Bucolic

Word: Bucolic

Part of Speech: Adjective

Definition: Something that is of shepherds or of a rural life

Synonyms: Pastoral, agrarian

Antonyms: Metropolitan

Helpful hints to remember: This word is difficult, though you must appreciate that it's considered the more difficult cousin of “pastoral”, which is word of great historical significance, and therefore has a tendency to pop-up in examinations that challenge your vocabulary.

Sentences:

• The office worker envied the easiness of the farmer's bucolic lifestyle.
• For millenniums, bucolic life has been portrayed with idealized simplicity so that city dwellers may use its conjured imagery as a escape from their own metropolises.
• Though she possessed more modern tastes herself, the boy's house had its own bucolic charm.

Saccharine

Word: Saccharine

Part of Speech: Adjective

Definition: Sugary, excessively sweet, or, in the more abstract sense, something that is pleasing

Synonyms: Candied

Antonyms: Bitter, disgusting

Helpful hints to remember: Saccharin is a popular artificial sweetener.

Sentences:

• Trevor moaned when his girlfriend suggested that they go see the new saccharine rom-com.
• Perhaps his mother's saccharine cakes had deluded him, but Philip always preferred sour candies to sweet ones.
• The new pop album was good, but Chelsea resented the adult women tended to be too saccharine for their age. 

Vivify

Word: Vivify

Part of Speech: Verb.

Definition: To bring to life, either figuratively or literally.

Synonyms: Enliven.

Antonyms: Deaden.

Helpful hints to remember: Consider the roots of the words; Viv, or life, comes from latin, and -fy, which means “to make or cause”, comes from old French.

Sentences:

• Dr. Frankenstein's ultimate goal was to vivify the spare body parts he had sewn together.
• The widower's only reprieve from his hectic life was when he could vivify his wife in his vibrant memory.
• “Among his most potent pictures are self-portraits that vivify notions of sight as an internal, psychic, erotic and charged process.”

Germane

Word: Germane

Part of Speech: Adjective.

Definition: Relevant or related.

Synonyms: Pertinent.

Antonyms: Irrelevant.

Helpful hints to remember: Think of germ cells, or sex cells, and how individuals who come from the same germ cells are closely related.

Sentences:

• Although the recent presidential debates were extremely entertaining to watch, many people were disappointed since it appeared that neither candidate was committed to staying germane to the issues most important to Americans.
• Due to time restrictions, only germane questions will be allowed at the Q&A.
• “Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It's because I'm not quite an atheist and it worries me. There's that little bit that holds on: 'Well, I'm almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.'” -David Bowie 

Jejune

Word: Jejune

Part of Speech: Adjective.

Definition: Jejune can mean naive, insipid, or devoid in nutritional value (as in diet). However, all of these definitions share the general idea of lacking something in common, whether it be maturity or complexity.

Synonyms: Childish, barren.

Antonyms: Adult.

Helpful hints to remember: This word possesses a Latin origin, but resembles the French word “jeune”, which means young.

Sentences:

• The biology freshman kept a notebook filled with jejune ideas that he hoped to one day investigate.
• Phil insisted that he wanted to be an artist, but his parents worried that no one would buy his jejune drawings that seemed to lack any inspiration.
• “I have often wondered why some late Writers should sensure (sic) Tully's Letters for being too naked and jejune, when that to his Friend Lucceius, which the Reader will find in this Collection, is a plain Demonstration to the contrary?”

Doff

Word: Doff

Part of Speech: Verb.

Definition: To remove or get rid of.

Synonyms: Discard.

Antonyms: Cover, don.

Helpful hints to remember: This word was created as a combination of “do” and “off”.

Sentences:

• Pleased to see his naked wife, the salesman doffed his pants rather quickly.
• Traditionally during a Catholic mass, men are obligated to doff their hats while women are required to don them.
• “Doff that stupid idea: it would never work.”

Limn

Word: Limn

Part of Speech: Verb.

Definition: To represent something through art or description.

Synonyms: Portray.

Antonyms: N/a.

Helpful hints to remember: Limning is an old word used to describe the illumination process, or adding of illustrations, to illuminated manuscripts.

Sentences:

• Though the poet wanted nothing more than to create an epic for his love, he could not quite find a way to limn her.
• Some artists create their work through limning, while others produce more abstract pieces.
• “As television came to dominate sports coverage, writers began to assume that the audience had seen the game; their job became to limn the drama, provide "insights" about the personalities, players and coaches, to analyze what it all meant.”

Mien

Word: Mien

Part of Speech: Noun.

Definition: A certain demeanor or facial expression.

Synonyms: Air.

Antonyms: N/a.

Helpful hints to remember: “Mien” is French for “mine”.

Sentences:

• Even though he was only a beggar, the homeless man possessed a mien of the upper-class.
• The depressed, collective mien of the prisoners of war was something the soldier would not soon forget.
• “Genius, like truth, has a shabby and neglected mien.”

Zenith

Word: Zenith

Part of Speech: Noun

Definition: Highest point.

Synonyms: Peak, apex

Antonyms: Nadir

Sentences:

• “I think one of the reasons people quit is because they're afraid they won't be able to get better and better; that they have to come to a zenith of some kind.”
• Our wedding day was the zenith of my joy, while my dear wife's funeral was my nadir.
  Bonus Question:
  Zenith::Climax as Nadir::

1. Below
2. Climax
3. Plain
4. Sad

Nadir

Word: Nadir

Part of Speech: Noun

Definition: The lowest point, or point of greatest despair.

Synonyms: Rock bottom

Antonyms: Zenith

Sentences:

• During the nadir of my life I had nothing to turn to but drug use.
• The sacred ritual could only take place in the nadir of the valley.
• After 1985 the band reached its nadir and was on the brink of breaking apart. 

Gaucherie

Word: Gaucherie

Part of Speech: Noun

Definition: An act which lacks social grace, and is subsequently embarrassing or awkward.

Synonyms: Mistake, vulgarity

Antonyms: (Something that is done with care or discretion... There really is no formal antonym.)

Helpful hints to remember: In French, “gaucherie” literally means awkwardness, but is also used to refer to someone who is left-handed.

Sentences:

• “My,” whispered Steven, “I think the only gaucherie in this room is that dress!”
• Almost everyone's first high school dance is filled with gaucheries.
• Please, forgive my gaucherie, but I was not aware there was a lady in the house.

Arabesque

Word: Arabesque

Part of Speech: Noun, Adjective

Definition:  Any ornament or object that uses complex line imagery typical of the Islamic calligraphic decorative style, or its European appropriation. It can similarly be used as an adjective. 

Synonyms: Embellished

Antonyms: Plain

Helpful hints to remember: “Arabesque” literally means “of Arabia”. 

Warning: “The Arabesque” usually refers to the ballet position.

Sentences: 

• The iconic fleur-de-lis is repeated in many arabesque designs. 
• Sam knew the upper-class clients of his rug shop would go crazy over the exotic, arabesque pieces that had just arrive from across the sea. 
• Otto knew the little arabesque was the perfect piece to hang over his mantle. 

Nascent

Word: Nascent

Part of Speech: Adjective

Definition: Something that is early in development or just beginning to grow. Think of it as the “baby” form of non-physical things.

Synonyms: Fledgling

Antonyms: Shrinking

Helpful hints to remember: “Renascent” means “to be reborn”.

Sentences:

• In its nascent state the club had merely been a collective of students. To Philip's shock it now it spanned the nation.
• Although during the test run the vehicle burst into the flames, the inventor was able to get several investors to fund his nascent design.
• “True love is quiescent*, except in the nascent moments of true humility.” (*”Quiescent” means “to be at rest”.)

Sanguine

Word: Sanguine

Part of Speech: Adjective

Definition: (1) happily optimistic (most common), (2) bloody, (3) red, like blood.

Synonyms: Optimistic

Antonyms: Pessimistic

Helpful hints to remember: “Sang” is blood in French.

Sentences:

• Her sanguine cheeks revealed her embarrassment.
• Such sanguine environments like the abattoir are not for the meek or faint.
• “I had now arrived at my seventeenth year, and had attained my full height, a fraction over six feet. I was well endowed with youthful energy, and was of an extremely sanguine temperament.”
• Of course, as with any word with multiple meanings, sanguine can be used in a “play on words”; for example, someone might possess a “sanguine love for war”.
• Note that sanguine also refers to the red chalk that has traditionally been used in sketches to create a sepia tone.