pallid
(en)
(adjective) deficient in color; wan / (adjective) lacking sparkle or liveliness; dull
102
the pallid lighting of underground transfer halls
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6 days, 20 hours ago
the pallid lighting of underground transfer halls
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6 days, 20 hours ago
lacuna
(en)
an unfilled space; a gap (plural: lacunae)
174
Jonathan Franzen wrote a review for the New York Times that ignored any discussion of race, a stupefying lacuna; Whitehead says that Franzen in fact later apologized for it
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6 days, 20 hours ago
Jonathan Franzen wrote a review for the New York Times that ignored any discussion of race, a stupefying lacuna; Whitehead says that Franzen in fact later apologized for it
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6 days, 20 hours ago
paterfamilias
(en)
(noun) the male head of a household / (noun) the father of a family / (noun) a man who originates or is a leading figure in something (as a movement, discipline, or enterprise)
178
who appears to play the role of a surrogate paterfamilias
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6 days, 20 hours ago
who appears to play the role of a surrogate paterfamilias
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6 days, 20 hours ago
misprision
(en)
(noun; historical; law) the deliberate concealment of one's knowledge of a treasonable act or a felony; (literary) Harold Bloom's term for when strong writers misinterpret their literary predecessors so as to clear imaginative space for themselves
196
The misprisions that ensnared Othello are invoked.
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6 days, 20 hours ago
The misprisions that ensnared Othello are invoked.
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6 days, 20 hours ago
propitiousness
(en)
(adjective) favorably disposed; benevolent / (adjective) being a good omen; auspicious / (adjective) tending to favor; advantageous
200
It was a propitious time and place for an ardent militant determined to wage war against white supremacy.
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6 days, 20 hours ago
It was a propitious time and place for an ardent militant determined to wage war against white supremacy.
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6 days, 20 hours ago
weltschmerz
(en)
a feeling of melancholy and world-weariness; coined by German author Jean Paul
205
a distinctive angst that swept through fin de siècle Germany, becoming especially fashionable among elites who called it Weltschmerz, literally a “worldpain.
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1 week, 3 days ago
a distinctive angst that swept through fin de siècle Germany, becoming especially fashionable among elites who called it Weltschmerz, literally a “worldpain.
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1 week, 3 days ago
imbricated
(en)
arranged (scales, sepals, plates, etc.) so that they overlap like roof tiles
211
What are we to make of those black Americans who owned slaves themselves, the imbricated weave
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1 week, 3 days ago
What are we to make of those black Americans who owned slaves themselves, the imbricated weave
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1 week, 3 days ago
apogee
(en)
(noun) the point in the orbit of an object (as a satellite) orbiting the earth that is at the greatest distance from the center of the earth / (noun) the point farthest from a planet or a satellite (as the moon) reached by an object orbiting it / (noun) the farthest or highest point; culmination
213
the style of racial politics that wound-licking left-liberals fashioned in the late Clinton and Bush years, and that reached its apogee in both the persona and policy offers of Obama’s presidency
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1 week, 3 days ago
the style of racial politics that wound-licking left-liberals fashioned in the late Clinton and Bush years, and that reached its apogee in both the persona and policy offers of Obama’s presidency
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1 week, 3 days ago
bathos
(en)
(noun) a literary term coined by Alexander Pope to describe to describe amusingly failed attempts at sublimity (an effect of anticlimax created by an unintentional lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous); adj is "bathetic"
218
which even in the late 1930s when Césaire was composing his poem in Paris carried a folksy and bathetic ring that is only dimly captured in the English
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1 week, 3 days ago
which even in the late 1930s when Césaire was composing his poem in Paris carried a folksy and bathetic ring that is only dimly captured in the English
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1 week, 3 days ago
sententia
(en)
a brief moral saying taken from ancient or popular or other sources, often quoted without context; as an adjective, means either given to aphoristic expression, or just referring to an aphoristic expression. or: 'in a way that tries to sound important or intelligent, especially by expressing moral judgements'
273
Besides, nothing could be more absurd than sententious displays of solidarity with one of the most virulent antiestablishment rags ever printed.
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1 week, 3 days ago
Besides, nothing could be more absurd than sententious displays of solidarity with one of the most virulent antiestablishment rags ever printed.
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1 week, 3 days ago