Writing Exercise: Vocabulimia

Vocabulimia is an exercise in building vocabulary. It's a play on the "use the word in a sentence" exercise we'd do in school.

I've pseudo-randomly selected four words that I either didn't know before or rarely use. These words come from my free "word of the day" subscription with Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster.com.

I will use Word A in a sense consisting of one or two sentences. Then I will use Words A and B in a second sense. The third sense will have Words A through C. A fourth sense will contain all four words, completing the exercise.

The words are:

somnific: an adjective that means "causing sleep"

redivivus: an adjective that means "revived" or "brought back to life;" used after the noun it modifies

chagrin: a noun that means "annoyance" or "embarrassment" brought about by disappointment or failure; a transitive verb that means "to unsettle or vex by disappointment"

gaucherie: a noun meaning "boorishness or lack of tact" or "a tactless act"

*GULP* Here goes...

1) "For a political speech, yours was rather somnific," he said sarcastically. "Watching you was like living a dream."

2) He could swear he was talking to Hitler redivivus, though the man's piercing eyes had a somewhat somnific quality.

3) The agency's somnific sales pitch earned the chagrin of the chairman, who could easily have been Einstein redivivus with half the genius.

4) The Queen was known throughout the kingdom for carefully-crafted gaucherie, being readily chagrined by the slightest lapse in judgment. Many say she was the Empress redivivus, who perfected the "painful and somnific wave of the sceptre" when correcting her errant court.

Though the exercise is over, I could continue to make more: a fifth sense would have gaucherie, chagrin, and redivivus. A sixth would have gaucherie and chagrin. One last sense would just have gaucherie, which will even out the usage of each word.

But I'm tired.

From time to time, I will do other Vocabulimia exercises. If any of you want to build your vocabulary, why not try it out?