Don’t go straight to the review now-let your working memory empty out first. Spend at least 20 seconds occupying your mind with the game below. Barnett's voice grows tremulous as she recounts her mother's decline into Alzheimer's. You’ll know you understand what 'tremulous' means when you can explain it without saying 'wobbly' or 'quivering.' try it out:įill in the blanks: '(Someone's) voice grows tremulous as _. Look away from the screen to explain the definition in your own words. When a surge of tremulous energy suddenly gave way to exhaustion, I knew I'd finally discovered how much Diet Coke is too much Diet Coke. Her nana had just flown back to the mainland and missed it: Taylor standing up, then taking her first few tremulous steps. Tenuous things are shaky because they're thin and insubstantial, not because they're nervous or fearful. But in those cases, you might be better off picking the word tenuous instead. Or, talk about tremulous support, or a tremulous juncture, balance, combination, relationship, connection, understanding, state or stage, and so on. You can even say that an emotion itself is tremulous: tremulous fear, tremulous anxiety, tremulous enthusiasm, tremulous energy.Īnd get even more abstract by talking about tremulous qualities (like tremulous beauty, delicacy, or poignancy). You can also say someone is tremulous with some emotion: he's tremulous with anxiety, she's tremulous with excitement.

Talk about tremulous people (or tremulous animals) and their tremulous hands, handwriting, drawings, steps, voices, moods, speeches, performances, etc. When you want a sophisticated, delicate little alternative to 'shaky' and 'trembling,' pick 'tremulous.' There's also a verb, but it's rare: tremulate, tremulated, tremulating, tremulation. After a linking verb, as in 'It was tremulous' or 'He was tremulous.') Right before a noun, as in 'a tremulous thing' or 'a tremulous person.'Ģ. (Adjectives are describing words, like 'large' or 'late.'ġ. Tremulous people and things are shaky (usually because of fear, weakness, or nervousness). If you're timorous, you may or may not actually be shaking, but you are definitely experiencing one specific emotion-what is it? make your point with. But tremulous is more general timorous, more specific. Tremulous is a synonym of a word we've checked out before: timorous. Tremulous shares a root with tremble, tremor, and even tremendous, which literally means 'causing trembling.' If you're tremulous, you're shaking with physical weakness or with some strong emotion, like fear, nervousness, or excitement.

Tremulous game 2018