implacable, aspect, speculate, undistinguished, rigor/rigour, mordant, aspect ratio

A cartoon by Joe Dator. Find more cartoons from this week's issue here: http://nyr.kr/1UIFmmT

“We can provide an additional contribution to air security in Afghanistan with these NATO AWACS planes,” German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung (CDU) said, adding that, as air traffic increases in the country, “it is important that we are engaged in this aspect.”

 Radical politics, avant-garde art and motorcycle racing all spring to life in Kushner’s radiant novel of the 1970s, in which a young woman moves to New York to become an artist, only to wind up involved in the revolutionary protest movement that shook Italy in those years. The novel, Kushner’s second, deploys mordant observations and chiseled sentences to explore how individuals are swept along by implacable social forces.激進政治、先鋒藝術和摩托車賽在庫什納這本激情四溢的小說中彷彿躍然紙上，故事發生在20世紀70年代，一個年輕女人搬到紐約，想成為藝術家，卻被捲入那 個年代震撼了整個意大利的革命抗議運動中。這是庫什納的第二部小說，採取尖銳的觀察和鮮明的語言，探索個體是如何被勢不可擋的社會力量席捲而過。

Lord Salisbury, three times prime minister, wrote that “hostility to radicalism, incessant, implacable hostility, is the essential definition of Conservatism"


implacable   adj.
Impossible to placate or appease: implacable foes/enemies; implacable suspicion.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin implācābilis : in-, not; see in-¹ + plācābilis, placable; see placable.]

implacability im·plac'a·bil'i·ty or im·plac'a·ble·ness n.
implacably im·plac'a·bly adv.

rigor/rigour


n.

1. Strictness or severity, as in temperament, action, or judgment.
2. A harsh or trying circumstance; hardship. See synonyms at difficulty.
3. A harsh or cruel act.
4. Medicine. Shivering or trembling, as caused by a chill.
5. Physiology. A state of rigidity in living tissues or organs that prevents response to stimuli.
6. Obsolete. Stiffness or rigidity.

[Middle English rigour, from Old French, from Latin rigor, from rigēre, to be stiff.]

undistinguished

Synonyms:	insignificant
Usage:	In spite of a loud voice … and an implacable manner, he had been an undistinguished member of most of the existing aeronautical associations.

aspect

n.

1. A particular look or facial expression; mien: “He was serious of aspect but wholly undistinguished” (Louis Auchincloss).
2. Appearance to the eye, especially from a specific vantage point.
3. A way in which something can be viewed by the mind: looked at all aspects of the situation. See synonyms at phase.
4. A position facing or commanding a given direction; exposure.
5. A side or surface facing in a particular direction: the ventral aspect of the body.
6. 1. The configuration of the stars or planets in relation to one another.
   2. This configuration, thought by astrologers to influence human affairs.
7. Grammar. A category of the verb designating primarily the relation of the action to the passage of time, especially in reference to completion, duration, or repetition.
8. Archaic. An act of looking or gazing.

[Middle English, from Latin aspectus, a view, from past participle of aspicere, to look at : ad-, ad- + specere, to look.]

aspect ratio

noun

1. 1.

   the ratio of the width to the height of an image or screen.
2. 2.

   AERONAUTICS

   the ratio of the span to the mean chord of an aerofoil.

spec·u·late (spĕk'yə-lāt')
v., -lat·ed, -lat·ing, -lates.
v.intr.

1. To meditate on a subject; reflect.
2. To engage in a course of reasoning often based on inconclusive evidence. See synonyms at think.
3. To engage in the buying or selling of a commodity with an element of risk on the chance of profit.

v.tr.
To assume to be true without conclusive evidence: speculated that high cholesterol was a contributing factor to the patient's health problems.

[Latin speculārī, speculāt-, to observe, from specula, watchtower, from specere, to look at.]

[動](自)

1 ［I（[副]）］［II that節/wh-節/wh- to do］
(1) （…と）推測［憶測］する((about, on, as to ...)). ⇒GUESS[類 語]

speculate on where the satellite will fall
衛星の落下点を推測する

We speculated that the two might be engineers.
その2人は技師だろうと見当をつけた.

(2) （…について）沈思［熟考］する, 思索する((about, on, upon, as to ...))

speculate about the meaning of life
人生の意義について深く考える.

2 （株などに）投機する, 山をはる((in ...))；（…を予測して）思わく買い［売り］をする((on ...))

speculate in real estate
不 動産に手を出す

speculate on the devaluation of the dollar
ドルの切り下げを見越して山をはる.

［ラテン語speculātus （specere見る＋-ātus＝観察される→熟考する）△SPECIES, SPECTER, SPECIMEN］

undistinguished

 

音節

ùn • distínguished

[形]

1 はっきりした相違点のない, 見分けのつかない, 区別のない, 類別できない, 分離［区分］されない.

2 見破れない, 気づかれない.

3 優秀でない, 並みの, 平凡な.

mordant

Pronunciation: /ˈmɔːd(ə)nt/

adjective

• (especially of humour) having or showing a sharp or critical quality; biting:a mordant sense of humour

noun

• 1a substance, typically an inorganic oxide, that combines with a dye or stain and thereby fixes it in a material.
• an adhesive compound for fixing gold leaf.

• 2a corrosive liquid used to etch the lines on a printing plate.

verb

[with object]

• impregnate or treat (a fabric) with a mordant: mordanting a fibre is simple (as adjective mordanted)mordanted wool

Derivatives

mordancy
noun

mordantly

adverb

Origin:

late 15th century: from French, present participle of mordre 'to bite', from Latin mordere