Vocabulary and Etymology week4

WASP

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) is an informal, sometimes disparaging term for a closed social group of high-status and influential white American of English Protestant ancestry. It is also sometimes applied to those of Scottish Protestant and Irish Protestant ancestry. The term applies to a group who control disproportionate financial, political and social power in the United States. Scholars agree that the group's influence has waned since the end of World War II in 1945, with the growing influence of other ethnic groups. The term is also used in Australia and Canada for similar elites. The term is occasionally used by sociologists to include all Americans of Northern European ancestry regardless of their class or power. People rarely call themselves WASPs, except humorously. The acronym is typically used by non-WASPs.

Election Day in the United Stated

It is statutorily set as "the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November" or "the first Tuesday after November 1". The earliest possible date is November 2, and the latest possible date is November 8. In 1792, a law was passed allowing each of the states to conduct presidential elections at any point in the 34 days before the first Wednesday in December. This was the date when the meetings of the Electors of the U.S. president and vice-president, known as the Electoral Colleges, were held in each state. A date in November or early December was preferable because the harvest would have been finished, but the most severe winter storms would not have begun.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.

Born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the western frontier in Kentucky and Indiana. Largely self-educated, he became a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, and was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, in which he served for eight years. Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, Lincoln promoted rapid modernization of the economy through banks, tariffs, and railroads. Because he had originally agreed not to run for a second term in Congress, and because his opposition to the Mexican–American War was unpopular among Illinois voters, Lincoln returned to Springfield and resumed his successful law practice. Reentering politics in 1854, he became a leader in building the new Republican Party, which had a statewide majority in Illinois. In 1858, while taking part in a series of highly publicized debates with his opponent and rival, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln spoke out against the expansion of slavery, but lost the U.S. Senate race to Douglas.

Sword of Damocles

According to the story, Damocles was pandering to Dionysius, his king, and exclaimed to him that Dionysius was truly fortunate as a great man of power and authority, surrounded by magnificence. In response, Dionysius offered to switch places with Damocles so that Damocles could taste that very fortune firsthand. Damocles quickly and eagerly accepted the king's proposal. Damocles sat down in the king's throne surrounded by every luxury, but Dionysius arranged that a huge sword should hang above the throne, held at the pommel only by a single hair of a horse's tail. Damocles finally begged the king that he be allowed to depart because he no longer wanted to be so fortunate, realizing that with great fortune and power comes also great danger.

YOLO

YOLO is an acronym for "you only live once". Similar to Latin "carpe diem" ("seize the day"), it implies that one should enjoy life, even if that entails taking risks, as if there would not be another chance for it. The phrase and acronym are both used in youth culture and music, and were both popularized by the 2011 song "The Motto" by rapper Drake.

Anti-

• a prefix meaning “against,” “opposite of,” “antiparticle of,” used in the formation of

compound words; used freely in combination with elements of any origin.

Antibody(n.)

• any of numerous Y-shaped protein molecules produced by B cells as a primary immune defense, each molecule and its clones having a unique binding site that can combine with the complementary site of a foreign antigen, as on a virus or bacterium, thereby disabling the antigenand signaling other immune defenses.

• antibodies of a particular type collectively.

Antisocial

1.(adj.)

• unwilling or unable to associate in a normal or friendly way with other people:

• antagonistic, hostile, or unfriendly toward others; menacing; threatening:

• opposed or detrimental to social order or the principles on which society is constituted:

• Psychiatry. of or relating to a pattern of behavior in which social norms and the rights of others are persistently violated.

2. (n.)

a person exhibiting antisocial traits.

-ary

• (forming adjectives)

 of; related to; belonging to

• (forming nouns)                                    

a person connected with or engaged in

a thing relating to; a place for

Rudimentary (adj.)

• pertaining to rudiments or first principles; elementary:

• of the nature of a rudiment; undeveloped or vestigial.

• primitive.

Secretary(n.)

• a person, usually an official, who is in charge of the records, correspondence, minutes of meetings, and related affairs of an organization, company, association, etc.

• a person employed to handle correspondence and do routine work in a business office, usually involving taking dictation, typing, filing, and the like.

• private secretary.

• (often initial capital letter) an officer of state charged with the superintendence and management of a particular department of government, as a member of the president's cabinet in the U.S.:

• Also called diplomatic secretary. a diplomatic official of an embassy or legation who ranks below a counselor and is usually assigned as first secretary, second secretary, or third secretary.

• a piece of furniture for use as a writing desk.

• Also called secretary bookcase. a desk with book shelves on top of it.

-ant

• causing or performing an action or existing in a certain condition; the agent that performs an action

• has the general sense “characterized by or serving in the capacity of” that named by the stem

• din the formation of nouns denoting human agents in legal actions or other formal procedures

• In technical and commercial coinages, -ant, is a suffix of nouns denoting impersonal physical agents

• In general, -ant, can be added only to bases only to bases of Latin origin, with a very few exception, as coolant.

Pleasant (adj.)

• pleasing, agreeable, or enjoyable; giving pleasure.

• (of persons, manners, disposition, etc.) socially acceptable or adept; polite; amiable; agreeable.

• fair, as weather

• archaic. lively, sprightly, or merry.

• obsolete. Jocular or facetious.

Ascendant

1.(n.)

• a position of dominance or controlling influence

• an ancestor; forebear.

2.(adj.)

• ascending; rising.

• superior; predominant.

• botany. Directed or curved upward.

Vocabulary
effigy noun / a model or other object that represents someone, especially one of a hated person that is hanged or burned in a public place

exacerbate verb / to make something that is already bad even worse

flout verb / to intentionally not obey a rule, law, or custom

forthwith adverb / immediately

fray verb / to become or to cause the threads in cloth or rope to become slightly separated, forming loose threads at the edge or end

indigent adjective / very poor

jurisdiction noun / the authority of a court or official organization to make decisions and judgments

monolithic adjective / too large, too regular, or without interesting differences, and unwilling or unable to be changed

ascend verb / to move up or climb something

excruciating adjective / extremely painful
fretful adjective / behaving in a way that shows you are unhappy, worried, or uncomfortable

harbinger noun / a person or thing that shows that something is going to happen soon, especially something bad

emaciated adjective / very thin and weak, usually because of illness or extreme hunger

malignant adjective / A malignant disease or growth is likely to get worse and lead to death.
malnutrition noun / physical weakness and bad health caused by having too little food, or too little of the types of food necessary for good health
privation noun / a lack of the basic things that are necessary for an acceptable standard of living
remote adjective / far away in distance or time, or not closely related

respite noun / a pause or rest from something difficult or unpleasant
sinister adjective / making you feel that something bad or evil might happen
succumb verb / to lose the determination to oppose something; to accept defeat
surge noun / a sudden and great increase
thwart verb / to stop something from happening or someone from doing something
tranquil adjective / calm and peaceful and without noise, violence, worry, etc.
ubiquitous adjective / seeming to be everywhere