Category: Word of the Day

Definition: (adjective) Naughtily or annoyingly playful.

Synonyms: arch, mischievous, pixilated, prankish, puckish, wicked.

Usage: These remarks were greeted with shouts of laughter by the impish creatures and one seized the Scarecrow’s arm and was astonished to find the straw man whirl around so easily.

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Definition: (verb) To move or rock lightly up and down or to and fro in an unsteady, jerky manner.

Synonyms: joggle, wiggle.

Usage: He jiggled the worn key in the lock and finally got the door open.

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Definition: (adjective) Coming next after the third and just before the fifth in position or time or degree or magnitude.

Synonyms: fourth.

Usage: The quaternary period of geologic time extends from the end of the tertiary period to the present.

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Definition: (adjective) Not knowledgeable or skilled; inexperienced.

Synonyms: naive.

Usage: To an uninitiated onlooker, nothing could have been more ghastly or absurd.

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Definition: (adjective) Likely to spread and cause an epidemic disease.

Synonyms: pestiferous, plaguey.

Usage: I have a notion, and more than a notion, that I shall never pass back alive through these pestilential swamps.

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Definition: (adjective) Attracting and holding interest as if by a spell.

Synonyms: mesmeric, mesmerizing, spellbinding.

Usage: For a moment she tore her gaze from the hypnotic fascination of that awful face and breathed a last prayer to her God.

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Definition: (adjective) Without precedent; unparalleled.

Synonyms: new.

Usage: It was a time of unexampled prosperity, and the once poor family was able to move to a lovely mansion in an affluent neighborhood.

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Definition: (noun) A going or being beyond what is needed, desired, or appropriate.

Synonyms: overmuch, overmuchness, superabundance.

Usage: Four-year-olds have an overabundance of energy and quickly exhaust even the most active, fit adults.

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Definition: (adjective) Not suitable to your tastes or needs.

Synonyms: incompatible.

Usage: I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own.

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Definition: (adverb) From that place; from there.

Synonyms: therefrom.

Usage: The train went south into Switzerland and thence on to Italy

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