CSS Prepare

compulsory · CSS study notes

Bucket 9 — Stability, Tradition & Rules

🏛️

Best for: Sociology, Constitutional Law, Gender Studies. 7 words (1 repeat).

1. CANONICAL (adj.)

  • Urdu: مستند، تسلیم شدہ، ضابطے کے مطابق
  • Meaning: accepted as authoritative or standard; according to recognised rules
  • Syn: authoritative, standard, accepted, orthodox · Ant: unorthodox, apocryphal, unofficial, heretical
  • ✍️ Use: Ghalib and Iqbal occupy canonical positions in Urdu literature.
  • 🧠 Hook: a canon is the official list of accepted works, the ones everyone must read.

2. MORES (n., plural)

  • Urdu: رسم و رواج، معاشرتی اقدار
  • Meaning: the essential customs and moral conventions of a community
  • Syn: customs, conventions, norms, traditions · Ant: anomalies, deviations, lawlessness
  • ✍️ Use: Urbanisation is steadily reshaping the social mores of Pakistan's middle class.
  • 🧠 Hook: pronounced MOR-ayz; the root of mor-al: a society's moral customs.

3. ORTHODOX (adj.)

  • Urdu: روایت پسند، قدامت پسند، راسخ العقیدہ
  • Meaning: following traditional or generally accepted beliefs
  • Syn: conventional, traditional, conservative, mainstream · Ant: unorthodox, heterodox, radical, unconventional
  • ✍️ Use: Orthodox economic advice prescribes austerity, but it rarely wins elections.
  • 🧠 Hook: ortho (straight, as in orthodontist) + dox (opinion) → straight (accepted) opinion.

4. SACROSANCT (adj.)

  • Urdu: مقدس، ناقابلِ تنقید، ناقابلِ تبدیل
  • Meaning: regarded as too important or sacred to be changed or criticised
  • Syn: sacred, inviolable, untouchable, hallowed · Ant: profane, unprotected, open to challenge
  • ✍️ Use: No budget line, including defence, should be treated as sacrosanct in a fiscal crisis.
  • 🧠 Hook: sacro (sacred) + sanct (holy, as in sanctuary) → doubly holy.

5. STASIS (n.) 🔁

  • Urdu: جمود، ٹھہراؤ، بے حرکتی
  • Meaning: a state of inactivity or equilibrium in which little or no change or progress occurs
  • Syn: stagnation, standstill, inertia, immobility · Ant: change, movement, dynamism, progress
  • ✍️ Use: Political deadlock prolonged the legislative stasis and delayed urgently needed reforms.
  • 🧠 Hook: sta- means stand, as in static and stationary → stasis is a situation that stands still. Trap: it can mean stable equilibrium in medicine, not always harmful stagnation. Full entry → Bucket 4.

6. STATIC (adj.)

  • Urdu: ساکن، جامد، غیر متحرک
  • Meaning: lacking movement, action or change
  • Syn: stationary, fixed, unchanging, stagnant · Ant: dynamic, changing, mobile, fluid
  • ✍️ Use: Real wages have remained static for a decade while prices doubled.
  • 🧠 Hook: sta = stand → it just stands there.

7. STATUS QUO (n.)

  • Urdu: موجودہ صورتحال، جوں کی توں حالت
  • Meaning: the existing state of affairs, especially in social or political matters
  • Syn: existing order, current situation, establishment · Ant: change, reform, revolution
  • ✍️ Use: Powerful lobbies resist land reform to preserve the feudal status quo.
  • 🧠 Hook: Latin, "the state in which" → things as they are now.