Rosabeth. “How Great Companies Think Differently,” Harvard Business Review, November 2011: pg. 75.
(1) “I’ve heard claims that we can wish our way to perfect, permanent wellness, but I haven’t seen any proof of that. Sickness and death are part of life. But you can optimize your life. You can make progress as you strive toward perfection.”
—Unknown
(1) “India and China developed by being involved in the far end of the value chain. Instead, Africa will meet and may exceed the Asian experience by optimizing its resources and focusing on massive agricultural and energy (solar) projects that will primarily aid the food crisis.”
—Olusegun Femi-Ishola, human resource executive, excerpt from “The Best Leaders Have Short Resumes,” Interaction, Harvard Business Review, December 2012: p. 19.
Palliate
(1) alleviate or calm the problem but not rid the problem; ameliorate; cure; heal; improve; relieve
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Friends are often chosen for similitude of manners, and therefore each palliate the other’s failings because they are his own.”
—Samuel Johnson, English poet, critic, and writer (1709–1784)
(2) talk or negotiate with someone
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “It was Ismail’s first big order—$12,000. The money was enough to parlay into his first store, which opened in Dallas a year later.”
—Simons, John. “Living in America,” Fortune, Volume 145, Issue 1; pg. 92, 3 p.
Collocates to: able, experience, hopes, into, success, trying
Parse
(1) create component parts of a sentence; give out in parts or sections
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Constitutional Scholars Parse Pay Measures”
—US News Headlines, Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2012: p.A4.
Pacify
(1) appease; calm down; ease anger or agitation; mollify; placate; soothe
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) The latest pension enhancement management offering should pacify the union representatives.
(1)“The wrath of a king is as messengers of death, but a wise man will pacify it.”
—Biblical quote
Perseverate
(1) continue something; repeat something insistently or over and over again
Persevere
(1) be steadfast in purpose; persist; to continue in some effort or course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Victory belongs to the most persevering.”
—Napoleon Bonaparte, French military and political leader (1769–1821)
Placate
(1) appease; blend together; calm; stop from being angry
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Successful politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies.”
—Walter Lipmann, American public intellectual, writer, reporter, and political commentator (1889–1974)
Posit
(1) assume; conceive; conjecture; hypothesize; imagine; postulate; put forward; speculate; state or assume as fact; suggest; theorize
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Government, for the past 80 years or so, has seen its purpose as mainly to ‘respond’ to society’s failures the moment they occur or whenever they are imagined. Adam Lanza killed with guns, so modern policy making logic posits that government must pass a law. Whether that law will accomplish its goal is...irrelevant.”
—Henninger, Daniel. “The Biggest Cliff of All,” Wall Street Journal, December 27, 2012: pg. A11.
(1) “It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are. Human understanding has vulgarly occupied itself with nothing but understanding, but if it would only take the trouble to understand itself at the same time, it would simply have to posit the paradox.”
—Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher and theologian (1813–1855)
Postulate
(1) assume; claim; guess; hypothesize; look for a reason or take for granted without proof; propose; put forward; suggest
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Once you abstract from this, once you generalize and postulate universals, you have departed from the creative reality and entered the realm of static fixity, mechanism, materialism.”
—D.H. Lawrence, British poet, novelist, and essayist (1885–1930)
Purport
(1) claiming to be something you are not; pretending to do something you are not doing
(2) give the appearance, often falsely of being something one is not
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to ‘create’ rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.
—William J. Brennan, Jr., American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1906–1997)
Ratiocinate
(1) work toward a solution through logical thinking and reason
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) When you come down to it, there is too much ratiocination in the debates and too few solutions based on practical common sense.
(2) interpret on the basis of some explainable reason
(3) make actions conform to reason
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The very vehemence of outrage makes it a warped mirror, a roiling reflection of our values, exposing our contradictions as often as our convictions. To name a few: There’s too little outrage. Bennett has been joined in his complaints by leaders of the religious right like James Dobson of the organization Focus on the Family, who writes that ‘the willingness of my fellow citizens to rationalize the President’s behavior’ means that ‘our greatest problem is not in the Oval Office. It is with the people of this land.’”
—Paul, Annie M. “Outrage!” Psychology Today, Volume 32, Issue 1, February 1999: pg. 32.
Collocates to: actions, attempt, behavior, efforts, justified, productions, tried, try
Rebut
(1) argue in opposition; confute; contradict; deny; disprove; invalidate; oppose; refute
(2) show to be false
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) In our legal system, the grand jury hears the prosecution testimony only and the defense does not get the opportunity to rebut.
Recant
(1) abjur; disavow; withdraw formally
(2) withdraw or renounce beliefs or statements in public
—Desiderius Erasmus, Dutch priest, humanist, and editor of the New Testament (1469–1536)
Recapitulate
(1) repeat in more concise form or briefly as in an outline; summarize
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Adolescence [is] the time when an individual recapitulates the savage stage of the race’s past.”
—Granville Stanley Hall, American psychologist and educator (1844–1924)
Reiterate
(1) repeat, say, or do the same thing; state again
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Mr. Obama plans to reiterate Monday at an event in Michigan his call for the House to pass an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for households making under $250,000 in annual income.”
—Bendavid, Naftali and Carol Lee. “Obama, Boehner Meet as Urgency Over Talks Increases,” Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2012: pg. A4.
Ruminate
(1) chew over; cogitate; contemplate; mull over; ponder; reflect on; think over
(2) meditate; to turn over in one’s mind
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “I may revolve and ruminate my grief.”
—William Shakespeare, English poet and playwright (1564–1516), excerpt from King Henry VI, Part 1
(1)“‘True,’” replied Danglars, ‘The French have the superiority over the Spaniards, that the Spaniards ruminate, while the French invent.’”
—Alexandre Dumas, French writer (1802–1870), excerpt from The Count of Monte Cristo
Satiate
(1) glut with an excess of something; gratify completely; provide with more than enough; satisfy an appetite fully
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the practiced native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty; and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant monarchs of Europe.”
—James Fennimore Cooper, American writer (1789–1851), excerpt from The Last of the Mohicans
Scintillate
(1) flash; sizzle; sparkle
(2) be brilliant and witty; sparkle intellectually
(3) twinkle, as a star
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) We watched contentedly as our campfire scintillated in the darkness.
Strike the right note
(1) say or do something suitable or appropriate
Tailor
(1) adjust; create; customize; fashion; fit; specify; style to fit
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Rather than assuming that there is one ‘best’ or universal answer to questions about such things as job design, resistance to change, the best compensation plans, how to design teams, what are the causes of unethical behavior, organizational behavior recognizes that management practices must be tailored to fit the exact nature of each situation....”
—Schermerhorn, John, Richard Osborn, Mary UHL-Bien, and James Hunt. Organizational Behavior, 12th edition, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012, pg. 4.
(1) “The Federal Reserve’s decision to tie interest rate increases to specific unemployment and inflation levels...are decisions most tailored to the specific situation the economy is in.”
—Derby, Michael and Kristina Peterson. “Is the Fed Doing Enough—or Too Much—to Aid Recovery,” Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2013: pg. A2.
Teach
(1) coach; give lessons; instruct; mentor; provide knowledge or insight; show or help a person learn
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “She had intended to teach Anne the childish classic, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’ But she had, as I have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humor—which is simply another name for a sense of fitness of things; and it suddenly occurred to her that that simple little prayer, sacred to white-robed childhood lisping at motherly knees, was entirely unsuited to this freckled witch of a girl who knew and cared nothing bout God’s love, since she had never had it translated to her through the medium of human love.”
—Lucy Maud Montgomery, Canadian author of Anne of Green Gables (1874–1922)
Train
(1) coach; educate; guide; inform; instruct; mentor; prepare; school; teach
—Shah, Shvetank, Andrew Horne, and Jamie Capella. “Good Data Won’t Guarantee Good Decisions,” Harvard Business Review, April 2012: pg. 24.
(1) New hires are trained on all the production equipment.
Vindicate
(1) an act was justified or one was innocent despite opinion to contrary; prove opinion correct
(2) clear from blame, suspicion, guilt, or criticism; uphold by evidence or argument
(3) defend or maintain against opposition
(4) lay claim or establish possession of
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Dueling may have been bloody and deadly, but at least it provided one a way to very quickly vindicate themselves—or die trying.
Visualize
(1) create mental impression or image of something; dream of; envisage; image; picture; see in one’s mind’s eye; think about
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint, and begin to build.”
—Robert Collier, American motivational author (1885–1950)
(1) “Almost, it seemed, she could visualize the women who had kept their pretties and their family homespun in its drawers—the women of those wandering generations who were grandmothers and greater great grandmothers of her own mother.”
—Jack London, American author, journalist, and social activist (1876–1916), The Valley of the Moon