Vol. 2, Issue 1

Vocabulary

1.
euphoria \you-FORE-ee-uh\ (noun) : a feeling of well-being or elation

Example sentence: The whole college was swept up in the euphoria of winning the national basketball title, and dozens of spontaneous celebrations erupted across the campus and spilled out into the town.

Did you know? Health and happiness are often linked, sometimes even in etymologies. Nowadays "euphoria" generally refers to happiness, but it derives from "euphoros," a Greek word that means "healthy." Given that root, it's not surprising that in its original English uses, it was a medical term; a 1706 quotation shows how doctors used it then: "'Euphoria,' the well bearing of the Operation of a Medicine, i.e. when the Patient finds himself eas'd or reliev'd by it." Modern physicians still use the term, but they aren't likely to prescribe something that will cause it. In contemporary medicine, "euphoria" describes abnormal or inappropriate feelings such as those caused by an illegal drug or an illness.

2.
execrable \EKS-sih-kruh-bul\ (adjective) 1 : detestable *2 : very bad : wretched

Example sentence: "The room is dirty, the mattress is lumpy, and the heater doesn't work, and I refuse to spend the night in such execrable conditions!" complained Eliot to the motel manager.

Did you know? Someone who curses you probably hopes you soon face wretched conditions. Remember that, and it will be easier to recall that "execrable" is a descendent of the Latin verb "exsecrari," meaning "to put under a curse." In its earliest documented uses in English in the 14th century, "execrable" meant "expressing a curse," but it soon came to mean "deserving to be cursed," and then simply "indescribably bad." In the last sense, it has been applied to everything from roads ("execrable London pavement," Sir Walter Scott, _The Heart of Midlothian_) to food ("so little discrimination as to think a dinner good which another thought execrable," W. Somerset Maugham, _Of Human Bondage_) and of course, to the weather ("What execrable weather, " Mary Elizabeth Braddon, _Run to Earth_).

3.
qui vive \kee-VEEV\ (noun) : alert, lookout

Example sentence: Marcy is an inveterate shopper who is always on the qui vive for bargains.

Did you know? When a sentinel guarding a French castle in days of yore cried "Qui vive?" your life depended upon your answer (the right one was usually something like "Long live the king!"). What the sentinel was asking was "Long live who?" but the act of calling out apparently impressed English listeners more than the meaning of the phrase, because when they adopted it in the early 1700s they used "qui vive" in the sense "alert." Nowadays, it is most often used in the phrase "on the qui vive," meaning "on the lookout."

4.
twee \TWEE\ (adjective) {chiefly British} : affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint

Example sentence: Thatched-roof birdhouses with posies in the windows are a bit too twee for Annalese, who doesn't go in much for cutesiness.

Did you know? Most adults wouldn't be caught dead saying, "Oh, look at the 'tweet 'ittle birdie!" (at least not to anyone over the age of three), but they probably wouldn't be averse to saying, "He went fishing with his Dad," "She works as a nanny," or "Hey, buddy, how's it going?" Anyone who uses "dad," "nanny," or "buddy" owes a debt to "baby talk," a term used for both the childish speech adults adopt when addressing youngsters and for the speech of small children who are just learning to talk. "Twee" also originated in baby talk, as an alteration of "sweet." In the early 1900s, it was a term of affection, but nowadays British speakers use "twee" for things that have passed beyond agreeable and into the realm of cloying.

* Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.