Dear students, English language is the flavor of the millennium. In every aspect of life, we need great English language skills to stand out and be a success in your chosen field. In your competitive Exams for govt. jobs, English section is the most challenging. The best way to improve your language skills is by Reading newspapers. We are providing 10 vocabulary words from The Hindu Newspaper Editorial. Read and learn.
1.Fractious (adjective)
Meaning: (typically of children) irritable and quarrelsome.
Synonyms: grumpy, grouchy, crotchety, in a (bad) mood, cantankerous, bad-tempered, ill-tempered, ill-natured, ill-humoured, peevish, having got out of bed the wrong side, cross, as cross as two sticks, disagreeable, pettish.
Example: Over the past month, from Cox’s Bazar, in the south-east of Bangladesh, smoke can be seen billowing into the grey sky across the country’s border. Villages, home to the Rohingya community, in the fractious state of Rakhine in western Myanmar, are being mercilessly, horrifically burnt down.
2.Catastrophe (noun)
Meaning: an event causing great and usually sudden damage or suffering; a disaster.
Synonyms: disaster, calamity, cataclysm, crisis, holocaust, ruin, ruination, tragedy, blow, shock.
Example: By any account, the Rohingya are at the centre of a humanitarian catastrophe of terrifying proportions. On Monday, the U.N. human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, called on Myanmar to put an end to this “brutal security operation”.
3.Repercussion (noun)
Meaning: an unintended consequence of an event or action, especially an unwelcome one.
Synonyms: consequence, result, effect, outcome, by-product.
Example: Repercussions of the violence in Myanmar are now being felt around the globe, particularly in nearby countries; in India, where scores of Rohingya are lodged — reportedly totalling 40,000 — it must come to us as a matter of shame that the state is so much as considering returning the refugees back to the jaws of not merely political persecution but of mind-boggling terror and savagery.
4.Contravention (noun)
Meaning: an action which offends against a law, treaty, or other ruling.
Synonyms: breach, violation, infringement, non-observance, breaking, transgression, neglect, dereliction.
Example: These threats are not only chilling on a humanitarian level, if translated into action, they would also constitute a contravention of India’s obligations under both domestic and international law.
5.Natal (adjective)
Meaning: relating to the place or time of one’s birth.
Example: Several studies suggest that tigers do well in remote and dense forest. But tigers also need new forest to colonise, dispersing from their natal areas as they reach adulthood. Natural history has viewed the tiger to be the epitome of the ‘wild’ animal — doing well in areas with less human disturbance, taking down large prey, keeping a distance from people, and being fiercely territorial of space.
6.Conundrum (noun)
Meaning: a confusing and difficult problem or question.
Synonyms: problem, difficult question, vexed question, difficulty, quandary, dilemma. riddle, puzzle, word game, anagram.
Example: First, not only as a major power in the region but also as the largest democracy in the world, there are expectations that India should extend help to the fleeing Rohingya, at least on humanitarian grounds, and contribute to help resolve the conundrum.
7.Benevolent (adjective)
Meaning: well meaning and kindly.
Synonyms: kind, kindly, kind-hearted, warm-hearted, tender-hearted, big-hearted, good-natured, good, gracious, tolerant, benign, compassionate, caring, sympathetic, considerate.
Example: India has been historically known to be benevolent to refugees. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, it welcomed thousands of refugees from Myanmar. New Delhi not only provided basic necessities such as food and shelter but also provided refugees the necessary logistics to continue their pro-democratic movement from India.
8.Emanate (verb)
Meaning: (of a feeling, quality, or sensation) issue or spread out from (a source)., originate from; be produced by., give out or emit (a feeling, quality, or sensation).
Synonyms: emerge, flow, pour, proceed, issue, ensue, come out, come forth, spread out. exude, give off, give out, send out, send forth, pour out, throw out, spread, discharge.
Example: India though is also besieged by terrorism emanating from within its borders, and this needs to be addressed with at least as much urgency as that which Prime Minister Narendra Modi brings to the issue of the external threat to India.
9.Tantamount (adjective)
Meaning: equivalent in seriousness to; virtually the same as.
Synonyms: equivalent to, equal to, amounting to, as good as, more or less, synonymous with, virtually the same as, much the same as, comparable to, on a par with, commensurate with, along the lines of, as serious as, identical to
Example: When the government, with which the first point of contact for a farmer is the village office, causes mental agony for the citizen by denying him the opportunity to discharge his obligations, it is tantamount to terrorism.
10.Paraphrase (verb)
Meaning: express the meaning of (something written or spoken) using different words, especially to achieve greater clarity.
Synonyms: reword, rephrase, put/express in other words, put/express in one’s own words, express differently, rewrite, rescript, restate, rehash, interpret, gloss
Example: In the seventieth year of India’s Independence, we must recognise that the machinery of government as we know it came into existence to ring-fence plunder by the East India Company. Its association with terrorism, indirectly in the case of the mob lynchings or directly in the case of extortion, is not compatible with freedom. India’s state needs to be governed. To paraphrase our President, we can’t be vigilant enough.
