2017年1月1日 星期日

incipient, parched, prim, flinty, desiccated buzzards, craggy, sistrum



Cheap Chinese labour has been crucial to the building of “Factory Asia”, the name given to the region’s complex of cross-border supply chains. In 2013 Asia accounted for 46.5%. of global manufacturing output. Since 2001, hourly manufacturing wages in China have risen by an average of 12% a year. Hence the incipient rise of South-East Asia, which offers a big labour pool with low wages http://econ.st/18GC7FS


A tightening grip


A SMALL factory in an industrial park outside Shanghai, churning out widgets you never see but probably use, provides a perfect snapshot of the state of global...
ECON.ST


Drowning Today, Parched Tomorrow
By STEVEN SOLOMON
Pakistan’s floods are a sign of an incipient water shortage.



Time to face the music! Today’s ‪#‎MysteryObject‬ is a sistrum, a temple instrument from ancient Egypt http://ow.ly/KfN4c




Wyeth gave America a prim and flinty view of Puritan rectitude, starchily sentimental, through parched gray and brown pictures of spooky frame houses, desiccated fields, deserted beaches, circling buzzards and craggy-faced New Englanders.

A mash-up of memoir, travel guide and history, “The Most Beautiful Walk in the World” is the result of Baxter’s unwitting entry into the tour business. A friend running a week-long literary seminar persuades him to tag along on one of the event’s organized walks with a Harvard professor/Robert Redford look-alike. The academic, Baxter observes, turns out to be “more than dry. He was parched. Desiccated.”

flint
noun [C or U]
1 (a piece of) shiny grey or black stone that is like glass

2 (a piece of) stone or metal used in a musket to make it fire or in a cigarette lighter to produce a flame

flinty
adjective
1 made of or like flint:
a flinty material

2 severe and determined:
The head teacher has a rather flinty manner.


prim
adjective primmerprimmest DISAPPROVING
very formal and correct in behaviour and easily shocked by anything rude:
She's much too prim and proper to drink pints of beer.

primly
adverb
A primly dressed young woman ran up to the car.


starchy
adjective INFORMAL DISAPPROVING
behaving in a formal way and without humour:
Science museums have tried to shake off their somewhat starchy image by mounting exhibitions designed to draw in the crowds.

starchily
adverb INFORMAL DISAPPROVING



desiccated
adjective
1 dried:
100g of desiccated (= dried and broken into small pieces) coconut

2 DISAPPROVING not interesting or completely lacking in imagination:
All the party seems to have to offer is the same desiccated old ideas.



parch

pɑːtʃ/
verb
past tense: parched; past participle: parched; adjective: parched
  1. 1.
    make or become dry through intense heat.
    "a piece of grassland parched by the sun"
    synonyms:dry, as dry as a bone, bone dry, dried up, dried out, arid, waterless, desiccated,dehydrated, sun-bakedbaked, burned, scorched, seared, withered, shrivelledMore
  2. 2.
    informal
    extremely thirsty.
    "I'm parched—I'll die without a drink"

buzzard
noun [C]
a large European bird that is a type of hawk, or a type of North American vulture that feeds on the flesh of dead animals

crag
noun [C]
a high rough mass of rock which sticks out from the land around it

craggy
adjective
1 having many crags:
a craggy coastline

2 describe a man's face that is quite roughly formed and has loose skin but is also attractive:
a craggy face
craggy features

sistrumLine breaks: sis|trum
Pronunciation: /ˈsɪstrəm/


Definition of sistrum in English:

noun (plural sistra ˈsɪstrə)

A musical instrument of ancient Egypt consisting of a metal frame with transverse metal rods which rattled when the instrument was shaken.

Origin

Late Middle English: via Latin from Greek seistron, fromseiein 'to shake'.


in·cip·i·ent (ĭn-sĭp'ē-ənt)

adj.

Beginning to exist or appear: detecting incipient tumors; an incipient personnel problem.

[Latin incipiēns, incipient-, present participle of incipere, to begin. See inception.]

incipiency in·cip'i·en·cy or in·cip'i·ence n.

incipiently in·cip'i·ent·ly adv.

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