“Origin story” is an expression for a superhero’s backstory — for instance, Superman was born on Krypton just before it was destroyed. Many words also have fascinating origin stories. While English comes largely from Latin (and from Greek, and from Latin through French and Spanish, with some Germanic roots and a bit of Sanskrit, etc.), you’ll find that word usage can change quite bit over a couple thousand years.

Apocryphal means “of questionable authenticity; false.”

I’m sorry, but this putative letter from George Washington that you found at a garage sale is clearly apocryphal -“ it is riddled with anachronisms (for instance, Washington was long dead by the time silent films were invented), and also, Washington most certainly didn’t refer to Martha Washington as hey baby.

Related Words: Ersatz (artificial, synthetic, serving as a substitute), Faux (fake, imitation, as in faux fur), and Specious (pleasing to the eye but deceptive).

The word Apocrypha often refers to books that have been rejected for inclusion in (various versions of) the Bible, either due to dubious authenticity or because the Church considered them useful, but not divinely inspired. Obviously, different authorities disagree about what exactly is included in the Apocrypha.

The Latin “apocryphus” meant “secret, not approved for public reading,” from the Greek “apokryphos” (hidden, obscure), from the roots “apo” (away) and “kryptein” (to hide, also appearing in “crypt”). Hmmn, is that like kryptonite? Actually, yes — before Krypton was a fictional planet, it was a chemical element. The name comes from the same root, so named because it is a rare gas.

“Origin story” is an expression for a superhero’s backstory — for instance, Superman was born on Krypton just before it was destroyed. Many words also have fascinating origin stories. While English comes largely from Latin (and from Greek, and from Latin through French and Spanish, with some Germanic roots and a bit of Sanskrit, etc.), you’ll find that word usage can change quite bit over a couple thousand years.

Anoint means “rub or sprinkle oil on; make sacred, such as by a ceremony that includes applying oil to someone.”

After Principal Smitters raised test scores over 60% at her school, it was only a matter of time before she was anointed superintendant by a fawning school board.

Anoint shares a root with ointment, an oily substance added to the skin. Anointing occurs repeatedly in the Bible; in that time, people rubbed oil on themselves medicinally and for refreshment, and as a means of showing hospitality to guests.

Welcome to Visual Dictionary, a series of posts about words that are better expressed in pictures.

To equivocate is to use unclear language to deceive or avoid committing to a position. Colloquially, we sometimes say that someone is “flip-flopping.”

Not wanting to lose supporters, the politician equivocated on the issue, tossing out buzzwords related to each side while also claiming more study was needed.

Related Words:

• Ambivalent (uncertain; unable to decide, or wanting to do two contradictory things at once)
• Vacillate and Waffle (waver, be indecisive)
• Dither (act irresolutely)
• Hedge (avoid commitment by leaving provisions for withdrawal or changing one’s mind; protect a bet by also betting on the other side)
• Palter (talk insincerely; bargain or haggle)
• Tergiversate (repeatedly change one’s opinions, equivocate)

Equivocate contains the roots “equi” and “voc” “ think of it as being equally vocal for two or more positions.

Photo of blog author balancing on the equator at Mitad del Mundo, Ecuador. Credit: Eric Walton.

“Origin story” is an expression for a superhero’s backstory — for instance, Superman was born on Krypton just before it was destroyed. Many words also have fascinating origin stories. While English comes largely from Latin (and from Greek, and from Latin through French and Spanish, with some Germanic roots and a bit of Sanskrit, etc.), you’ll find that word usage can change quite bit over a couple thousand years.

Adumbrate means “Give a rough outline of; foreshadow; reveal only partially; obscure.”

When I took on the lead role in the movie, I agreed not to give away the plot, but I suppose I could give a brief adumbration of the premise.

Adumbrate contains the root umbra, Latin for shadow. It may seem that give an outline of and obscure are opposites, but think of it this way “ to adumbrate is to give a shadowy, vague picture of something, which could mean giving more information (if starting with nothing) or obscuring information (if starting with a clear picture) in order to reach that point.

Some of the most perplexing words on the GRE are diminutive. Who doesn’t see PAN : REVIEW and metaphorically scratch his or her head, or wonder what, exactly, a nib or a gin is on its own? Welcome to Three-Letter Words. A few of them might make you want to deploy some four-letter words.

If you’ve ever heard the word eke, it was probably in the context of the expression eke out a living or “barely eke out a living,” but what does eke mean by itself?

Interestingly, eke means “increase, enlarge, or lengthen” — in fact, the word shares a root, the Latin “augÄ“re,” with augment.

The expression “to eke out” of course means “to make (a living) or support (existence) laboriously” — to be just barely making it. “Eke out” can also mean to supplement an income, as in “He eked out his meager paycheck by participating in medical studies for money.”

(By the way, for the spelling-challenged, the eke in eke out a living is not the same as in Eek, a mouse!)

Welcome to Visual Dictionary, a series of posts about words that are better expressed in pictures.

An effigy is a representation of someone, such as a statue, or — more commonly — a grotesque or crude representation of a hated person, as in the expression “burned in effigy.” (Much like poking pins in a voodoo doll, burning a paper mache version of a ruler is an evocative way to express dislike).

A scarecrow is also a common type of effigy, intended to scare birds away and keep them from eating crops.

In Ecuador, burning effigies — especially figures representing the worst of the past year — is a traditional way to celebrate New Years. From photographer Eric Walton:

“This stage-hand is putting the finishing touches on an elaborate display of effigies in which Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is represented as a puppet-master who is controlling the president of Columbia and another figure who was identified as Falso Positivo.”

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCM2nEBE0RY

This classic Monty Python sketch, “Bookshop,” contains a memorable use of the word expurgate, which means “to censor, to remove morally offensive passages.”

The funny part — if you haven’t heard or seen the sketch before — is that the customer in the bookshop wants an expurgated version of a book that no one would normally find the need to censor: Olsen’s Standard Book of British Birds. (He dislikes a particular bird — they have “long, nasty beaks”).

There are a few other GRE words relating to censoring or shortening:

Redact – Revise or edit; draw up or frame. This word is sometimes used euphemistically to refer to censorship, as in the title of the 2007 film Redacted.

Abridge – “To shorten by omissions while retaining the basic contents,” as is frequently done when adapting a book to audiobook format.

Truncate – “to shorten by cutting off a part; cut short”

And, of course, don’t get censor mixed up with censure, which means to disapprove, especially formally.

Scurvy is a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency. From Wikipedia:

Scurvy was at one time common among sailors, pirates and others aboard ships at sea longer than perishable fruits and vegetables could be stored (subsisting instead only on cured and salted meats and dried grains) and by soldiers similarly separated from these foods for extended periods. It was described by Hippocrates (c. 460 BC“c. 380 BC), and herbal cures for scurvy have been known in many native cultures since prehistory. Scurvy was one of the limiting factors of marine travel, often killing large numbers of the passengers and crew on long-distance voyages. This became a significant issue in Europe from the beginning of the modern era in the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, continuing to play a significant role through World War I in the 20th century.

It was a pretty big deal when it was finally discovered that citrus fruit cured scurvy.

More interestingly for the GRE, however, scurvy can also be an adjective meaning “despicable or mean.”

The scurvy bully not only stole his lunch money, but also reversed all the positive and negative signs on his math homework.

Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics (it does not involve manual labor — hence the joke), but quantum on its own means “a particular quantity or amount” or can be used as an adjective to mean “sudden and dramatic” (a quantum shift in thought).

The meaning in physics is related to the smallest indivisible part of something (radiant energy) and can be used this way colloquially as well:

If you want to share your Skittles, a quantum is quite small (one Skittle), but if you want to share your Reese’s cups, a quantum is quite large (one of only two cups in the pack).

The word quantum also notably appears in the title of the show Quantum Leap (in which Scott Bakula’s character time-travels someplace new in every episode) and in the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace (we’re not sure why it’s called that — probably just because “Q” words sound cool).

Hyperbole is obvious and intentional exaggeration. Haha, “best thing ever”!

Kinetic means pertaining to or caused by motion. Relatedly, “motion scientists” (and highly educated gym teachers) are called kinesiologists.

Binary means of or relating to the number two. Sometimes people say binary to refer to a system of “ones and zeros” in computer programming.

Mathematically, binary means “of or pertaining to a system of numerical notation to the base 2, in which each place of a number, expressed as 0 or 1, corresponds to a power of 2. The decimal number 58 appears as 111010 in binary notation.”

Colloquially, people use binary to refer to a system with only two options. Activists fighting for the rights of transgendered (or non-gender-conforming) people sometimes speak out against a “gender binary.” By this, they mean that it ought to be okay to exist at various places in the middle of a spectrum of male and female, or to exist entirely outside of that system of gender encoding.

These shirts and other risible sartorial items are available here.

The Mental Floss store (last-minute holiday shopping, anyone?) sells a number of hilarious t-shirts that cleverly take advantage of GRE-style vocabulary.

Let’s start with an easy one:

Haha. Apathy means not caring. (A synonym is indifference). Don’t confuse apathy with antipathy, which is hatred.

Ambiguity, of course, is unclearness. Don’t confuse with ambivalence, the state of having mixed feelings or being undecided. Generally, stuff is ambiguous, people are ambivalent.

Entropy is the eventual heat death of the universe. We use it metaphorically to refer to the idea that all things kind of naturally fall apart if given enough time.

“Why is our last year’s best-performing branch lagging? What happened to those weekly motivational meetings? I thought that team worked so well together! We gave them the team-building award!”

(shrug) “I dunno. Entropy?”

These shirts and other risible sartorial items are available here.