Creative Vocab

Mnemonics to help you remember SAT and GRE words #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:180px;} /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ Receive words in a daily e-mail var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-2483742-2']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

[creativevocab]

Soliloquy

soliloquy (n.): a long speech made by a character in a drama to the audience to reveal his/her inner thoughts

Cory Matthews: You know Mr. Feeny, maybe I wouldn't have bailed on this play if you'd picked something a little cooler. I mean couldn't we do 'Selected Scenes From the Terminator?' Or how about 'A Steven Seagal Soliloquy?'  George Feeny: You know Mr. Matthews, you're right. Shakespeare is dry, tedious, and there's no way for a person your age to be affected by it. [Cory turns to go when Feeny suddenly hits himself with a blue spotlight and picks up a spear]  George Feeny: [reciting] "Behold- I am thy Father's spirit, doomed for a certain time to walk the night, and for the day confined to fast in fires, until the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burned and purged away. But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood! But this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood. List. List! Oh, list. If thou didst ever thy dear father love..."  Cory Matthews: Oh, God...  George Feeny: "Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder."  Cory Matthews: Murder?  George Feeny: Of course, I'm no Steven Seagall.

- Boy Meets World, Episode 1.20 (The Play's The Thing)

Sounds like: soul Lily Queen

My favorite character in the play, Queen Lily, bared her soul to the audience in multiple soliloquies throughout.

[creativevocab]

Incipient

incipient (adj.):  beginning to develop or exist. Eg. incipient racial tensions, love, planet.

Sheila Rosenberg: Sit down, honey.  Willow: Principal Snyder talked to you.  Sheila Rosenberg: Yes. He's quite concerned.  Willow: Mom, I know what this looks like, and I can totally...  Sheila Rosenberg: Oh, you don't have to explain, honey. This isn't exactly a surprise.  Willow: Why not?  Sheila Rosenberg: Oh, well, identification with mythical icons is perfectly typical of your age group. It's a-a classic adolescent response to the pressures of incipient adulthood.  Willow: Oh. Is that what it is?  Sheila Rosenberg: Of course, I wish you could have identified with something a little less icky, but developmentally speaking...  Willow: Mom, I'm not an age group. I'm me. Willow group.

- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Episode 3.11 (Gingerbread)

Sounds like: in sipping aunt

"An incipient human being is in your aunt's uterus, sipping nutrients through his umbilical cord as we speak," was how my mother broke the news of my aunt's pregnancy to me.

[creativevocab]

Derision

derision (n.) [rhymes with decision]: ridicule

“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs, and maybe your own mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery. Isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are tests of your endurance. Of how much you really want to do it. And you’ll do it, despite rejection in the worst odds. And it’ll be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There’s no other feeling like that; you will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire. You’ll ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”  ― Charles Bukowski, Factotum

Sounds like: dare John

John was dared to stop in the middle of practice and screech, "I miss my mommy!" in a high-pitched voice three times. He did it and became the football team's object of derision for the next few months.

[creativevocab]

Hi! Just want to thank you so much for handling the site and making up clever mnemonics. They really help a lot! :D

Thank you, you lovely person!

Hope you do well on whatever test you're studying for! 

[creativevocab]

Descry

descry (v.): to catch sight of something

"We had just ascended the highest point of a ridge to get a prospect of the country beyond, when we descried a herd of buffalo in motion and two or three horsemen in hot pursuit. "Mexican Ciboleros!"[Mexican Buffalo Hunters!] we all exclaimed at once; for we supposed we might now be within the range of the buffalo hunters of New Mexico."

- Josiah Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies: or, The journal of a Santa Fé trader, 1831–1839

Sounds like: decribe

You have to descry things before you can describe them.

[creativevocab]

Clandestine

clandestine (adj.) [clan-dess-teen]: secret 

“He did not understand all he had heard, but from his clandestine glimpse into the privacy of these two, with all the world that his short experience could conceive of at their feet, he had gathered that life for everybody was a struggle, sometimes magnificent from a distance, but always difficult and surprisingly simple and a little sad.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babylon Revisited and Other Stories

Sounds/looks like: clan/plan this time

"Clan, we shall plan this time to be clandestine in our attack. We shall sneak up on them while they are asleep," said the clan's leader in his pep talk the morning of the final battle in their war with the neighboring clan.

[creativevocab]

Pernicious

pernicious (adj.): harmful

“I'm vile and perverted.  I'm obsessed and deranged. I've existed for years but very little has changed. I'm the tool of the government and industry too. For I'm destined to rule and regulate you. You may think I'm pernicious, but you can't look away. I'll make you think I'm delicious with the stuff that I say. I'm the best you can get... have you guessed me yet? I'm the slime oozing out of your TV set....”  ― Frank Zappa

Sounds like: punish us

She decided to punish us for crashing her party by spreading pernicious rumors about us.

[creativevocab]

Impetuous

impetuous (adj.): impulsive

“IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER:

I would have talked less and listened more. I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded. I would have eaten the popcorn in the "good" living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace. I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather rambling about his youth. I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed. I would have burned the pink candle sculped like a rose before it melted  in storage. I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains. I would have cried and laughed less while watching television, and more  while watching life. I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day. I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime. Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment, realising that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle. When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner." There would have been more "I love you's" and more "I'm sorry's" . . . but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute . . . 

look at it and really see it . . . and never give it back.” ― Erma Bombeck

Sounds like: him pet to us

"Is that your brother dancing on that picnic table?"

"Him? Yeah, sometimes he's like a pet to us, so impetuous and unpredictable."

[creativevocab]

Disparage

disparage (v.): to belittle something, to denigrate it

"Love and Marriage It's an institute you can't disparage Ask the local gentry And they will say it's elementary"

- Love and Marriage, Frank Sinatra 

The theme song for Married With Children, which made Ed O'Neil famous before he was Jay Pritchett on Modern Family:

Sounds like: this porridge

I cooked breakfast for my roommates and the one we all hate disparaged my cooking skills by saying, "this porridge is nothing special. All you did was boil oats in milk; anyone can do that." 

[creativevocab]

Extraneous

extraneous (adj.): 

unnecessary

external

Hermione Granger: Actually I'm highly logical which allows me to look past extraneous detail and perceive clearly that which others overlook. - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

“Of course , if I am nothing but an ego, and woman is nothing but another ego, then there is really no vital difference between us. Two little dolls of conscious entities, squeaking when you squeeze them. And with a tiny bit of an extraneous appendage to mark which is which...”  ― D.H. Lawrence

Sounds like: extra news

I don't like to read the local paper. There's all this extraneous extra news that I don't care about. And barely any of it is original; they usually buy most of their stories from extraneous news sources like Reuters. I'd rather read the news online. 

extra news = unneccessary

extra news = bought from external sources

Source: Our Little Darling

[creativevocab]

Prevaricate

prevaricate (v.): to lie by omission or by not directly answering a question

“When Mr. William Faraday sat down to write his memoirs after fifty-eight years of blameless inactivity he found the work of inscribing the history of his life almost as tedious as living it had been, and so, possessing a natural invention coupled with a gift for locating the easier path, he began to prevaricate a little upon the second page, working his way up to downright lying on the sixth and subsequent folios.”  ― Margery Allingham, Dancers in Mourning

Sounds like: free berry gate

Someone's suing the pick-your-own farm for their prevaricating. There's a gate there with a sign that says "free berry gate" and if you walk through it you see a patch where you can supposedly pick as many berries as you want for free. It's true, the berries are free, but you only find out when you're leaving that you have to pay an exorbitant "gate exit" fee that means the berries actually end up being super expensive. 

Source: Sit a Spell

[creativevocab]

Perfunctory

perfunctory (adj.): done mechanically without interest or enthusiasm

The Cigarette Smoking Man: Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut butter cup or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast and the taste is... fleeting. So, you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers. 

- The X Files, Episode 4.7 (Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man)

Sounds like: pear factory

The pear factory suffered from high turnover of its perfunctory workforce. Who can blame them though; it's hard to feel passionate about peeling and dicing pears.

[creativevocab]

Ineluctable

Hello hello! I missed 5 days of posts so for the next 5 days I'll put up 2 posts a day :)

ineluctable (adj.): unavoidable, inevitable

“[...] the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not cleanly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably.”  ― Yann Martel (Author), Life of Pi

Sounds like: inelectable

His losing the election was ineluctable; his tendency to change his opinions about the key issues on an almost weekly basis made him inelectable.

[creativevocab]

Attenuate

attenuate (v.): to weaken

"[Diseases] crucify the soul of man, attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, shrivel them up like old apples, make them as so many anatomies." - Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part I, scene 2. Memb. 3. Subsect. 10.

Sounds like: at ten you ate

If the last time you ate was at 10 AM this morning, no wonder the day attenuated you so much.

[creativevocab]

Besmirch

besmirch (v.): to ruin the reputation of something

Professor McGonagall: The house of Godric Gryffindor has commanded the respect of the wizarding world for nearly ten centuries. I will not have you, in one night, besmirching that name by behaving like a babbling, bumbling band of baboons!  Fred: [whispering to George] Try saying that five times fast.  George: [whispering] Babbling, bumbling band of baboons.  Fred: [whispering] Babbling, bumbling band of baboons.  - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Think of: best merchant

He made people think he was the best merchant in town by besmirching the reputations of his competition.

best merchant = not actually the best, just besmirched the rest

[creativevocab]

Cavil

cavil (v.) : to complain about unimportant things

What decent person would want to spend a life picking and cavilling? Picture this scene. A critic arrives at the gates of heaven. 'And what did you do?' asks Saint Peter. 'Well', says the dead soul. 'I criticized things'. 'I beg your pardon?' 'You know, other people wrote things, performed things, painted things and I said stuff like, "thin and unconvincing", "turgid and uninspired", "competent and serviceable,"...you know'. – Stephen Fry, On critics, from "Paperweight", 2006

Sounds like: cave ill

Ilia and I went caving for the first time last weekend. After he broke a nail, he spent all his time caviling to me about every little thing. By the end of the weekend, I was so drained by his negativity that I felt ill.

Caviling = how Ilia made me feel ill during our caving weekend

That's Majlis al Jinn in Oman

[creativevocab]

Bumbling

bumble (adj.): to move or speak awkwardly or confusedly 

Chandler: Oh, my God. You know what just happened? You just freaked out about our relationship.  Monica: I did not.  Chandler: Yes, you did. Just admit it.  Monica: All right, all right. I admit it, I freaked out a little.  Chandler: A little? You freaked out *big time*. You know what just happened? I became the relationship master, and you turned into the bumbling screw-up. We have now switched places. Take that.  [Chandler does a victory dance, while Monica stares at him]  Chandler: [stops dancing] And, we're back to where we were... 

- Friends, Episode 5.17 (The One with Rachel's Inadvertent Kiss)

Sounds like: bum bill

I spent my birthday party bumbling around trying to be a good hostess and introduce my friends to each other, and nobody told me I had a dollar bill stuck to my bum the whole time.

dollar bill = on my bum while I bumbled

Or, just think of bumblebees. They're always flying around without any direction looking awkward and confused.