Example: Seshasayee hits back at Murthy. Says charges are false and slanderous.
1. Slander [slan-der]
Noun: defamation; calumny; a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report; Law. defamation by oral utterance rather than by writing, pictures, etc.
Verb: to utter slander against; defame.
Synonyms: defamatory, disparaging, malicious, calumniatory, maligning, opprobrious.
Antonym: complimentary.
Example: All the three quit the board following a public spat with Mr. Murthy.
2. Spat [spat]
Noun: a petty quarrel; a light blow; slap; smack.
Verb: to engage in a petty quarrel or dispute.
Synonyms: altercation, bickering, brouhaha, difference of opinion, disagreement, discord, falling-out, feud, flare-up, fracas, friction, misunderstanding, run-in, squabble, strife.
Antonyms: agreement, concord, concurrence, harmony.
Example: The government action comes in the wake of the GJM expelling interlocutors Binoy Tamang and Anit Thapa, who represented it in talks with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
3. Interlocutor [in-ter-lok-yuh-ter]
Noun: a person who takes part in a conversation or dialogue; the man in the middle of the line of performers in a minstrel troupe, who acts as the announcer and banters with the end men; a person who questions; interrogator.
Synonyms: interrogator, interviewer, questioner, speaker, talker, dialogist.
Example: However, in 2015, the Dera chief and Yoga practitioner-turned-businessman Baba Ramdev had approached the government to include their names in the “no frisk” list.
4. Frisk [frisk]
Verb: to dance, leap, skip, or gambol; frolic; to search (a person) for concealed weapons, contraband goods, etc., by feeling the person’s clothing.
Noun: a leap, skip, or caper; a frolic or gambol.
Synonyms: bounce, caper, dance, frolic, gambol, hop, jump, lark, leap, play, prance, rollick, romp, skip, sport, trip.
Antonym: face.
Example: The agency has invoked Sections 420 (cheating) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, read with provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, against the accused.
5. Invoke [in-vohk]
Verb: to call for with earnest desire; make supplication or pray for; to call on (a deity, Muse, etc.), as in prayer or supplication; to declare to be binding or in effect; to appeal to, as for confirmation; to petition or call on for help or aid; to call forth or upon (a spirit) by incantation.
Synonyms: appeal to, conjure, adjure, beg, beseech, crave, entreat, implore, importune, petition, plead, pray, request, solicit, summon, supplicate, call forth, send for.
Antonyms: answer, give, reply.
Example: The falling garbage crashed into a canal causing a tide of sludge over a nearby road.
6. Sludge [sluhj]
Noun: mud, mire, or ooze; slush; a deposit of ooze at the bottom of a body of water; any of various more or less mudlike deposits or mixtures; the sediment in a steam boiler or water tank; broken ice, as on the sea.
Synonyms: goo, grease, gunk, muck, sediment, silt, slime, glop, goop, mire, oil, ooze, scum, slop.
Example: Calibrating a new standard.
7. Calibrate [kal-uh-breyt]
Verb: to determine, check, or rectify the graduation of (any instrument giving quantitative measurements); to divide or mark with gradations, graduations, or other indexes of degree, quantity, etc., as on a thermometer, measuring cup, or the like.
Synonyms: aligning, averaging, calculating, checking, gauging, grading, leveling, mapping, rhyming, scaling, surveying.
Example: One track focused on reminding her that the drop in numbers in some groups (including Indian students) was largely the result of the crackdown on fake colleges that admitted students under the pretense of study merely to enable them to come to Britain.
8. Pretense [pri-tens, pree-tens]
Noun: pretending or feigning; make-believe; a false show of something; a piece of make-believe; the act of pretending.
Synonyms: charade, cloak, pretext, semblance, veneer, act, acting, affectation, appearance, artifice, claim, deceit, deception, display, dissimulation, double-dealing, evasion, excuse, fabrication, facade, fakery, falsification, feigning, gag, guise, insincerity, invention.
Antonyms: reality, frankness, honesty, honor.
Example: The second argument focussed on highlighting the supposedly sizeable number of overstaying students.
9. Sizeable [sahy-zuh-buh l]
Adjective: sizable.
Synonyms: colossal, considerable, enormous, gigantic, humongous, monumental, tremendous, vast, whopping, astronomic, epic, ginormous, jumbo, mammoth, massive.
Antonyms: insignificant, little, small, teeny.
Example: With smaller businesses still grappling with the GST framework, there are concerns over what the expected revenue will be from the new indirect taxation policy.
10. Grapple [grap-uh l]
Verb: to hold or make fast to something, as with a grapple; to use a grapple; to seize another, or each other, in a firm grip, as in wrestling; clinch.
Noun: a hook or an iron instrument by which one thing, as a ship, fastens onto another; grapnel; a seizing or gripping.
Synonyms: confront, contend, cope, deal with, attack, battle, catch, clash, clasp, close, clutch, combat, encounter, engage, face, fasten.
Antonyms: agree, avoid, be immune, cancel.
