Category English Grammar

Meaning: An adjective, the term “adrift” means floating without control, or drifting. If a person is adrift, he doesn’t have a clear purpose in life, he doesn’t know what he wants to do.

Origin: An English word in use from the late 16th Century, adrift is a combination of “a” meaning “in” or “on” and “drift” meaning “float or go with the current slowly”.

Usage: After losing her job, Anne was adrift, not knowing what she was going to do with her life. Rose was adrift on a raft in the Atlantic for a few days before help arrived.

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Meaning : The word scrum is used in sports, especially rugby, when a group of attacking players from each team come together and push against each other to try and take control of the ball. The meaning where it corresponds to a situation in which a group of people push each other to obtain something also stems from this.

Origin : The word, which has been around since 1888, is an abbreviation of scrummage, a variant of scrimmage. The transferred sense of “noisy throng” is attested from 1950.

Usage : Like rugby teams grappling in a scrum, rivalling parties were engaged in a struggle for power.

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Meaning: Bulwark means a defensive wall, a rampart or any protection against external danger.

Origin: The term, dating back to the early 15th Century, came from Middle Dutch bulwerke or Middle High German bolwerc, from bole “plank, tree trunk” + were “work”. Thus “bole-work,” a construction of logs. It took on the figurative meaning of defence or security from the mid-15th Century.

Usage: Vaccines act as a bulwark against many infectious diseases. When the leader travels abroad, his guards accompany him as a bulwark against enemy attack. I got drenched in the rain as I did not have an umbrella or any such bulwark to protect me from the downpour.

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Meaning : This adjective is used to refer to something as everlasting or never-ending.

Origin: It is derived from the Latin word ‘perpetuus’ which means continuing throughout. The first know use of this word can be traced back to the 14th Century.

Example: The country is in a perpetual war, with no end in sight. Activity: Use the word in a sentence of your own.

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The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite Program (GOES) is a joint effort of NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The GOES system currently consists of GOES-13, operating as GOES-East, in the eastern part of the constellation at 75 degrees west longitude and GOES-15, operating as GOES-West, at 135 degrees west longitude. The GOES-R series will maintain the two-satellite system implemented by the current GOES series. However, the locations of the operational GOES-R satellites will be 75 degrees west longitude and 137 degrees west longitude. The latter is a shift in order to eliminate conflicts with other satellite systems. The GOES-R series operational lifetime extends through December 2036.

These spacecraft help meteorologists observe and predict local weather events, including thunderstorms, tornadoes, fog, hurricanes, flash floods and other severe weather. In addition, GOES observations have proven helpful in monitoring dust storms, volcanic eruptions and forest fires.

Credit: NASA

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Meaning : This adjective means not real or genuine; made to look like something else that is usually more valuable; not sincere.

Origin: Faux is a word borrowed from French, and meant “false”. It was used in English in this sense since the 17th Century. Around the 1980s, it began to refer to anything that is fake.

Usage: It was a show of faux concern.

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