Vocabulary Tierra White

Innocuous Ih-nok-yoo-uhs Innocuously: Adverb – Innocuousness: Noun – Innocuity: Noun Not harmful or dangerous; harmless. Adj. “Even though the bee’s stinger seemed dangerous, over all it was truly innocuous.” A good way to remember: “In” means “Not” and the word is similar to noxious, so put them together and you get “Not noxious”.

Pernicious Per-nish-uhs Perniciously: Adverb – Perniciousness: Noun Causing harm or ruin; deadly; fatal. “The apple in Snow White was pernicious, eventually killing Snow.” Pernicious is similar to perilous, which means danger or destruction.

Ubiquitous Yoo-bik-wit-uhs Ubiquitously: Adverb – Ubiquitousness - Noun Omnipresent; being everywhere at the same time. Ever present. Adj. “Some say God is ubiquitous, but is He really here all of the time?” Qui means who in French, and bi means two, so you can think of there being two people at the same time.

Punctilious Puhngk-till-ee-uhs Punctiliously: Adverb – Punctiliousness: Noun Strict in the observation of formalities; i.e. a Perfectionist “My friend kept stressing over the smallest details on our project, she is so punctilious.” Punctilious is similar to the word Punctual, which means on time and very proper, which is kind of like the definition.

Excoriating Ik-skawr-ee-yet-ing Excoriate: Verb – Excoriated: Verb To denounce severely; to verbally flay. Or, to literally flay. Burning. Verb. “My mom’s reaction to my bad test grade was excoriating, I felt like my skin was peeling off from her insults.” Excoriating is a lot like excruciating which is how it would feel for be flayed or verbally flayed.