À la carte - Table D'hôte

124

À la carte
- A french phrase meaning "according to the menu".
- "a la carte" means you order one dish at a time: appetizer, main course, dessert and each has its own separate charge on the bill.

Table D'hôte
- Another french phrase, meaning "the host's table".
- Table d' hote means the restaurant or hotel dining room menu offers 3 or more courses for one price: usually consisting of appetizer, two or three choices of main course and dessert.

À la carte menu.
Image Credits : Morgan Johnston

Table D'hôte at a  hotel.
Image Credits : Calafellvalo

#WordOfTheDayDotIn

Rule the roost

123
Rule the roost
- To be the controlling member(s) of a family, organization, or other group.
- Be in charge of a place, especially home.

No! You may not have my fish!Image Credits : Eric Heupel

Roost : A place where birds regularly settle or congregate to rest at night.

Usage:
- Such ideals cannot be met easily until racism and divisive forces continue to rule the roost.
- Hydrogen fuel cell cars to rule the roost in future.

#WordOfTheDayDotIn

Lackadaisical

122
Lackadaisical
- Lacking enthusiasm and determination; carelessly lazy.
- Without interest, vigor, or determination.

Image Credits : Theilr

Usage:
- He took what felt like a lackadaisical and generic approach in the early stages. His campaign got better, but it never got good.
- Despite a lackadaisical opening set, the Lobos surged to their third-straight victory.

#WordOfTheDayDotIn

Lessors

121
Lessors
- A person who leases or lets a property to another.
- One that conveys property by lease

Image Credits : Tim Green

Usage :
- To keep the average fleet age low, IndiGo usually phases out aircraft older than 6 years. Of the 100 aircraft IndiGo has received , 16 have already been returned to their lessors.

#WordOfTheDayDotIn

Psephology

Psephology
- The statistical study of elections and trends in voting.

Voters waiting for their turn to cast vote in India State.
Image Credits :  Al Jazeera English

Usage:
- Psephology is second cousin to astrology and every man is his own opinion poller and pundit.
- Psephology is hardly an exact science but it does provide a road map in uncertain political waters,

Kaput

119
Kaput
- Broken and useless.
- No longer working or effective.

Image Credits : Dyniss Rainer 

Usage:
- I hope it does not go kaput, i will not be able to replace it.
- Ferry with 500 passengers goes kaput in river Meghna.

#WordOfTheDayDotIn

Cloak and Dagger

Cloak and Dagger

- Is a term sometimes used to refer to situations involving intrigue, secrecy, espionage, or mystery.

- Pertaining to, characteristic of, or dealing in espionage or intrigue, esp. of a romantic or dramatic kind.

Usage:

- He said lack of transparency and the cloak and dagger mode of drafting the bill, the insane pace with which it was pushed through the state legislature and parliament compounded problems.

- This is a cloak and dagger operation. If I told you about it, I am obliged to kill you, and make it look like suicide.

Skirmish

117
Skirmish
- A minor battle in war, as one between small forces or between large forces avoiding direct conflict.
- Any brisk conflict or encounter.

Image Credits : HystericalMark

Usage:
- A skirmish over the rules before the debate began.
- From that time forward there had been a skirmish almost every day.

Aficionado

Aficionado
- A person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about an activity or subject.
- An enthusiastic admirer or follower; a fan.

Image Credits : Manuel M. V

Usage :
- He's a sudoku aficionado.
- Aficionados of the bullfight
- Movie aficionados.

AU REVOIR

AU REVOIR
- Good-bye until we meet again.
- Used to express farewell.

Image Credits : BK

Usage:
- She ended it with: "Good bye is an unhappy word. I prefer au revoir."

Labyrinth

Labyrinth
- A complicated irregular network of passages or paths in which it is difficult to find one’s way.
- An intricate and confusing arrangement.

A Labyrinth
Image Credits : David Goehring

Usage :
- Throughout this distance the river is a hopeless labyrinth of rocks, islands, reefs and rapids.
- Lana suspected the labyrinth of tunnels and chambers ran beneath the entire town.
- A labyrinth of conflicting laws and regulations.

Stampede

#113
Stampede
- A sudden panicked rush of a number of horses, cattle, or other animals.
- Wild rush in a sudden mass panic.

Image Credits : Gopal Vijayaraghavan 

Usage:
- In addition to the four men hurt in the shooting, two women were hurt in the stampede for the exits that followed the attack.
- There will be a stampede of Indian companies going to the markets and trying to reduce leverage and to take advantage.

Amicus Curiae

Amicus Curiae
-Literally, friend of the court.
- An impartial adviser to a court of law in a particular case.

A court room gavel.
Image Credits : Brain Turner

Usage :
- Senior advocate  Subramanium may reconsider his continuation as amicus curiae in the Padmanabhaswamy temple case.
- The Court then appointed former Solicitor General TR as amicus curiae for this case.

Sleep Like A Log

#111
Sleep like a log
- To sleep very soundly.
- To sleep heavily, long and without disturbance.

Origin:
This probably originated from the days of lumberjacks who used basic tools to bring down trees and then cut them into logs of different sizes. This required a lot of physical effort and the men slept soundly due to sheer exhaustion. As logs are large blocks of wood, they aren't easily movable. Possibly the lumberjacks would term their deep sleep as what the log does - no movement - and hence the term 'to sleep like a log'!

Image Credits : Pune Getaways

Usage:
- With a full stomach and a warm blanket, I slept like a log.
- I slept like a log until morning.

White Collar Vs Blue Collar

#110

White Collar:
- A white-collar worker is a person who performs professional, managerial, or administrative work.

Blue Collar:
- Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled manufacturing, mining, mechanical, maintenance, technical installation and many other types of physical work.

Professional, managerial, or administrative work is considered as White-Collar job
Image Credits : llee_wu 

Workers unchain girder from delivery truck
Image Credits : Washington State Dept of Transportation 

Origin:
A blue collar worker refers to the fact that most manual laborers at the turn of the century wore blue shirts, which could hold a little dirt around the collar without standing out.

This working class stands in contrast to white collar workers, which historically have had the higher-paying, salaried positions to go with their clean and pressed white shirts.

Usage:
- Aussie senator calls for commission on white-collar crimes.
- Very few applicants for blue-collar jobs in SF.

Coterie

Coterie
- A small exclusive group of friends or people with common interests.
- An exclusive circle of people with a common purpose

Image Credits : Roger Price

Usage:
- His films are admired by a small coterie of critics.
- He still drives himself to work in the morning, surrounded by a coterie of security guards.

Pet Peeve

108
Pet Peeve
- A frequent subject of complaint.
- An irritating experience caused by others in which you cannot control.

This is my pet peeve, too many drivers on the road are distracted with cell phones.
Image Credits : Paul Oka

Usage:
- Grammatical mistakes are his pet peeve.
- One of my biggest pet peeves is people driving too slowly on the highway.

USURP

#107
USURP
- To seize and held by force, without legal authority.
- To commit forcible or illegal seizure of an office, power, etc.

Image Credits : originalpozer

Usage:
- Congress accuses government of usurping independence of judiciary.
- Some people have accused city council members of trying to usurp the mayor's power.
- The magazine usurped copyrighted material.

Devour

106
Devour
- Eat hungrily or quickly.
- To destroy, consume, or waste.

Usage:
- He devoured half of his burger in one bite.
- The hungry flames devoured the old house.

Dexterity

105

Dexterity

- Skill in performing tasks, especially with the hands.

- Readiness and grace in physical activity

Some examples of the extreme dexterity of mountain goats, who scale steep rock sides to lick salty limestone.
Image Credits :  Adriano Migliorati

Usage :

- The amazing dexterity of the acrobat.

- His record testifies to a certain dexterity in politics.

Concoct

#104
Concoct
- Make a dish by combining various ingredients.
- Devise a plan or story.

Photo Credits : Bhaskar Peddhapati

Usage :
- She began to concoct a dinner likely to appeal to him.
- NGO funding: IB report misleading, concocted, claim activists.
- His face told her he was thinking what story he should concoct to explain his presence here; the sad fact was, no story would do.
- Well, I'm sure you can concoct some plausible story for your new boy-friend, using the right terminology.

Leitmotif / Leitmotiv

#103
Leitmotif / Leitmotiv
- Is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea.
- Leading Motive
- Guiding Motive

Examples / Usage : 
- In his first speech , Narendra Modi today presented his plan to change the country's image from "Scam India" to Skilled India." The leitmotif was inclusiveness.
- Using maximum daylight may have been the leitmotif driving the design.

Besotted

#102
BESOTTED
- Strongly Infatuated / Obsessed.
-  A state of being carried away by unreasoned passion or love.

Photo Credits : Ingo

Examples / Usage :
- He was so completely besotted with her that he couldn't see how badly she treated him.
- He became besotted with a local barmaid
- They had one date and he was utterly besotted.

ROOT WORD - CRES / CRET / CREASE / CRU

#101
ROOT WORD - CRES / CRET / CREASE / CRU
All these word mean to GROW/RISE

A crescent moon.
Photo Credits : MarkGregory007

Examples:
Accrue : The adding together of interest/investments.
Concrete : To grow strong.
Crescendo : To become louder with time.
Crescent : Growing / Increasing / Developing.

ROOT WORD - ANN / ENNI / ANNU

#100
ROOT WORD - ANN / ENNI / ANNU
These root words means year. It comes from the latin word ANNUS.

Perennial River : Flowing through out the year.
Photo Credits: Eric Leslie

Example / Usage :
- Per annum : For and year.
- Anniversary : The annual return of a day or event.
- Biennial : Occurring twice a year.
- Perennial : Long Lasting, Living for several years.