Upwords & Downwords IV Trivia Quiz

Answer: archaisms

Archaisms are forms of speech or writing that are no longer in common use. Certain archaisms survive, and then most commonly due to continued literary (esp. poetry), legal, and ritual use. Examples are 'wherewithal', 'heretofore', and "with this ring I thee wed".

Answer: charisma

Dr. Richard Wiseman, Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, England, attributes three basic characteristics to charismatic individuals. These are that: 1) they feel emotions themselves quite strongly, 2) they induce them in others, and 3) they are impervious to the influences of other charismatic people.

Answer: chairms

'Chairms' is the Scot's English variant of 'charms', often used in Scottish poetry. The following lines are taken from Margaret Winefride Simpson's "Sang":

"Bedewed wi tears ilk nicht
My couch bides comfortless,
Nor can its chairms aricht
Lull, even when I sleep, my unco weariness."

Answer: smirch

A more commonly used and closely related synonym of 'smirch' is the word 'besmirch'.

Answer: scrim

'Scrim' is a shortened form of 'scrimmage', a word commonly used to refer to informal or "pick-up" games in sports.

Answer: rims

The rims of coins are sometimes milled with certain distinguishable patterns to assist the blind in recognition.

Answer: sir

In 1297, 'sir' entered English, and became the formal title for a knight or baronet. 'Sir' is an unstressed variant of 'sire', which is a title designating a person of importance or in a position of authority. 'Sire' derived from the Old French 'sieur' (variant of 'Seigneur'), which came from the Latin 'senior'.

Answer: SI

The International System of Units is a modern form of the metric system using the base meter-kilogram-second (mks) instead of the centimeter-gram-second (cgs) system. It is abbreviated SI from the French "Le Systeme international d'unites". Standards and definitions are set in the SI based on international agreement.

Answer: I

Sartre distinguishes between "I" and "me" in the following way: "The I is the ego as unity of actions", while "the me is the ego as the unity of states and qualities".

Answer: Ni

Nickel (atomic # 28) is a silvery white, hard, ductile, metallic element. It is used in alloys and super alloys (e.g. stainless steel), chemical apparatus, batteries, and for electroplating. It is also used in coins, such as the US five cent piece (nickel) because of its resistance to oxidation.

Answer: ins

To be familiar with the ins and outs of how a paper-shredder works, for instance, is to have a good grasp on the intricacies of how the machine functions and operates.

Answer: sine

For right triangles, the sine of an acute angle is given by the ratio of the side opposite that angle to the hypotenuse. A mnemonic for memorizing ratios of the sine, cosine, and tangent functions of right triangles is SOHCAHTOA.

SOH: sine of the angle = opposite/hypotenuse
CAH: cosine of the angle = adjacent/hypotenuse
TOA: tangent of the angle = opposite/adjacent

Answer: singe

The root of 'singe' is often said to be related to that of 'sing', based on the notion that there is some sort of sound produced when something is singed.

Answer: deigns

'Condescend' or 'deign' here means 'to give or grant something when one considers it below one's dignity'.

Answer: designs

The word 'design' comes to us from the Latin 'designare', which means 'to mark out'.