Tuesday, 24 December 2013

He was banned from preaching because of his inflammatory sermons.

inflammatory
arousing to action or rebellion; provocative
inflammatory remarks/comments

antonym: conciliatory

Monday, 23 December 2013

Corrupt employees to get the sack

the sack
dismissal from a job
He  got the sack  for swearing.
Her work was so poor that she was  given the sack.
Four hundred workers face the sack.

Sunday, 22 December 2013



The government’s policy of dialogue with militants is both theoretically and in practice riddled with holes.

be riddled with sth
to be full of sth, especially sth bad or unpleasant
His body was riddled with cancer.
Her typing was slow and riddled with mistakes.
The woods are riddled with rabbit holes.

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

1. The Prophet said: I take refuge with the light of Your face that repairs the troubles of this world and the hereafter.

repair
set right; put right

2. The Prophet said: All power and strength stem from You.

stem
grow out of; originate in

3. His people were even more antagonistic to him and his religion than before.

agnostic
hostile

Tuesday, 22 October 2013


Sharif calls on Obama

Fourteen years after his last Oval Office visit, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is poised to meet this Wednesday with U.S. President Barack Obama. In between, Sharif was deposed in a 1999 coup and then endured nearly a decade in the political wilderness. His arrival this week in Washington marks another moment of triumph for one of South Asia’s political heavyweights.   

word
meaning
usage
poised
completely ready for sth
The British team is poised to win the title.
endure
experience hardship; bear
The pain was almost too great to endure.
heavyweight
a very important person
a political heavyweight.
  a heavyweight journal

(Time 22 October 2013)

Friday, 18 October 2013

Karzai Is Planning To Be There For A Successor
With less than a year left in his final term, President Hamid Karzai insists that he is eager to leave the presidential palace and lead a quieter life. It turns out, though, he may just be moving next door, to a lavish new home yards from the complex that has been the seat of his power for more than a decade.

According to Afghan officials, Mr. Karzai’s new home will be an old, European-style mansion that, once renovations are done, will be roughly 13,000 square feet.

words
meanings
usage
lavish
luxurious; large in quantity and expensive
They lived a very lavish lifestyle.
complex
a group of buildings of a similar type
a sports complex
mansion
a large impressive house
an 18th century country mansion
renovation
repair; reconstruction
buildings in need of renovation

(The New York Times 5 October 2013)


Saturday, 5 October 2013

Alarming picture: Capital flight

The governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, Yasin Anwar, is perhaps the first senior official to concede that capital is being moved out of the country in very large sums, and also to quantify it. In his testimony before senators on Tuesday, Mr Anwar said $25m were being ‘smuggled’ out of the country in briefcases every day from four major airports — Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Quetta. He did not say how the bank had worked out the size of the illegal capital outflows and since when this practice had been going on — and these gaps in information have left some economists puzzled. However, even if half this staggering amount is going out of the country each day, it would confirm how porous our custom checkpoints have become, not least because of corruption and weak controls.

words
meanings
usage
concede

admit; acknowledge
antonym: deny
He was not prepared to concede that he had acted illegally.
I had to concede that I’d overreacted.
quantify
determine the number of; tell
antonym: guess
The risks to health are impossible to quantify.
It's difficult to quantify how many people will be affected by the change.
work out
calculate; find out by calculation
to work out an answer.
to work out a sum
outflow
flowing out
antonym: inflow
Capital outflow took place on a very large scale.
The central bank has announced controls on capital outflows.
porous
having many small holes; penetrable
antonym: impenetrable
porous brick walls. porous material/rocks

(Dawn 03 October 2013)

Topic: History of Coffee Exercise 1 Fill in the blanks using the following expressions. Some words will not be used. 1. get caffeinated 2. m...