Category: Word of the Day

Definition: (noun) A situation that is so difficult that no progress can be made.

Synonyms: dead end, deadlock, stalemate, standstill.

Usage: The board members reached an impasse in the negotiations and took a break to get coffee and donuts.

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Definition: (noun) The protruding shelf over a fireplace.

Synonyms: chimneypiece, mantelpiece.

Usage: There were also perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces, so that the room was brilliantly illuminated.

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Definition: (verb) Move in large numbers.

Synonyms: pour, pullulate, teem, stream.

Usage: A crowd of people swarmed out of the theater after the show and congregated beside the stage door to meet the exiting actors.

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Definition: (adjective) Habitually complaining.

Synonyms: querulous, whiny.

Usage: She had never spoken a word to her sister-in-law for three days; but she had likewise dropped her fretful complaining, and we found it a great comfort.

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Definition: (adjective) Failing to give due care or attention; inattentive.

Synonyms: forgetful, mindless.

Usage: And here he lived, unmindful of the world and by the world forgotten.

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Definition: (noun) The possession or manifestation of two opposing attributes, tendencies, or principles.

Synonyms: mutual opposition.

Usage: The women did not allow their political polarity to damage their lifelong friendship.

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Definition: (noun) A right reserved exclusively by a particular person or group (especially a hereditary or official right).

Synonyms: exclusive right, perquisite, privilege.

Usage: The whole substance of human authority was centered in the simple doctrine of royal prerogative, the origin of which was always traced in theory to divine institution.

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Definition: (adjective) Characterized by lust.

Synonyms: lustful, prurient, salacious.

Usage: She eluded the lubricious embraces of the drunken man and called the police.

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Definition: (adjective) Growing or remaining under water.

Synonyms: subaquatic, submerged, submersed, underwater.

Usage: The children were excited at the prospect of viewing a variety of subaqueous fauna from the hull of a glass-bottom boat.

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Definition: (adjective) Pertinent or common to the whole world.

Synonyms: ecumenical, general, universal, worldwide.

Usage: World peace is an issue of cosmopolitan import.

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