1. Minefield
• An area planted with explosive mines.
Usage: The sergeant crawled through a minefield to rescue two badly injured boys.
• A subject or situation presenting unseen hazards.
Usage: Tax is a minefield for the unwary.
2. Gag
• A piece of cloth put in or over a person’s mouth to prevent them from speaking.
Usage: They tied him up and put a gag in his mouth.
• A device for keeping the patient’s mouth open during a dental or surgical operation.
• Put a gag on someone.
Usage: She was bound and gagged by robbers.
3. Risk premium
• A risk premium is the minimum amount of money by which the expected return on a risky asset must exceed the known return on a risk-free asset in order to induce an individual to hold the risky asset rather than the risk-free asset.
• An asset’s risk premium is a form of compensation for investors who tolerate the extra risk, compared to that of a risk-free asset, in a given investment.
Usage: The difference between the expected value and the certainty equivalent is the risk premium for the gamble
4. Buttress
• A source of defence or support.
Usage: The political police were the main buttress of the regime.
• A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral forces arising out of the roof structures that lack adequate bracing.
5. Pastoralism
• Pastoralism is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock.
• It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as cattle, camels, goats, yaks, llamas, reindeer, horses and sheep.
Usage: Tribes practising sedentary agriculture or non-nomadic pastoralism are already on the downhill run towards modern, industrial society.
6. Imbroglio
• An extremely confused, complicated, or embarrassing situation.
Usage: The abdication imbroglio of 1857.
7. Esoteric
• Intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.
Usage: Esoteric philosophical debates.
8. Stalemate
• A situation in which further action or progress by opposing or competing parties seems impossible.
Usage: The war had again reached stalemate.
• In Chess, A position counting as a draw, in which a player is not in check but cannot move except into check.
9. Indubitably
• Undoubtedly
Usage: He was indubitably the most extraordinary of all the Shah’s favourites.
10. Stymie
• Prevent or hinder the progress of.
Usage: The changes must not be allowed to stymie new medical treatments.
11. Invective
• Insulting, abusive, or highly critical language.
Usage: He let out a stream of invective.
