Useful Word of the Day 2021

hands-on  
a. involving direct involvement or intervention
tangible  
a. perceptible by touch
After working hands-on with local communities in Delaware while also learning the tangible, human impact of policymaking, he knew he made the right choice.

zing  
v. move rapidly, making a high-pitched ringing or whining noise
plod  
v. walk doggedly and slowly with heavy steps
Massive balls of gas that are about the size of our own Jovian planet but that zing around their stars in less than 10 days, in contrast to Jupiter’s plodding.

tidal  
a. relating to or affected by tides
perpetual  
a. never-ending or changing
Like most hot Jupiters, the planet appears to be tidally locked, with a perpetual day and night side, similar to the Moon with respect to the Earth.

dendritic  
a. having a branched form resembling a tree
impersonate  
v. to pretend to be another person
These dendritic cells can cloak themselves in tumor proteins, allowing them to impersonate cancer cells and trigger a strong T cell response.

jump-start  
v. to start or restart something rapidly or forcefully
lackluster  
a. lacking in vitality; uninspired or uninspiring
Scientists are now trying to find ways to help treat patients by jump-starting those lackluster T cells.

inaugural  
a. marking a beginning
compose  
v. to form by putting together
The inaugural committee is composed of Amy Brand, director and publisher at the MIT Press, Gabriela Bueno Gibbs, assistant acquisitions editor; and other experts.

marginalize  
v. treat (a person, group, or concept) as insignificant or peripheral
ongoing  
a. continuing; still in progress
The MIT Press Grant Program is an important step in our ongoing commitment to amplify marginalized voices and help change the culture of academic publishing.

dementia  
n. a chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease
underlying  
a. significant as a cause or basis of something but not obvious
Some develop Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia as they get older; others remain sharp well into old age, even if their brains show underlying signs of neurodegeneration.

cognitive  
a. of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity
impairment  
n. loss of function or ability
If these mice were engineered to overexpress MEF2 at a young age, they did not show the usual cognitive impairments produced by the tau protein later in life.

jockey  
v. struggle by every available means to gain or achieve something
tab  
v. exploit or draw a supply from
Her work taps empirical evidence in archives that amplify her theoretical arguments, and that illuminates contemporary problems of global power jockeying.

close-knit  
a. united or bound together by strong relationships and common interests
cookout  
n. a party or gathering where a meal is cooked and eaten outdoors
He grew up in a close-knit family in Broward County, where he found comfort in the routine of Sunday church services, playing outside with friends, and cookouts on the weekends.

congregate  
v. gather into a crowd or mass
forage  
v. search widely for food or provisions
The dinosaurs likely worked as a community; juveniles congregated in schools, while adults roamed and foraged for the herd.

segregation  
n. the action or state of setting someone or something apart from others or being set apart
complex  
n. a group of obviously related units of which the nature of the relationship is imperfectly known
This age segregation, the researchers believe, is a strong sign of a complex, herd-like social structure.

algorithm  
n. a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations, especially by a computer
intuition  
n. the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning
The machine-learning algorithm could spur innovation by suggesting unique chemical formulations that human intuition might miss.

iteration  
n. the repetition of a process or utterance
span  
n. the full extent of something from end to end; the amount of space that something covers