[The offices of the Salt Lake Tribune] is now hidden on the top floor of a struggling shopping mall west of downtown, and its new owner—the vampirical hedge fund Alden Global Capital—sold off its share in the printing press for $23 million and simply trousered the money. (Tom Zoellner, The National Road, Counterpoint [2020], p. 135)
This word can also be a synonym for keep or take, when used in the sense above.…
[A diadem is a crown, sometimes jeweled, worn by monarchs and others as a badge of royalty. It is also used figuratively to refer to something being the crown jewel of something else.] The Orbit Grand [in Mumbai], a block-size complex designed to have at least 26 floors of elegant apartments, an extensive array of ground-floor stores and abundant parking for the chauffeured cars of residents and shoppers, was supposed to be a diadem of India’s real estate market. (Keith Bradsher, “A Housing Slump in India,” The New York Times, 9/10/2013.)
This word can also be a synonym for tiara.…
[A poleax is a battle-ax with a short handle and often a hook or spike opposite the blade. The word is also a verb meaning to attack, strike, or fell with or as if with a poleax. However, it is also often used figuratively (generally in the past tense) to mean stunned or amazed, not necessarily in a negative way.] “It was a phenomenal performance in London — people who had not seen it originally with her were really pretty poleaxed,” Mr. Lloyd Webber said of Ms. Close. “I always thought she was the best Norma Desmond we ever had.” (Michael Paulson, “Glenn Close Will Star, Again, in ‘Sunset Boulevard’ on Broadway,” The New York Times, 10/25/2016.)
This word can also be a synonym for astonished, amazed, dumbfounded, stupefied, surprised, astounded and flabbergasted.…
[This word can be applied to both people and places. In the former instance, it tends to refer more to a person’s worried or anxious appearance, and in the later instance, it tends to refer more to a place being rundown or worn-out looking. Examples are both are given here] The mugshots of the unclaimed dead are pasted on the morgue wall. People with careworn expressions peer back at the black and white pictures, hoping yet fearing that they will recognize one of the battered faces staring back. (Author not given, “At Least 30 Bodies Unclaimed Two Days After Pakistan Bombing,” Arizona Daily Star, 10/21/2007.)
In public parks around [New Jersey], there are trails that need to be rebuilt, miles of roads that need to be repaved, and dozens of aged buildings on newly acquired conservation lands that need to be taken down for public safety. … [T]heir careworn appearance [is the result of] years of tight budgets. (Iver Peterson, “A Reprieve For State Parks, But Not a Solution,” The New York Times, 5/11/2008.)
This word can also be a synonym for looking worried, fatigued, anxious, exhausted, tired, rundown or weary.…
The daily news is filled with alarums and excursions about the trade deficit, the budget deficit, corporate profits, malfeasance in high places and worries about pensions. All are real problems, to be sure, but if we take a step back, we see something amazing: society has been made so much more open than my father … could have dreamed only 47 years ago. (Ben Stein, “Equality of Opportunity—The Water We Swim In,” The New York Times, 1/30/2005.)
This phrase can also be a synonym for din, noise, racket, hullabaloo, ado, hoopla, tumult or commotion.…
