Second Shelf Words

A comprehensive vocabulary list covering medical, nautical, literary, and general terms from the provided lecture transcript.

Mandible

The jaw.

Laceration

A deep cut or tear in skin or flesh.

Palpate

To examine by touch, especially for medical purposes.

C note

A $100$ dollar bill.

Metanoia

A change in one's way of life resulting from penitence or spiritual conversion; means repentance.

Masticate

To chew.

Table (verb)

In conversation, meaning to set aside for later consideration; for example, "let's table this."

Stick n move

A boxing technique where the fighter jabs or uses long-range punches and then quickly evades.

Annex

To append or add as an extra or subordinate part, especially to a document.

Ameliorate

To make something bad or unsatisfactory better.

Abdicate

To renounce one's throne (of a monarch) or to fail to fulfill or undertake a responsibility or duty.

Memento Mori

A Latin phrase meaning "remember death" or "remember you must die."

Predilection

A preference or special liking for something; a bias in favor of something.

Paragone

A debate during the Italian Renaissance where painting and sculpture (and architecture) were championed as distinct and superior forms of art.

Tableau vivant

French for 'living picture', referring to a silent and motionless group of people arranged to represent a scene or incident.

Tokenism

The practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do something, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups to give the appearance of equality.

Portico

A structure consisting of a roof supported by columns at regular intervals, typically attached as a porch to a building.

Antechamber

A small room leading to a main one; similar to a vestibule.

Wunderkind

A person who achieves great success when relatively young.

Fine motor skills

Involve small, precise movements using hand and finger muscles, such as writing or grasping.

Gross motor skills

Involve the use of large muscles for bigger actions like walking, running, and jumping; these develop before fine motor skills.

Pendulum

A weight hung from a fixed point that swings freely, or a situation that tends to oscillate between two extremes.

Debutant

A person making a first appearance in a career or in fashionable society.

Cadaver

A corpse, especially one intended for use by medical students.

Moccasin

A soft leather heelless shoe or boot, or a specific type of snake.

Portent

A sign or warning that something, especially something momentous or calamitous, is likely to happen; an omen.

Harbinger

Someone or something that foreshadows a future event or acts as a pioneer/anticipatory sign.

Germinate

To begin to grow and put out shoots after dormancy, or to come into existence and develop.

Caltrop

A spiked metal device thrown on the ground to impede wheeled vehicles or cavalry horses.

Affront

An action or remark that causes outrage or offense, or to offend the modesty or values of someone.

Third place

In sociology, social surroundings separate from the home ("first place") and the workplace ("second place"), such as cafes, libraries, or parks.

Gentry

The upper or ruling class, or people of a specified kind.

Avulsion

Specifically in medicine, the action of pulling or tearing away; in law, the sudden separation of land by flooding or changing river courses.

Accretion

The process of growth or increase by the gradual accumulation of additional layers or matter.

Assonance

The repetition of the sound of a vowel in non-rhyming stressed syllables near each other in poetry.

Diphthong

A sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, where the sound begins as one vowel and moves toward another.

Digraph

A combination of two letters representing one sound, such as "ph" or "ey."

Ligature

A thing used for binding something tightly, or a character consisting of two or more joined letters such as $æ$ or $fl$.

Consonance

Agreement between opinions, or the recurrence of similar sounds (especially consonants) in close proximity in prosody.

Prosody

The patterns of rhythm, sound, pitch, and stress used in poetry and language to convey meaning and emotion.

Tap code

A way to encode text on a letter-by-letter basis using tap sounds, based on a $5 \times 5$ Polybius square grid.

Dilettante

A person having a superficial, surface-level interest in an art or branch of knowledge.

Alacrity

Promptness in response; cheerful readiness and speed.

Bullion

Gold or silver in bulk before coining, or ornamental braid made with gold or silver thread.

Red herring

Something that distracts attention from the real issue or is intended to be misleading.

Touchstone

An established standard or principle by which something is judged.

Relegate

To consign or dismiss to an inferior rank or position.

Disparage

To speak slightingly about or to belittle the importance or value of something.

Inflection point

In mathematics, where curvature direction changes; generally, a moment when significant change occurs.

Allegory

A story, poem, or picture interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one; a detailed story with many symbolic elements.

Voyeur

Someone who obtains sexual gratification from observing unsuspecting individuals; a peeping tom.

Procure

To obtain something by particular care and effort, or to obtain a prostitute for someone else.

A la mode

In fashion, or served with ice cream.

Obstetrics

The branch of medical science dealing with pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period.

Feint

A mock blow or attack on one part to distract attention from the intended point of attack.

Gray rocking

A communication pattern of acting unresponsive and uninterested to encourage disengagement with difficult people.

Barometer

An instrument for determining atmospheric pressure; a rising one generally means improving weather, while falling means worsening weather.

Ephemera

Items originally meant to be discarded after use (like tickets or posters) that later become collectibles.

Parturition

Childbirth.

Nickel and dime

To damage by taking many small amounts of money or by giving too much attention to unimportant details.

Collate

To collect and combine texts or data in proper order; also refers to a light meal allowed during fasts in Catholicism.

Obviate

To anticipate and remove a difficulty or need, making further action unnecessary.

Malaise

A feeling of general discomfort or lack of well-being, often the first sign of infection.

Eureka

Meaning "I have found it", attributed to Archimedes upon discovering how to measure the volume of irregular objects by water displacement.

Extrapolate

To predict by projecting past experience or known data into an unknown area.

Interpolate

To insert words into a text, or to estimate values between two known values.

Port and starboard

Nautical terms referring respectively to the left and right sides of a vessel when facing the bow.

Bow frog

The end part of a stringed instrument bow; playing near it gives a stronger, louder sound.

Atrium

A large open-air or skylight-covered space in a building, or a chamber of the heart.

Abrogate

To officially end a law or agreement, or to avoid a responsibility.

Defibrillator

A device that provides an electric shock to the heart to restore a normal rhythm from arrhythmia.

Enema

The rectal administration of fluid into the lower bowel, used to relieve constipation or for cleansing.

Reasonable assurance

In an educational context, a promise of future continuation of employment following a school break.

Shirk

To avoid or neglect a duty or responsibility.

Educe

To bring out or develop something latent; to infer.

Parable

A simple story designed to teach one main lesson.

Truncate

To shorten by cutting off.

Scion

A descendant of an influential family, or a young shoot taken for grafting in gardening.

Quack

A person who dishonestly claims to have special knowledge and skill, typically in medicine.

Orderly

A hospital attendant doing routine work, or a soldier carrying messages for a superior.

Admonish

To warn or reprimand someone firmly, or to advise earnestly.

Eponym

A person for whom something is believed to be named, or a name derived from such a person.

Cryonics

The practice of deep-freezing the bodies of the recently deceased in hope of future revival.

Subterfuge

Deception used to achieve a goal or to conceal, escape, or evade.

Obfuscate

To render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.

Verity

A true principle or belief of fundamental importance.

Catharsis

Releasing strong emotion through an activity or experience like art; purging.

Susurration

Whispering, murmuring, or rustling.

Flotsam

Wreckage of a ship or cargo found floating at sea; rejected people or things.

Bombast

High-sounding language with little meaning used to impress people; pretentious speech.

Marginalia

Notes written in the margins of a book.

Perdition

Eternal punishment or damnation; hell.

Affix

An additional element placed at the beginning or end of a root (prefixes and suffixes) to modify meaning.

White whale

An objective that is relentlessly pursued but difficult to achieve.

Black box

A device whose internal mechanism is mysterious to the user, or a crashworthy flight data recorder.

Anneal

To heat and then cool a material to soften it and make it less brittle.

Equanimity

Mental calmness and composure, especially in a difficult situation.

Monoculture

The cultivation of a single crop, or a culture dominated by a single homogeneous element.

Merism

A rhetorical device where a combination of two contrasting parts refers to the whole (e.g., "high and low").

Referred pain

Pain felt in one area when the actual issue is elsewhere.