Vocabulary

Meaning:

Adj.

• Impossible to stop or prevent.
• (Of a person) Impossible to persuade by request or entreaty.

Example:

On the contrary, just about everyone I know seems to believe that they, like me, are inexorably drawn to the slowest of all possible lines, and that their occasional attempts to thwart fate merely slow the lines they join and hasten the lines they abandon.

Meaning:

Adj/Noun.

• necessary for (someone) as a duty or responsibility.
• (of an official or regime) currently holding office
• the holder of an office or post

Example:

Indeed, whenever we say that something can’t happen—for example, mind reading or levitation or a law that limits the power of incumbents—we usually just mean that we’d have no way to explain it if it did.

Meaning:

Verb.

• (especially of an official body) absolve (someone) from blame for a fault or wrongdoing, especially after due consideration of the case.
• release someone from (a duty or obligation)

Example:

These tendencies make it easy for us to explain unpleasant experiences in ways that exonerate us and make us feel better.

Meaning:

Verb.

• Make someone liable or inclined to a specific attitude, action, or condition.

Example:

For instance, volunteers in one study were invited to take a medical test that would supposedly tell them whether they did or did not have a dangerous enzyme deficiency that would predispose them to pancreatic disorders.

Meaning:

Verb.

• treat with an apparent kindness that betrays a feeling of superiority.
• frequent (a store, theater, restaurant, or other establishment) as a customer.

Example:

Our fetish for freedom leads us to patronize expensive department stores that allow us to return merchandise rather than attend auctions that don’t, to lease cars at a dramatic markup rather than buying them at a bargain, and so on.

Meaning:

Adj.

• Experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person.
• Acting or done for another.

Example:

Communication is a kind of “vicarious observation” that allows us to learn about the world without ever leaving the comfort of our Barcaloungers.

Meaning:

Verb.

• Destroy completely; put an end to.

Example:

Intense suffering triggers the very processes that eradicate it, while mild suffering does not, and this counterintuitive fact can make it difficult for us to predict our emotional futures.

Meaning:

Verb.

• Match or surpass (a person or achievement), typically by imitation.
• Imitate

Example:

You also want to be clear with your new staff about whom they should emulate. But shadowing can be one of the least effective ways of modeling what you want new recruits to learn.

Meaning:

Noun.

• A person who has had long experience in a particular field.
• A person who has served in the military.

Example:

We love the heroic upset, the last hurrah of the aging veteran, the final ticking seconds as the game comes down to the wire.

Meaning:

Adj.

• Unable to be explained or accounted for.

Example:

Again and again Coyle shows that the aggregation of seemingly trivial improvements in practice can create otherwise inexplicable densities of talent sufficient to change a society and its conception of what is possible.

Meaning:

Adj.

• (Of a substance or material) capable of polishing or cleaning a hard surface by rubbing or grinding.
• (Of a person or manner) showing little concern for the feeling of others; harsh.

Example:

If you are coaching a manager through his interactions with his staff, you could say, “Stop being so abrasive,” but it won’t provide much help in identifying alternatives.

Meaning:

Adj.

• so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.

Example:

We assumed it was like the driver’s education we had known: a mind-numbing experience in banality set in a warren of fluorescently lit rooms.

This insight might never have happened without an activity that may have at first appeared banal. Repetition gave rise to meditation and then wisdom.

Meaning:

Noun.

• Insulting, abusive, or highly critical language.

Example:

While the endeavor to make schools better remains something of a national drama, it has resulted in invective, blame, and tension but little evidence of large-scale improvement.

Meaning:

Verb/Noun

• Squeeze and twist (something) to force liquid from it.

Example:

We Americans confront results that place us far below nations with the best school systems, and we wring our hands; but we can’t seem to do much about it.

Meaning:

Noun.

• Outward behavior or bearing.
• Manner, attitude

Example:

When he noted her resistance and asked her to practice giving him one direction as though he were her most challenging student, she started practicing this small skill, repeating it over and over, until she began to notice an improvement. Her demeanor started to change; she became more open to his feedback; and ultimately she improved.

Meaning:

Verb.

• Speak about (someone) in a spitefully critical manner.

Example:

Generally seen as mundane and humdrum, poorly used and much maligned, or too familiar to be interesting, practice is often considered unworthy of deep, sustained reflection and precise engineering.

Meaning:

Verb.

• Stand, move, or sit in a lazy, drooping way

Example:

In the activity, teachers practice prompting a slouching student to sit up.

Meaning:

Adj.

• Deliberately cruel or violent.
• Immoral.

Example:

This could be due to the vicious cycle of new initiatives and trainings and workshops (and money invested), which then fall into the same trap.

Meaning:

Adj.

• Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending one know less about something than one really does.

Example:

As a leader it would be disingenuous if you only claimed to make people better through support.

Meaning:

Verb.

• Discharge (smell or moisture) slowly and steadily.
• (of a person) display (an emotion or quality) strongly and openly.

Example:

You could sense the power of Bill’s strengths as soon as you entered his room: there was a buzz, an urgency, that exuded from the smallest actions of the most challenged students, and the power of these things trounced the times when Bill had to ask a student to go make a copy for him.

Meaning:

Verb.

• Express great regret, disappointment, or bitterness over (something).

Example:

It’s easy, they note, to bewail what’s wrong rather than see the power of what’s right.

Meaning:

Adj.

• Remarkably or impressively great in extent, size, or degree.
• Unnatural or abnormal.

Example:

Perhaps we assume that for Messi practice means playing games of soccer over and over—scrimmaging, in short—so that he applies his prodigious skill to anticipate the game in all of its complexity; yet, in this photo, it is a drill he is working on, one that isolates some small aspect of his game so he can intentionally improve it.

Meaning:

Adj.

• highly destructive or damaging.
• causing severe shock, distress, or grief.
• (Informal) extremely impressive, effective, or attractive

Example:

In a game, he would suddenly flout deeply rooted expectations about what to do in a certain situation and do something entirely unexpected—with devastating effect.

Meaning:

Adj.

• openly disregard (a rule, law, or convention).

Example:

In a game, he would suddenly flout deeply rooted expectations about what to do in a certain situation and do something entirely unexpected—with devastating effect.

Meaning:

Noun.

• mental calmness, composure, and evenness in temper, especially in a difficult situation.

Example:

Once they were able to do this with equanimity, it would both limit patient agitation and increase the processing capacity doctors had to listen to and assess their patients.

Meaning:

Noun.

• a peculiar behavioral habit.

Example:

It is not a quirk of survival but a necessity that, speeding down the highway, your foot moves to the brake pedal well before your conscious brain has time to get involved in analyzing the decision.

Meaning:

Adj/Noun.

• of vital important; crucial.
• giving an authoritative command.
• an essential or urgent thing

Example:

For people who perform for a living, the imperative of training the mind to execute unconsciously is also strong.

Meaning:

Verb.

• spoil the attractiveness of

Example:

This is how Resistance disfigures love.

Meaning:

Adj.

• magnificient, very impresssive
• (informal) excellent, very good

Example:

Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

Meaning:

Adj.

• having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual and subtle way.

Example:

The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit.

But it’s the most pernicious species of myth to set before the awakening writer, because it seduces him into believing he can pull off the big score without pain and without persistence.

Meaning:

Verb.

• take (drink, food, or other substance) into the body by swallowing it or absorbing it.

Example:

Do you regularly ingest any substance, controlled or otherwise, whose aim is the alleviation of depression, anxiety, etc.?

Meaning:

Adj.

• incapable of making mistake or being wrong.
• never failing, always effective

Example:

Resistance is infallible.

Meaning:

Adj.

• proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects
• Treacherous, crafty

Example:

Resistance if insidious.

Meaning:

Verb.

• make (someone) less angry or hostile.

Example:

They attempted to placate the students with promises.