Difficult Words : Gratuitous, Grandiose, Gravity, Gregarious and Guile
Gratuitous (gruh TOO i tus) adj: given freely (said of something bad), unjustified, unprovoked, uncalled for The scathing review of the movie contained several gratuitous remarks about the sex life of the director. Their attack against us was gratuitous. We had never done anything to offend them. Gratuitous is often misunderstood because it is confused with gratuity. A gratuity is a tip, like the one you leave in a restaurant. A gratuity is a nice thing. Gratuitous, however, is not nice. Don't confuse these words. Gravity (GRAV i tee) n: seriousness Not the force that makes apples fall down instead of up, but a different sort of weightiness. The anchorman's nervous giggling was entirely inappropriate, given the gravity of the situation. No one realized the gravity of Myron's drug addiction until it was much too late to help him. At the heart of the word gravity is the word grave which means serious. Gregarious (gri GAIR ee us) adj: sociable, enjoying the company of others Dirk was too gregarious to enjoy the fifty years he spent in solitary confinement. Anna wasn't very gregarious. She went to the party, but she spent most of her time hiding in the closet. In biology, gregarious is used to describe animals that live in groups. Bees, which live together in large colonies, are said to be gregarious insets. Guile (gile) n: cunning, duplicity; artfulness Jose used guile, not intelligence, to win the spelling bee. He cheated. Stuart was shocked by the guile of the automobile mechanic, who has poked a hold in his radiator and then told him that it had sprung a leak. To be guileless is to be innocent or native. Guileless and artless are synonyms. The word beguile also means to deceive, but in a charming and not always bad way. Clarence found Mary's beauty so beguiling that he did anything she asked of him.
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