All memos tagged #dictionary

audience is a body of listeners, readers, or viewers gathered around the same thing — and, in an older sense that survives in diplomacy and the church, a formal hearing granted by someone in a...

A mirror is a polished surface that reflects a clear image of whatever stands before it — and, by extension, anything that gives a faithful likeness or representation of something else. The word...

fine carries two families of meaning that diverged from a single Latin root: one describing something of superior quality, delicacy, or thinness, and another naming a sum of money exacted as a...

Ideology is a system of ideas and ideals — especially an organized body of doctrine held by a group, class, or culture that both explains how the world works and prescribes how it ought to be...

bacteria are single-celled prokaryotic microorganisms making up one of the three domains of life, found in nearly every environment on Earth; the word is the plural of bacterium. Bacteria are...

foolish describes a person or an act showing a lack of good sense, judgment, or discretion, and in a lighter use simply what is absurd or ridiculous. The word names a failure of judgment rather than...

A dividend is a share of profits a company distributes to its shareholders, paid in cash or in additional stock — and, in arithmetic, the number being divided. Dividends are declared at a board's...

respect is the regard, esteem, or deferential consideration extended to a person, group, quality, or rule — and, in a second and older sense, a particular aspect or detail of a thing, as in the...

potential is what exists in capacity rather than in act — the latent power of a person, thing, or system to become or do something it has not yet become or done. As an adjective the word means...

A relationship is the state of being related or connected — between people, between groups, or between things — and, in its most common modern use, an ongoing romantic or sexual connection between...

To teach is to cause someone to know something — to impart knowledge or skill by instruction, demonstration, or example. The verb takes two objects comfortably, which most English verbs do not: one...

prose is written or spoken language in its ordinary form, following the natural rhythms of speech rather than the metrical structure of verse. The useful contrast is with verse, not with poetry....

Audible describes anything loud enough to be heard and, in American football, names the substitute play a quarterback calls aloud at the line of scrimmage after reading the defense. As an adjective...

To learn is to acquire knowledge or skill by study, instruction, or experience — and, in a lighter everyday sense, simply to come to know a fact. The two senses differ in what they cost. Learning to...

patience is the capacity to bear delay, difficulty, or provocation calmly and without complaint — to wait or to endure without being pushed into upset or impulse. The word divides cleanly against its...

A litmus test is a test in which a single factor is decisive — one attitude, event, or fact used to sort something into one category or the other, and often used to judge whether a person or position...

Alliteration is the repetition of the same initial consonant sound across two or more neighboring words or stressed syllables — wild and woolly, threatening throngs. It is a device of sound, not of...

Grandiose describes something large and impressive in scale or conception — and, far more often in current use, something whose scale or self-presentation outruns what it can actually deliver. Both...

influence is the capacity to produce an effect on someone or something by indirect or intangible means — sway exerted without any apparent use of force or direct command. Influence travels through...

A faux pas is a social blunder — an act or remark that breaches etiquette and embarrasses the person who commits it. English borrowed the phrase whole from French, where it means literally "false...