This Week in Words: December 9 - 15, 2017

No time to scour the headlines or watch the news? No problem! We’ve rounded up the top words heard, read, debated, and discussed this week.

This week showed that just about anything is possible. A college football player who was a walk-on, without a scholarship, won the Heisman Trophy by a lopsided margin. Doug Jones tallied a win in the Alabama Senate race, which was at one time called a quixotic dream, and there is now hope for the bevy of people who hate needles and for those suffering from Huntington's disease.

Take a look back at the week that was, vocabulary style.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. lopsided
    having one side lower or smaller or lighter than the other
    Mayfield, the brash, flag-planting Sooners star, became the sixth Oklahoma player to win the Heisman in one of the most lopsided votes ever. - The New York Times (Dec 9, 2017)
    Baker Mayfield of Oklahoma won the Heisman Trophy this week. Mayfield did not go to Oklahoma on a football scholarship, but instead tried out for the team as a walk-on player. This is the first time that a walk-on player has won college football's highest individual honor since football scholarships began in the 1950s. Lopsided means very uneven, heavily weighted in favor of one side or the other. Here it expresses how big Mayfield's victory was over the other candidates.
  2. disrupt
    throw into disorder
    The explosion disrupted thousands of commuters during the morning rush hour. Multiple subway lines were evacuated, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey closed the entire Port Authority bus station temporarily - The Wall Street Journal (Dec 12, 2017)
    A pipe bomb exploded in a tunnel which connects two central subway stations in New York City this week. Three people were injured in the explosion in addition to man who detonated the device. The Times Square subway station was closed for several hours after the attack, which has been declared an act of terrorism.
  3. frothy
    marked by high spirits or excitement
    He will have his hands full trying to keep a famously frothy show light amid such dark scandals for the movie industry. - The Washington Post (Dec 11, 2017)
    The Golden Globe Nominations were announced this week. The Golden Globes is a unique award show because it has separate categories for comedy films and drama films, whereas the Oscars, for example, simply lumps all movies together in one category. The Globes also give out awards for excellence in television. Strong film contenders this year include All The Money in the World and The Shape of Water.
  4. nourish
    provide with sustenance
    While the average person’s DNA produces healthy huntingtin proteins that nourish brain development, Huntington’s disease is caused by a faulty gene that makes toxic proteins instead. - goodnewsnetwork.org (Dec 11, 2017)
    New developments in the treatment of Huntington's disease were reported this week. Huntington's is a degenerative genetic disorder that affects a person's ability to move and speak. This new drug is the first real treatment that attacks the source of the disease instead of just managing the symptoms. While the drug is only in the early stages of its first human trial, it shows great promise in treating the previously untreatable.
  5. quixotic
    not sensible about practical matters
    Doug Jones, a Democratic former prosecutor who mounted a seemingly quixotic Senate campaign in the face of Republican dominance here, defeated his scandal-scarred opponent, Roy S. Moore, after a brutal campaign -The New York Times (Dec 13, 2017)
    In Alabama, Democrat Doug Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore in a special Senate election. This is significant because it narrows the Republican majority in the Senate to just one vote. Quixotic is a word used when tasks are impossible to achieve, when someone on a quest is being too optimistic about their chances. In this case, Jones' campaign was only seemingly quixotic because he won. The word derives from Don Quixote, the epic by Cervantes.
  6. tally
    keep score, as in games
    U2 achieves its eighth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as the rock band’s new Songs of Experience debuts atop the tally. - Billboard.com (Dec 10, 2017)
    U2 sold the most rock albums this week. Not only does that give the group its eighth number 1 album on the charts, it also means that they are the only group to have number one albums in the 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s and the 2010s. This feat can only be claimed by three other artists, all classified as solo acts: Janet Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Barbra Streisand.
  7. array
    an impressive display or assortment
    He wants Disney to have its own relationships with consumers and a broad array of content to offer them online. - The Wall Street Journal (Dec 14, 2017)
    21st Century Fox has sold cable television stations and production facilities to the Disney Corporation. Disney will pay 52.4 Billion dollars for key parts of Fox, including Hulu, Roku, the Avatar and X-Men characters and The Simpsons. Disney plans to launch a streaming service of its own to compete with Netflix, and the infrastructure and content acquired in this deal will help them greatly in that effort.
  8. accession
    the act of attaining a new office or right or position
    “Today’s announcement that the U.S. military will accept transgender applicants…reflects a simple reality: military and civil servants in the Pentagon have been preparing for accession for transgender Americans for more than two years,” said Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a research and advocacy institution in San Francisco. -The Wall Street Journal (Dec 11, 2017)
    A Federal judge this week struck down the Trump Administration's proposed ban on transgender people serving in the military. The military was scheduled to resume accepting transgender applicants on January 1st, but the administration filed an appeal to this ruling, so it is unclear when the applicants will start being accepted again. The judge had previously ruled that the proposed ban was likely to be unconstitutional.
  9. adherence
    faithful support for a cause or political party or religion
    MIT spinout Portal Instruments has now landed a commercialization deal for a smart, needle-free injection device that could reduce the pain and anxiety associated with needle injections, shorten administration time, and improve patient adherence. -goodnewsnetwork.org (Dec 11, 2017)
    Some great news this week for anyone who hates needles. New technology is being developed that injects medicine in a super fine stream directly through the skin, eliminating the need for needles altogether. Although not completely painless, the new system is said to be an improvement over the old ways of administering medicine to those people who have to inject themselves frequently, like diabetics and those suffering from Ulcerative Colitis or Crohn' disease.
  10. bevy
    a large gathering of people of a particular type
    For Unibail-Rodamco, which is based in France and has a bevy of glitzy shopping centers across Europe, including Le Forum Des Halles in Paris, the deal means a significant foothold in the United States — one defined by a number of trophy mall properties, including Westfield Century City on the west side of Los Angeles and the shopping center at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. - The New York Times (Dec 12, 2017)
    Unibail-Rodamco, a European firm, has agreed to buy Westfield, a company which owns and operates American malls, for the sum of 15.7 Billion dollars. What makes this deal interesting is that it comes at a time when many in the business pages of newspapers are predicting that malls are dying a slow death thanks to the convenience of on-line retail. Unibail is betting that there is a future in at least fancy, upscale malls, as this deal proves.
  11. coalesce
    fuse or cause to come together
    Republican lawmakers, scrambling to reach agreement on a final tax bill that they hope to pass next week, are coalescing around a plan that would slightly raise the proposed corporate tax rate, lower the top rate on the richest Americans and scale back the existing mortgage interest deduction. - The New York Times (Dec 12, 2017)
    The Republican tax plan moved further along this week. The tough process of reconciling the House version of the bill with the Senate version of the bill is now underway. At this stage, the bill is constantly changing until all of its supporters can hammer out a version they can agree on and endorse to their constituents. Congress hopes to have a bill they can vote on finished by Christmas.
Created on Sun Dec 10 11:24:23 EST 2017 (updated Thu Dec 14 17:39:42 EST 2017)

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