DATE	WORD	PRONUNCIATION	PART OF SPEECH	DEFINITION	SYNONYM	SAMPLE SENTENCE
11/1/06	Endemic	en DEM ik	Adjective	Being native to an area	Indigenous  Widespread Prevalent Common	The kangaroo is endemic to Australia and the buffalo is endemic to the American Great Plains.  But the dandelion is actually from Europe and is therefore not indigenous to the United States.
11/2/06	Dearth	durth	Noun	A scarcity; a shortage	Shortage Deficiency Absence'	In her book, Silent Spring, Rachael Carson provided a graphic description of the dearth of songbirds caused by the overuse of chemical pesticides such as DDT.  Although Jay-Z was recently appointed president of Def Jam Records, there is still a dearth of African American executives in the music industry.
11/3/06	Sedentary	said en TEAR ee	Adjective	Remaining or living in one area; settled; accustomed to sitting or doing little exercise	Inactive Sitting	What do fungus beetles and Professor Klump ("Nutty Professor") have in common?  Both illustrate the word sedentary.  Fungus beetles are sedentary creatures that seldom move more than a few yards between fungi, their primary food.  In the "Nutty Professor", Professor Klump was initially overweight because of his sedentary lifestyle.
11/6/06	Virulent	VEER yuh lent	Adjective	Very toxic; Poisonous; Malignant; Full of hate	Venomous; Vicious; Acerbic	The virulent disease quickly swept through the community, leaving many people dead and many more people extremely ill.
11/8/06	Conjecture	kun JEK chur	Noun	An inference or judgment based on incomplete evidence and guesswork	Guess Surmise Speculation	Why did Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney split?  In the absence of any concrete facts, all we do make conjectures or guesses.  What caused the explosion that sank the Battleship Maine in Havana harbor?  Initial conjectures pointed to a mine planted by Spanish agents.  However, this conjecture has now been refuted.  In 1976, Admiral Rickover presented overwhelming evidence that the initial explosion resulted from spontaneous combustion in one of the coal bunkers adjacent to a powder magazine.
11/9/06	Draconian	dra KOHN ee yun	Adjective	Very harsh; Unusually sever rules		Draco was an ancient Athenian ruler who believed that the city-state's haphazard judicial system needed to be reformed.  In 621 BC he issued a comprehensive but very severe code of laws.  Whether criminal or trivial most criminal offenses called for the death penalty  Draco's laws were so severe that they were said to be written not in ink but in blood.   The Treaty of Versailles imposed a number of draconian measures against Germany.
	WORD	PRONUNCIATION	PART OF SPEECH	DEFINITION	SYNONYM	SAMPLE SENTENCE
11/13/06	Impecunious	im pek KYUN ee un	Adjective	Lacking money; Penniless; Poor	Impoverished Destitute Indigent	When the Romans first settled the lands along the Tiber River they lacked a metal currency.  Cattle were often used as a measure of wealth.  In Latin, the word for cattle is pecus.  A Roman without a cow or pecus was thus impecunious (im is a prefix many not).  Over time the work pecuniary came to mean money.  In the move, "Titanic" Rose fell in love with a handsome but impecunious young artist named Jack Dawson
11/14/06	Maudlin	MAWD lin	Adjective	Tearful; Excessively sentimental	Over-sentimental Mawkish Sappy	Mary Magdalene played an important and recurring role in the Gospel accounts of Christ's life and death.  According to the Gospels she stood at the foot of the cross, saw Christ laid in the tomb and was the first recorded witness of the Resurrection.  During the 15th Century artists frequently portrayed Mary Magdalene weeping as Christ was being taken down from the Cross. The word maudlin is an alteration of the name Magdalene. The word maudlin today refers to an excessively sentimental behavior.  For a famous painting showing a tearful Mary Magdalene see Rogier Van Der Weyden's Deposition.  Mary Magdalene can be seen weeping at the far right of the painting.
11/15/06	Bowdlerize	BOWD lur ize	Verb	To remove or edit parts of a book, song or other work that are considered offensive	Censor   Expurgate	In 1818 an English editor named Dr. Thomas Bowdler published The Family Shakespeare.  In his preface Dr. Bowdler noted that he carefully edited "those words and expressions which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family". Bowdler's name is now permanently associated with the process of bowdlerizing or editing parts of a book that are deemed offensive.
DATE	WORD	PRONUNCIATION	PART OF SPEECH	DEFINITION	SYNONYM	SAMPLE SENTENCE
11/16/06	Supine	SOO pine	Adjective	Lying on one's back		How did the prehistoric artists paint the walls of caves deep within the earth?  While we will never know for sure, archaeologists believe that since some of the paintings were drawn on a rough surface just two feet above the floor, the prehistoric artists must have worked in a supine position.  It is interesting to note that contrary to popular belief Michelangelo did not paint the Sistine Ceiling in a supine position.  He actually stood on a carefully constructed scaffold.
11/17/06	Hubris	HYOO bris	Noun	Excessive pride		In Greek tragedies, hubris often leads to the tragic fall  of the hero.
11/20/06	Admonish	ad MAHN  ish	Verb	To rebuke somebody mildly but earnestly; To advise somebody to do or, more often, not to do something	To Reprove To Caution  To Warn about To Scold	The boy's mother admonished them not to eat the pie she had just baked.  When they did so anyway, she admonished them for doing it.
11/21/06	Excoriate	eks SCORE ee ayt	Verb	A scathing denunciation	Criticize Attack Berate	In the movie, "Nutty Professor", Dean Richmond  excoriate Professor Klump for alienating all the wealthy donors.
11/27/06	Archaic	ahr KAY ik	Adjective	Extremely old, ancient, outdated	Antiquated Old-fashioned	The students at MHS believe that their school dress code is archaic.
11/28/06	Myriad	MEAR ee ud	Adjective	Innumerable; Countless	Numerous Many	In the movie, "March of the Penguins", the emperor penguins overcome myriad obstacles including blizzards, predators, and frigid temperatures to reach their breeding grounds.
11/29/06	Query	KWEER ee	Verb; Noun	To ask; To question An inquiry or doubt	To inquire or interrogate;	Cher opens "The Shoop Shoop Song" with the following query: "Does he love me, I wanna know.  How can I tell if he loves me so?"  The answer of course is "in his kiss!"  Eminem opens "Lose Yourself" with the following query: "Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted.....One moment, would you capture it or just let it slip?"  The answer of course is Eminem must go for it and give it his all
11/30/06	Egregious	Ih GREE jus	Adjective	Flagrant	Notorious Outrageous	The situation at ENRON is one of the most egregious examples of corporate greed.
Root Family of the Month
THE CHRON FAMILY				TIME	Chronological Synchronize Chronicle Chronic Anachronism	In order of time To arrange for two things to happen at exactly the same time To record events in order of time  or a record of events in order of time Lasting a long time Something out of place in time