Level 1, Word 24: BESOTTED (bi-SAHT-id)
Very drunk, extremely intoxicated; also, infatuated, obsessed.
The prefix be- has several meanings. It may mean to deprive of, as in behead. It may mean all around, on all sides, as in beset and besiege. It may mean all over, as in besmear, besprinkle, and beslobber. And it may mean completely, thoroughly, as in besotted, completely drunk. Other words in which the prefix be- means completely, thoroughly, include becalm, to calm completely; benumb, to numb thoroughly; and befuddle, which means either to make thoroughly drunk or to completely confuse, confound (word 34 of Level 2).
The noun a sot was first used, more than a thousand years ago, to mean a stupid person, a fool. Later sot came to mean a person who habitually drinks to excess, a drunkard, which is how the word is used today. The adjective besotted, which entered English in the 16th century, means rendered stupid or foolish either from drinking or by infatuation. Drunken sailors are besotted sailors, and in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, Marc Antony becomes besotted with the exotic Egyptian queen.
Synonyms of besotted in the sense of “very drunk” include befuddled, groggy, addled (AD’ld), inebriated, and stupefied. (The verb to stupefy is word 30 of Level 3.) Antonyms of besotted in the sense of “very drunk” include sober, temperate, and abstemious (ab-STEE-mee-us). Synonyms of besotted in the sense of “infatuated, obsessed” include captivated, smitten, enamored, enraptured, enthralled, and beguiled. Antonyms of besotted in the sense of “infatuated, obsessed’ include dispassionate (word 20 of Level 2), unruffled, and imperturbable (IM-pur-TUR-buh-bul).
Level 1, Word 40: HUBRIS (HYOO-bris)
Excessive pride or self-confidence.
Synonyms of hubris include arrogance, insolence (IN-suh-lints), presumption, and hauteur (haw-TUR or hoh-TUR). Modesty and humility are antonyms.
The adjective hubristic (hyoo-BRIS-tik), which means insolent, arrogant, contemptuous, is first recorded in English in 1831, about fifty years before the noun hubris appeared. Both words come from the Greek hybris, insolence, arrogance. The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) notes that in ancient Greek tragic drama, hubris was “the overweening self-confidence and ambition that leads . . . to the ruin of its possessor.” Hubris is sometimes also called the fatal flaw, the weakness or defect in character—in this case excessive pride—that brings about the downfall of a tragic figure. In this technical, theatrical sense hubris is opposed to the word nemesis (NEM-uh-sis, word 2 of Level 5), divine punishment. In Greek tragedy, a character’s hubris, arrogance, was depicted as an affront to the gods or to the divine order of nature, and would inevitably lead to an appropriate nemesis, divine punishment.
Hubris is also used generally to describe a person who exhibits excessive pride, self-confidence, or ambition, as in this sentence from a Time magazine review of the film The Company Men: “[Ben] Affleck always has trouble simulating high emotion . . . but he nails Bobby’s plunge from hubris to humiliation.” Hubris may also be used of an institution or a nation: Wall Street’s unchecked greed and hubris; the hubris of American foreign policy.
Level 2, Word 5: INSOLENT (IN-suh-lint)
Boldly insulting and disrespectful; rudely presumptuous (word 2 of Level 1).
The three words impertinent, impudent, and insolent are close in meaning. All refer to rude, disrespectful behavior.
Impertinent, whose literal meaning is not pertinent, inappropriate, is the least insulting of the three. Impertinent refers to behavior that is uncalled for because it is too forward or intrusive. People who say or do something that they know, or ought to know, is rude or out of place are being impertinent. Someone who fails to show proper respect to a superior is impertinent, and an inappropriately personal question can be impertinent.
Impudent comes from the Latin impudens, shameless, and refers to behavior that is shamelessly bold or rude. An impudent reply is a shamelessly rude or insulting reply, and an impudent person is knowingly and boldly disrespectful. Incidentally, impudens, the Latin source of impudent, comes in turn from the verb pudere, to make ashamed or to be ashamed, the source of the unusual English words pudency (PYOO-din-see), modesty, bashfulness, and pudendum (pyoo-DEN-dum), which means literally “that of which one ought to be ashamed” and denotes the external genital organs, especially of a woman.
While impertinent is used of inappropriately forward behavior, and impudent is used of shamelessly bold behavior, our keyword, insolent, is stronger still. It comes from a Latin adjective that meant proud, haughty, arrogant, and it applies to behavior that is arrogantly and contemptuously disrespectful and insulting. An insolent soldier invites disciplinary action. Parents often punish an insolent child. And an insolent coworker or colleague is one who revels, takes pleasure, in insulting you or giving you grief.
The corresponding nouns are impertinence, impudence, and insolence, boldly insulting and disrespectful behavior.
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Copyright (c) 2011 by Charles Harrington Elster.
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