makebate, make-bate [meyk-beyt]

noun:
(archaic) a person who causes contention or discord

Examples:

Barillon was therefore directed to act, with all possible precautions against detection, the part of a makebate. (Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II)

Trying to set you against me, the spiteful old ( Read more... )

pestiferous [pe-stif-er-uhs]

adjective:
1 spreading or bearing disease, especially deadly epidemic disease; pestilential
2 pernicious; evil

Examples:

Although its distinctly lobed leaves don't achieve great size, this vine can be as pestiferous as any plant in cultivation, with stems that scuttle under mulch, up trees and onto neighboring ( Read more... )

alterity [awl-ter-i-tee]

noun:
otherness; the quality or condition of being different, especially of being fundamentally different from or alien to the sense of identity of a person or cultural group

Examples:

Her influential thought experiment The Left Hand of Darkness uses this strategy to explore gender and alterity. (Julie Phillips, The ( Read more... )

dispiteous [dis-pit-ee-uhs]

adjective:
(archaic) without pity or mercy, ruthless

Examples:

Based on Sante Kimes, she is the most compulsive, dispiteous grifter in fiction I can think of. Identity theft, regular theft, fraud, arson, enslavement, murder-it's difficult to enumerate all the crimes Evangeline, her husband Warren, and their son Devin ( Read more... )

peradventure [pur-uhd-ven-cher, per-]

noun:
1 chance, doubt, or uncertainty.
2 surmise
adverb:
(archaic) it may be; maybe; possibly; perhaps

Examples:

Peradventure they make sales on the January 31, they must ensure that they deposit the money in banks before the close of the working hours because old notes would cease to be legal tender ( Read more... )

noisome [noi-suhm]

adjective:
1 noxious, harmful
2a offensive to the senses and especially to the sense of smell
2b highly obnoxious or objectionable

Examples:

It was six yards square and extravagantly swathed in purple and gold, from its velvet headboard and valance to its voluminous damask curtains. The Virgin Queen took it with her when ( Read more... )

nethermost [neth-er-mohst, -muhst]

adjective:
farthest down, lowest

Examples:

Zheng Ruiyu from China Academy of Art uses her collection to display the mildness and poetic vibe of Jiangnan (lower reaches of south Yangtze River). The crisscrossed lanes and alleys in Huzhou, her hometown in nethermost Zhejiang Province, and Hangzhou inspire her ( Read more... )

obloquy [ob-luh-kwee]

noun:
1 strongly condemnatory utterance : abusive language
2 the condition of one that is discredited : bad repute

Examples:

In the slew of rightist culture-war bogeymen, from 'cultural Marxism' to 'critical race theory', one of the most surprising candidates for obloquy is postmodernism. (Richard Seymour, How ( Read more... )

catch-as-catch-can [kach-uhz-kach-kan]

adjective:
using any available means or method, hit or miss
adverb:
without specific plan or order

Examples:

But you can now see a significant shift toward empowering audience members to make their own choices: Ravinia, for example, will have two kinds of lawn seating, one in predetermined pods, the ( Read more... )

adjective:
(Scot and North England) disgusting, horrid; loathsome

Examples:

In a sometimes ugsome, plague-filled world of violence and adventure that evokes the swashbuckling nature of The Count of Monte Cristo, you're presented with so many super heroic abilities, you feel like an omniscient kid in a candy store. (Harold Goldberg, 2012 In ( Read more... )