Essential Vocabulary for Military and Social Contexts

Professional and Military Terminology

• Personnel Officer: A worker responsible for recruiting employees and dealing with matters relating to them.
• Aboard: On or onto a ship, aircraft, bus, or train.
• USS Ranger: The third of four Forrestal-class supercarriers built for the United States Navy in the 1950s.
• Discharge: Official permission to leave the armed forces, a prison, or a hospital.
• Reassignment: The act of giving someone a different job or position.
• Paperwork: The written records connected with a particular job, deal, or journey.
• To discharge somebody for something: To be officially allowed or forced to leave an institution such as a hospital, a prison, or the army.

Social and Personal Definitions

• Elder: An older person, especially one with a respected position in society.
• Reverend: A title for a priest of the Christian Church.
• In the closet: Used to refer to a belief, activity, or feeling that is kept secret from the public, usually because of fear of the consequences.
• To come out: To tell people that you are gay, often after having kept this secret for some time.
• Proverbial: Well-known.
• Closeted: A gay man or woman who keeps the fact that he or she is gay secret from most people.
• Alongside: Next to, or together with.
• Advocacy: Public support for an idea, plan, or way of doing something.
• To reach out: To try to communicate with a person or a group of people, usually to help or involve them.
• To feel trapped: To be forced or tricked into doing something that you do not want to do.
• Sissy: (Of a boy) weak and not brave, or interested in activities girls usually like.
• Queer: Not fitting traditional ideas about gender or sexuality.
• Brothel: A place where men go and pay to have sex with prostitutes.
• To harass somebody: To repeatedly annoy or upset someone over a period of time.
• Innuendo: A remark or remarks that suggest something sexual or unpleasant without referring to it directly.
• To infuriate: To make someone extremely angry.

Modern Technology

• Augmented Reality: Images produced by a computer and used together with a view of the real world.