1. Sheen
• Shine or cause to shine softly.
Usage: Men entered with rain sheening their steel helms.
2. Competitive Federalism
• Competitive federalism means that regional or local governments compete with other regional or local governments. People choose which regional or local government to live under. The governments compete for citizens. Investors choose which regional or local government to invest in.
3. Fulcrum
• A thing that plays a central or essential role in an activity, event, or situation.
Usage: Research and development is the fulcrum of the academic community.
4. Pandemonium
• Wild and noisy disorder or confusion or uproar.
Usage: There was complete pandemonium after the earthquake and everyone just panicked.
5. Zombie Statistic
• A false or misleading statistic that is repeated multiple times despite its inaccuracy.
6. Surreptitiously
• In a way that attempts to avoid notice or attention or secretively.
Usage: Back Benchers surreptitiously slipped from the classroom.
7. Sine die
• With reference to business or proceedings that have been adjourned with no appointed date for resumption.
Usage: The case was adjourned sine die.
• Adjournment sine die means “without assigning a day for a further meeting or hearing”.
• To adjourn an assembly sine die is to adjourn it for an indefinite period.
• A legislative body adjourns sine die when it adjourns without appointing a day on which to appear or assemble again.
8. Paucity
• The presence of something in only small or insufficient quantities or amounts.
Usage: Very few directors dare to make serious films due to paucity of funds, she said.
Synonyms: scarcity, sparseness, sparsity, dearth, shortage, rarity.
9. Vivisection
• Vivisection is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure.
• Ruthlessly sharp and detailed criticism or analysis.
Usage: know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty.
10. Utopian
• Modelled on or aiming for a state in which everything is perfect
• Idealistic.
Usage: Every era has its utopian movements that hold out the promise of social perfectability.
11. Penultimate
• Last but one in a series of things.
• Second last.
Usage: The penultimate chapter of the book.
12. Copious
• Abundant in supply.
• Quantity.
Usage: You may have enjoyed, as many students have, the recent copious downfall of snow.
