Make Your Point > Archived Issues > CALIBRATE
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Don't you love this word, calibrate? It's got a cool steampunk feel sometimes. I'll show you:
(Source)
In Medieval Latin, the phrase qua libra means "of what weight." It may have given us our word "caliber," which means "the particular diameter of a bullet, a cannonball, a gun, or the inside of a tube; or more figuratively, some item or person's particular level of skill or quality."
Part of speech:
If you say you're "tweaking" or "fiddling with" something, you don't sound dignified. But if you're "calibrating," you do sound dignified! And you sound like you're in charge, and perfectly capable.
"It is instructive to examine one or two cases from our past, if only to calibrate our expectations."
Explain the meaning of "calibrate" without saying "adjust" or "fine-tune."
In John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, the teenage narrator Hazel feels awkward as she meets the parents of her new boyfriend, Augustus:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
1.
In its general, figurative sense, CALIBRATED is the opposite of
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. |