People have caught the vocabulary improvement fever all over the world, and we hope this week’s posts have stimulated your appetite for learning more words, leaving you with a desire to continue to increase your vocabulary, which will help you avoid a boring, dry conversational style without looking like a fool. Here are the last five words we’re studying this week: virulent, whet, yen, xeric, and zany.

virulent

Virulent means “highly infectious and deadly.” The Ebola virus, which kills over half of the people who catch it, is a virulent disease.

Example: The pandemic of 1918 was caused by a particularly virulent strain of influenza, resulting in the deaths of over 20 million people worldwide.

whet

The word whet originally referred to the action of sharpening a tool, such as a saw blade, a scythe, a knife, or a pair of scissors. We still use this term in that context, in fact: a whetstone is frequently used to do the sharpening. However, this word now also has a more metaphorical meaning of “to stimulate or arouse” that is used when speaking of a person’s physical or emotional reactions.

Example 1: The smell of freshly-baked bread whets the appetites of people passing on the street, who then often go into the bakery to make a purchase.
Example 2: Losing the race by only one-tenth of a second whetted her ambition to win the next big competition.

yen

The smell of a savory stew can whet your desire to taste it. Another word for desire is yen. This word is used to indicate a craving or yearning for something, especially if that thing is not immediately available.

Example: I’ve been writing ad copy for that fast-food chain all day, and now I have a yen for a burger and fries.

xeric

The word xeric (pronounced ZEER-ick) means dry and lacking in moisture; xeriscaping is landscaping that is done in dry areas, using rocks and sand, and plants that require little water.

Example: Temperate plants such as tea roses do not thrive in the xeric desert environment of the American Southwest; residents of that area would do better to choose cactus and succulents for their gardens instead.

zany

The word zany can be either a noun or an adjective. This word can be traced back to the 16th-century Italian commedia dell’arte, a type of standard comic play often seen in traveling shows, where the role of the servant Zanni was to mock the other players and act the clown. The noun zany means “buffoon” or “clown.” Someone can be a zany, or can act in a zany way.

Example: Many people enjoy the zany routines of the clowns in the Cirque du Soleil shows, but I prefer watching the acrobats.

Take a serious look back at this week’s words from A to Z and get ready for the quiz!