A Thesaurus is a reference book of words and their specific related terms: either synonymous or opposite in their meaning to the original word. These are some rarely used but, nonetheless, important words to know.
abstruse, contingent, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, operant, pendentive, prurient, Orient , stochastic
abstruse
adjective
Her abstruse arguments were hard to follow. obscure, arcane, esoteric, little known, recherché, rarefied, recondite, difficult, hard, puzzling, perplexing, cryptic, enigmatic, Delphic--oracular, complex, complicated, involved, over/above one's head, incomprehensible, unfathomable, impenetrable, mysterious, obscurant.
contingent, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, operant, pendentive, prurient, Orient
contingent, contingency
adjective, noun
Literally, with relation to something else. A situation where actors or events are not entirely free, but caused by or dependent on something else, dependent on a previous condition that limits or sets boundaries for the subsequent outcomes. Thus meaning, dependent, tied to, restricted by, or confined by important considerations.
Any sort of alternative plan or action is a contingency based on those probable situations that can influence an outcome and thus alternatives help people anticipate the unexpected, based on previous cases where the anticipated outcome was superceded by other probabilities which altered the final disposition of a set of related events.
For example, a person may think they are able to marry anyone they please, until they recognize that income differences, opposite faiths, sexual appetites, or conflicting morals limit who they eventually marry.
abstruse, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, operant, pendentive, prurient, Orient
furtive
adjective
attempting to avoid notice or attention, typically because of guilt or a belief that discovery would lead to trouble; secretive : they spent a furtive day together | he stole a furtive glance at her. secret .
• suggestive of guilty nervousness : the look in his eyes became furtive.
DERIVATIVES
furtively |ˌfərd1vli| adverb
furtiveness |ˌfərdɪvn1s| noun
ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from French furtif, -ive or Latin furtivus, from furtum ‘theft.’
secretive, secret, surreptitious, clandestine, hidden, covert, conspiratorial, cloak-and-dagger, backroom, backstairs, sly, sneaky, under-the-table; sidelong, sideways, oblique, indirect; informal hush-hush, shifty.
abstruse, contingent, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, operant, pendentive, prurient, Orient
debug
verb [ trans. ]
1 identify and remove errors from (computer hardware or software) : games are the worst to debug | [as n. ] ( debugging) software debugging.
2 detect and remove concealed microphones from (an area).
3 remove insects from (something), esp. with a pesticide.
noun
the process of identifying and removing errors from computer hardware or software.
abstruse, furtive, contingent, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, operant, pendentive, prurient, Orient
latent
adjective
(of a quality or state) existing but not yet developed or manifest; hidden; concealed : discovering her latent talent for diplomacy.
• Biology (of a bud, resting stage, etc.) lying dormant or hidden until circumstances are suitable for development or manifestation.
• (of a disease) in which the usual symptoms are not yet manifest.
• (of a microorganism, esp. a virus) present in the body without causing disease, but capable of doing so at a later stage or when transmitted to another body.
DERIVATIVES
latently |ˌleɪtntli| adverb
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin latent- ‘being hidden,’ from the verb latere.
abeyant, dormant, latent, quiescent, potential
All of these words refer to what is not currently observable or showing signs of activity.
A latent talent is one that has not yet manifested itself, while potential suggests a talent that exists in an undeveloped state (: a potential concert violinist). A child may have certain latent qualities of which his or her parents are unaware; but teachers are usually quick to spot a potential artist or poet in the classroom.
Dormant and quiescent are less frequently associated with people and more often associated with things. An inactive volcano described as dormant, applies to anything that is currently inactive but has been active in the past and is capable of becoming active again in the future. Dormant carries the connotation of sleeping (: plants that are dormant in the winter), while quiescent means motionless ( | a quiescent sea), emphasizing inactivity without referring to past or future activity.
Abeyant, like dormant, means suspended or temporarily inactive, but it is most commonly used in its noun form (: personal rights and privileges kept in abeyance until the danger had passed).
latent
adjective
his latent skills dormant, untapped, unused, undiscovered, hidden, concealed, underlying, invisible, unseen, undeveloped, unrealized, unfulfilled, potential.
abstruse, contingent, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, operant, pendentive, prurient, Orient , stochastic
limpid
adjective
1 a limpid pool clear, transparent, glassy, crystal clear, crystalline, translucent, pellucid, unclouded. antonym opaque.
2 his limpid prose lucid, clear, plain, understandable, intelligible, comprehensible, coherent, explicit, unambiguous, simple, vivid, sharp, crystal clear; formal perspicuous.
limpid antonym unintelligible.
(of a liquid) free of anything that darkens; completely clear.
• (of a person's eyes) unclouded; clear.
• (esp. of writing or music) clear and accessible or melodious : the limpid notes of a recorder.
DERIVATIVES
Limpidity, noun; limpidly adverb
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin limpidus; perhaps related to lymph.
abstruse, contingent, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, operant, pendentive, prurient, Orient , stochastic
lugubrious
adjective: looking or sounding sad and dismal.
DERIVATIVES
lugubriously adverb
lugubriousness noun
ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Latin lugubris (from lugere ‘mourn’ ) + -ous .
lugubrious hymns | their lugubrious aunt was too melancholy for her own good.
mournful, gloomy, sad, unhappy, doleful, glum, melancholy, woeful, miserable, woebegone, forlorn, somber, solemn, serious, sorrowful, morose, dour, cheerless, joyless, dismal; funereal, sepulchral; informal down in/at the mouth; literary dolorous, glum. antonym cheerful.
abstruse, contingent, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, naive, obsessive–compulsive, operant, pendentive, prurient, Orient
naive
adjective
don't be fooled by his naive manner of speaking innocent, unsophisticated, artless, ingenuous, inexperienced, guileless, unworldly, trusting; gullible, credulous, immature, callow, raw, green, wide-eyed; informal wet behind the ears, born yesterday, gullible, antonym worldly.
obsessive–compulsive
adjective Psychiatry
denoting or relating to a disorder in which a person feels compelled to perform certain meaningless actions repeatedly in order to alleviate obsessive fears or intrusive thoughts, typically resulting in severe disruption of daily life.
noun
a person characterized by such obsessive behavior.
abstruse, contingent, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, operant, pendentive, prurient, Orient , stochastic
operant Psychology
adjective
involving the modification of behavior by the reinforcing or inhibiting effect of its own consequences (instrumental conditioning).
noun
an item of behavior that is initially spontaneous, rather than a response to a prior stimulus, but whose consequences may reinforce or inhibit recurrence of that behavior.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin operant- ‘being at work,’ from the verb operari.
abstruse, contingent, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, pendentive, prurient, Orient
Orient
noun
a culturally biased term for Eastern Asia, worse than saying the Far East, literally meaning to the east. But in the period of cartography or map making in the late middle ages when Constantinople (Istanbul, today) was considered the dividing line of the world (western European world of course) , occident (the west) and orient (the east) where used to demarcate geographical regions with respect to Rome, later London, and Constantinople. Even in the Islamic world the use of Mecca as the geocentric focus of their empire, the cultural blinders persist in delineating the world into segments from our ethnic perspective, as opposed to a more even handed means of determining Asian from European, or North African civilizations.
DERIVATIVES
Oriental, Orientals, orientalize
adverb
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French, or from Latin orientalis, from orient.
USAGE The term Oriental, denoting a person from the Far East, is regarded as offensive by many Asians, esp. Asian Americans. It has many associations with European imperialism in Asia. Therefore, it has an out-of-date feel and tends to be associated with a rather offensive stereotype of the people and their customs as inscrutable and exotic.
abstruse, contingent, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, pendentive, prurient, Orient
pendentive
noun Architecture
a curved triangle of vaulting formed by the intersection of a dome with its supporting arches.
ORIGIN early 18th cent.: from the French adjective pendentif, -ive, from Latin pendent- ‘hanging down,’ from the verb pendere.
abstruse, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, Orient, prurient, stochastic
proprioceptive
adjective
Physiology relating to stimuli that are produced and perceived within an organism, esp. those connected with the position and movement of the body. Compare with exteroceptive and interoceptive .
DERIVATIVES
proprioception| noun
proprioceptively adverb
ORIGIN early 20th cent.: from Latin proprius ÔownÕ + receptive
prurient
adjective
having or encouraging an excessive interest in sexually explicit, erotic, or genital matters : she'd been the subject of much prurient curiosity.
DERIVATIVES
prurience , noun
pruriency , noun
pruriently , adverb
ORIGIN late 16th cent.(in the sense [having a mental itching] ): from Latin prurient- ‘itching, longing’ and [being wanton,] from the verb prurire.
she was completely turned off by his prurient remarks salacious, licentious, voyeuristic, lascivious, lecherous, lustful, lewd, libidinous, lubricious; formal concupiscent.
abstruse, contingent, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, operant, pendentive, prurient, Orient , stochastic
Stochastic
adjective
having that character or quality of a guess, or hunch in that the outcome is not certain, since many guesses are wrong; statistically random, but not in the sense that anything can occur, since the probable is more likely to happen than the rare possibility. In a world where events are best understood using statistical variation, the term refers to an inability to precisely predict an outcome of existing or pre-existing events.
USAGE
In a world based on probability and statistical mechanics the term refers to the impossibility of knowing with complete certainty the outcome of real events.
Not predictive, or randomly determined; having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.
DERIVATIVES
stochastically
adverb
ORIGIN mid 17th cent.:from Greek stokhastikos, from stokhazesthai Ôaim at, guess,Õ from stokhos Ôaim.Õ
abstruse, contingent, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, operant, pendentive, prurient, Orient , stochastic
abstruse, contingent, furtive, debug, latent, limpid, lugubrious, naive, obsessive–compulsive, operant, pendentive, proprioceptive, Orient, stochastic, synonyms
revised on July 30, 2007
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