This week's word, according to the wise Random Choice Generator, is





We’ll keep it brief. Laconia was an ancient country in southern Greece. Its capital city was Sparta, and the Spartans were famous for their terseness of speech. Laconic comes to us by way of Latin from Greek Lakōnikos, meaning “native of Laconia.” In current use, laconic means “terse” or “concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious,” and thus recalls the Spartans’ taciturnity.

This week's word is


Noun
1. A person or thing that foreshadows or foretells the coming of someone or something.
2. (obsolete) One who provides lodgings; especially, the officer of the English royal household who formerly preceded the court when travelling, to provide and prepare lodgings.

Verb
(transitive) To announce or precede; to be a harbinger of.

This week's word is




noun
an·​o·​mie ˈa-nə-mē

(variants or less commonly anomy)

1. social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values
The reforms of a ruined economy, under these conditions, brought about social anomie, desperation and poverty rather than relief and prosperity.
—T. Mastnak

2. personal unrest, alienation, and uncertainty that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals
In the face of these prevailing values, many workers experience a kind of anomie. Their jobs become empty, meaningless, and intrinsically unsatisfying.
—Robert Straus


From Merriam-Webster

This week's word is


[ˈfaCH(əw)əs]


adjective

Silly and pointless: "a fatuous comment"

This week's word is




[ dis-pit-ee-uhs ]


From Dictionary.com

adjective (archaic)

Malicious, cruel, pitiless.

"The morning had succeeded to the hopeless humidity of the night, and the drizzling rain fell with almost dispiteous persistence."
From "The Wearing of the Green"

This week's word is



kruh-doo-li-tee


NOUN
Readiness or willingness to believe especially on slight or uncertain evidence.

"Her description of the event strains credulity."

"The quack pushing the phony medicine was taking advantage of the credulity of people hoping for miracle cures."

This week's word is

From Word Hippo:


Adjective
Disparaging, belittling or derogatory in nature.

Noun
A disparaging, belittling, or derogatory word or expression. Slanderous, deliberately harmful to someone's reputation.


Examples:

The individual may be classified as incomplete, immature, or by other pejorative terms which detract from his dignity.

Most bodybuilders refer to water in the pejorative, fingering it as the cause for water retention or a puffy and bloated appearance.

This week's word is

From Merriam-Webster

veri·​sim·​i·​lar

adjective
1: having the appearance of truth: probable
2: depicting realism (as in art or literature)

From its roots, verisimilitude means basically "similarity to the truth." Most fiction writers and filmmakers aim at some kind of verisimilitude to give their stories an air of reality. They need not show something actually true, or even very common, but simply something believable. A mass of good details in a play, novel, painting, or film may add verisimilitude. A spy novel without some verisimilitude won't interest many readers, but a fantastical novel may not even attempt to seem true to life.

"The novel's degree of verisimilitude is compromised by 18th-century characters who speak in very 21st-century English."

This week's word is





[lo͞oˈsifyəɡəs]


Adjective

1. Having a dislike of light, particularly from the sun
2. Nocturnal

If my spotty internet that keeps going in and out will allow me...


This week's word is




[ˈfeˌbrīl, ˈfēˌbrīl]


adjective

1. Having or showing the symptoms of a fever:
"A febrile illness"

2. Having or showing a great deal of nervous excitement or energy:
"A febrile imagination"