Expand Your Vocabulary Part Deux

Here we are with another installment of Expand Your Vocabulary. Today there are words from my last 2 reads, The Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Halevy and Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran.

From The Triumph of Deborah:
• Surfeit – (n) excess; an excessive amount
• Inured – (v) to accustom to hardship, difficulty, pain, etc
• Magnanimity – (n, pl) the quality of being generous in forgiving an insult or injury


From Cleopatra's Daughter:
• Portent – (n) an indication or omen of something about to happen, esp. something momentous
• Stadia – (n) a method of surveying in which distances are read by noting the interval on a graduated rod intercepted by two parallel cross hairs mounted in the telescope of a surveying instrument, the rod being placed at one end of the distance to be measured and the surveying instrument at the other.
• Phalanx – (n) (in ancient Greece) a group of heavily armed infantry formed in ranks and files close and deep, with shields joined and long spears overlapping
• Cuirasses – (n, pl) Also called corselet. defensive armor for the torso comprising a breastplate and backplate, originally made of leather.
• Auspices – (n, pl) an augur of ancient Rome (see below)
• Augur – (n) one of a group of ancient Roman officials charged with observing and interpreting omens for guidance in public affairs.
• Porphyry – (n) a very hard rock, anciently quarried in Egypt, having a dark, purplish-red groundmass containing small crystals of feldspar
• Manumit – (v) to release from slavery or servitude




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