English Vocabulary from News
Umber
...Walking out the gates of the White House, I thought about the morning at Arlington. The weather was sunny, crisp, cool; dried leaves, russet and umber, skittered across the walk. It reminded me of Election Day eight years ago, in Chicago. Obama had voted near his house, on the South Side, and then accepted victory that night, flanked by his wife and daughters, in Grant Park.(/ˈʌm.bə/)
Noun
1. A dark yellow-brown color
From the post: After Trump's victory, Obama reflects on his legacy
Source: Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency (newyorker.com)
Russet
...Walking out the gates of the White House, I thought about the morning at Arlington. The weather was sunny, crisp, cool; dried leaves, russet and umber, skittered across the walk. It reminded me of Election Day eight years ago, in Chicago. Obama had voted near his house, on the South Side, and then accepted victory that night, flanked by his wife and daughters, in Grant Park.(/ˈrʌsət/)
Noun
1. A reddish-brown color.
From the post: After Trump's victory, Obama reflects on his legacy
Source: Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency - The New Yorker (newyorker.com)
Gallows Humor
... As long as California and Wyoming have the same number of senators, there’s going to be a problem—unless we’re able to have a broader conversation and move people who right now aren’t voting for progressive policies and candidates. . . . All of this requires vigilance in protecting gains we’ve made, but a sense, yes, of equanimity, a sense of purposeful calm and optimism, and a sense of humor—sometimes gallows humor after results like the ones we just had. That’s how ultimately the race is won.”(/ˈɡæloʊz hjuː.mə(ɹ)/)
Noun
1. Comedy that still manages to be funny in the face of, and in response to, a tragic or hopeless situation.
From the post: After Trump's victory, Obama reflects on his legacy
Source: Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency (newyorker.com)
Equipoise
...At a social occasion earlier this year, someone asked Michelle Obama how it was possible for her husband to maintain his equipoise amid so much hatred. “You have no idea how bad it is,” she said. His practiced calm is beyond reckoning.(/ˈɛkwɪpɔɪz/)
Noun
1. A state of balance; equilibrium.
From the post: After Trump's victory, Obama reflects on his legacy
Source: Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency (newyorker.com)
Amour-Propre
...Although Obama and his aides had long been alarmed by Trump’s disturbing rhetoric and loose grasp of policy, they decided that the best path forward was to assume the mask of decorum. It was a matter of amour-propre, but—again—also of tactics. To have any chance to influence Trump, they had to avoid any trace of the contempt that had once been so pronounced.(/əˈmɔːpʁɔpʁ/)
Noun
1. Self-regard, self-esteem
From the post: After Trump's victory, Obama reflects on his legacy
Source: Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency (newyorker.com)
Mien
...McDonough is the picture of rectitude: the ramrod posture, the trimmed white hair, the ashen mien of a bishop who has missed two meals in a row. “I guess if you keep repeating it, it’s like a mantra, and it will be O.K. ‘Everything will be O.K., everything will be O.K.’ ”(/miːn/)
Noun
1. Demeanor; facial expression or attitude, especially one which is intended by its bearer.
From the post: After Trump's victory, Obama reflects on his legacy
Source: Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency (newyorker.com)
Ramrod
...Denis McDonough strolled by with some friends and family. The day before, the person Trump sent to debrief him about how to staff and run a White House was his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. They had taken a walk on the South Lawn. I asked McDonough how it was going, and he gave me a death-skull grin. “Everything’s great!” he said. He clenched his teeth and grinned harder in self-mockery. McDonough is the picture of rectitude: the ramrod posture, the trimmed white hair, the ashen mien of a bishop who has missed two meals in a row. “I guess if you keep repeating it, it’s like a mantra, and it will be O.K.(/ɹæmɹɒd/)
Noun
1. A person who is strict and uncompromising
From the post: After Trump's victory, Obama reflects on his legacy
Source: Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency (newyorker.com)
Rectitude
...Denis McDonough strolled by with some friends and family. The day before, the person Trump sent to debrief him about how to staff and run a White House was his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. They had taken a walk on the South Lawn. I asked McDonough how it was going, and he gave me a death-skull grin. “Everything’s great!” he said. He clenched his teeth and grinned harder in self-mockery. McDonough is the picture of rectitude: the ramrod posture, the trimmed white hair, the ashen mien of a bishop who has missed two meals in a row. “I guess if you keep repeating it, it’s like a mantra, and it will be O.K.(/ˈɹɛk.tə.tjuːd/)
Noun
1. Conformity to the rules prescribed for moral conduct; (moral) uprightness, virtue.
From the post: After Trump's victory, Obama reflects on his legacy
Source: Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency (newyorker.com)
Middling
...In a retrospective mood, staffers said that, as Obama told me, Clinton would have been an “excellent” President, but they also voiced some dismay with her campaign: dismay that she had seemed to stump so listlessly, if at all, in the Rust Belt; dismay that the Clinton family’s undeniable taste for money could not be erased by good works; dismay that she was such a middling retail politician.(/ˈmɪd lɪŋ/)
Adjective
1. Of intermediate or average size, position, or quality; mediocre
From the post: After Trump's victory, Obama reflects on his legacy
Source: Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency (newyorker.com)
Wrest
... The outcome of the election was also a blow to those who anticipated major advances for the Democratic Party: it wrested over-all control of just one additional state legislature, and remains a minority in both houses of Congress, having gained only a handful of new seats in the House of Representatives, and only two in the Senate.(/rɛst/)
Verb
1. To seize.
2. To pull or twist violently.
3. To obtain by pulling or violent force.
From the post: After Trump's victory, Obama reflects on his legacy
Source: Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency (newyorker.com)
