ESSAYS IN LOVE

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• fathom (v) /ˈfæð.əm/ I can't fathom her at all. 1. The longing for a destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share a bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be excused for believing (contrary to all the rules of our enlightened age) that WE ARE FATED one day to run into the man or woman of our dreams? Can we not be allowed a certain superstitious faith that we will ultimately locate a creature WHO CAN APPEASE OUR PAINFUL YEARNINGS? Though our prayers may never be answered, though there may be no end to relationships marked by mutual incomprehension, if the heavens should come to TAKE PITY ON us, then can we really be expected to attribute our encounter with our prince or princess to a mere coincidence? Or can we not for once escape logic and read it as nothing other than a sign of romantic destiny?
• enlighten /ɪnˈlaɪ.t̬ən/ (50 SHADES OF GREY) Should the function of children's television be to entertain or to enlighten? I don't understand this. Could you enlighten me? The show is meant to both enlighten and entertain. We hope the pamphlet will enlighten voters about the issues. can you enlighten me as to the new procedure?: anh có thể làm cho tôi sáng tỏ thủ tục mới không?
• take pity on someone 1. The longing for a destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share a bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be excused for believing (contrary to all the rules of our enlightened age) that WE ARE FATED one day to run into the man or woman of our dreams? Can we not be allowed a certain superstitious faith that we will ultimately locate a creature WHO CAN APPEASE OUR PAINFUL YEARNINGS? Though our prayers may never be answered, though there may be no end to relationships marked by mutual incomprehension, if the heavens should come to TAKE PITY ON us, then can we really be expected to attribute our encounter with our prince or princess to a mere coincidence? Or can we not for once escape logic and read it as nothing other than a sign of romantic destiny?
• dull (a) /dʌl/ She wrote dull, respectable articles for the local newspaper. He's pleasant enough, but deadly dull. I find his art rather dull and conventional. The text was dull and formulaic. For years, he's plodded away at the same dull routine job. Those books seem rather dull beside this one. The ponderous reporting style makes the evening news dull viewing. the conference was deadly dull: cuộc họp chán ngắt
• dull (a) /dʌl/ We could just see a dull glow given off by the fire's last embers. UK The first day of our holiday was dull (= cloudy). a dull colour: màu xỉn dull weather: thời tiết u ám (nhiều mây)
• dull (a) /dʌl/ a dull knife I heard a dull thud from the kitchen. She felt a dull ache at the back of her head.
• morbid (a) /ˈmɔːr.bɪd/ She had to have gastric bypass surgery to avoid dying from morbid obesity. Pathological anatomy (or morbid anatomy) is the study of diseased organs. Munch painted many morbid scenes, including his own sister's death. Why do people have such a morbid interest in the execution process? Death certificates often attribute the death to complications such as heart attacks, blood clots or morbid obesity. He was professor of morbid anatomy at the London Hospital.
• alight (a) (v) /əˈlɑɪt/ 3. MORBIDLY perhaps, the passenger on my left had taken off her headphones in order to study the safety-instruction card placed in the POUCH in front of her. It depicted the ideal crash, passengers ALIGHTING softly and calmly onto land or water, the ladies taking off their high heels, the children DEXTEROUSLY INFLATING their VESTS, the FUSELAGE still intact, the kerosene miraculously NON-FLAMMABLE.
• dexterous (a) /ˈdek.strəs/ 3. MORBIDLY perhaps, the passenger on my left had taken off her headphones in order to study the safety-instruction card placed in the POUCH in front of her. It depicted the ideal crash, passengers ALIGHTING softly and calmly onto land or water, the ladies taking off their high heels, the children DEXTEROUSLY INFLATING their VESTS, the FUSELAGE still intact, the kerosene miraculously NON-FLAMMABLE.
• inflate (v) /ɪnˈfleɪt/ He inflated the balloons with helium. We watch the hot-air balloon slowly inflate. 3. MORBIDLY perhaps, the passenger on my left had taken off her headphones in order to study the safety-instruction card placed in the POUCH in front of her. It depicted the ideal crash, passengers ALIGHTING softly and calmly onto land or water, the ladies taking off their high heels, the children DEXTEROUSLY INFLATING their VESTS, the FUSELAGE still intact, the kerosene miraculously NON-FLAMMABLE.
• kerosene (n) /ˈker.ə.siːn/ 3. MORBIDLY perhaps, the passenger on my left had taken off her headphones in order to study the safety-instruction card placed in the POUCH in front of her. It depicted the ideal crash, passengers ALIGHTING softly and calmly onto land or water, the ladies taking off their high heels, the children DEXTEROUSLY INFLATING their VESTS, the FUSELAGE still intact, the kerosene miraculously NON-FLAMMABLE.
• flammable (a) /'flæməbl/ 3. MORBIDLY perhaps, the passenger on my left had taken off her headphones in order to study the safety-instruction card placed in the POUCH in front of her. It depicted the ideal crash, passengers ALIGHTING softly and calmly onto land or water, the ladies taking off their high heels, the children DEXTEROUSLY INFLATING their VESTS, the FUSELAGE still intact, the kerosene miraculously NON-FLAMMABLE.
• Ethics /ˈeθ·ɪks/ (n) the (Protestant) work ethic The ethics of journalism are much debated. He said he was bound by a scientist's code of ethics. Publication of the article was a breach of ethics. The doctor has been accused of violating professional ethics. a code of behaviour/ethics The company was known for its poor business ethics and many people refused to buy its products. Members of the society are highly qualified and governed by a strict code of ethics. He wrote an article criticizing the business community for its the lack of ethics.
• cargo (n)/ˈkɑːr.ɡoʊ/ a cargo ship/plane The ship was carrying a cargo of wood. cargo vessels Smoke detectors are now installed in cargo holds. More than half the ship's 130,000-ton cargo of crude oil has already been spilled This is where the planes would land and unload their cargo. Nuclear materials are currently carried on both cargo and passenger flights. The conversation MEANDERED, affording us GLIMPSE OF one another's characters, like the brief VISTAS one catches on a winding mountain road — this before the wheels hit the TARMAC, the engines were THROWN INTO REVERSE, and the plane taxied towards the TERMINAL, where it DISGORGED its CARGO into the crowded immigration hall. By the time I had collected my luggage and passed through customs, I had fallen in love with Chloe.
• primordial (a) /praɪˈmɔːr.di.əl/ The planet Jupiter contains large amounts of the primordial gas and dust out of which the solar system was formed. We attributed to events a narrative logic they could not INHERENTLY have possessed. We mythologized our aircraft encounter into the goddess Aphrodite's design, Act One, Scene One of that PRIMORDIAL narrative, the love story. From the time of each of our births, it seemed as though the giant mind in the sky had been SUBTLY shifting our orbits so that we would one day meet on the Paris-London shuttle. Because love had come true for us, we could overlook the countless stories that fail to occur, romances that never get written because someone misses the plane or loses the phone number. Like HISTORIANS, we were uterm-42nmistakably on the side of what had actually happened.
• adjoining (a) /əˈdʒɔɪ.nɪŋ/ We asked for adjoining rooms. GIVEN THAT we both wanted to be back in London by the early afternoon of December 6th, but were unresolved until the very last minute as to what flight we would end up taking, the mathematical probability at dawn of us both being on the same flight (though not necessarily in ADJOINING SEATS) had been a figure of one in six.
• first class ticket
• redeem (v) /rɪˈdiːm/ A poor game was redeemed in the second half by a superb performance from Anthony Edwards. He was an hour late, but he redeemed himself in her eyes by giving her a huge bunch of flowers. She took me to see a really dull film, the only redeeming feature of which (= the only thing which prevented it from being completely bad) was the soundtrack.
• see through We can see through what you are going to do so don't cheat us. This has been covered a lot on Tv about defrauding others through not changing money for guests at gas stations. If you don't change enough, I will report it to the police. Chúng tôi nhìn thấu được bạn định làm gì rồi đừng có mà lừa gạt chúng tôi. Việc này đã được đưa tin rất nhiều trên TV về việc lừa gạt người khác thông qua việc thối tiền thiếu ở các trạm xăng. Nếu bạn không thối đủ tiền, tôi sẽ báo công an đó. In fact, my mother saw through that I was going to sneak out tonight and she didn't say anything. I think my mom forgave me so she let me go out tonight, but if I'm angry, I can't even leave the room. Thực tế là mẹ tôi đã nhìn thấu việc tối nay tôi sẽ lẻn nhà đi chơi rồi mà mẹ tôi không nói thôi. Tôi nghĩ mẹ đã tha lỗi cho tôi rồi nên mới để cho tôi đi chơi vào tối nay chứ nếu như còn giận thì tôi thậm chí còn không thể bước ra khỏi phòng. 1. 'SEEING THROUGH people is so easy, and it gets you nowhere,' remarked Elias Canetti, suggesting how effortlessly and yet how uselessly we can find fault with others. Do we not fall in love partly out of a momentary will to SUSPEND SEEING THROUGH people, even at the cost of blinding ourselves a little in the process? If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are PRONE? Is there not in every COUP DE FOUDRE a certain WILFULL exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?
• carousel (n) /ˌker.əˈsel/ /ˌkær·əˈsel/ /ˌkær·əˈsel/ 2. I lost Chloe AMIDST the THRONG at passport control, but found her again in the luggage-reclaim area. She was struggling to push a trolley cursed with an inclination to steer to the right, though the Paris CAROUSEL was to the far left of the hall. Because my trolley had no mind of its own, I walked over to offer it to her, but she refused, saying one should remain loyal to trolleys, however stubborn, and that strenuous physical exercise was no bad thing after a flight. Indirectly (via the Karachi arrival), we made it to the Paris CAROUSEL, already crowded with faces grown involuntarily familiar since boarding at Charles de Gaulle. The first pieces of luggage had begun to TUMBLE DOWN onto the JOINTED rubber matting, and faces peered anxiously at the moving display to locate their possessions.