Word: Valor
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: Great courage in the face of danger, especially in battle.
- Example: In recognition of this, my dad, then twenty-two years old, was issued the Bronze Star for valor.
Word: Vicinity
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: The area near or surrounding a particular place.
- Example: He commenced treating wounded men while shells continued to fall in the immediate vicinity.
Word: Relent
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Abandon or mitigate a harsh intention or cruel treatment.
- Example: Presented with the data, I relented.
Word: Prognosis
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: The likely course of a disease or ailment.
- Example: At the same time, given my prognosis, Jai says she’s learning to let some of the little stuff slide.
Word: Calibrate
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Adjust or correlate the readings of an instrument with those of a standard in order to check the instrument’s accuracy.
- Example: Dr. Reiss has a gift for helping people to recalibrate their home lives when one spouse has a terminal illness.
Word: Accordion
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: A portable musical instrument with metal reeds blown by bellows, played by means of keys and buttons.
- Example: I found photos of him as a young man playing an accordion.
Word: Clutch
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Grasp or sieze something tightly or eagerly.
- Example: And as an older man, clutching a stuffed bear bigger than he was.
Word: Grin
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Smile broadly, especially in an unrestrained manner and with the mouth open.
- Example: He had this great grin on his face.
Word: Flourish
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Grow, thrive, prosper, do well, develop, proliferate.
- Example: He would present them with a flourish, building a bit of drama.
Word: Leap
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Jump over or spring in a long way.
- Example: Paush leaped from a covered position and commenced treating the wounded men.
Word: Staccato
- Parts of Speech: Adjective/ Adverb / Noun
- Meaning: A series of short, sharply separated sounds or words.
- Example: I was gasping out of fear in staccato.
Word: Incubator
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: An enclosed apparatus providing a controlled environment for the care and protection of premature or unusually small babies.
- Example: He’d been in a so-called “closed-air bassinete,” which is a more benign description of an incubator.
Word: Hysterical
- Parts of Speech: Adjective
- Meaning: Feeling or showing an extreme and uncontrolled emotion.
- Example: She could have gotten so hysterical that she’d thrown herself into shock.
Word: Stricken
- Parts of Speech: Verb / Adjective
- Meaning: Seriously affected by an undesirable condition or an unpleasant feeling.
- Example: I could have been so stricken that I’d have been no help in the surgery room.
Word: Ordeal
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: A painful or horrific experience, especially a protracted one.
- Example: Through the whole Ordeal, I don’t think we ever said to each other.
Word: Wail
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: A prolonged high-pitched cry of pain, anger, or grief
- Example: And then the baby, our first child, Dylan, let out a wail like you’ve never heard before.
Word: Preemie
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: A baby born prematurely
- Example: The preemies who come out limp often have the most trouble.
Word: Dissonant
- Parts of Speech: Adjective
- Meaning: Lacking harmony
- Example: At Magee, they did a wonderful job of simultaneously communicating two dissonant things.
Word: Bassinet
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: A baby’s wicker-cradle usually with a hood
- Example: One day, we arrived at the hospital, and Dylan’s bassinett was gone.
Word: Gasp
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Inhale suddenly with the mouth open, out of pain, or astonishment.
- Example: I was gasping out fear in staccato.
Word: Shrug
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Raise one’s shoulder slightly and momentarily to express doubt, ignorance, or indifference.
- Example: I just shrugged, and I could see that for Jai, an entire day’s worth of anxiety was just melting away.
Word: Gash
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: A long deep slash, cut, or wound.
- Example: We would just live with dents and gashes.
Word: Placenta
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: A flattened circular organ in the uterus of pregnant eutherian mammals, nourishing and maintaing the fetus through the umblical chord.
- Example: With the Placenta in such distress, the life support for the fetus was giving out.
Word: Riff
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: A short repeated phrase in popular music and Jazz, typically used as an introduction, or refrain in a song.
- Example: I wondered how often she used her “hospital paperwork” riff to ease patients’ anxieties.
Phrase: Off the ledge
- Parts of Speech:
- Meaning: "Off the ledge" is a figurative phrase that means avoiding a risky or harmful situation. It can also mean taking a risk, making a big decision, or doing something unexpected.
- Example: Just keep her off the ledge when she gets scared.
Word: Devise
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Plan or Invent a complex procedure, system, or mechanism by careful thought.
- Example: Your principal duty is to devise, implement, and manage a backup and recovery strategy.
Word: Drape
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: The manner in which fabric hangs or falls; Place casually.
- Example: Within seconds, the deflating envelope draped onto the ground.
Word: Trotting
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: To trot is move faster than walking, but not quite a full-out run.
- Example: The ballooner came trotting over to us. “Wait wait!” he said. “You ordered the wedding package! It comes with a bottle of champagne!”.
Word: Obsess
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Be preoccupied with something; Haunt like a ghost; pursue.
- Example: Jai spent the entire day obsessing over how to explain everything to Ricky when he got home from Club Babalu.
Word: Root
- Parts of Speech: Noun / Verb
- Meaning: Come into existence, Originate; Become settled or establishedand stable in one’s residence or life style.
- Example: As she’d soon learn, my measured response was rooted in my upbringing.
Word: Bluntness
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: Without sharpness or clearness of edge or point.
- Example: Though Jai wasn’t thrilled with my bluntness and my know-it-all attitude, she said I was the most positive, upbeat person she’d ever met.
Word: Rattle
- Parts of Speech: Verb / Noun
- Meaning: Make a very rapid, short series of knocking or tapping sounds.
- Example: We did not leave the reception in a car with cans rattling from the rear bumper.
Word: Whisk
- Parts of Speech: Verb / Noun
- Meaning: Move quickly and nimbly.
- Example: Instead, we got into a huge, multicolored hot-air-balloon that whisked us off into the clouds.
Word: Beam
- Parts of Speech: Noun / Verb
- Meaning: Have a complexion with a strong bright color, such as red or pink.
- Shine, glow, radiate, Ray.
- Example: When we had stepped into the balloon, Jai was beaming.
Word: Disconcert
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Cause to lose one’s composure; Cause to feel embarrassment.
- Example: It didn’t sound like the destruction of the Hindenburg, but it was a little disconcerting.
Word: Intrigue
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: To arouse someone’s curiosity, desire, or interest.
- Example: She was intrigued enough to make a few phone calls to friends of hers in the community.
Word: Gun-shy
- Parts of Speech: Adjective
- Meaning: Nervous and apprehensive (anxious or fearful that something bad or unpleasant will happen).
- Example: She was getting gun-shy about getting serious again.
Word: Impishness
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: Being playful and a little naughty.
- Example: She had this gorgeous long hair then, and this smile that said a lot about both her warmth and her impishness.
Word: Singling
- Parts of Speech: Verb
- Meaning: Choose someone or something from a group for special treatment.
- Example: I couldn’t tell if you did that with everyone, or if you were singling me out.
Word: Machiavellian
- Parts of Speech: Adjective
- Meaning: Cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, especially in politics
- Example: I’m either an incurable romantic or a bit Machiavellian.
Word: Blissfully
- Parts of Speech: Adverb
- Meaning: In a manner characterized by extreme happiness or joy.
- Example: No woman, even the right kind, would expect to settle down blissfully into that.
Word: Offbeat
- Parts of Speech: Adjective
- Meaning: Unconventional or Unusual.
- Example: She figured I’m obviously a pretty offbeat and exciting guy.
- She’s a little offbeat, but she’s a wonderful actress.
Word: Comparative
- Parts of Speech: Adjective
- Meaning: Perceptable by comparison, relative.
- Example: A thirty-one-year-old grad student in comparative literature was working part-time in the UNC computer science department.
Word: Laureate
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: A person who is honored with an award for an outstanding creative or intellectual achievement.
- Example: Her job was to host visitors, whether Nobel laureates or Girl Scout troops
Word: Funky
- Parts of Speech: Adjective
- Meaning: Frightened, panicky, cool, trendy, fashionable, having or using a strong dance rhythm.
- Example: And then found the links to my funkier personal information.
Word: Formidable
- Parts of Speech: Adjective / Noun
- Meaning: Inspiring fear or respect through being impressively large, powerful, intense, or capable.
- Example: The most formidable brick wall I ever encountered in my life was just five feet, six inches tall, and absolutely beautiful.
Word: Adept
- Parts of Speech: Adjective / Noun
- Meaning: Very proficient or skilled at something.
- Example: I was always pretty adept at charging through the brick walls in my academic and professional life.
Word: Courtship
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: A period during which a couple develops a romantic relationship.
- Example: I didn’t tell the audience the story about my courtship with my wife.
Word: Compulsion
- Parts of Speech: Noun
- Meaning: The action or state of forcing or being forced to do something.
- Example: I felt no compulsion to settle down.
Word: Tenured
- Parts of Speech: Adjective
- Meaning: Having or denoting a permanent post, especially as a teacher or a professor.
- Example: Even as a tenured professor who could afford something better.
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