Grammar Clinic

A person who claims to have a supernatural ability to perceive events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact. Example: “She received a message from a clairvoyant that her son was alive and well“.

1. Sexual intercourse between a person and an animal. 2. Savagely cruel or depraved behaviour. Example: “There seems no end to the bestiality of men”

A recurrent urge to steal, typically without regard for need or profit. Example:  ‘People with kleptomania often have another psychiatric disorder, often a mood disorder such as depression and anxiety’.

1. Delaying or delayed beyond the right or expected time; late. 2. Slow in action or response; sluggish. Example: “But he was very tardy and disorganized, throwing off my schedule considerably…”

1. A dummy used to display clothes in a shop window. 2. A person employed by a designer, costumier, etc., to model clothes. Example: ” You only need to look at the mannequins in shop windows to feel obese”.

1. Optimistic or positive, especially in an apparently bad or difficult situation. 2. blood-red (as in colour). Example: “he is sanguine about prospects for the global economy“

Fearless; adventurous (often used for rhetorical or humorous effect). Example: (a). ” Please welcome Jonathan, our intrepid reporter“ (b) All his friends loved him because he was intrepid. He stood against bullies all the time.

1. No longer produced or used 2. Out of date Examples: (a) the disposal of old and obsolete machinery  (b)  the phrase was obsolete after 1625

Persistent, not stopping, not giving up

Very attentive to details and always doing things in a careful and correct way