tabula rasa

'50 Psychology Ideas You Really Need to Know' by Adrian Furnhamを読んでいます。
"Tabula rasa" の章から引用します。

'One of the most fundamental tenets of Marxism and of communist doctrines is that the personalities of people are shaped by their economic class and by their role in the class struggle which is about as environmentalistic a position as can be imagined.' George Albee, 1982
The tabula rasa or blank-state hypothesis is that people are born with no genetic, innate or evolutionary content or processes that develop, or come out, over time. Rather they are a blank state, an empty disk, onto which writing or data are stored so that their personal experiences determine who they are, what they become and what they believe.

この英語らしくない "tabula rasa" は 'blank-state hypothesis' の意味と文中にありますが、 私にはもう少し説明が欲しい。辞書を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: the human mind as it is at birth, with no ideas or thoughts in it
・Collins Dictionary: (esp in the philosophy of Locke) the mind in its uninformed original state: used esp. of the mind when regarded as blank until impressions are recorded upon it by experience
・Vocabulary.com: Use the noun tabula rasa to describe the chance to start fresh, like when a student's family moves and she gets to begin the year at a brand new school with a completely blank slate.
An opportunity to begin again with no record, history, or preconceived ideas is one kind of tabula rasa. Architects use the term to describe the place where a torn-down building once stood, which they now see as an opportunity to start over with a new, better, structure. The Latin literally means "scraped tablet," sort of an old-fashioned Etch A Sketch ready to be drawn on.

ラテン語由来の言葉でした。

languish

'50 Psychology Ideas You Really Need to Know' by Adrian Furnham　を読んでいます。
"What the witness saw" の章から引用します。

Could you accurately identify the person who sold you a newspaper this morning? And what if you were woken by a burglar whom you just saw fleetingly - are you sure you would 'finger' the right person in a classic identity parade? Howe many people languish in prison because of confident, but wrong, identification just because they looked 'a criminal type? And how many people get off serious crimes scot-free because they were not identified by one or more witness?

"languish" の意味を調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: languish (in something) to be forced to stay somewhere or suffer something unpleasant for a long time: She continues to languish in a foreign prison.
・Collins Dictionary: If someone languishes somewhere, they are forced to remain and suffer in an unpleasant situation.: Pollard continues to languish in prison.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to exist in an unpleasant or unwanted situation, often for a long time: He has been languishing in jail for the past 20 years.

"languish" のこの意味は全ての辞書で最初に掲載されていました。

lime

前回の問題 "freshen" の答えはCの "begin to lactate" でした。
例文： New cow mom Daisy freshened quickly after the birth of her calf.

Reader's　Digest 7月号のWORD POWER(単語クイズ）から取り上げる２番目は次の単語です。

"lime":
A. harvest produce
B. reduce soil's acidity
C. wilt before sprouting

"lime" に果物のライム以外の意味があるのを思い出せば答えは分かります。
正解はCの "reduce soil's acidity" でした。
例文： Iris limed her land by spreading wood ashes on it.

freshen

Reader's　Digest 7月号のWORD POWER(単語クイズ）は "vocabulary with these words rooted in the field of agriculture" でした。　生まれも育ちも東京都内の私には苦手な分野ですが（１５問中６問しか正解できませんでした）、家庭菜園やガーデニングには大いに興味があります。　分からなかった単語から２語だけ取り上げます。

"freshen":
A. delay reopening
B. thaw after freezing
C. begin to lactate

正解はA ～ Cのいずれでしょう？

downward dog

Reader's　Digest 7月号の記事 "Game On!" (副題 Research offers new hopa for beating pesky joint pain )からの引用です。

You might be in yoga class when you first feel it. When did downward dog get so hard on the wrists? Or it could be at your weekly tennis game that you notice your knees screaming at you whenever you pivot.

"downward dog" はヨガのポーズの一種の様ですが、辞書に説明があるでしょうか？

・Wiktionary: (yoga) Short for downward-facing dog.とあるので 'downward-facing dog' を見ると: A pose whereby the hands and feet are placed on the floor and the hips raised, creating an inverted V-shape.: From downward-facing dog, stretch forward onto the toes and hands.

百科事典 Wikipedia の説明を抜粋します。
Downward Dog stretches the hamstring and calf muscles in the backs of the legs, and builds strength in the shoulders. Some popular sites have advised against it during pregnancy, but an experimental study of pregnant women found it beneficial.

私は身体の固いのでヨガは全くやる気はありませんが、このポーズ "downward dog" なら出来そうです。

freudenfreude

Reader's　Digest 7月号の記事 "It's a WIN-WIN" からの引用です。

Finding pleasure in another person's good fortune is what social scientists call freudenfreude, a term (inspired by freude, the German word for "joy") that describes the bliss we feel when someone else succeeds, even if it doesn't directly involve us.

"freudenfreude" の意味は引用文に書かれている通りですが、過去に２度（10/18/2017と2/23/2007）取り上げた、"freudenfreude" とは反対の意味の単語 "schadenfreude" を思い出しました。

shoo-in

Reader's　Digest 7月号の記事 "The Best Snack in Every State" からの引用です。

Runza
These stuffed bread bundles have German-Russian roots. Brimming with seasoned ground beef, cabbage and onions, the savory parcels are so beloved in Nebraska that we've named them the state sandwich and signature dish in previous years. The runza's snack status was a shoo-in, too, considering that many fans call them the original Hot Pockets.

"shoo-in" の意味を辞書で調べます。

・Collins Dictionary: someone or something expected to win easily in an election, a race, etc.: Ms Brown is still no shoo-in for the November election.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: someone who is certain to win an election or a competition: He's a shoo-in for the White House.
・Wiktionary: A candidate or contestant generally agreed upon as the presumptive winner; somebody who is well-liked or widely agreed upon.: She's very popular and good with numbers, so I expect she'll be a shoo-in for treasurer.

rainmaker

'make it stick' (三人の共著)を読んでいます。 'Get Beyond Learning Styles' の章から引用します。

Out of college, Bruce went to work for Kodak as a microfilm salesman. In his third year, he was one of five top salesmen in the country. That was the year he found out how much his branch manager was making: less than Bruce made as a salesman, if he factored in his company car and expense account. It pays better to be a rainmaker than a manager: another lesson learned, another step up Bruce's winding stair. He quit to join a brokerage firm and sell stocks.

マネージャーより "rainmaker" の方が実入りが良いと言っていて、セールスマンのBruceを指していますが、 "rainmaker" を辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: a person who makes a business grow and become successful:
・Collins Dictionary: an influential employee who creates a great deal of business or revenue for his or her firm: The president has several rainmakers among his advisers
・Vocabulary.com: If someone has a reputation as a rainmaker at work, it means that she has an almost uncanny ability to generate new business, attract clients, gather investments, or otherwise help the company succeed.
This figurative meaning of rainmaker is the most common, especially in the business world. Rainmakers have a magic touch, or extremely good luck. It's as though everything they're involved with at work helps their employer make money. The original sense of rainmaker is literally "person who makes the rain fall," and you can also use it for a Native American leader of ritual rain dances or a scientist who seeds clouds to make rain fall.

雨を降らすインディアンの祈祷師からできた言葉なのですね。

callout

'make it stick' を読んでいます。 本の題名と同じ表題の 'Make It Stick' の章から引用します。

She's teaching physiology, which is about how things work, so the summaries take on the form of large cartoons dense with callouts, blowups, directional arrows, and the like. The sheets help her students synthesize a week's information, thinking through how systems are connected: "This is causing this, which causes this, which feeds back on those. We use a lot of arrows in physiology. The students can work with each other, I don't care. The sheet they bring in just has to be their own."

漫画で使われる "callouts" とは何でしょうか？

・Merriam-Webster: an often bordered inset in a printed article or illustration that usually includes a key excerpt or detail
・Wiktionary: An annotation that pertains to a specific location in a body of text or a graphic, and that is visually linked to that location by a mark or a matching pair of marks.
百科事典のウィキペディアにもっと分かり易い説明がありました。
・Wikipedia: In publishing, a callout or call-out is a short string of text connected by a line, arrow, or similar graphic to a feature of an illustration or technical drawing, and giving information about that feature. The term is also used to describe a short piece of text set in larger type than the rest of the page and intended to attract attention. In documents that need to be translated often a neutral callout is used. By using numbers or letters as callout in combination with an image caption, translation is more efficient since the same graphic can be used in all languages.

lark

'make it stick' を読んでいます。 'Increase Your Abilities' の章から引用します。

He spent long hours honing his techniques, becoming adept and the life of the party among his social set. The year was 2006, and when he learned of a memory competition to be held in Cambridge, England, he decided on a lark to enter it. There he surprised himself by taking first place in the beginner category, a performance for which he pocketed a cool 1,000 euros.

"lark" にヒバリの意味があるのは知っているのですが、ここで意味は何でしょう？

・Oxford English Dictionary: a thing that you do for fun or as a joke: The boys didn't mean any harm—they just did it for a lark.
・Collins Dictionary: If you say that doing something is a lark, you mean that it is fun, although perhaps naughty or dangerous.: He'd made it seem rather a lark, to be visiting a supposedly haunted house.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: an activity done for a joke that is not intended to cause serious harm or damage: The kids hid their teacher's bike for a lark.

ヒバリが空高く鳴くのは楽しいからでしょうか？　そう思う事にします。