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1. to verify or prove to be true in pleading a cause
2. to declare positively
He averred that he was innocent.
“Yogis aver that everyone has a guru, whether it be a person, God, or the experiences of the world, that helps him or her practice the yoga that is in accordance with his or her nature, and assists on the path toward enlightenment.”
“Materialism is a philosophy that avers that matter is the only reality and denies the existence of idealism and spiritualism.”
characterized by injustice or wickedness; wicked; sinful.
evil, sinful, unfair, vicious, wicked
“It broke from him like a wail of despair from a hell of sufferers and died in a wail of furious entreaty, a cry for an iniquitous abandonment, a cry which was but the echo of an obscene scrawl which he had read on the oozing wall of a urinal.” - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
1. resisting authority or control; not obedient or compliant; refractory.
2. hard to deal with, manage, or operate.
Peter Sacks, in Generation X Goes to College (1996), contends that the growing population of recalcitrant slackers raises grave and “fundamental questions whether the existing model of higher education even applies any longer to teaching this generation”.
1. caused by or showing sincere remorse.
2. filled with a sense of guilt and the desire for atonement; penitent: a contrite sinner.
apologetic, attritional, chastened, compunctious, conscience-stricken, humble, penitent, penitential, remorseful, repentant, sorrowful, sorry
“I glare at Peeta and he tries to look contrite.” - Hunger Games
c.1300, from O.Fr. contrit and directly from L. contritus, lit. “worn out, ground to pieces,” pp. of conterere “to grind,” from com- “together” (see com-) + terere “to rub” (see throw). Used in English in figurative sense of “crushed in spirit by a sense of sin.”
spirited, brave
adventurous, bold, confident, courageous, daring, determined, fearless, game, gritty, gutsy, heroic, lionhearted, nervy, persevering, spirited, sporting, spunky, stalwart, tenacious, unafraid, undaunted, unfearful, valiant
“These findings will affirm the experience of readers who have felt illuminated and instructed by a novel, who have found themselves comparing a plucky young woman to Elizabeth Bennet or a tiresome pedant to Edward Casaubon.”
1: noxious, harmful
2 a : offensive to the senses and especially to the sense of smell
b : highly obnoxious or objectionable
“The girl’s life had been squandered in the streets, and among the most noisome of the stews and dens of London.”
uttering or given to censure : containing or characterized by verbal abuse
“the type of provocative magazine article that is guaranteed to engender vituperative threats of subscription cancellations”
“Voters are tired of all the vituperation in this campaign.”
contumelious, invective, opprobrious, scurrile (or scurril), scurrilous, truculent, vitriolic, abusive, vituperatory
of, relating to, or characterized by insult or abuse
“an overbearing, bullying boss who is fond of sending invective e-mails to long-suffering assistants”
1. vehement or violent denunciation, censure, or reproach.
2. a railing accusation; vituperation.
3. an insulting or abusive word or expression.
adjective 4. vituperative; denunciatory; censoriously abusive.
accusation, berating, billingsgate, blame, blasphemy, castigation, censure, condemnation, contumely, denunciation, diatribe, epithet, jeremiad, obloquy, philippic, reproach, revilement, sarcasm, scurrility, tirade, tongue-lashing, vilification, vituperation
“Mrs. Corney muttered a variety of invectives against old women who couldn’t even die without purposely annoying their betters.”
1. harshness or sharpness of tone, temper, or manner; severity; acrimony: The cause of her anger did not warrant such asperity.
2. hardship; difficulty; rigor: the asperities of polar weather.
3. roughness of surface; unevenness.
4. something rough or harsh.
doesn’t like the asperity of most experimental music
she responded with such asperity that we knew she was deeply offended by the question
“It is worthy of remark, as a curious physical instance of the efficacy of a sudden surprise in counteracting the effects of extreme fear, that her voice had quite recovered all its official asperity.” - Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
sluggish in temperament; gloomy; taciturn.
cold and steady in mood : slow to act or change
of a gloomy or surly disposition
having a sardonic aspect
“a saturnine smile”
black, bleak, cheerless, chill, Cimmerian, cloudy, cold, comfortless, dark, darkening, depressing, depressive, desolate, dire, disconsolate, dismal, drear, dreary, dreich [chiefly Scottish], elegiac (also elegiacal), forlorn, funereal, glum, godforsaken, gray (also grey), lonely, lonesome, lugubrious, miserable, morbid, morose, murky, plutonian, gloomy, sepulchral, solemn, somber (or sombre), sullen, sunless, tenebrific, tenebrous, wretched
“The Artful, meantime, who was of a rather saturnine disposition, and seldom gave way to merriment when it interfered with business, rifled Oliver’s pockets with steady assiduity.”
tongue-in-cheek, kidding
Synonyms: amusing, blithe, capering, clever, comic, comical, droll, dry, fanciful, farcical, flip*, flippant, frivolous, funny, gay, humorous, indecorous, ironic, irreverent, jesting, jocose, jocular, joking, joshing, laughable, ludicrous, merry, not serious, playful, pleasant, pulling one’s leg, punning, putting one on, ridiculous, salty, sarcastic, satirical, smart, sportive, sprightly, waggish, whimsical, wisecracking, witty, wry
1. approval; commendation.
2. official approval or sanction.
“When the presiding officer announced that the resolution was agreed to by yeas 119, nays 56, the enthusiasm of all present, save a few disappointed politicians, knew no bounds, and for several moments the scene was grand and impressive beyond description. No attempt was made to suppress the applause which came from all sides, every one feeling that the occasion justified the fullest expression of approbation and joy.”
“The company has even received the approbation of its former critics.”
“that plan has the approbation of the school board”
1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
1: marked by lack of definite plan, regularity, or purpose “a dragged-out ordeal of…desultory shopping — Herman Wouk”
2 : not connected with the main subject
3 : disappointing in progress, performance, or quality “a desultory fifth place finish” “a desultory wine”
RANDOM aimless, chance, chaotic, deviating, erratic, haphazard, orderless, rambling, unmethodical, unstable, unsystematic, without purpose
Dean Simonton, a psychologist at the University of California, Davis, who studies genius, creativity and eccentricity, believes it’s more complicated than that. “Ambition is energy and determination,” he says. “But it calls for goals too. People with goals but no energy are the ones who wind up sitting on the couch saying ‘One day I’m going to build a better mousetrap.’ People with energy but no clear goals just dissipate themselves in one desultory project after the next.”
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1126746,00.html#ixzz1n7kfqasl
to coax or influence by gentle flattery; cajole:
They blandished the guard into letting them through the gate.
complacently or inanely foolish : silly “a fatuous remark”
“He went briskly around the block with the fatuousness of one of Tarkington’s adolescents, hurrying at the blind places lest he miss Rosemary’s coming out of the studio.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
“the fatuous questions that the audience members asked after the lecture suggested to the oceanographer that they had understood little”
“ignoring the avalanche warnings, the fatuous skiers continued on their course”
