(1) An important point in a process or activity. (2) A place where things join: junction.

The meaning of *juncture* can be entirely physical; thus, you can speak of the juncture of the turnpike and Route 116, or the juncture of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. But it more often means something nonphysical. This may be a moment in time, especially a moment when important events are “crossing” (“At this critical juncture, the President called together his top security advisers”). But *juncture* also often refers to the coming together of two or more ideas, systems, styles, or fields (“These churches seem to operate at the juncture of religion and patriotism,” “Her job is at the juncture of product design and marketing,” etc.).

Something joined or added to another thing of which it is not a part.

With its prefix, *ad-,* meaning “to or toward,” *adjunct* implies that one thing is “joined to” another. A car wash may be operated as an adjunct to a gas station. An *adjunct* professor is one who's attached to the college without being a full member of the salaried faculty. And anyone trying to expand his or her vocabulary will find that daily reading of a newspaper is a worthwhile adjunct to actual vocabulary study.

A break, separation, or sharp difference between two things.

A disjunction may be a mere lack of connection between two things, or a large gulf. There's often a huge disjunction between what people expect from computers and what they know about them, and the disjunction between a star's public image and her actual character may be just as big. We may speak of the disjunction between science and morality, between doing and telling, or between knowing and explaining. In recent years, *disjunction* seem to have been losing out to a newer synonym, the noun *disconnect*.

Bound together; joined, united.

With its prefix *con-*, meaning “with, together,” *conjunct* means basically “joined together.” A rather intellectual word, it has special meanings in music (referring to a smooth melodic line that doesn't skip up or down) and astronomy (referring to two stars or planets that appear next to each other), but its more general “bound together” meaning is rarer. A *conjunction* is a word (particularly *and, or,* or *but*) that joins together words or groups of words, and an adverb that joins two clauses or sentences (such as *so, however, meanwhile, therefore,* or *also*) is called a *conjunctive adverb*—or simply a *conjunct*.

(1) Being in two parts. (2) Shared by two.

Usually a technical word, *bipartite* is common in medicine and biology. A bipartite patella, for example, is a split kneecap; many people are born with them. Many creatures have a bipartite life cycle, living life in two very distinct forms. As one example, the velella begins life as a creature that travels with thousands of others in the form of a kind of sailboat, blown across the ocean's surface with the wind; only later does each velella turn into a tiny jellyfish.

Fair and not biased; treating or affecting all equally.

To be “partial to” or “partial toward” someone or something is to be somewhat biased or prejudiced, which means that a person who is partial really only sees part of the whole picture. To be impartial is the opposite. The United Nations sends impartial observers to monitor elections in troubled countries. We hope judges and juries will be impartial when they hand down verdicts. But grandparents aren't expected to be impartial when describing their new grandchild.

A word that is formed from a verb but used like an adjective.

English verbs can take several basic forms, which we call their *principal parts*: the infinitive (“to move,” “to speak,” etc.), the past tense (“moved,” “spoke”), the past participle (“moved,” “spoken”), and the present participle (“moving,” “speaking”). The participles are words that “take part” in two different word classes: that is, verb forms that can also act like adjectives (“the spoken word,” “a moving experience”). A grammatical error called a *dangling participle* occurs when a sentence begins with a participle that doesn't modify the subject; in the sentence “Climbing the mountain, the cabin came in view,” for example, “climbing” is a dangling participle since it doesn't modify “cabin.”

(1) A person who is strongly devoted to a particular cause or group. (2) A guerrilla fighter.

A partisan is someone who supports one *part* or *party.* Sometimes the support takes the form of military action, as when guerrilla fighters take on government forces. But *partisan* is actually most often used as an adjective, usually referring to support of a political party. so if you're accused of being too partisan, or of practicing partisan politics, it means you're mainly interested in boosting your own party and attacking the other one.