Shakespeare Needs Everyone to Calm Down
In art museums and romance novels alike, mouths hanging open in shock are often described with this word.
What is agape?
Early attempts at human flight before the Wright brothers often looked less aerodynamic and more like this wildly thrashing verb.
What is flailing?
In Greek mythology, Narcissus embodies this adjective describing excessive self-importance and obsession with appearance.
What is vain?
Archaeologists handling fragile papyrus fragments from ancient Egypt would likely move in this cautious manner.
What is gingerly?
After a long quest, adventurers often celebrate with this kind of meal—think thick stew, roasted meat, and enough bread to survive a siege.
What is hearty?
In Book I of Homer’s Iliad, this destructive fury of Achilles launches the epic’s central conflict.
What is wrath?
During the Reign of Terror, even outspoken revolutionaries might do this verb meaning “to shrink back in fear.”
What is quail?
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout becomes this after realizing Maycomb adults punish people for breaking social rules they themselves ignore.
What is indignant?
This word can describe a door, a mouth, a type of Greek love (if pronounced differently).
What is agape?
At court, nobles do this after they hear a prophecy they believe to be little more than superstition.
What is scoffed?
Eighteenth-century readers of scandal sheets and satirical pamphlets were often less offended than this intellectually amused adjective.
What is titillated?
By 1989, the Soviet Union’s economy and political authority were both widely described with this weakening adjective.
What is faltering?
From Latin meaning “cross” or “trial,” this word originally referred to a vessel used in high-temperature purification and now broadly means any situation that forges character through pressure.
What is crucible?
During McCarthy-era hearings, even experienced politicians did this when aggressively questioned about their political ideologies.
What is quail?
This describes the reaction of noble courtiers listening to whispered scandals about enchanted love affairs, cursed romances, and shapeshifting consorts—more amused than scandalized.
What is titillated?
Frederick Douglass’s speeches frequently stirred audiences into this morally offended emotional state toward slavery.
What is indignant?
Medieval chroniclers might use this word for acts so offensive they violated both religious law and basic human decency.
What is abomination?
Hannibal crossing the Alps with war elephants presented Rome with this intimidating adjective of challenge.
What is formidable?
In aviation, an aircraft engine that starts to lose consistent thrust, misfire intermittently, and fail to maintain steady output is considered this.
What is faltering?
In medieval bestiaries, a creature stitched from mismatched animal parts—lion head, goat body, serpent tail—would likely be labeled this kind of horrifying thing.
What is abomination?
When Ignaz Semmelweis suggested doctors should wash their hands before surgery, many 19th-century physicians did this dismissive verb at his idea.
What is scoffed?
During the 1914–1918 conflict, trench warfare on the Western Front turned that region into this kind of “testing ground,” later used metaphorically for any extreme trial of endurance.
What is crucible?
When Orwell fills a farm with pigs to criticize Stalinism, he’s using this literary device where characters operate on two levels: literal and symbolic.
What is allegory?
Debate analysts use this metaphorical verb for candidates who abandon evidence and start throwing out random arguments in panic.
What is flailing?
When a party realizes the final antagonist can rewrite spells mid-cast, bend terrain, and predict strategy in real time, they are facing this kind of nearly insurmountable foe.
What is formidable?