10. Society and Social Organizations: Culture, Business Concepts and Economics, Education, Law, Politics and Government, Social Groups, and Organizations
Culture
General Personal Behavior, Character, Characteristics, Traits, and Skills
ACCULTURATE
(1) cause (a society, for example) to change by the process of acculturation; change behavior to suit a new culture
(1) In most cases, by the third generation, most immigrant ethnic groups have begun to assimilate and acculturate, thus becoming more like members of the native population.
ADDUCE (also see Law)
(1) allege; bring forward; cite as evidence; lead to; present; put forward
(1) “Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect, but memory.” —Leonardo da Vinci
(1) Susan tried her best to adjudicate the dispute as the sales team argued back and forth over the commission plan.
ADUMBRATE
(1) foreshadow; give a general description of something but not the details; prefigure; obscure; overshadow; predict; presage; summarize
ADVISE
(1) counsel; direct; give advice; give opinion; recommend; warn
(2) inform; let know; make aware; notify; tell someone what has happened
AGGLOMERATE
(1) accumulate; cluster; gather together; jumbled collection
AGGRANDIZE
(1) exalt; increase; make greater; make larger; puffery
(1) He tried to aggrandize his own role in the jury deliberations.
AMELIORATE (
)
(1) correct a mistake; improve; make better; tolerate
(1) Phillip ameliorated the issues in the business plan prior to the meeting with the investors.
(2) correct a deficiency or defect; make right a wrong; take action that makes up for one’s negative or improper actions
ANALOGIZE
(1) break down; dissect; liken; resolve
ANIMATE (
)
(1) give life to; give sprit and support to; quicken
(2) make or design in such a way as to create apparently spontaneous lifelike movement
ARBITRATE (
)
(1) adjudicate; decide; intercede; judge; mediate; negotiate; pass judgment; referee; settle; sort out
ASSERT
(1) affirm; allege; contend; aver; avow; claim; declare; emphasize; protest; state strongly; stress
(2) champion; defend; establish; insist upon; maintain; make a claim for; stand up for; support; uphold
(1), (2) “First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” —President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 4 March 1933
ASSEVERATE
(1) assert; aver; avouch; avow; declare earnestly or solemnly; hold; maintain
(1) “I hereby do asseverate my solemn belief that globalization, taken as a whole, is a positive economic force and well worth defending.” —Timothy Taylor, “The Truth About Globalization,” Public Interest, issue 147, Spring 2002, p. 24
ASSUAGE
(1) appease; erase doubts and fears; mollify; pacify; satisfy; soothe
ATTENUATE
(1) dilute; enervate; make thin or slender; weaken or reduce in force, intensity, effect, quality, or value
AUGUR
(1) auspicate; betoken; bode; divine; forebode; foreshadow; foretell; portend; predict
(1) “The single best augury is to fight for one’s country.” —Homer
BUMP THE SHARK
(1) push back against an aggressive person; stand up against an intrusive, aggressive, or assertive verbal assault
(2) fight back against a bully
(1), (2) The last thing the thug expected from a gray-haired woman with a walker was someone who was ready to bump the shark.
COMMISERATE
(1) feel empathy; express sympathy; feel compassion or pity; sympathize
CONGREGATE
(1) assemble; come together; felicitate; gather
CONSIGN
(1) agree; dispatch; entrust; give over or commit to others; pack off; relegate; submit
(2) deliver; send; transfer
(1) “The Presidency of Jimmy Carter in the United States and the government of James Callaghan in 1970s Britain, Mr. Stedman Jones writes, were already liberating economies from controls under which they had suffered (for so long). Such follies as wage-price controls and fixed exchange rates were already being consigned to history.” —Kenneth Minogue, “The Death and Life of Liberal Economics,” Wall Street Journal, 27–28 October 2012, p. C5
CONTRADISTINGUISH
(1) contrast; reveal differences; show disparity
CORROBORATE
(1) back; back up with evidence; confirm formally; make certain the validity of; strengthen; support a statement or argument with evidence
COUNTENANCE
(1) approve; encourage; favorably disposed; sanction; support
COUNTERVAIL
(1) avail against; balance; compensate; equalize; make up for
ENSCONCE
(1) place or settle comfortably, snuggly, or securely
(2) conceal; establish; entrench; install; hide; shelter
ENTREAT
(1) beg; beseech; implore; intercede; negotiate; plead; pray; request earnestly or emotionally
ESCHEW (es c/hoo′)
(1) abstain; avoid; disdain; give up; have nothing to do with; keep away from; shun; steer clear of; turn your back on
(1) In today’s reform-minded political climate, elected officials are eschewing lobbyists with poor reputations.
EVOLVE
(1) develop by gradual changes; derive; elaborate
(2) set free; give off
(3) produce or change by evolution
GALUMP
(1) move or run slowly or clumsily
(2) transport someone or something
GAMBOL
(1) caper; cavort; dance; frisk; prance; rollick; romp; run; skip; jump in a playful or joyous fashion
(1) During the run-up to the financial bubble of 2008–2010, many financial planners allowed their less informed clients to gambol forth into questionable direct investments like junk bonds and real estate developments.
GLISSADE (
)
(1) glide; move smoothly and effortlessly
GRABBLE
(1) feel or search with hands; grope
(2) lie or fall prone; sprawl; scramble about
GUFFAW
(1) break up laughing; express great amusement or mirth
IMBUE
(1) indoctrinate; instill
(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)
(2) drink; endow; fill; infuse; permeate or take in moisture
IMMURE (I myo-or′)
(1) build into a wall; confine; detain; enclose; jail; imprison; incarcerate; intern; seclude; shut away; shut in; put someone in a place with no escape
IMPUGN (
)
(1) attack as false or wrong by argument or criticism; challenge something as false or wrong; express doubts about the truth or honesty of someone
(1) “Although Holden was mistaken about the origin of lunar craters like Copernicus, it would be churlish to impugn him too harshly on this matter, as many other astronomers thought similarly.” —Graeme Smith, “Refining Refracted Moonlight,” Mercury 33, issue 5, Sept./Oct. 2004, p. 30–38
(2) accredit; attribute; ascribe a result or quality to anything or anyone; assign; fix
INTERPOSE
(1) aggressive; arbitrate; insert; intercept; interfere; intermediate; meddle; mediate; unsolicited opinion; offer assistance or presence; put between
INTUIT
(1) know something instinctively through direct instinct
METE
(1) allot; set aside or distribute a share; measure
MEW
(1) confine; enclose
NUT UP
(1) become bold, courageous, or forthright; sack up, man up
OBSECRATE
(1) beg; beseech; plead; supplicate
QUAFF
(1) drink with gusto and in large volume; imbibe; swill; guzzle
SATIATE
(1) satisfy an appetite fully; gratify completely; glut with an excess of something; provide with more than enough
(1) “The ‘Connection Principle’ is the unconscious intention to satiate hunger with food and simply reflects some biological aspect of the brains workings that has the capacity to produce conscious appetite and food seeking behavior in certain situations.” —Bruce Bower, “Rethinking the Mind,” Science News 142, issue 16, 17 October 1992, p. 264
Collocates to: appetite, ate, desire, food, hunger, need, wealth
(1) “The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure.” —Henry David Thoreau, American essayist, poet, and philosopher (1817–1862)
Metaphor: “Reading without purpose is sauntering, not exercise.” —Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton, British politician, poet, critic, and prolific novelist (1803–1873)
SCINTILLATE
(1) flash; sparkle; sizzle
(2) sparkle intellectually; be brilliant and witty
(3) twinkle, as a star
SCREW THE POOCH (slang)
(1) foul up; make a mistake; mess up
SPANG (also Spange)
(1) panhandle; beg for money
SPAVE
(1) spend money under the illusion that one is saving money
SPIT GAME
(1) flirt with, hit on, or try to pick up a woman
SPLAY
(1) move out of position; turn outward
(2) spread open or apart
SQUICK
(1) disturb, unsettle, make uneasy; cause disgust or revulsion; gross someone out; freak someone
(1) Some things are too repulsive to discuss in a public forum—squicking is one of them.
(1) It has always been the practice of common-law judges to subsume local custom into their decision and judgments.
Collocates to: differences, identity, individuals, knowledge, others
TAKE A LESSON
(1) learn from one’s mistakes
TEMPORIZE
(1) gain time by being evasive or indecisive
(2) suit one’s actions to the situation
(3) parlay or deal so as to gain time
(4) effect a compromise; negotiate
THROW SHADE
(1) take a superior attitude; criticize, demean, or insult; diss or derogate
WOOLGATHER
(1) appear to be lost in one’s thoughts; daydream
Business and Educational Concepts
Branding, Advertising, Marketing, and Selling
ADVERTISE
(1) amplify; brand; broadcast; communicate; disseminate; inform; market; notify; present; promote; publicize; recommend; sell
(2) send paid communications through media channels to audiences who are most likely interested in the product, service, idea, or concept to which the advertising is referring
BENCHMARK
(1) benchmark: learn from best practices; measure; point of references; standard; target
(1) “We still haven’t played Madison Square Garden. That’s a benchmark. Something will have gone seriously wrong if we don’t play Madison Square Garden for this album.” —Dan Hawkins, English rock guitarist (1976–)
(1) “If your fund has trailed its benchmark for 12 months, three years, and five years, along with its peer group, then you have some pretty good reasons for selling.” —Roy Weitz, founder of FundAlarm.com
Collocates to: assess, delivery, index, performance, rate, scores, success, set, test
BIRD DOG
(1) follow; watch and learn from an experienced person
BLAZON (
)
(1) advertise; proclaim something widely
COLLABORATE
(1) act as a team; assist; cooperate; pool resources; team up; work jointly with; work together
(1) Dawn successfully collaborated with two other agencies.
CORRELATE
(1) associate with; calculate to show the reciprocal relation between; come together; bring into mutual relationship; correspond; parallel
Simile: “Care and labor are as much correlated to human existence as shadow is to light.” —Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author (1811–1896); Household Papers and Stories, 1864, Part 2, Chapter 4
Collocates to: age, highly, moderately, negatively, positively, scores, significantly, with, variables
CROWD SOURCE
(1) identify a group with common demographics or psychographic characteristics and determine how to best make contact with it to deliver a message such as a sales or advertising message
E-TAIL
(1) online retail selling and business activities
Capitalism, Free Markets, and Entrepreneurship
AFFILIATE
(1) associate; attach; belong to; combine; connect with; link; partner with; join
AMALGAMATE
(1) combine; fuse; integrate; join together; merge; mix; unite
BLUE SKY
(1) visionary thinking; out-of-the-box strategic, long-range thinking
(1) I want to blue sky some ideas for new products for the youth market.
BOOTSTRAP
(1) have initiative; manage without assistance; succeed with few resources
(1) The business founders bootstrapped their new start-up.
STOVE-PIPE
(1) develop, or be developed, in an isolated environment; solve narrow goals or meet specific needs in a way not readily compatible with other systems
(1) “Apple had the sort of confusion present at most older organizations, where databases grew up with stove-piped or isolated islands of proprietary automation.” —Sally Atkins, Open Systems Today, 20 September 1993
Finances and Money
ASSET STRIP
(1) acquire a business or organization for the sole purpose of selling off its most valuable assets to make a quick profit
COLLATERALIZE
(1) pledge as collateral for financial consideration
(1) “Pebble Technologies Corporation, operating out of a cramped split-level condo, is racing to prove that it and the crowdfunding wave aren’t flashes in the pan.” —Pui Wing Tam, Wall Street Journal, 2 July 2012
DISCOUNT
(1) convert future dollars (costs, investments, or revenue) into present values, accounting for interest costs or forgone investment income
ENGAGEMENT STACK
(1) chronologically ordered list of all the marketing touch points experienced by an individual user
(1) “You can imagine that, in many companies’ marketing ecosystems, there can be millions of users and their individual engagement stacks.” Phil Gross, Associate Director of Product Management at Visual IQ, The IQ Advisor, issue 9, 12 September 2012
ENUMERATE
(1) catalog; count off; itemize; list; tally
(2) determine the number of; total
(3) name one by one; specify
HYPOTHECATE
(1) pledge as security; mortgage
Leaders, Managers, Supervisors
ADMINISTER
(1) control; deal out; direct; dispense; furnish a benefit; give out; govern; hand out; manage; mete out; order; run; supervise; oversee a process
AMALGAMATE (
)
(1) combine; fuse; integrate; join together; merge; mix; unite
ANALYZE
(1) consider; dissect; evaluate; examine; explore; interpret; investigate; probe; question; scrutinize; study
(1) Randi analyzed the situation from all positions before making her decision.
APPROVE
(1) accept; agree to; attest; back up; command; commend; endorse; favor; praise; ratify; sanction; support
(2) allow; authorize; consent; grant; pass; sanction
ARRANGE
(1) array; authorize; catalogue; classify; fix; order; organize; position; set up; make plans for something to be done
(1) Donna arranged for the managers to meet in the conference room.
ASSERT
(1) affirm; allege; aver; avow; champion; claim; contend; declare; defend; emphasize; insist; maintain; protest; state strongly; stress; support claim of or for
(1) “The people know their rights, and they are never slow to assert and maintain them when they are invaded.” —President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
Parallelism: “Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” —Cecil Beaton, English photographer and fashion designer (1904–1980)
Collocates to: authority, control, claims, identity, independence, influence, interest, jurisdiction, leadership, privacy, privilege, rights
BATTEN
(1) close; fasten; fix; secure
(2) clean up; make large profits
BETA TEST
(1) field test; sample prior to rollout; road-test
BLAMESTORMING
(1) sit in a group, discussing why things went wrong, why deadlines were missed, and so on, in an attempt to place blame on someone else
BLANDISH
(1) coax; cajole; influence; induce or persuade by gentle flattery
BRAINSTORM
(1) come up with; dream up; devise; freely generate ideas; think strategically; think
CONCEIVE
(1) create; envisage; imagine; invent original ideas; understand; picture; visualize
(2) elaborate; begin life; dream; form; make up
(1) “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” —President Abraham Lincoln
DASHBOARD
(1) monitor or gauge the statistics or status of a business; assessment
(1) “My company really only uses SPS for the document storage—not dashboarding, workflow, etc.” —Michael Donahue, Usenet: microsoft.public.sharepoint.portalserver, 15 June 2002
DELIBERATE
(1) consider; contemplate; ponder; think about carefully
Metaphor: “Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.” —Napoleon Bonaparte, French general and politician (1769–1821)
DESIGNATE
(1) call; circumscribe; choose; elect; entitle; identify; label; name; nominate; select; style; title
(2) allocate; indicate; point out; specify
DISCERN
(1) behold; catch; descry; discriminate; distinguish; differentiate; have insight; make out; perceive; pick out; recognize; separate mentally from others; see things clearly; spot
EDUCE (
)
(1) come to conclusion; solve a problem based on thoughtful consideration of facts; derive; evoke
(2) draw out; elicit; infer; deduce
(3) bring out or develop; elicit from
EFFECTUATE
(1) bring about; cause or accomplish something; effect
ENGENDER
(1) begat; bring about or into being; cause; create; give rise to; originate; produce
EXEMPLIFY
(1) illustrate by example; serve or show as a good example
INITIATE
(1) begin; create; commence; inaugurate; induct; install; instate; instigate; introduce; invest; kick off; open; set off; start
(1) Paula will be initiating a series of seminars on networking.
(2) coach; instruct; mentor; teach; train; tutor
INTERLARD
(1) intersperse; diversify; mix together
LEAN FORWARD
(1) be proactive; initiate a process or action
(1) “Look, I will let you invest a million dollars in Apple if you will sort of open the kimono at Xerox PARC.” —Steve Jobs
PERAMBULATE
(1) walk through, over, and around to do a complete and thorough inspection
SHOTGUN
(1) try a variety of methods; make repeated attempts; take an indiscriminate approach; be scattershot
Economics and Monetary
ACCRUE
(1) accumulate; amass; ensue; build up; increase; mount up
(1) After ten years, the investment accrued more interest that the original deposit.
(2) come to one as a gain; amass
(3) accrete; add; grow by addition
AMORTIZE
(1) pay off (as a mortgage) gradually, usually by periodic payments of principal and interest
(1) With larger payments, you should reduce debt so that the capital costs can be amortized over 20 years.
GAZUMP (
)
(1) raise the price of something, especially a house, after agreeing on a price verbally (with an intended buyer)
(2) swindle or overcharge
PAINT THE TAPE
(1) illegal action of stock market manipulators buying and/or selling a security among themselves to create artificial activity that, when reported on the ticker tape, would lure unexpected investors as they perceive unusual volume
(1) “Tuesday’s closing (stock) prices were particularly important to money managers who report their performances based upon quarterly figures, and suspicions of painting the tape.” —Floyd Norris, New York Times, 10 January 2008
QUANTIFY
(1) Determine, express, or explain the quantity of; express something in numeric or quantifiable terms; to use a numerical expression or explanation
TAPE BOMB
(1) report unexpected financial and economic news caused by a macro political event for the purpose of affecting stock and bond trading
(1) “Wall Street Waits for the Next Tape Bomb” —Andrew Leonard, Wall Street Journal, 6 August 2007