[Boxer Bernard Hopkins] not so much a contrarian as a serial agonist who regards life as an unending train of struggles for the upper hand, [believing that] a life is best lived through a relentlessly calculated managing of self rather than the self-destructive fury of all-out aggression. (Carlo Rotella, “Bernard Hopkins, Boxing’s Oldest–and Most Cunning–Champion,” The New York Times, 10/31/2014.)
This word can also be a synonym for a person who is conflicted or anguished.…
Science can’t prove everything and when that leap to faith in an omniscient, extramundane becomes the only reasonable answer to the mystery of the ordered cosmos, most evolutionists put their reason on hold. (Letter to the editor, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/12/2005.)
This word can also be a synonym for extraterrestrial or alien, when being used in the sense of beyond the world or material universe.…
Fueled by booze, literature, love and travel, [Christopher] Hitchens has lived an incredibly fun-filled life. When it comes to Bacchic impulses … we learn that he liked alcohol (a lot) at an early age.” (Douglas Brinkley, “A Double Life, A Singular Vision,” The Los Angeles Times, 6/20/2010.)
This word can also be a synonym for intoxicated.…
But the First World War took a heavy toll on Britain…. The war also gave rise to contestations of British rule in countries such as India and Iraq.” (Louis Delvoie, “The Decline of Great Britain,” The Owen Sound (Ontario, Canada) Sun Times, 12/11/2020.)
This word can also be a synonym for argument, dispute, debate or disagreement.…
Social sampling leads the rich toward a blinkered view that society as a whole is more well-off than it is, feeding their unending need [for more money and assets]— particularly as wealth becomes geographically dense. (Alex Williams, “Why Don’t Rich People Just Stop Working?,” The New York Times, 11/27/2019.)
This word can also be a synonym for small-minded or myopic.…
