Difficult Words : Inveterate, Invective, Irascible, Ironic, Irrevocable and Itinerant
Itinerant (iye TIN ur unt) adj: moving from place to place The life of a traveling salesman is an itinerant one. The itinerant junk dealer passes through out neighborhood every month or so, pulling his wagon of odds and ends. The international banker's itinerant lifestyle began to seem less glamorous to him after his first child was born. A closely related word is itinerary which is the planned route or schedule of a trip. The traveling salesman taped his itinerary to the refrigerator before every trip so that his wife would know how to reach him on the telephone. Irascible (i RAS uh bul) adj: easily angered or provoked, irritable A grouch is irascible. The students generally abused substitute teachers, but they knew that even substitute teachers become irascible on Monday mornings. Ironic (iye RON ik) adj: meaning the opposite of what you seem to say, using words to mean something other than what they seem to mean Don't use the alternate form, ironical. Eddie was being ironic when he said he loved Peter like a brother. In truth, he hated him. Blake's discussion of Reagan's brilliance was, of course, ironic. He really thinks that Reagan is idiotic. Blake is a writer known for his irony. Credulous George never realized that the speaker was being ironic as he discussed what he called his plan to put a nuclear-missile silo in every backyard in America. Irrevocable (i REV uh kuh bul) adj: irreversible To revoke (ri VOKE) is to take back. Something irrevocable cannot be taken back. My decision not to wear a Tarzan costume and ride on a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is irrevocable. There is absolutely nothing you could do or say to make me change my mind. Shortly after his car began to plunge toward the sea, Tom decided not to drive off the cliff after all, but by that point his decision to do so was irrevocable. Inveterate (in VET ur it) adj: habitual, firm in habit, deeply rooted Eric was such an inveterate liar on the golf course that when he finally made a hole-in-one, he marked it on his score card as a zero. Larry's practice of spitting into the fireplace became inveterate despite his wife's protestations.
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