Synonym Circuit Expert Solution #258 - Nov 20 2024

Hello and welcome back to another Synonym Circuit Solution Explained article. In this series we'll be revealing solutions to the Expert Puzzles, talking about the definitions that make up those solutions, and occasionally digging into interesting language facts and linguistic concepts.

Expert Puzzle #258 enrapture > repulse

Today's Expert Puzzle was solved by Agad in 5 links, which is the Global Record at the time of this writing. This player chose to start with enrapture's secondary definition "to fill with overwhelming emotion", and to first select rap, which has a verb form with the same meaning, as in "attendees were utterly rapped by the singer's performance."

Upon selecting rap, we see many synonyms, since Merriam-Webster lists 10 different definitions for this word. Our player chose backchat from the list, which shares the meaning "friendly, informal conversation" with rap. Merriam-Webster's example sentence for this meaning is "after our pickup softball game, I had a friendly rap with a couple guys in the park." Backchat means both friendly, informal "chat" and also "disrespectful or argumentative talk given in response to a command or request." From its list of synonyms, impudence will bring us directly to a meaning of disrespect.

Disrespect is a helpful circuit link, because it gives us the opportunity to pivot from nouns to verbs, and our goal word repulse is indeed a verb. Moreover, we've got a number of verbs in our list of synonyms that are negative in nature. So the puzzle has become finding which one will bring us closest to repulse. To disrespect someone is to insult them. To repulse someone is to dismiss or disgust someone. With that in mind, snub stands out from the list of synonyms for disrespect, because it makes me think of dismissing or rejecting someone.

When we select snub, we win! It turns out snub and repulse are synonyms as two meanings - as nouns and also as verbs. "She tolerated the snubs from the waiter, who was known around town for rude repulses of polite requests (nouns). However, the food repulsed the group, who felt snubbed after seeing what the table next to them received (verbs)!"

Once again, I don't think I could have solved this one as efficiently as our Global Record Holder did. Kudos to Agad for the best solution of the day!

Solution (by Agad): enrapture > rap > backchat > impudence > disrespect > snub > repulse

Thanks for reading and thanks for playing!