Hi there this is Sam recording from a much cooler Orange County than normal. We've had a few days of

cloud and rain which is weird but good because it reminds me of England so

super nice anyway let's get started by going over the words from episode 38. Those were abstain. That means to stop

yourself or restrain yourself from doing or enjoying something,

such as abstaining from eating chocolate

or abstaining from drinking alcohol.

Harang, that means a lengthy and aggressive speech could also be a tirade or polemic.

It can also mean the verb harangue to lecture at someone in an

aggressive or critical manner. Sporadic. Sporadic, that means occurring at irregular intervals or in a few places, it can also mean

scattered or isolate it.

And our final word was caustic.

Caustic.

That means able to burn or corrode organic tissue by chemical action.

It can also mean to be sarcastic in a scathing or cutting way.

Those were our words from last week.

Now let's move swiftly on to our new words. And the first word for episode 39 is empirical. Empirical.

That's spelled E. M. P. E. R. I. R. I. E-M-P-E-R-I-I-R-I-E-C-A-A-C-A-L, Cal, empirical, and if something is empirical, it means that it's based on or concerned with

observation and experience rather than just a theory. So if you're carrying out an experiment and you do your experiment and you get some data or observations from the experiment.

And then you use that data to predict something happening in the future.

You are making that prediction in an empirical way.

You are using your evidence and data to predict what's going to happen. Some synonyms of empirical are experiential, practical, heuristic, first hand, and hands on. So what empirical means really is you have some

sort of concrete evidence of how something is going to happen or how something will behave

...