Understanding Words # Expressing Oneself
Words are symbols of ideas – and if you want to learn more words it is always good if you learn more ideas. This time we will learn words that tell us about what is going on. what is happening, what people do to each other or to themselves, or what others do to them.
TO ENERVATE
Let us say you have stayed up all night, burned the midnight oil (yes this is the idiom for waking up all night). And what were you doing? An exciting assignment, writing a short story, planning a campaign? Well, no. These are some of the great ways of whiling away time. You were instead in a room with a patient or taking care of someone who just met with an accident or stayed up because of some emotional issues. Now, you are exhausted. Your exhaustion is mental, physiological and emotional. The verb that expresses the effect of the night’s frustration on you is enervate.
TO CASTIGATE
You are worried about something. May be the boss scolded or you had a fight with your lover. In that frustration you are driving your car and missed on a signal. Few minutes later you see the police van behind you and clearly hear the siren. You stop the car but the police officer turns out to be very sweet and courteous and only asks for your driver’s license and even says please.
You get more irritated and start yelling at him or her. You even go on questioning his/her honesty saying that he/she is wasting time and not catching the criminals. How did you reacted? The verb that tells it is castigage.
TO SELF ABNEGATE
Nirmala is selfless, to her the needs of her husband and children come first. She will buy things for them first and if money left, she would spend on herself. At the dinner table, she heaps everyone’s plate while she herself goes without. Nirmala will deny herself things, will scrimp and save and her self esteem does not permit her to give herself. What verb describes what Nirmala Does? She self-abnegates.
- TO VEGETATE
You wake up every Monday morning, thinking how bad the morning is? Perhaps you start thinking about the last five years and how you have wasted them!! Not read enough books, made any exciting friend or had any startling thought. Economically, things are not better and you still follow the same old routine. No change, nothing but routine, sameness,monotony and for what? What verb describes how you think you live? You are vegetating.