Daily Vocab for Various Competitive Exams

Dear Readers,

Vocabulary is an important part of English that helps you deal with all kinds of questions in objective as well as descriptive papers of various exams. You can learn new words daily from our Daily Word List. Learn the words and make your own sentences on the basis of the given word list. Here are a few words and phrases from articles published in a reputed Newspaper.

It was at the Hay-on-Wye Festival of Literature a few years ago that I realized with horror how low the fortunes of PG Wodehouse had sunk in his native land. I was on stage for a panel discussion on the works of the Master when the moderator, a gifted and suave young literary impresario, began the proceedings by asking innocently, “So how do you pronounce it – is it Woad-house or Wood-house?”

Woadhouse? You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather, except that Wodehouse himself would have disdained the cliche, instead describing my expression as, perhaps, that of one who “had swallowed an east wind” (Carry On, Jeeves, 1925). The fact was that a luminary at the premier book event in the British Isles had no idea how to pronounce the name of the man I regarded as the finest English writer since Shakespeare. I spent the rest of the panel discussion looking (to echo a description of Bertie Wooster’s Uncle Tom) like a pterodactyl with a secret sorrow.

My dismay had Indian roots. Like many of my compatriots, I had discovered Wodehouse young and pursued my delight across the 95 volumes of the oeuvre, savouring book after book as if the pleasure would never end. When All India Radio announced, one sunny afternoon in February 1975, that Wodehouse had died, I felt a cloud of darkness settle over me. The newly (and belatedly) knighted Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, creator of Jeeves and of the prize pig the Empress of Blandings, was in his 94th year, but his death still came as a shock. Every English-language newspaper in India carried it on their front pages; the articles and letters that were published in the following days about his life and work would have filled volumes.

Three decades earlier, Wodehouse had reacted to the passing of his stepdaughter, Leonora, with the numbed words: “I thought she was immortal.” I had thought Wodehouse was immortal too, and I felt like one who had “drained the four-ale of life and found a dead mouse at the bottom of the pewter” (Sam the Sudden, also from that vintage year of 1925).

For months before his death, I had procrastinated over a letter to Wodehouse. It was a collegian’s fan letter, made special by being written on the letterhead (complete with curly-tailed pig) of the Wodehouse Society of St Stephen’s College, Delhi University. Ours was then the only Wodehouse Society in the world, and I was its president, a distinction I prized over all others in an active and eclectic extra-curricular life. The Wodehouse Society ran mimicry and comic speech contests and organized the annual Lord Ickenham Memorial Practical Joke Week, the bane of all at college who took themselves too seriously. The society’s underground rag, Spice, edited by a wildly original classmate who was to go on to become a counselor to the prime minister of India, was by far the most popular newspaper on campus; even its misprints were deliberate and deliberately funny.

1.Suave: (adjective) : सुशील

Meaning: (especially of a man) charming, confident, and elegant.

Synonyms: affable, urbane, courteous, ingratiating, polite, obliging

Antonyms: impolite, uncivil, unfriendly, unmannerly, unrefined, unsophisticated

2.Disdain: (noun) : तिरस्कार

Meaning: the feeling that someone or something is unworthy of one’s consideration or respect.

(verb) consider to be unworthy of one’s consideration.

Synonyms: aversion, derision, contempt, ridicule, hauteur, despisal

Antonyms: admiration, affection, flattery, humility

3.Luminary: (noun) : अपूर्व बुद्धि का मनुष्य

Meaning: a person who inspires or influences others, especially one prominent in a particular sphere.

Synonyms: dignitary, personage, eminence, notable, celebrity

4.Pterodactyl: (noun) : टेरोडक्टाइल

Meaning: a pterosaur of the late Jurassic period, with a long slender head and neck and a very short tail.

5.Dismay: (noun) : बेचैनी

Meaning: concern and distress caused by something unexpected.

Synonyms: anxiety, consternation, dread, fright, agitation, chagrin

Antonyms: assurance, composure, contentment, delight, tranquility

6.Oeuvre: (noun) : कृति

Meaning: the body of work of a painter, composer, or author.

Synonyms: output, work

7.Immortal: (adjective) : अमर

Meaning: living forever; never dying or decaying.

Synonyms: enduring, eternal, everlasting, timeless, perennial, abiding, ceaseless

Antonyms: ceasing, terminable, transient, interrupted, ephemeral

8.Procrastinate: (verb) : विलम्बन

Meaning: delay or postpone action; put off doing something.

Synonyms: dawdle, adjourn, dally, lag, linger, protract, stall, tarry, temporize

Antonyms: expedite, finish, forge, hasten, persist, hurry

9.Eclectic: (adjective) : जिसके विचार संकीर्ण न हों

Meaning: deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.

Synonyms: diverse, varied, assorted, multifarious, diversified, mingled

Antonyms: narrow, unvaried, particular, specific, incomprehensive

10.Rag: (noun) : गुदड़ा

Meaning: a piece of old cloth, especially one torn from a larger piece, used typically for cleaning things

Synonyms: banter, frazzle, harass, remnant, jive, patch