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308 Cards in this Set
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ABJURE
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ABJURE (ab JUR) v to renounce or reject solemnly; to recant; to avoid
• The reformed socialite abjured her former lifestyle and all those with whom she had previously associated. • Steve had to abjure all indulgence when he entered the training camp. For a related word, see recant. |
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ABSCISSION
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ABSCISSION (ab SI zhun) n act of cutting off or removing
• Dr. Carter recommended an immediate abscission of the abscess in order to minimize any further infection. Abscise means to cut off or remove. • When she called for the resignation of key legislators, the congresswoman claimed that it was the only way to abscise the corruption before it spread. Abscission can also mean the actual cut itself. |
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ACERBIC
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ACERBIC (uh SUHR bik) adj having a sour or bitter taste or character
• Dorothy Parker was famous for her wit, which could be quite acerbic; Parker could be devastating when she wanted to be. • I like my lemonade with very little sugar in it; the acerbic tang is refreshing when the weather's warm. |
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ADUMBRATE
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ADUMBRATE (a DUM brayt) v to foreshadow vaguely, intimate, suggest, or outline sketchily
• The possibilities for further cooperation between the two parties were adumbrated at the first, private meeting, but nothing was finalized until much later. • The first volume of the trilogy only adumbrates the basics of the story that will be developed in the next two books. |
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ALLOY
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ALLOY (uh LOY) v to commingle; to debase by mixing with something inferior
• Alloying the punch with prune juice turned out not to be such a good idea after all. • Alloy can also be a noun, in which case it is the mixture itself, as in an alloy between sitcom and game show. Unalloyed means pure. • The reviewer described the movie as an unalloyed pleasure, saying it was the first film in years in which every single minute was worth watching. |
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ANODYNE
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ANODYNE (AN uh dyn) adj soothing
• Don't you agree that nothing is quite so anodyne as a long soak in a bubble bath? • I've also found that its anodyne effect can be enhanced by some good music and a glass of wine. Anodyne can also be a noun, spelled the same way, and meaning something that assuages or allays pain, or comforts. • After such a hectic week, Casey very much looked forward to the anodyne of a relaxing weekend of camping at the lake. For words with similar meanings, see emollient and mollify. |
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APOGEE
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APOGEE (A poh jee) n farthest or highest point; culmination; zenith
• No one could have foreseen that receiving the Pulitzer Prize at the age of eighteen would be the apogee of his career, and that nothing he produced afterward would achieve any kind of critical success. Perigee is the lowest or closest point, or the nadir. • The moon is at apogee when it is at its farthest point away from the earth in its orbit; it is at perigee is when it is closest to earth. For a related word, see nadir in this book. |
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APOTHEOSIS
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APOTHEOSIS (uh pah thee 0 sis) n deification, glorification to godliness, the perfect example
• The apotheosis of technology in modem society seems to be reaching new highs; computers and gadgets are practically worshipped by consumers. • She is the apotheosis of nurturing motherhood; she makes soup for sick friends, nurses wounded birds, and listens to everyone's problems. |
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APPOSITE
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APPOSITE (A pah zit) ad] appropriate, pertinent, relevant, apropos
• His choice of songs for the opening ceremony was entirely apposite; everyone agreed that it was perfectly suited to the event. • The fact that she hasn't called for two weeks is hardly apposite to whether she's going to call me today, since she hadn't read my amazing love poem before. |
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APPROBATION
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APPROBATION (a pruh BAY shun) n an expression of approval or praise
• Providing approbation for good behavior is the best way to train puppies; the praise is particularly effective when accompanied by treats. • The judges expressed their approbation of Stephen's performance by awarding him the gold medal. To approbate is to approve something officially. |
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ARABESQUE
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ARABESQUE (ar uh BESK) n complex, ornate design
• A beautiful arabesque of fruits and flowers surrounded the central pattern of the print. An arabesque is also a position in ballet, and is sometimes used metaphorically in this sense. • Her assistants performed an arabesque of practiced efficiency around her as she prepared for the press conference. |
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ARCANE
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ARCANE (ar KAYN) adj mysterious, abstruse, esoteric, knowable only to initiates
• Elizabeth was a font of arcane knowledge; she could tell you not only the names of the pets of every cabinet member of every administration, but also how many gumballs are produced annually. • Knowledge of the arcane secrets of any bureaucracy is always restricted to those who work within it. They're the only ones who know how to fill out the forms, too. Arcana are deep secrets. The singular is arcanum, but it's almost always used in the plural. |
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ARRANT
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ARRANT (AR unt) adj impudent; in every way, being completely such, bare-faced, utter
• Don Juan's arrant philandering made him a legend. He seemed to have had the ability to turn many of his admirers into arrant fools. Don't confuse this with errant, which means itinerant. |
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ARTLESS
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ARTLESS (ART luhs) adj completely without guile; natural, without artificiality
• Her artless portrayal of the young ingenue charmed the critics, who all commented on her fresh, unaffected performance. The opposite of artless is artful. • The Artful Dodger was a cunning pickpocket in Dickens's Oliver Twist. Artful can also mean showing art or skill, and artless can mean without skill, but the definitions above are the ones more likely to be tested on the GRE. |
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ASPERITY
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ASPERITY (uh SPER uh tee) n severity, rigor; roughness, harshness; acrimony, irritability
• The asperity of her response to his pleas for leniency suggested that there was no chance she would be ending his detention any time in the next three months. • The asperity of a northern winter can lead to serious depression. |
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ASTRINGENT
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ASTRINGENT (uh STRIN junt) adj having a tightening effect on living tissue; harsh; severe
• Although she hadn't intended to be quite so harsh, Kayla's astringent remarks apparently made the board drop the proposal altogether. • Witch hazel is a mild astringent that is sometimes applied to the face. |
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ATTENUATE
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ATTENUATE (uh TEN yoo ayt) v to rarefy, weaken or make thinner, lessen
• Copper's highly ductile nature allows it to be attenuated to a thin filament without breaking, and makes it a useful material for wiring. • The atmosphere at the top of Mt. Everest is so attenuated that climbers must carry oxygen with them in order to breathe for any length of time. • The endless discussion attenuated the point until everyone lost interest in it. For a related word, see rarefy. |
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AUGURY
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AUGURY (aw GYUH ree) n omen, portent, the reading of omens
• Augury in ancient Rome and other societies was performed largely by interpreting the flight of birds. • His first attempts at glassblowing gave little augury of the skill he would later develop with practice. Augur means to predict if it is used as a verb, and the person or thing doing the foretelling if it's used as a noun. • The flowers my girlfriend sent augur well for the weekend. |
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AUGUST
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AUGUST (aw GUST) adj majestic, venerable
• The august presence of the pharaohs endures through the millennia, embodied in their massive tombs. • Despite his simple dress and advanced years, the august politician managed to convey a sense of dignity and subtle power. |
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AUSPICE
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AUSPICE (AW spis) n protection or support, patronage
• As long as we were working under the auspices of the local authorities, the villagers were extremely cooperative; once we headed out on our own, however, we found that no one wanted to talk to us. Auspice can also mean sign or portent. • Since the auspices seemed good, we decided to go ahead and buy thirty lottery tickets. |
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AVER
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AVER (uh VUR) v to state as a fact; to confirm or support
• When the suspect solemnly averred that he had been on another planet when the burglary occurred, the investigators didn't know whether he meant it literally or figuratively, but they could tell he meant it. • Although Michelle averred that she would never be late again, her friends remained understandably skeptical. |
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BALEFUL
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BALEFUL (BAYL ful) adj sinister, pernicious, ominous
• The basilisk is a notoriously cranky, albeit mythical, creature whose baleful glare is fatal. Looks, glances, and glares are more often baleful than anything else is, but other things can be baleful too. • A sort of baleful miasma lingered in the room after the infamous Sir Evildoer departed in a swirl of black and red cape. |
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BEATIFY
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BEATIFY (bee AT uh fy) v to bless, make happy, or ascribe a virtue to; to regard as saintly
• She was described in such a glowing way; every single quality she possessed was beatified. Beatitude is a state of bliss, and beatific means having a blissful appearance. • His beatific smile could only mean that he had just eaten some exceptionally good sushi. Be careful not to confuse this with beautify, which means to make beautiful. |
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BEDIZEN
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BEDIZEN (bi DY zun) v to adorn, especially in a cheap, showy manner; festoon, caparison
• The speakeasy was bedizened with every manner of tawdry decoration. • Sophie the cow came wandering home after the festival, bedizened with a wreath of flowers over each horn and somewhat the worse for wear. |
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BLANDISH
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BLANDISH (BLAND ish) v to coax with flattery, toady or fawn
• The minister was famous for his ability to blandish his way from obscurity to vicarious power; it seemed as if every ruler was receptive to bootlicking. Blandishment is flattery intended to cajole or coax. • Blandishment plus a really big present might convince me to forgive you. Be careful not to confuse this with brandish, which means to shake or wave menacingly. |
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BOMBASTIC
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BOMBASTIC (bahm BAS tik) ad] pompous; grandiloquent
• The self-important leader's speech was so bombastic that even his most loyal followers were rolling their eyes, and no one else could even figure out what he was talking about. Bombast is self-important or pompous writing or speech. • His books were always so filled with bombast that they were almost impossible to read; it sounded as if he had swallowed a thesaurus whole. |
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BUCOLIC
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BUCOLIC (byoo KAH lik) adj rustic and pastoral; characteristic of rural areas and their inhabitants
• Pastoral poetry tends to depict bucolic wonderlands of shepherds tending their flocks in verdant meadows, but poets always leave out the part about getting up at five o'clock in the morning to take those flocks out to graze. • Their plans for a life of bucolic tranquility were rudely shattered when they discovered the rolling fields pictured in the brochure for their new house were really part of a busy golf course. |
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BURNISH
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BURNISH (BUR nish) v to polish, rub to a shine
• Be careful about burnishing certain old lamps; you never know which one is going to have a genie in it, and history shows that those three wishes lead to no good. • Attempts to burnish the former council member's image were useless; he would forever be remembered as the one whose toupee was stolen by a bird during the Fourth of July parade. |
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CADGE
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CADGE (kaj) v to sponge, beg, or mooch
• He was always cadging change from me, which added up to a lot of money over time, so eventually I presented him with a loan statement and started charging interest. |
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CARET
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CARET (KAR ut) n an insertion mark (A) used by editors and proofreaders
• The manuscript was littered with carets indicating all the missing letters the proofreaders had found. |
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CHICANERY
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CHICANERY (shi KAYN uh ree) n trickery or subterfuge
• Bernard's reputation for legal chicanery made judges and prosecutors distrust him, but his clients had a hard time seeing past his successes. • I refuse to let such chicanery go unpunished! |
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CHIMERA
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CHIMERA (kye MEER uh) n an illusion
The chimera was originally an imaginary fire-breathing she-monster in Greek mythology. Its body was an amalgam of different animals, and sighting it was a bad omen. In today's speech, though, none of these bad connotations remain. • Walter Mitty's life was a series of chimeras; the fantastic daydreams in which he starred were completely real to him. Chimerical means illusory or improbable. • The fantastic successes of some internet start-ups turned out to be chimerical once the tech boom ended. |
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CHOLERIC
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CHOLERIC (KAHL er ik) adj tending toward anger
• Choleric by nature, the boxer had no trouble mentally preparing to face his opponent. According to Aristotle, choleric personalities were supposed to be caused by too much stomach bile. This book contains vocabulary words based on three other personality types that he identified based on bodily fluids... can you find the rest? |
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CHURLISH
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CHURLISH (CHUB lish) adj boorish, vulgar, loutish; difficult and intractable
• Underneath Mr. Oleander's churlish exterior, there's a nice guy hiding somewhere; it's just hard to tell because he is so rude most of the time. A churl is someone who is churlish. • Since everyone knew that Brad became a churl whenever he'd had too much to drink, they were just waiting for him to start saying inappropriate things and getting into fights at the party. |
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CODA
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CODA (KO duh) n concluding section to a musical or literary piece, something that concludes or completes
• The presentation of the lifetime achievement award was a fitting coda both to the evening and to his years of work with the organization. |
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CONSEQUENTIAL
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CONSEQUENTIAL (kahn suh KWEN shut) ad] pompous, self-important
Be careful; this is one of those words with multiple definitions. The primary definitions are: logically following; important, but on the GRE it is more likely to be used as we've defined it here. • Although he thought himself a respected and well-liked man, his consequential air was intensely annoying to those around him. He seemed to think he was the best thing since sliced bread. |
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CONTEMN
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CONTEMN (kun TEM) v to scorn or despise
• I contemn their attempts to curry favor; nothing is more contemptible than a sycophant. Be careful not to confuse this with condemn, which seems very similar, but means to pronounce judgment against. |
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CONVOLUTED
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CONVOLUTED (KAHN vuh loo ted) adj complex or complicated
• Cynthia's convoluted response to the question made her listeners think she was concealing something; it was as if she hoped they would forget the question as they tried to follow her answer. • I do not know by what convoluted reasoning you arrived at the idea that you should have three weeks extra vacation, but I can't argue with the conclusion! |
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CORRIGIBLE
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CORRIGIBLE (KOR uh juh bul) adj capable of being set right, correctable, reparable
• Stuttering is often a highly corrigible speech impediment, which can be corrected through speech therapy. • The trend away from rehabilitative programming in prisons may indicate a decrease in the public's belief that inmates are corrigible. Corrigibility, a noun, is the capacity to be set right. • The corrigibility of the damage to the train could only be determined after extensive inspection and testing. The opposite of corrigible is incorrigible, meaning not reformable, uncontrollable, recalcitrant. • Julius was an incorrigible daydreamer; no matter how much his teachers scolded him, he would much rather be hanging out in his own imaginary world than paying attention to his lesson. |
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COZEN
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COZEN (KUH zun) v to deceive, beguile, hoodwink
• The corrupt televangelist cozened millions of dollars out of his viewers by convincing them that he would perform miracles to make them all win the lottery. For a related word, see guile. |
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CRAVEN
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CRAVEN (KRAY vun) adj contemptibly fainthearted, pusillanimous, lacking any courage
• His craven cowardice in refusing to admit his mistake meant that a completely innocent person was punished. • Steve lived in craven fear of being found out as a fraud. |
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DEMUR
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DEMUR (di MUR) v to question or oppose
• I hesitated to demur from the professor, until he said something factually inaccurate, at which point I felt I had to speak up. • Bob demurred at the suggestion that he clean the house while we swim. |
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DEPRECATE
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DEPRECATE (DE pri kayt) v to disparage or belittle
• You can deprecate his work all you want but it won't affect my opinion; I don't care if his writing is sometimes amateurish, I still like it. To be self-deprecating is to belittle yourself or your accomplishments. • We worried that his self-deprecating humor wasn't as light-hearted as it seemed, but was instead a sign of deeper insecurity. |
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DEPREDATE
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DEPREDATE (DE pruh dayt) v to plunder, pillage, ravage or destroy; to exploit in a predatory manner
• The pirates depredated every ship that came through the straits for two years, until no captain was willing to risk that route and the port town became deserted. Depredations are attacks, or ravages. • Ten years of the dictator's depredations had left the country a wasteland. • The depredations of time and hard living have left his once handsome face a mass of wrinkles and broken blood vessels. |
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DESUETUDE
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DESUETUDE (DES wi tood) n disuse
• After sitting abandoned for years, the house's desuetude came to an end when the county bought it and turned it into a teen center. |
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DESULTORY
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DESULTORY (DES ul tor ee) adj random; thoughtless; marked by a lack of plan or purpose
• His desultory efforts in studying for the test were immediately obvious to his teacher as soon as she began to score his exam. • We abandoned our desultory attempts to form a book club once our primary instigator gave up on us and joined another group. |
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DIAPHANOUS
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DIAPHANOUS (dy AF uh nus) adj transparent, gauzy
• Her diaphanous gown left little to the imagination. As we stood behind the waterfall, the cascade of water formed a sort of diaphanous veil in front of us. |
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DIE
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DIE (dye) n a tool used for shaping
• When coins are made by hand, a die is usually used to press the design on each coin |
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DIFFIDENT
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DIFFIDENT (DIF uh dint) adj reserved, shy, unassuming; lacking in self-confidence
• He was a diffident reader of his own poetry, and which sometimes kept his audience from recognizing the real power of his writing. The noun, diffidence, means a lack of confidence. • I began to suspect that her diffidence was merely an act, and that this seemingly meek woman was really plotting to take over not only the department, but also the entire world. |
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DILATORY
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DILATORY (OIL uh tor ee) adj causing delay, procrastinating
• The legislator was able to create the dilatory effect he sought by means of a twenty-three-hour-long filibuster. • His dilatory habits were a source of exasperation for his boss, who never knew whether something would be finished on time or not. |
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DILETTANTE
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DILETTANTE (OIL uh tahnt) n one with an amateurish or superficial interest in the arts or a branch of knowledge
• The negative connotation of a dilettante as one whose interest in a subject is trivial is relatively recent; it hasn't always been a bad thing to be a dilettante. • Dilettantes did much of the scientific work in early America; professional positions for scientists are largely a phenomenon of the twentieth century. A dilettantish effort or interest is one that is frivolous or superficial. This can also be spelled "dilettanteish." • Even though she didn't take it very seriously at the time, her dilettantish interest in the arts while in college laid the framework for a satisfying career as curator of a major art museum years later. |
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DIN
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DIN (din) n loud sustained noise
• Because we couldn't hear each other over the din coming from the kitchen, I thought she said she had met Sasqautch, when she had really asked whether I was wearing my watch. • The din of the faulty muffler drowned out all the other noises that would have confirmed the very poor odds of my car making it another five miles. For a related word, see cacophony. |
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DIRGE
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DIRGE (durj) n a mournful song or poem for the dead
• Because Grandma wanted no dirges sung at her funeral, we hired a singer to reinterpret some of her favorite popular music from her teen years. Dirge can also be used figuratively, to describe something that sounds like a funeral lament. • The only sound on the dark prairie was the dirge sung by the wolves. |
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DISCOMFIT
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DISCOMFIT (dis KUM fit) v to defeat, put down
Nowadays, discomfit also means to embarrass or make uncomfortable, but its original meaning is to thwart the plans of. • The enemy's superior planning and resources discomfited us. They defeated us easily, despite our hopes of discomfiting their attack. |
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DISINTERESTED
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DISINTERESTED (dis IN ter est ed) adj free from self-interest; unbiased
This one gets a little complicated. Disinterested and uninterested have a pretty convoluted history. Uninterested, when it first showed up in the seventeenth century, meant "impartial." At some point, though, that meaning was replaced in popular usage with its current meaning: "not caring or having an interest in," as in the sentence, "I am completely uninterested in attending the concert." At about the same time, the original use of disinterested to mean "not caring or having an interest in" was changing in favor of "free from bias." Confused yet? It gets worse. To recap: disinterested means "unbiased" and uninterested means "uncaring," right? However, increasingly writers are switching them back around. The people who police the proper usage of words in English say this isn't allowable, but the writers do it anyway. Usually you can tell from context which definition someone intends. • We need a disinterested party to arbitrate the property dispute, since each of the participants has too much at stake to remain unbiased. • Her disinterested assessment was that the food was terrible, which we had to believe since she had no reason to lie. |
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DISSEMBLE
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DISSEMBLE (di SEM bul) v to disguise or conceal; to mislead
• Her coy attempts to dissemble her plagiarism were completely transparent; no one believed her. • Dissembling on your grad school application is an absolute no-no. |
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DISTRAIT
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DISTRAIT (dis TRAY) v distracted; absent-minded, especially due to anxiety
• When he kept forgetting what he was talking about during dinner, it became clear that he was distrait, and was no doubt preoccupied with the meeting planned for the next day. Be careful not to confuse this with the somewhat similar distraught, which means extremely agitated with emotion. |
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DROSS
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DROSS (drahs) n slag, waste or foreign matter, impurity, surface scum
• We discarded the dross that had formed at the top of the cider during the fermentation process. • Howard has convinced himself that his poor memory is a consequence of all the unnecessary information his brain has accumulated over the years; that's why he is busy cataloguing all the dross, especially the obsolete telephone numbers and advertising jingles, that he plans to forget systematically in order to create space for more important information. |
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DULCET
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DULCET (DUL sut) adj melodious, harmonious, mellifluous
• The dulcet tones of the dulcimer were exquisite and made the performance particularly memorable. • The fact that I thought her voice a dulcet wonder shows you how infatuated I was; most people thought she sounded like a sick moose. |
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DYNAMO
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DYNAMO (DY nuh moh) n generator; forceful, energetic person
The technical definition of a dynamo is a generator of current, which gives rise to the metaphorical use for describing a person as forceful or energetic. • Courtney was truly the dynamo of the group; without her we'd probably still be sitting on the couch instead of being three days into our road trip. It's no accident if this word reminds you of dynamite or dynamic; all three words have roots in the Greek word for power. |
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EBULLIENCE
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EBULLIENCE (ih BOOL yunts) adj the quality of lively or enthusiastic expression of thoughts and feelings
• Vivian's ebullience was contagious, which is what made her such a great tour guide; her infectious enthusiasm for her subject always communicated itself to her listeners. • Allen's love of birds was clear from the ebullience with which he described them. |
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ECLECTIC
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ECLECTIC (ek LEK tik) adj composed of elements drawn from various sources
• It was easy to get a sense of Alison's eclectic taste from looking at her music collection, which contained everything from Mahler to Metallica. • The house's eclectic architectural style somehow managed to combine elements of seemingly incongruous periods into one cohesive design. |
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EFFRONTERY
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EFFRONTERY (i FRUNT uh ree) n extreme boldness; presumptuousness
• The effrontery of her demand astonished everyone; no one had ever dared ask the head of the department to explain his reasoning before. • Gary's effrontery in inviting himself to the party said a lot about his inflated sense of himself as well as his lack of sense about how others saw him. • Teresa couldn't believe her boss's effrontery in asking her to start a new project at eight o'clock on a Friday night. |
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ELEGY
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ELEGY (EL uh jee) n a mournful poem, especially one lamenting the dead; any mournful writing or piece of music
• His elegy for the long-lost carefree days of his youth was moving, if somewhat cliched. • It seemed a little silly for him to compose an elegy for his pet tadpole, especially since it hadn't died, even if now it was a frog instead of the tadpole he once loved. It's very easy to confuse elegy with eulogy, which is also in this book, but the two aren't exactly the same. |
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ENCOMIUM
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ENCOMIUM (en KOH mee um) n glowing and enthusiastic praise; panegyric, tribute, eulogy
• The recently released tribute album was created as an encomium to the singer many considered the grandfather of soul music. • The encomiums swelled to a torrent as details of the philanthropist's billion-dollar donation became known; each newspaper tried to outdo the others in praising her. |
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ENERVATE
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ENERVATE (EN ur vayt) v to weaken; to reduce in vitality
• We were so enervated by the heat and humidity that we didn't even have the energy to turn on the fan. • Having braved the malls on the day after Thanksgiving, we were so enervated by the time we got home that we didn't even make it all the way into the house; we had to take a nap on the front steps first. • Enervation is a common symptom of anemia. Be careful! Enervate is extremely easy to confuse with innervate, which is also in this book. Although their spellings are similar, their meanings and pronunciations are very different. See innervate for more information. |
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ENNUI
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ENNUI (ahn WEE) n dissatisfaction and restlessness resulting from boredom or apathy
• The end-of-summer ennui had set in, making Hannah and Jeremy almost look forward to the distraction of going back to school... almost. • Serena's claim that a rousing game of Go Fish would cure us of our ennui left us somewhat skeptical. |
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ENORMITY
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ENORMITY (i NOR mi tee) n excessive wickedness, evilness
Be very careful not to confuse this with enormousness. Enormousness means huge size; enormity does not. Thus, if we talk about the enormity of a crime we are never talking about its size; we're talking about its wickedness. • The enormity of the terrorist act stunned and outraged the world. |
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EPICURE
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EPICURE (EP i kyur) n one devoted to sensual pleasure, particularly in food and drink; gourmand, sybarite
• After watching too many cooking shows, Larry became such an epicure that he lost his ability to appreciate the gustatory pleasures of a frozen pizza. Epicurean means appropriate to an epicure's tastes. • The exotic epicurean pleasures provided at the five star restaurant made it very popular despite its exorbitant prices. • Because of the high levels of humidity in the region, equable temperatures are maintained almost year-round. |
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ERRANT
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ERRANT (ER unt) ad] traveling, itinerant, peripatetic
• A knight-errant was a guy in armor who wandered around looking for adventures to prove his general studliness. • Travels with Charley is Steinbeck's account of his errant journey across America with his French poodle, Charley. Be careful! Errant doesn't have anything to do with errors, despite its appearance and even though inerrant means infallible. |
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ESSAY
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ESSAY (e SAY) v to test or try; attempt, experiment
• It was incredible to watch Valerie essay her first steps after her long convalescence; we were so proud of how hard she had worked at her rehabilitation. Essay can also be a noun, meaning the attempt itself. • My frequent essays at organization were always successful for a few weeks but fell apart shortly thereafter. |
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EXPATIATE
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EXPATIATE (ex PAY shee ayt) v discuss or write about at length; to range freely
• My aunt and uncle expatiated on the subject of their Florida vacation for three hours, accompanied by slides, until we were all crazy with boredom. • His ability to expatiate on such a variety of subjects without notes made watching him speak something like taking a trip without a map; the journey set its own course. |
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EXPURGATE
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EXPURGATE (EX pur gayt) v to remove obscenity, purify, censor
• The expurgated version of the novel was incredibly boring; it turned out that the parts the censors removed had been the only interesting ones. • The editorial committee removed some sections of the essay that it found morally objectionable, and it also expurgated a significant number of factual errors. Expurgate shares a root with purge, which means to cleanse or make pure. |
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EXTANT
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EXTANT (EK stunt) adj existing, not destroyed or lost
• There are forty-eight copies of the Gutenberg Bible extant today. • Since there are no portraits extant of the famous general, we have only written descriptions to tell us how he looked. |
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FALLOW
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FALLOW (FAL oh) adj untitled, inactive, dormant
• The farmer hoped that leaving the field fallow for a season would mean that next year he could grow a bumper crop of Brussels sprouts. • Joe's experiment in applying agricultural principles to self-help was unsuccessful; it turns out that a mind left fallow for two months is not rejuvenated the way soil is. |
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FATUOUS
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FATUOUS (FAT yoo us) adj silly, inanely foolish
• We suspected that the fatuous grin on Amy's face was evidence of a chocolate chip cookie overdose; she had eaten so many that she had become completely goofy. • Despite the sitcom's fatuous dialogue, it continued to be number one in the ratings. Fatuous often has a connotation of smugness to go along with the foolishness. • The politician's fatuous remarks revealed that he was not only pompous, but also not very bright. |
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FECKLESS
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FECKLESS (FEK lus) adj ineffectual; irresponsible
• My feckless brother managed to get himself grounded again, proving one more time that I am the more responsible sibling. |
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FELL
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FELL (fel) n a barren or stony hill; an animal's hide
• The cabin stood isolated on the wind-swept fell. Fell has a wide variety of meanings. In addition to the past tense of "to fall," it can also be a verb meaning "to cut down," as in "The lumberjacks felled many trees that day." As an adjective it can mean cruel, savage, or lethal. |
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FILIGREE
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FILIGREE (FIL uh gree) n an ornamental work, especially of delicate lacelike patterns; resembling such a pattern
• The decorative filigree of its design disguised the wrought iron fence's practical purpose. As a verb, to filigree means to adorn. • The brooch was filigreed with a delicate pattern of vines and grapes. |
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FLAG
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FLAG (flag) v to sag or droop, to become spiritless, to decline
• The fans' spirits flagged when the opposing team intercepted the ball in the last few minutes of the game and scored. • Our unflagging efforts, aided by a few pots of coffee, were rewarded when we finished the project in time for the competition. |
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FLORID
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FLORID (FLOR id) adj flushed with color, ruddy, ornate
• Glen always became a little florid when he drank; his face became bright red. • His florid prose style was perfect for romance novels, but not very well suited to his current job writing for a business magazine. |
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FORD
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FORD (ford) v to wade across the shallow part of a river or stream
• I may have lost my shirt and my pants while trying to ford the river, but at least I still had my hat when I got to the other side. |
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FRACAS
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FRACAS (FRAY kus) n noisy fight or quarrel, brawl
• Every good honky tonk needs a fracas now and again in order to maintain its reputation. • The fracas that started between the two cab drivers gradually grew until it included most of the bystanders as well and turned into a small riot. |
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FROWARD
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FROWARD (FROH urd) adj intractable, not willing to yield or comply, stubbornly disobedient
• Two year-olds have a reputation for being froward; they've discovered the pleasure of saying no. • No matter how much I pleaded and prodded, my froward mule refused to take a single step. Don't confuse this with forward! |
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FULMINATE
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FULMINATE (FUL muh nayt) v to attack loudly or denounce
• Since he had been fulminating against corporate misconduct for years, his enemies were gleeful to uncover evidence of the million-dollar payoff he received from the state's largest company. • Grandpa Joe's favorite activity was fulminating against the decline of modern civilization, as evidenced by heavy metal bands and game show hosts. |
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GAINSAY
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GAINSAY (gayn SAY) v to deny, dispute, contradict, oppose
• It is difficult to gainsay the critics when every new movie the director makes is a flop. • Joel refused to be gainsaid, insisting all along that he was right despite the evidence to the contrary. |
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GAINSAY
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c(GAM bul) v to skip about playfully, frolic
• Every March, the students performed the rites of spring by gamboling about half naked. • Gamboling in the meadow, the lambs were the very embodiment of playful innocence. |
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GARNER
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GARNER (GAHR nur) v to gather and save, store up, acquire
• The ants garnered food for the winter while the cricket spent the whole summer playing. • Lester was the class clown, always playing practical jokes in an obvious attempt to garner attention. |
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GARRULOUS
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GARRULOUS (GAR uh lus) adj pointlessly talkative, talking too much
• It was easy to see how nervous Gary was by how much he was talking; he always gets garrulous when he is anxious. • My garrulous neighbor is very sweet, so I try not to act too impatient when she tells me yet another long meandering story. |
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GAUCHE
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GAUCHE (gohsh) adj crude, awkward, tasteless
• In some cultures it is considered gauche to belch loudly at the end of dinner; in others it is the height of courtesy. This word comes from a French word meaning left, because left-handedness used to be synonymous with clumsiness and awkwardness. These days, it would be gauche to make fun of someone for being left-handed! |
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GERMANE
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GERMANE (jur MAYN) adj relevant to the subject at hand; appropriate in subject matter
• I love reading her column because her remarks are always germane and central to the most important issues of the day. • Although his stories were seldom germane to the topic at hand, it was impossible not to enjoy his entertaining tangents. |
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GOSSAMER
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GOSSAMER (GAH suh mur) ad] delicate, insubstantial or tenuous; insincere
• The kite was made out of a gossamer substance that seemed hardly substantial enough to let it survive even the lightest of breezes. • His gossamer promises of justice turned out just to be a way to fool everyone into thinking he planned to be true to his word. |
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GROUSE
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GROUSE (grows) v to complain or grumble
• Although I always grouse about my roommates and their tendency to eat all the food and leave dirty dishes and laundry lying around, I still wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. • Ferdinand's constant grousing about my violin playing has finally convinced me I might need lessons. |
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GUY
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GUY (gye) n a rope or cord attached to something as a brace or guide
• We were all nervous that the guy for the pulley would give way, but the platform stayed intact, so it must have been fine. |
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HALCYON
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HALCYON (HAL see un) adj calm and peaceful, prosperous
• I always hated it when the halcyon days of summer were interrupted by the start of school in the fall. The halcyon was a legendary bird that was thought to be able to calm the waves so that it could nest on the sea. |
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HARANGUE
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HARANGUE (huh RANG) v to deliver a loud, pompous speech or tirade
• After having been harangued for hours about the superiority of his methods, we should be forgiven for laughing when his demonstration failed. A harangue is what you deliver when you are haranguing someone. |
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HARROW
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HARROW (HAR oh) v to distress, create stress or torment
• The sadistic professor loved to harrow his students with harrowing tales of the upcoming final exam that no student in the school's history had ever passed. |
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HERMETIC
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HERMETIC (hur MET ik) adj airtight, impervious to outside influence
• The tomb's hermetic seal allowed its contents to be perfectly preserved for thousands of years. • The hermit's hermetic existence in a cave kept him from hearing any news of the outside world. • We discovered that the jar had not been hermetically sealed when we finally identified it as the source of the nasty smell in the cupboard. Don't confuse this with hermeneutic, which means explanatory or interpretive. |
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HIRSUTE
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HIRSUTE (HUR soot) adj hairy, shaggy
• If he hadn't been so hirsute, the werewolf might have escaped detection forever and settled down into a nice, quiet life in the suburbs. • My hirsute dog sheds life-size replicas of himself and still has more hair left over. |
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HOMILY
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HOMILY (HAH muh lee) n a sermon or morally instructive lecture, a platitude
• The subject of the minister's homilies ranged from the importance of compassion to the virtues of brushing one's teeth three times a day. • Spare me the homilies; I already know why I should do the right thing. Homiletics is the art of preaching. • She was famous for her homiletic skill; people came from all of the surrounding counties to hear her preach. |
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HUBRIS
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HUBRIS (HYOO brus) n arrogant presumption or pride
• Icarus was destroyed by the sun god, who melted the wax in Icarus's wings as punishment for his hubris in daring to fly so close to the sun. • The company president's hubris turned out to be his downfall when he ignored all of the warnings of the coming depression, thinking that he could predict the future on his own. Hubris is frequently used in describing classical and epic characters, such as humans who wish to be gods and kings who think they are infallible, but the word has just as many applications in the modern world. |
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ICONOCLAST
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ICONOCLAST (y KAHN uh klast) n one who attacks or undermines traditional conventions or institutions
• Frank always insisted on being the iconoclast; whenever everyone else agreed to "up," he would argue for "down." • In a sense, all great innovators are iconoclasts who challenge the prevailing assumptions of the day. Iconoclastic means attacking cherished beliefs, heretical. • Jill's iconoclastic attitude shocked everyone when she made an impassioned argument to the class in support of the restoration of the British monarchy's rule over America. |
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IDYLL
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IDYLL (Y dul) n a carefree, light-hearted pastoral or romantic episode or experience; a literary or musical piece describing such
• The smell of the ocean always made me nostalgic for our summer idyll on the coast two years ago. • Theocritus is generally credited with originating the poetic form of the idyll, although it is not entirely clear whether he wrote all the bucolic poems we currently associate with him. Idyllic means simple or carefree. • Our once-idyllic house became a nightmare when the family of kazoo players moved in next door. |
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IGNOMINIOUS
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IGNOMINIOUS (ig nuh MIN ee us) adj shameful, dishonorable, ignoble, undignified, disgraceful
• It was an ignominious, though deserved, end to all his boasting when the wheels fell off his car halfway through the race. • The company president made a hasty and ignominious retreat from public life when it was discovered that she had been embezzling money for years. Ignominy is dishonor or humiliation. |
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IMBROGLIO
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IMBROGLIO (im BROHL yo) n difficult or embarrassing situation
• We could see a public relations imbroglio developing before our eyes when the food fight started in the senior citizens' home right as the mayor began his speech. • Clare tried to extricate herself from the imbroglio she started at the party by sneaking out the back door. |
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IMPECUNIOUS
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IMPECUNIOUS (im pek YOON ee us) adj lacking funds; without money
• The impecunious actor was so desperate for money that he had to sacrifice his artistic principles and work as a mime for a few months. • The worst thing about the impecunious life of a grad student might be the endless diet of ramen noodles. |
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IMPLACABLE
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IMPLACABLE (im PLAK uh bul) adj not capable of being appeased or significantly changed
• Her anger over her partner's betrayal was implacable; nothing anyone said or did would appease her. • Because I have an implacable fear of dentists, I haven't been to see one in twenty years and now only have two teeth left. |
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IMPORTUNE
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IMPORTUNE (im por TOON) v to ask incessantly, beg, nag
• Jerry's constant importuning for time off worked in a way; he had plenty of time off once he was fired for nagging his boss about a vacation. Importunate means persistent in asking. • Leslie is an importunate borrower of clothing; I'm not sure she even owns any of her own clothes since she is always asking to borrow other people's stuff. |
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IMPUDENT
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IMPUDENT (IM pyuh dunt) adj shamelessly bold; insolent; impertinent
• John's impudent personality on stage enthralled his fans; unfortunately, it also alienated his fellow band members. The characteristic of being impudent is called impudence. • Adonia was frequently punished in school for her impudence. |
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IMPUTE
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IMPUTE (im PYOOT) v to attribute to a cause or source, ascribe, assign as a characteristic
• The mechanic imputed my car's failure to start to the absence of any gasoline in the tank. • My dance partner kindly imputed my fall to a slippery floor, when in reality my two left feet were the cause. |
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INCHOATE
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INCHOATE (in KOH ut) adj in an initial stage, not fully formed
• Drat, our plan for world domination is still inchoate; how will we finalize it before the deadline tomorrow? • It was amazing to realize that the inchoate blob in front of us would become a delicate vase when the glassblower was done. For a word with a similar definition, see nascent. |
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INCIPIENT
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INCIPIENT (in SIP ee unt) adj beginning to come into being orto become apparent
• I could sense the dull throbbing in my head that was the sign of an incipient headache; I knew it was only a matter of time before it had developed into a full-fledged migraine. • Marta rushed to stop the incipient unrest that began when the food and drink ran out at the party. |
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INELUCTABLE
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INELUCTABLE (in i LUKT uh bul) adj certain, inevitable
• George refused to accept the ineluctable reality of death, so he planned to have himself frozen. • The outcome of the game seemed ineluctable once the score was 156 to 14. |
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INGENUOUS
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INGENUOUS (in JEN yoo us) adj artless, frank and candid, lacking in sophistication
• His ingenuous question revealed how naive he was, but his ingenuousness was actually refreshing in this group of cynical, scheming old men. Disingenuous means lacking in candor, calculating, duplicitous. • I suspected that his sudden interest in my. research was disingenuous; he really just wanted an invitation to the party I was hosting. Be careful not to confuse ingenuous with ingenious, which means characterized by skill and imagination. |
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INIMITABLE
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INIMITABLE (i NIM muh tuh bul) adj one of a kind, peerless
• His inimitable feats of daring on the trapeze were so audacious that no one else even tried to imitate them. • She lived up to every expectation when she arrived at the party decked out in ostrich feathers and sequins in her usual inimitable style. |
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INNERVATE
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INNERVATE (i NUR vayt) v to supply with nerves, energize
Innervate is usually used to describe a physiological process, as in the fibers that innervate the facial muscles, but it can also be used metaphorically. • Innervated by our coach's pep talk, we were filled with energy for the upcoming game. Don't confuse this with enervate, which is also in this book. Their definitions and pronunciations are very different. |
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INSENSIBLE
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INSENSIBLE (in SENS uh bul) adj unconscious, unresponsive, unaware, unaffected, numb
• He lay insensible on the field after being hit in the head by the baseball. • I am not insensible of your suffering; I just don't care. • She was insensible to his entreaties, refusing to take him back no matter how much he pleaded. Note the subtle difference in the last two sentences: insensible of your suffering means unaware of it (i.e., "I know you're suffering, but in this case I just don't care.") and insensible to his entreaties means unresponsive to them. |
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INSIPID
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INSIPID (in SIP ud) adj without taste or flavor, lacking in spirit, dull
• This insipid stew is in desperate need of some hot sauce. • Henry's sense of humor was so insipid that he thought all knock-knock jokes were funny. |
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INSOUCIANT
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INSOUCIANT (in SOO see unt) adj unconcerned, carefree, nonchalant
• Her insouciant attitude toward her schoolwork meant that she rarely turned in her papers or bothered to study for a test. • Insouciance may be charming in a friend, but is often annoying in a co-worker if you end up doing his work for him. |
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INTERDICT
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INTERDICT (in tur DIKT) v prohibit, forbid, ban, halt
• Although Prohibition attempted to interdict the sale of alcohol, it was never entirely successful. An interdiction is a prohibition against something. • My parents' interdiction against my going out on a school night never worked as long as I was able to sneak out the window without getting caught. |
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INTRACTABLE
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INTRACTABLE (in TRAK tuh bul) adj not easily managed or directed, stubborn, obstinate
• He was the most intractable child I have ever met; nothing I tried would get him to brush his teeth or go to bed. • Poverty remains one of the most intractable problems of modem society. |
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INTRANSIGENT
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INTRANSIGENT (in TRANS i junt) adj refusing to compromise
• He was an intransigent supporter of the tax cut, refusing to compromise even the slightest bit. • Her intransigence in the face of all opposing arguments would almost have been impressive if it weren't so dam frustrating. |
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INURED
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INURED (in OORD) adj accustomed to accepting something undesirable
• I have become inured to waking up at 5 A.M.; I still don't like it, but at least I'm used to it. • Her co-workers were so inured to her sarcasm that they no longer took it personally. |
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INVEIGH
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INVEIGH (in VAY) v to attack verbally, denounce, deprecate
• The students inveighed bitterly against the new dress code, complaining that the orange shirts and red pants not only limited their freedom of expression but were also ugly. • Inveighing against the government's policies will do you no good if you don't bother to vote as well. |
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INVEIGLE
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INVEIGLE (in VAY gul) v to obtain by deception or flattery
• I can't believe she inveigled a ticket to the concert; I've been trying to get one for weeks. • Once I realized what he was up to, his attempts to inveigle me out of telling his girlfriend where he'd been were unsuccessful. |
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INVETERATE
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INVETERATE (in VET ur ut) adj deep rooted, ingrained, habitual
• Tim was such an inveterate liar that he lied even when he thought he was telling the truth. • Her inveterate preference for chocolate over vanilla ice cream had stayed the same for fifty years. Inherent is a close synonym for inveterate. |
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INVIDIOUS
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INVIDIOUS (in VID ee us) adj tending to arouse envy or ill will in others
• The promotion was important to Sveri s career; however, it meant that for a while, he was in the invidious position of supervising his former coworkers. When invidious is used to describe a distinction or comparison, it means discriminatory. • It was invidious to give preferential treatment to one group of graduate students over the other, but no one was likely to question the tenured professor. |
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IRASCIBLE
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IRASCIBLE (eer A suh bul) adj easily angered; prone to temperamental outbursts
• Irascible to the end, the grouchy old man started a fight on his deathbed. • My roommate is so irascible that I always check for the sound of flying objects before I open the door. |
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ITINERATE
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ITINERATE (y TIN uh rut) v to travel from place to place
• After years of itinerating, never staying in one place for more than a couple months, he finally settled down and bought a house. Itinerant is an adjective that means traveling from place to place. • The itinerant laborers followed the harvest from county to county. |
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JEJUNE
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JEJUNE (ii JYOON) ad] vapid, uninteresting; childish, immature; lacking nutrition
• The jejune lecture on various ways to wash clothes had us half-asleep after ten minutes. • His jejune response to our questions revealed how young he was despite his apparent age. • After surviving on a jejune diet of saltines and ginger ale during my illness, I was ready for a more nutritious meal. |
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JOCOSE
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JOCOSE (joh KOHS) ad] given to joking; humorous
• The jocose man could always be counted on for some levity, but it was almost impossible to get him to stop joking even for a minute. Jocular is very similar to jocose, but jocund is slightly different in that it means high-spirited rather than specifically humorous. Jocularity is fun characterized by humor. |
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LACHRYMOSE
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LACHRYMOSE (LAK ri mohs) adj causing tears, tearful, showing sorrow
• His lachrymose apology didn't move me; he was going to have to do a lot more than shed a few tears before I was ready to forgive him. • Beth's lachrymose portrayal of the heroine didn't work very well since the play was supposed to be a comedy. |
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LACONIC
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LACONIC (luh KAHN ik) adj using few words; terse
• We took her "good" as high praise indeed, since that was more than our laconic band teacher usually said in a whole week. • His laconic public persona was just a front; once you got to know him he wouldn't shut up. Need an antonym? Garrulous and loquacious are both opposites to laconic. |
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LASSITUDE
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LASSITUDE (LAS uh tood) n listlessness, languor, weariness
• Those two push-ups I attempted filled me with lassitude for the rest of the day. • It wouldn't be so bad to be in a constant state of lassitude as long as I could have someone to wave palm fronds over me and feed me grapes, since I would be too exhausted to do it myself. |
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LIBERTINE
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LIBERTINE (LIB ur teen) n someone unrestrained by morality or convention or leading a dissolute life
• We discovered that she was quite the libertine when it was revealed that she was having affairs on three different continents at the same time. • Casanova has become the archetypal libertine in popular culture, the very embodiment of a single-minded pursuit of pleasure. Libertine can also be an adjective, as in his libertine disregard for the moral conventions of the day. |
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LIMN
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LIMN (lim) v to draw, outline in detail
• The painter limned the old man's face in such exquisite and expressive lines that it almost looked as if he might open his mouth and speak. • The surveyors limned the valley in order to provide an exact topographical map for the construction crew to follow. |
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LIMPID
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LIMPID (LIM pud) adj transparent, serene, clear and simple in style, untroubled
• The once-limpid pond had become a nasty soup of algae, beer cans, and a random tennis shoe or two. • The article's limpid style was a welcome break from the dense and convoluted theoretical stuff I'd been reading for days; in other words, its limpidity was a relief. |
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LIST
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LIST (list) v to tilt or lean to one side
• The ship listed to one side after running aground on a rock and filling partially with water. • After a little too much celebrating, he was listing badly to one side and threatening to topple over as he walked up the front steps. |
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LOQUACIOUS
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LOQUACIOUS (loh KWAY shus) adj extremely talkative
• I knew something had to be wrong when my usually loquacious friend didn't say a word for two whole minutes. • His loquacity was legendary; in fact, he held the county record for uninterrupted talking at three days, ten hours and fourteen minutes. |
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MARTINET
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MARTINET (marti NET) n a rigid disciplinarian
• Sister Paul Marie is a sweet and generous person, but she is a martinet when it comes to teaching grammar, and few people passed her class on the first try. The adjective form of martinet is martinetish. • My martinetish study hall teacher didn't make my sixth period very relaxing, but boy did I get my homework done! The word martinet is named for Jean Martinet, a seventeenth-century French drillmaster who insisted on absolute adherence to the rules. |
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MAUNDER
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MAUNDER (MAHN dur) v to talk or move aimlessly, mutter
• After we maundered about for over three hours I started to suspect that our guide didn't have the slightest idea where he was going. • His endless maundering on about nothing started to get on my nerves until I wanted to shout, "Get to the point!" |
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MELANCHOLY
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MELANCHOLY (MEL un kahl ee) adj tending toward sadness
• Hamlet is the epitome of a melancholy character: he dresses in black, talks to skulls, and rambles on at length about whether to kill himself. According to Aristotle, too much liver bile caused melancholy personalities. This book contains vocabulary words based on three other personality types that he identified based on bodily fluids.. .can you find the rest? |
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MELLIFLUOUS
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MELLIFLUOUS (mel I floo us) adj sweetly flowing, usually used to describe words or sounds
• The mellifluous sound of her voice lulled me to sleep, though this wasn't what she had in mind since she was trying to chastise me. • The mellifluous tones of the quartet's performance made the audience smile. |
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MENDACITY
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MENDACITY (men DAS uh tee) n the condition of being untruthful, dishonesty
• Pinocchio was never able to hide his mendacity; whenever he lied his nose grew longer. Mendacious means false, untruthful. • I have never met a more mendacious child; imagine him telling me that the teapot on my head is silly, when everyone knows it is the height of fashion! |
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MENDICANT
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MENDICANT (MEN dih kunt) n a beggar, supplicant
• The tourist was horrified to see the number of mendicants begging on the streets, not realizing that there were millions of homeless people reduced to mendicancy on the streets of his own country as well. • Mendicant orders are religious organizations, such as the Franciscans, that have renounced all material wealth and survive by begging. |
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MERCURIAL
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MERCURIAL (mur KYOOR ee ul) adj characterized by rapid and unpredictable change in mood
• The mercurial weather went from sunshine to hail and back in less than an hour. • Mercutio from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a perfect example of a mercurial personality; his moods flit from one extreme to the other in the short time he is on stage. Things that change rapidly or move quickly are often named after the Greek god Mercury. The metal used in thermometers and the closest planet to the sun are prime examples. |
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MERETRICIOUS
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MERETRICIOUS (mer uh TRI shus) ad] tawdry, pretentious, attractive but false, showy, having to do with prostitution
• His meretricious argument had all the false allure of a low-rent Vegas nightclub: showy on the outside, but seedy and desperate on the inside. |
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METTLESOME
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METTLESOME (MET ul sum) adj courageous, high-spirited
• The mettlesome doctor risked his own life to try to save the wounded soldiers on both sides. • She was a mettlesome child, always proud and unruly. Be careful. Not only does this word have the two subtly different meanings of "courageous" and "high-spirited," but also it is also very easy to confuse it with other, similar words. Watch out for meddlesome, meaning inclined to interfere, and nettlesome, meaning prickly or difficult. Remembering that mettle means courage and stamina will help. |
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MILITATE
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MILITATE (MIL i tayt) v to have weight or bearing on, to argue (against)
• The president's advisors warned him that the volatility of the situation militated against any rash action. • The presence of polite company militates against my telling you exactly what I think of your underhanded scheming, but as soon as we're alone you'd better watch out. Occasionally militate is used to mean arguing for, though it usually used to mean arguing against. • His phenomenal record militates in favor of his consideration for the job. |
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MINATORY
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MINATORY (MIN uh tor ee) adj menacing, threatening
• Disregarding the minatory signs, we opened the door and discovered that the ferocious dog that the sign had warned us about was a dachshund—a fairly assertive dachshund, but only a 20-pound dog nonetheless. According to an ancient Greek myth, the Minotaur was a creature that guarded the Labyrinth, eating all who dared come inside. Athenian youths were sacrificed to the Minotaur before Theseus killed it, leaving the word minatory in its place. |
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MOROSE
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MOROSE (muh ROHS) adj sad, sullen, melancholy
• I knew from the morose expression on his face that it would be a bad idea to ask Kent how he did in the competition. • Although it is easy to be morose during the long, cold, wet, gloomy winter in Seattle, it is much more difficult to be sad during the summer when it is sunny and everyone else is happy. |
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NATTY
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NATTY (NA tee) adj trimly neat and tidy, dapper
• My grandmother is always complaining that there are no more natty dressers; she just doesn't think that baggy jeans and sneakers can compete with the zoot suits of her adolescence. |
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NEOPHYTE
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NEOPHYTE (NEE uh fyt) n a recent convert; a beginner; novice
• Although only a neophyte, Casey was already demonstrating amazing skill at chess. • As a neophyte at archery, I was just happy I didn't put out anyone's eye my first few times. Tyro is one synonym for neophyte. |
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NEXUS
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NEXUS (NEK sus) n a connection, tie, or link; center or focus
• Although many people have studied the nexus between rehabilitation programs for prisoners and rates of recidivism, no one has been able to draw any universally accepted conclusions about the relationship. • The group members' objective is to strengthen the nexus between theory and practice by implementing programs based on their ideas about community service. |
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NICE
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NICE (nys) adj exacting, extremely or even excessively precise; done with delicacy or skill
• The distinction he drew between the two findings was so nice that most of his listeners weren't even sure it was there. He had so nice a sense for chocolate that he could identify the source of the cocoa bean used to make each variety. |
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NOISOME
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NOISOME (NOY sum) adj offensive, especially to one's sense of smell, fetid
• I don't know how anyone with a nose can live in an apartment that noisome. • The noisome miasma rising from the swamp was the result of a chemical spill. |
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NONPLUSSED
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NONPLUSSED (nahn PLUST) adj baffled, in a quandary, at a loss for what to say, do or think
• Ernest was a little nonplussed when Gertrude told him that she loved him but she wasn't in love with him, which is admittedly pretty confusing. • I was nonplussed as to how a dog, a hamster and a turtle could have made such a mess, but once I figured out that they had invited the whole neighborhood menagerie over, it made a lot more sense. |
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NOSTRUM
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NOSTRUM (NAH strum) n cure-all, placebo, questionable remedy
• Any nostrum that claims to cure both a hangover and bunions is either a miracle or a fraud. • Spare me your nostrums promising the answers to all of life's difficult questions; if it were that easy someone would have found them long ago. |
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OBDURATE
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OBDURATE (AHB dur ut) ad] unyielding, hardhearted, inflexible
• The villain's obdurate heart was unmoved by the plight of the villagers; he refused to show any compassion at all. • Completely unwilling to acknowledge that we might be lost, Anthony was obdurate in his insistence that we were going the right way. |
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OBEISANCE
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OBEISANCE (oh BEE sunts) n gesture that expresses deference, such as a bow or curtsy
• In the court of a king or queen, no one would think of dancing without first offering some sort of obeisance to the monarch; obviously, rules on other dance floors are more relaxed. Obeisance shares a root with obey, and it is, in fact, a gesture that shows "obey-ance" to the recipient. An obeisance could also be called an obeisant gesture. |
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OBSEQUIOUS
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OBSEQUIOUS (ub SEE kwee us) ad] exhibiting a fawning attentiveness; subservient
• His obsequious fawning over Brandy made him seem more like her pet than her peer. • I suspected that he was only trying to get something from me, and that his obsequiousness was not a measure of his adulation, but only of his desire for reward. |
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OBSTREPEROUS
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OBSTREPEROUS (ahb STREP uh rus) adj noisy, loudly stubborn, boisterous • Their obstreperous clamor to see their idol didn't quiet down even after he came on stage.
• The entire zoo was kept up all night by the obstreperous herd of cranky elephants. |
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OBTAIN
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OBTAIN (ub TAYN) v to be established, accepted, or customary, prevail • The customary niceties of polite conversation do not obtain in the middle of a tornado.
• The proper conditions for the summit will only obtain if all parties agree to certain terms. |
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OBTUSE
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OBTUSE (ahb TOOS) adj lacking sharpness of intellect, not clear or precise in thought or expression
• Her approach was so obtuse that it took me twenty minutes to figure out that she was asking me out. • The secret agent was so obtuse he couldn't remember how to figure out the secret code even after he's studied it for days. In geometry, an obtuse angle is one that is more than 90 degrees and less than 180 degrees, so it's a pretty dull angle. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that the definitions of obtuse used here also mean dull. For an opposite, see acumen. |
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OFFICIOUS
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OFFICIOUS (uh FISH us) adj meddlesome, pushy in offering one's services where they are unwanted
• The officious busybody was constantly popping up to offer help when everyone just wished he would go away. • Our well-intended but officious host kept refilling our plates and glasses before we had a chance to take more than a bite or two. |
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OSTENSIBLE
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OSTENSIBLE (ah STEN suh bul) adj seeming, appearing as such, professed
• Even though his ostensible reason for coming to all the games was his love of the sport, we knew his crush on the team captain was his real reason. • Even when they are ostensibly written for children, many cartoons are actually more entertaining for adults. |
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OVERWEENING
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OVERWEENING (oh vur WEEN ing) ad] presumptuously arrogant, overbearing, immoderate
• His overweening arrogance made everyone want to smack him, which was the only way he got to be the center of attention that he imagined he should be. • Your overweening presumption in asking for my help is stunning, given how many times you have mocked me before. |
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PAEAN
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PAEAN (PEE un) n a song or expression of praise and thanksgiving
• The celebratory bonfire was a paean to victory. • The young musician composed a paean to his beloved teacher in thanks for her guidance. |
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PALLIATE
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PALLIATE (PAL ee ayt) v to make something appear less serious, gloss over, mitigate
• His attempts to palliate the significance of his plagiarism only made it worse; he would have been better off just owning up to it rather than trying to diminish its importance. • Nothing could palliate the boredom he felt, not even the prospect of a rousing game of pingpong. If ping-pong had cured his boredom, it would have been an effective palliative. |
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PANEGYRIC
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PANEGYRIC (pan uh JYRE ik) n formal expression of praise
• Thomas spent months preparing a panegyric to his grandfather for his ninetieth birthday. • The panegyric Pliny the Younger delivered before the Roman Senate in honor of Trajan is the only speech of his extant today. |
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PARSIMONIOUS
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PARSIMONIOUS (pahr si MOHN ee us) ad] cheap, miserly
• He was so parsimonious that he wouldn't even share the free coupons that came in the mail. |
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PAUCITY
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PAUCITY (PAH suh tee) adj scarcity, a lacking of
• Carl was very self-conscious about the paucity of hair on his head, so he always wore a hat to cover his large bald spot. • Because he hadn't done laundry in four months, Paul was confronted with a serious paucity of clean socks. • Citing a paucity of admissible evidence, the judge dismissed the case. |
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PECCADILLO
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PECCADILLO (pek uh OIL oh) n a slight offense, literally, a minor sin
• Peter's pilfering was hardly a peccadillo; he was wanted for grand larceny in thirteen states. • Using the wrong fork was merely a peccadillo, but dumping the tureen of soup over the host's head was a major gaffe. |
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PEDAGOGY
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PEDAGOGY (PED uh goh lee) n the art or profession of training, teaching, or instructing
• All his training in pedagogy in school hadn't completely prepared Carlos for dealing with thirty manic third graders. • The Princeton Review trains teachers in a pedagogical style based on the Socratic method, in which the teacher asks students questions in order to lead them to a better understanding of the material. |
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PEDANTIC
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PEDANTIC (pi DAN tik) adj ostentatious display of learning, excessive attention to minutiae and formal rules, unimaginative
• The bureaucrat's pedantic obsession with rules and regulations ensured that nothing was ever accomplished. • The author's pedantic writing style managed to make a fascinating topic completely boring by including endless fussy details. One who has a pedantic style is called a pedant. • Ever the pedant, the professor was more concerned with demonstrating how much he knew than in teaching his students. |
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PEDESTRIAN
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PEDESTRIAN (puh DES tree un) adj commonplace, trite, unremarkable
• The movie's plot was pedestrian, despite the director's brave decision to cast a badger in the role of the hero. • His dissertation was pedestrian at best: thorough but completely unremarkable and not very interesting at all. |
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PENURIOUS
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PENURIOUS (pen POOR ee us) ad] penny-pinching; excessively thrifty; ungenerous
• My penurious boss makes us bring toilet paper from home in order to save the company money. • Mr. Scrooge was so penurious that three separate ghostly visitations were required to get him to be even a little bit kind or generous. Penury is extreme poverty, destitution or lack of resources. • Albert's state of penury was sufficiently far advanced that he was forced to recycle his coffee grounds each morning. • The cheerleader was suffering penury of spirit; she didn't even care enough to lift her pompoms during the cheers. |
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PEREMPTORY
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PEREMPTORY (puh REMP tor ee) adj admitting of no contradiction, putting an end to further debate, haughty, imperious
• Her peremptory tone made it clear that there would be no further discussion of the matter. • The king dismissed the petitioner with a peremptory wave of his hand, not even bothering to say anything more. |
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PERENNIAL
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PERENNIAL (puh REN ee ul) adj recurrent through the year or many years, happening repeatedly
• Death of a Salesman was a perennial favorite of the community theater; they performed it every season. • The students' perennial complaint was that they had too much homework; the faculty's perennial response was that they should be happy they didn't have more. • Perennials are plants that live for more than one year. |
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PERFIDY
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PERFIDY (PUR fuh dee) n intentional breach of faith, treachery • I couldn't believe my campaign manager's perfidy in voting for my opponent.
• Kevin was outraged by his brother's perfidy when he claimed that it had been Kevin's idea to shave the cat. |
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PERFUNCTORY
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PERFUNCTORY (pur FUNK tor ee) ad] cursory, done without care or interest
• Hilda's perfunctory approach to cleaning left dust bunnies the size of small horses in the corners and under the bed. • His perfunctory response to my question confirmed that he hadn't been paying attention to what I said. |
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PERIPATETIC
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PERIPATETIC (per i puh TET ik) ad] itinerant, traveling, nomadic
• Charlene was unwilling to give up the peripatetic life of a sailor for the security of a house with a white picket fence, so she rented an apartment in every port. • As a peripatetic salesman, Frank spent most of his time in his car. Errant and itinerant are two synonyms for peripatetic. |
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PERSONABLE
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PERSONABLE (PUR sun uh bul) adj pleasing in appearance, attractive
• I found him quite personable, as all those other people flirting with him apparently did as well. • She was quite personable until she revealed that she was a vampire in need of a nightly feeding. |
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PERSPICACIOUS
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PERSPICACIOUS (pur spuh KAY shus) adj acutely perceptive, having keen discernment
• How very perspicacious of you to notice that I dyed my hair blue. • It was quite surprising that his teachers described Kyle as a perspicacious student, since he slept through most of their classes; he must have demonstrated great insight in the papers he wrote. Someone who is perspicacious probably has great acumen. |
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PERUSE
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PERUSE (pur OOZ) v to examine with great care
• Since I didn't have time to peruse the entire report with the thoroughness it deserved, I had to settle for reading an abridged version for now. • She perused the shelves for the book, checking each title one by one. Be careful, many people misuse this word, believing that it means to glance over quickly. |
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PETROUS
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PETROUS (PET rus) adj like a rock, hard, stony
• I wasn't surprised that my petrous cake wasn't a big hit, but it did make an excellent doorstop, if I do say so myself. Petrous technically refers to the hard temporal bone that protects the inner ear. Petrify means to make hard or rocklike, or to paralyze with fear. • The pores of the wood had been replaced by minerals from the bog in which it was buried, leaving the wood petrified. • We were petrified by the dark shape moving toward us; we couldn't even run away because we were frozen with fear. |
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PETULANT
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PETULANT (PET yoo lunt) adj impatient, irritable
• It's always easy to tell when Brad is feeling petulant because his bottom lip starts to protrude. • Terrible Tina's babysitters were so afraid of her temper tantrums that they gave her whatever she wanted at the first sign of petulance. |
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PHILISTINE
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PHILISTINE (FIL uh styn) n a crass individual guided by material rather than intellectual or artistic values
• The author claimed that his many critics were just philistines, who obviously lacked any taste since they didn't appreciate his writing. |
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PHLEGMATIC
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PHLEGMATIC (fleg MA tik) adj calm, sluggish, unemotional, stoic • Karen was so phlegmatic she didn't even react when Rita stepped on her foot repeatedly.
• His phlegmatic response to the question revealed nothing of what he was feeling, if he was feeling anything at all. According to Aristotle, phlegmatic personalities were caused by too much phlegm. This book contains vocabulary words based on three other personality types that he identified based on bodily fluids.. .can you find the rest? |
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PICARESQUE
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PICARESQUE (pik uh RESK) adj involving clever rogues or adventurers
• Huck Finn is sometimes described as a picaresque hero, since the novel follows his roguish adventures. Be careful not to confuse this with picturesque, which means picture-like, charming, or quaint. |
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PIED
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PIED (pyd) adj multi-colored, usually in blotches
• The pied goat was easily distinguishable in the herd of solid white and brown coats. • The jester wore a pied coat of many bright colors. |
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PILLORY
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PILLORY (PIL uh ree) v to punish, hold up to public scorn
• The politician was pilloried in the press for his inability to spell potato. A pillory was a device for punishing people through public humiliation; it consisted of a wooden frame into which someone's neck and hands could be locked, and was usually set up in a town square or other public place. It was very similar in design and purpose to the stocks. |
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PINE
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PINE (pyn) v to yearn intensely, to languish, to lose vigor
• Johnnie pined away for his girlfriend the entire time she was away at camp; he didn't eat or sleep and just stared at her picture all day. • I pined for sunshine all winter until I couldn't stand it any more and had to go buy a sun lamp. |
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PIQUANT
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PIQUANT (PEE kunt) ad] agreeably pungent, spicy, stimulating
• The piquant gumbo was a welcome change after days of bland hospital food. • The piquancy of her face with its high cheekbones and arresting eyes made the portrait memorable. |
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PIQUE
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PIQUE (peek) n resentment, feeling of irritation due to hurt pride
• In a fit of pique, Chelsea threw her boyfriend's bowling ball out the fourth-story window onto his car. To pique can also be a verb, meaning to annoy or irritate, or to provoke or arouse, as in "you've piqued my curiosity." |
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PITH
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PITH (pith) n the essential or central part
• The pith of his argument seemed to be that he should get a bigger allowance, though it took him an hour to get to the point. • It's a little strange that the pith of an orange is the white spongy stuff under the rind, instead of the part at the center of the orange, but that's the way it goes. Pithy means precise and brief. • The pithy synopsis of the novel distilled all 1,500 pages into two very concise paragraphs. |
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PLANGENT
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PLANGENT (PLAN junt) ad] pounding, thundering, resounding
• The plangent bells could be heard all over town as they chimed the hour. • We were awakened from our nap by the plangent honking of a flock of migrating geese. |
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PLATITUDE
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PLATITUDE (PLAT i tood) n a superficial or trite remark, especially one offered as meaningful
• Since Laura loved to say things that seemed profound initially but turned out to be banal once considered, she was a perfect candidate for writing the platitudes that go in greeting cards. • Most people can only offer platitudes when faced with someone else's loss; we're just not very good at knowing how to say something meaningful when confronted with grief. |
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PLUCK
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PLUCK (pluk) n courage, spunk, fortitude
• The audience was impressed by the gymnast's pluck in continuing her routine even after she fell off the balance beam. • The prospect of glory and a hot cup of soup gave the soldiers the pluck they needed to keep fighting. |
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PLUMB
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PLUMB (plum) v to measure the depth (as with a plumb line), to examine critically
• It was the exploratory ship's task to plumb the depth of a section of the Pacific Ocean. • Having plumbed the viability of the plan, we decided it was too risky to undertake at night. Plumb as an adjective means exactly vertical. Informally it can also mean directly (as in, "fell plumb on his butt") or completely (as in, "plumb tuckered out"). |
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PLUMMET
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PLUMMET (PLUM et) v to plunge or drop straight down
• One by one the ostriches plummeted to the ground when they remembered that they couldn't fly. • The company's stock plummeted when it failed to get the patent for making money out of thin air. |
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POIGNANT
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POIGNANT (POIN yunt) ad] distressing, pertinent, touching, stimulating, emotional
• The poignant final scene between the main character and his pet penguin that was mortally wounded trying to save his owner moved the audience to tears. • He felt poignant anxiety at the thought of what his life would be like now that he no longer had a job. |
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PRATE
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PRATE (prayt) v chatter, babble
• The toddler prated on happily to himself though no one else had any idea what he was saying. Prate is a synonym of prattle. |
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PRATTLE
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PRATTLE (PRAT ul) v to babble meaninglessly; to talk in an empty and idle manner
• Katrina started to fall asleep as her girlfriend prattled on about every little thing that had happened in the previous twenty four hours. Prattle can also be a noun. • His interminable prattle made me crazy and I just wished he would be quiet for a few minutes. |
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PRECEPT
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PRECEPT (PREE sept) n rule establishing standards of conduct, a doctrine that is taught
• One of the precepts of our criminal justice system is that one is assumed innocent until proven guilty. • You will violate the precepts of fair play if you peek at my cards. |
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PRECIPITATE
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PRECIPITATE (pree SIP uh tut) adj acting with excessive haste or impulse
• The captain was forced to take precipitate action when the storm arrived earlier than he had expected. As a verb, precipitate means to cause or happen before anticipated or required. • Be careful, any sudden movement could precipitate an avalanche. • The sale of one of its divisions to its major competitor precipitated the company's collapse. |
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PREEN
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PREEN (preen) v to dress up, primp, groom oneself with elaborate care; in animals, to clean fur or feathers
• She was so busy preening and posing for the cameras that she didn't pay enough attention to where the edge of the pool was. • Humans preen in front of their chosen mates in much the way some birds do, but birds also preen their feathers to stay warm and watertight. |
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PRESCIENCE
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PRESCIENCE (PRE see unts) n knowing of events prior to their occurring
• I wish I had had the prescience to know it was going to rain today, I would have brought a raincoat. • Cassandra's unique curse was that she was given the gift of prescience but doomed to have no one ever believe her. |
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PRIZE
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PRIZE (pryz) v to pry, press or force with a lever
• His parents had to prize the trophy from his sleeping fingers, since he insisted on taking it to bed with him. • Although I tried to prize the information out of him, Arthur refused to reveal his biscuit recipe. |
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PROBITY
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PROBITY (PROHB i tee) adj adherence to highest principles, uprightness
• Because the chieftain was known for his probity and the soundness of his judgment, people came from miles around to ask him to hear their disputes. |
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PRODIGAL
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PRODIGAL (PRAH duh gull adj recklessly wasteful, extravagant, profuse, lavish
• He was completely prodigal in his planning for the party; he hired a 50-piece orchestra and bought 100 cases of champagne for a guest list of ten. • Linda was prodigal with her singing abilities, performing only in karaoke bars. |
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PRODIGIOUS
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PRODIGIOUS (pro DI jus) adj abundant in size, force, or extent; extraordinary
• The prodigious weight of my backpack made me fall over backwards. • The public finally recognized his prodigious talent on the kazoo when his album of old kazoo standards topped the charts. |
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PROFLIGATE
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PROFLIGATE (PRAH fli get) adj excessively wasteful; recklessly extravagant
• The profligate ruler emptied the country's treasury to build his many mansions. |
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PROFUSE
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PROFUSE (proh FYOOS) adj given or coming forth abundantly, extravagant
• Her profuse gratitude for my having saved her cat became a little excessive with the fourth sweater she knitted for me. Profusion means abundance or extravagance. • The profusion of flowers decorating every surface in the room filled the room with color. |
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PROLIX
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PROLIX (proh LIKS) adj long-winded, verbose
• The prolix politician was a natural at filibustering; he could talk for hours without stopping. • His prolixity was famous; he could talk for ten minutes before needing to take a breath and for hours before finishing a sentence. See verbose for a synonym of prolix. |
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PROPINQUITY
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PROPINQUITY (pruh PIN kwuh tee) adj nearness in time or place, affinity of nature, kinship
• The geographic propinquity of the two towns led to a close connection between the two populations. • His propinquity to the object of his affections made him blush. |
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PROPITIATE
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PROPITIATE (proh PI shi ayt) v to appease or pacify
• They tried to propitiate the storm gods by dancing in the rain and pouring wine on the ground as an offering. Something propitiatory is meant to propitiate. • The prime minister sent the emperor a propitiatory gift in order to appease his anger over the diplomatic blunder. |
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PROPITIOUS
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PROPITIOUS (proh PI shus) adj auspicious, favorable
• They took the clearing of the sky as a propitious omen that the storm was passing. |
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PROSAIC
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PROSAIC (proh ZAY ik) adj dull, unimaginative
• His prosaic sensibilities were obvious when, in a letter to his wife, he described a rainbow as an optical phenomenon caused by the refraction of light through water. • I was surprised that he should offer so prosaic an account of his travels in Spain; it was out of character given his usually poetic descriptions. |
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PROSCRIBE
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PROSCRIBE (proh SKRYB) v to outlaw or prohibit
• Attempts to proscribe swimming in the old quarry were unsuccessful; people continued to do it despite the new rules. Proscription is the act of outlawing something. It can also mean to outlaw or banish people, or pass sentence of death. Prescription and proscription often get mixed up; the former describes what you should do and the latter describes what you are not allowed to do. |
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PROVIDENT
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PROVIDENT (PRAH vi Bunt) adj frugal, looking to the future
• His provident financial planning allowed him to buy a small tropical island when he retired. Providential looks similar but means happening as if from divine intervention. • His providential recovery from the accident was nothing short of miraculous. |
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PUERILE
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PUERILE (PYOOR ul) adj childish, immature
• His puerile humor prominently featured fart jokes. • Annette's puerile response to losing the competition was exactly like that of a small child; she lay down on the ground and started kicking her hands and feet. |
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PUNCTILIOUS
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PUNCTILIOUS (punkTlLeeus) adj precise, paying attention to trivialities, especially in regard to etiquette
• Although his punctilious obsession with etiquette is usually very annoying, it is always handy when royalty comes to dine. • It was sometimes useful to have an assistant who punctiliously recorded where I was and what I did every second of every day; if nothing else, it made it easy to confirm an alibi should one be necessary. |
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PUSILLANIMOUS
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PUSILLANIMOUS (pyoo sil AN uh mus) adj cowardly, craven
• His pusillanimous refusal to agree to the duel turned out to be wise, if cowardly; his challenger was later revealed to be an Olympic biathlete, and therefore a very good shot. • The Cowardly Lion thought he was pusillanimous, but according to the story he was actually brave all along and just hadn't known it. |
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PUTREFY
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PUTREFY (PYOO truh fy) v to rot, decay and give off a foul odor, become gangrenous
• The apples that had fallen on the ground putrefied in the warm sun. • The doctors were forced to amputate the leg in order to prevent putrefaction. |
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QUAFF
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QUAFF (kwahf) v to drink deeply
• Brett was planning to meet his friends at the pub after work to quaff a few pints before heading home. • The medicine tasted so foul that I had to hold my nose and quaff it all in one gulp. |
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QUAIL
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QUAIL (kwayl) v to shrink back in fear, lose courage
• The puppy quailed at the angry tone in Alicia's voice and put his tail between his legs. • I quailed at the thought of jumping out of a plane as soon as I looked down, which was probably a little late to be having second thoughts. |
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QUERULOUS
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QUERULOUS (KWER yuh lus) adj prone to complaining or grumbling, quarrelsome
• Her querulous demand to know every five minutes whether we were there yet started to get on my nerves. • Mitch tended to become querulous when he hadn't had his afternoon nap. |
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QUIESCENCE
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QUIESCENCE (kwy ES unts) n stillness, motionlessness, quality of being at rest
• The volcano's quiescence was only temporary; it could erupt at any time. Quiescent means inactive, latent, causing no trouble, being at rest. • Malaria can remain quiescent for years at a time, only to recur at some later point. • According to Newton, quiescent objects tend to remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. |
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QUOTIDIAN
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QUOTIDIAN (kwoh TID ee un) ad] occurring or recurring daily, commonplace
• The quotidian drag of cornflakes for breakfast, a meaningless job, a TV dinner and the same old shows before going to bed at the same time every night was starting to get Jasper down, so he switched to waffles for breakfast to shake things up a bit. • Whenever possible, Anita tried to sleep through her quotidian train commute home. |
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RAMIFY
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RAMIFY (RAM uh fy) v to be divided or subdivided, branch out
• Instead of being resolved, the dispute merely ramified as more and more people got involved. • The subject of his book ramified in new directions as he began to research all the different branches of the history. Ramifications are the developments or consequences growing out of something. • The ramifications of the judge's ruling would take years to be fully understood. |
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RAPACIOUS
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RAPACIOUS (ruh PAY shus) adj voracious, greedy, plundering, subsisting on prey
• The rapacious moths ate huge holes in every single one of my socks. • The Vikings are popularly imagined as rapacious warriors, who swept in from the sea and plundered everything in sight. Although this has its truth, it is still a one-dimensional view of their culture. Rapacity is avarice, or the practice of extorting or exacting by injustice. • The junta's rapacity in despoiling the country of anything of value was only matched by its cruelty to the populace. |
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RAREFY
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RAREFY (RAYR uh fy) v to make or become thin, less dense, refine • Gases condense when they are cooled and rarefy when they are heated.
• His sole goal in life was to gain admission to the rarefied air of the literary society. • The air at high elevation is sufficiently rarefied that it can be difficult for people with respiratory illnesses to breath. |
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REBUS
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REBUS (REE bus) n riddle, a representation of words by pictures or symbols that sound like the words
• Pictures of bees, eyes, and ewes are commonly used in a rebus to symbolize the words "be," "I," and "you" respectively. In a rebus, words are represented by things, so it makes sense that rebus comes from a Latin word meaning by things. What is now generally an innocent game comes from a tradition of satires written in the Middle Ages, in which people and current events were represented by pictures for the writers' protection. |
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RECALCITRANT
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RECALCITRANT (ri KAL suh trunt) adj obstinately defiant of authority or guidance, difficult to manage
• Joe was so recalcitrant he refused to do anything he was instructed to do, even something he liked to do, simply because someone told him to do it. • The bank sent someone to repossess the recalcitrant debtor's car and furniture after he refused to make payments for five months. |
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RECAPITULATE
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RECAPITULATE (re kuh PITCH oo layt) v to summarize, to repeat concisely
• Judy rushed home from work but was still too late to miss the televised debate; she had to settle for the recapitulated versions on national news. Recapitulate is the origin of the shortened form that is more in use today: recap. |
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RECONDITE
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RECONDITE (rek AHN dyte) adj hidden, concealed, difficult to understand, obscure
• Searching for information about the town's recondite origins was a lot like doing detective work. • While it makes perfect sense to physicists, quantum mechanics has always been recondite knowledge to me. |
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RECONNOITER
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RECONNOITER (ree kuh NOY tur) v to engage in reconnaissance, make a preliminary inspection of
• We sent Bob to reconnoiter the party when we first arrived, in order to see who was in the other rooms. • Our attempts to reconnoiter the area for a good camping site were cut short when it grew dark, so we ended up sleeping in the car. |
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REDOLENT
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REDOLENT (RED oh lunt) adj fragrant, suggestive or evocative
• The dorm rooms were redolent with a fragrance of stale beer and cold pizza that brought me back to my college days. • The city in spring, redolent of cherry blossoms, hardly seemed like the same place that had been so gray and uninviting just two months earlier. |
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REDOUBTABLE
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REDOUBTABLE (ri DOWT uh bull adj awe-inspiring, worthy of honor
• He came from a redoubtable family, just one of many of its members to have served in the highest positions in the country. • There are many folk songs and stories about the legend of the redoubtable John Henry, who beat the steam drill in a tunneling contest in 1872. |
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REFULGENT
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REFULGENT (ri FUL junt) adj radiant, shiny, brilliant
• The refulgent gleam of the motorcycle's chrome was his pride and joy. • Her refulgent smile seemed to light up the evening, though that might just have been the light shining off her braces. |
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REGALE
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REGALE (ri GAYL) v to delight or entertain, feast
• Joshua regaled his listeners with tales of his world travels while he was the owner of a famous flea circus. • The visiting dignitaries were regaled with a lavish meal and an elaborate dance and musical performance. |
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RELEGATE
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RELEGATE (RE luh gayt) v to forcibly assign, especially to a lower place or position
• As the youngest member of the troupe, I was relegated to the back end of the dancing donkey costume. • He always relegated paying bills to the bottom of his "to do" list, since he hated to be reminded of how little money was in his checking account. |
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REMONSTRATE
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REMONSTRATE (ri MAHN strayt) v to protest, object
• When I was a kid, I frequently remonstrated with my mom when she made me take my little brother with me to the park. • My mother remonstrated against the city's plan to tear down the park to build a parking lot. Remonstrations are objections as are remonstrances, though the latter is usually more formal. • Despite her advisor's remonstrations, Linda has decided to take eighteen units of underwater basket weaving next semester, and nothing else. |
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REPINE
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REPINE (ri PYNE) v to feel or express dejection or discontent, long for
• The old man repined for his lost youth, when everything seemed so much more exciting than it was now. • I got sick of all her repining for her former beau; she was the one who dumped him, after all. |
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RETICENT
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RETICENT (RET uh sunt) adj quiet, reserved, reluctant to express thoughts and feelings
• She was reticent about the party, but we suspected she had had more fun than she was letting on. • The department head was reticent about his plans for filling the new position, giving no clues as to whom he planned to promote. |
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RISIBLE
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RISIBLE (RYZ uh bul) adj hilarious, provoking laughter
• The mating horses created a risible sight for Rita, who had never been to a farm before. Though it is a less common usage, risible can also be used to describe people who are inclined to be amused. • Rita herself, though, is a fairly risible individual; the song "I Love to Laugh" could have been written just for her. |
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RUBRIC
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RUBRIC (ROO brik) n authoritative rule, heading, title, or category
• The rubric used to score the writing samples emphasizes structure over content. • The phenomenon is often examined under the rubric of psychology rather than physiology. Another more obscure version of rubric is as an adjective meaning reddish or written in red, and the meanings are actually related. Instructions in church books used to be written in red, so both the color and what it is used for was named for the ruby. |
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RUE
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RUE (roo) v regret, feel remorse
• I rued the day I ever agreed to sublet my apartment to him; now I've got a flooded kitchen and he hasn't even paid the rent. Rueful means expressing sorrow. • Her rueful apology told me she was really sorry that she had run over my rose bed. |
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SALACIOUS
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SALACIOUS (suh LAY shus) adj appealing to or causing sexual desire, bawdy
• Magazines containing salacious material are kept behind the counter in the bookstore, so you'll have to ask the clerk if you want to see them. • Tabloids rely in large part on the public's salacious curiosity in order to stay in business, and our titillation seems to overcome our outrage often enough for it to work. |
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SALUBRIOUS
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SALUBRIOUS (suh L00B ree us) adj promoting health or well-being
• Carrots are salubrious for your eyes, since they contain a lot of vitamin A. • His was not the most salubrious of lifestyles, since he lived on donuts and two hours of sleep a night. |
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SALUTARY
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SALUTARY (SAL yoo ter ee) adj remedial, wholesome, causing improvement
• Paul was dismayed to hear the teacher say that she thought summer school would be salutary for his math skills. • The physical therapy she had undergone was having a salutary effect on her knees; she could almost walk without discomfort now. |
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SANGUINE
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SANGUINE (SAYN gwun) adj cheerful, confident, optimistic
• His sanguine attitude was baffling to me, since it seemed clear that he was going to lose the race. • She was so sanguine of success that she booked the honeymoon suite before she had even proposed. According to Aristotle, sanguine personalities were caused by too much blood. This book contains vocabulary words based on three other personality types that he identified based on bodily fluids...can you find the rest? |
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SATURNINE
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SATURNINE (SAT ur nyn) adj gloomy, dark, sullen, morose
• Pedro's saturnine countenance made me think he was either very unhappy or suffering from a bad case of indigestion. • The saturnine principal scared the students with his dark glares, but really he was a pretty nice guy underneath the brooding exterior. Saturnine is similar in definition to melancholy. Like mercurial, it draws its name from astrology and the gods associated with certain planets. |
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SCURVY
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SCURVY (SKUR vee) adj contemptible, despicable
• He felt a little guilty about the scurvy trick he had pulled on his friend to get her to loan him a hundred dollars by saying he needed it to visit his dying mother. "Avast, ye scurvy dog" is a common comment to hear one pirate say to another. Scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency that was a familiar part of a sailor's life before the days of refrigeration, canning and supplements, so it makes sense that pirates would incorporate this into their vocabulary as an insult. |
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SEDULOUS
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SEDULOUS (SED yoo lus) adj diligent, persistent, hard-working
• His sedulous efforts to organize the conference were rewarded when the entire event went off perfectly. • After years of hard work, he found the missing piece to the puzzle he had so sedulously sought, which allowed him to solve the mystery of the pilot's disappearance. |
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SEINE
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SEINE (sayn) n a large net hung out and dragged in to catch fish
• The fishermen were extremely surprised when they caught a mermaid in their seine. Seine also means to fish using a seine, and the Seine is a river in the middle of Paris in which people might seine... or something like that. |
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SERE
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SERE (seer) adj withered, arid
• Some people have looked at pictures of the sere surface of Mars and imagined the possibility of terraforming that might change the and landscape into something habitable by humans. • Even the sere vegetation at the edge of the desert sent forth new shoots when the brief rains came. |
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SIMPER
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SIMPER (SIM pur) v to smirk, to say something with a silly, coy smile • Her simpering praise for the famous actress made me want to throw up.
• He simpered some feeble attempt at an apology that no one believed. As a noun, simper is the silly smile itself. |
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SINECURE
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SINECURE (SY ni kyoor) n position requiring little or no work and usually providing an income
• The evil overlord's sidekick figured he deserved a sinecure after years of faithful and often gory service. • The job was hardly a sinecure; not only was there a ton of work, but there was also no job security. This word was first applied to priests without churches (or without parish duties of curing souls), who were said to have beneficium sine cura. |
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SINUOUS
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SINUOUS (SIN yoo us) adj winding, curving, moving lithely, devious
• We were mesmerized by the sinuous weaving of the cobra as the snake charmer sang to it. • The sinuous pattern on the vase was like a river winding back and forth. • It became increasingly difficult to follow the argument as her sinuous logic wound around and around itself. |
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SLAKE
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SLAKE (slayk) v to satisfy, quench, lessen the intensity of
• I was looking forward to getting back to the porch and having a julep to slake my thirst. • His anger slaked somewhat when he realized he had simply parked his car in the wrong spot, and that no one had stolen it. |
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SODDEN
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SODDEN (SAHD un) adj soaked or drenched, unimaginative, dull
• I managed to get my pants all wet by sitting on the sodden ground. • Sodden with drink and sleep, he could barely form a sentence. |
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SOLDER
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SOLDER (SAH dur) v to weld, fuse or join, as with a soldering gun • By soldering the broken pieces together, I was able to repair the light fixture.
• The charismatic general managed to solder all the factions together into one cohesive army. |
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SOLICITOUS
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SOLICITOUS (suh LI sit us) adj concerned and attentive, eager
• It was nice of her to be so solicitous of my comfort as to offer me the couch, but I was fine sleeping on the floor. Her solicitous boyfriend hovered at her elbow all evening, trying to anticipate her every wish, which she started to find somewhat annoying after about five minutes. |
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SOPHISTRY
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SOPHISTRY (SAH fis tree) n fallacious reasoning; plausible but faulty logic
• I'm such a sucker for sophistry; I can never see through the convincing surface to the false logic underneath. • The environmentalists claimed that the distinction between "strategic harvesting" and "clear cutting" was merely a political sophistry designed to hide the lumber industry's plans. The Greek root so ph- gave rise to many English words about knowledge—either the love of it, the possession of it, or the lack of it. Philosophy is a love or pursuit of knowledge, and someone with great knowledge of the world might be called sophisticated. Sophistry is somewhat on the opposite path.. .as is sophomoric. |
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SPLENETIC
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SPLENETIC (spli NET ik) adj bad-tempered, irritable
• The patient became particularly splenetic whenever his spleen was bothering him, so the nurses stayed out of his room those days. • Her boss became splenetic whenever anyone asked him about a raise; nothing seemed to irritate him more. Splenetic also means relating to the spleen, which was the seat of ill temper in classical knowledge. |
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STANCH
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STANCH (stawnch) v to stop the flow of a fluid
• The flow of blood from the cut was so slight that half a tissue was all that was needed to stanch it. • All attempts to stanch the hemorrhaging of the company's coffers were futile; the money just kept pouring out as costs increased exponentially. Don't confuse this with staunch, an adjective, meaning firmly committed. To make it really confusing, sometimes stanch is spelled staunch, and vice versa, but you should be able to figure out the word's meaning from context. |
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STEEP
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STEEP (steep) v to saturate or completely soak
• Her plan was to spend three months in Paris and come back steeped in French culture, but all she ended up with was a fuchsia beret from the souvenir shop. • The old castle is steeped in history; you can practically feel it oozing out of every corner as you walk around. |
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STENTORIAN
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STENTORIAN (sten TOR ee un) adj extremely loud and powerful
• Her grandfather's stentorian voice could be heard from anywhere in the house, and when he issued a command, everyone moved immediately. • Is it absolutely necessary to keep the stereo on at such a stentorian volume that people five blocks away can hear it? |
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STINT
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STINT (stint) v to restrain, be sparing or frugal
• I hate to stint on dessert, so I always save room for at least two portions. • Since I didn't want to stint on her birthday, I got her a cake and a present. Stinting, and its opposite, unstinting are the adjectives that mean restraining and bestowed liberally, respectively. • Her unstinting support for my lemonade stand, both supplier of the product and most loyal customer, gave me my start as an entrepreneur. Stint as a noun means a length of time spent in a specific way, as in a stint in the military, in the White House, or as a roadie. |
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STOIC
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STOIC (STOH ik) adj indifferent to or unaffected by pleasure or pain, steadfast
• Lorelei's stoic indifference to the pain of her dislocated shoulder was disconcerting; it was impossible to tell anything was wrong from the expression on her face. Stoicism is the noun. • Vulcans, such as Mr. Spock, practice stoicism, exercising extremely tight control over their emotions. |
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STOLID
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STOLID (STAH lid) ad] calm, impassive
• Ian's stolid nature and formidable physique make him perfect for a job as a Buckingham Palace guard. If you associate this word with solid, you have a built-in memory aid; stolid people show little animation or emotion. |
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STRUT
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STRUT (strut) n a structural support used to brace a framework
• When one of the struts supporting the wing of the old seaplane broke, we thought we were going to be swimming home. • When the struts on our car started to wear, we could feel every tiny bump on the road. Strut can also be used as a verb to mean brace or support. |
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SUCCOR
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SUCCOR (SUH kur) n assistance, relief in time of distress
• The brief rain did not provide much succor to the farmers who were losing their crops to drought. • The town's inhabitants sought succor in the emergency shelters during and after the hurricane. |
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SUNDRY
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SUNDRY (SUN dree) adj various, miscellaneous, separate
• Of the sundry items for sale, the young boy was most interested in the elaborate water pistol. • My backpack is filled to overflowing with sundry items, but somehow I can never find what I need. If you've heard the phrase torn asunder, you are familiar with the etymology of this word. Sundry originally meant separate or distinct, but now also means various. |
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SUPERCILIOUS
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SUPERCILIOUS (soo pur SIL ee us) adj disdainful, arrogant, haughty, characterized by haughty scorn
• The snotty salesperson looked at the clothes I was wearing with a supercilious expression and apparently decided I wasn't worth her time, so she went back to filing her nails. • I was extremely surprised when he told me he had initially taken my shyness for superciliousness; luckily he later changed his mind and realized I wasn't stuck-up after all. |
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SUPERFLUOUS
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SUPERFLUOUS (soo PUR floo us) adj exceeding what is sufficient or necessary
• The admonition only to eat one of the cupcakes was superfluous; no one would have wanted a second. • Tim and Shane's new plan for saving money was to stop any superfluous spending, but they quickly realized that everything they spent money on was necessary. |
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SUPPLIANT
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SUPPLIANT (sup PLY unt) adj asking humbly, beseeching
• The suppliant expression on the boy's face would have melted anyone's will to refuse him want he wanted. • Stubbornly, the band refused the suppliant crowd's plea for them to play their hit song; they were simply too sick of playing it night after night. As a noun, a suppliant is the same thing as a supplicant. |
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SURFEIT
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SURFEIT (SUR fut) v to feed or supply in excess
• The girls surfeited themselves with candy and cookies at the birthday party, and all came home with stomachaches. Surfeit is also a noun, meaning excess, overindulgence. • A surfeit of cooks is said to spoil the broth. |
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TACITURN
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TACITURN (TA sit urn) ad] not talkative, silent
• Although Steve was taciturn in public and with people he didn't know, he was very talkative when he was with his friends. • Their usually taciturn boss became downright loquacious whenever she had a couple of drinks. Taciturn shares a root with the Italian tacet, which in music, means to be quiet or rest. Tacit, similarly, means implied or not directly stated. • We chose to understand his failure to say we couldn't go as tacit permission to do so. |
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TAMP
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TAMP (tamp) v to plug, to drive in or down by a series of blows
• The old man had a very specific ritual for tamping the tobacco into his pipe, and he repeated it all day long even though he never actually lit the pipe. • After placing the saplings in the holes and filling them in with soil, we tamped down the ground around each tree. |
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TAWDRY
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TAWDRY (TAW dree) ad] cheap, gaudy, showy, tacky, indecent
• Claire bought all sorts of tawdry jewelry to complete her Halloween costume when she dressed as an Old West saloon singer. • The tabloid specialized in revealing the tawdry secrets of minor celebrities. |
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TENDENTIOUS
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TENDENTIOUS (ten DEN shus) ad] biased, showing marked tendencies
• It was difficult to determine what was objective fact and what when tendentious opinion, because all the research published thus far had been paid for by one side or the other. • Although it was clearly a tendentious account, I found it very informative, though that may have been because I happened to agree with the author. |
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TIMOROUS
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TIMOROUS (TIM or us) adj timid, fearful, diffident
• Mice are supposed to be timorous, but the one living behind the fridge seems very bold and completely unafraid of me. • His timorous request to speak was drowned out by the loud arguing amongst the rest of the members of the panel, and he wasn't confident enough to shout over them. |
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TOADY
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TOADY (TOH dee) n sycophant, flatterer, yes-man
• Lewis could always rely on his trusty toady to tell him what he wanted to hear, even if it didn't match up to reality in any way. To toady is to behave like a toady. • The king trusted his gardener more than anyone else, because the gardener refused to toady to him; he could therefore believe that what she said was true, rather than something designed to curry favor. |
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TORPID
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TORPID (TOR pid) adj lethargic, sluggish, dormant
• We were torpid with exhaustion and could barely move after walking fifteen miles back to camp. Torpor is a state of inactivity or lethargy. • The cat fell into torpor after his catnip-induced frenzy and went to sleep in a patch of sunlight in the living room. |
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TORQUE
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TORQUE (tork) n a force that causes rotation
• Gary was having a difficult time generating enough torque to get the wheel to spin on its own. • A torque wrench measures the amount of force being used to tighten a nut or bolt in order to ensure that it is tight enough not to come loose but not too tight. |
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TORRID
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TORRID (TOR id) adj scorching, ardent, passionate, hurried
• Chris was so engrossed in the torrid love affair unfolding in the novel that he didn't even notice that he had missed his bus stop. • Everyone escaped the torrid heat of mid-afternoon by taking a siesta. Perhaps not surprisingly, torrid comes from a Latin word meaning burn. So, however, does torrent, maybe because a roaring torrent looks like its boiling or because a torrent of words can burn you. |
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TRACTABLE
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TRACTABLE (TRAK tuh bul) adj docile, obedient, easily led
• The magician was looking for a tractable young assistant who would be willing to follow directions such as "get in the box so I can saw you in half." • The babysitter had thought the children were models of tractability, until she discovered they were just very good at hiding their disobedience. Intractable means unruly. |
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TRENCHANT
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TRENCHANT (TREN chunt) adj sharply perceptive, keen, penetrating, biting, clear cut
• His trenchant criticism of the report revealed the fundamentally flawed premise on which it was based. • Eric could always be counted on to perform the trenchant analysis that would unearth what had gone wrong in the project thus far. • Although she made very trenchant distinctions about what was right and wrong in other people's actions, she was less clear cut about her own behavior. |
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TRUCULENT
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TRUCULENT (TRUK yoo lunt) ad] fierce, scathing, eager to fight
• Her truculent opposition to the building of a new chemical plant made her a minor celebrity in her hometown, where she was regarded as a fierce crusader for the rights of the townspeople. • The truculent trucker had already been arrested five times this year for starting barroom brawls. |
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TUMID
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TUMID (TOO mud) adj swollen
• The river, tumid from the spring rains, overflowed its banks and flooded the surrounding fields. Tumescence is swelling. • Elmer put ice on his face to try to reduce the tumescence of the black eye he got while fighting with the truculent trucker. |
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TURGID
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TURGID (TUR jid) adj swollen, bloated, pompous, excessively ornate
• Her turgid prose would have been difficult to take in any context, but it was particularly ill suited to a computer how-to book. • The water balloons were so turgid that they would pop at the slightest pressure. Turgid is a synonym for tumid. |
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TURPITUDE
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TURPITUDE (TUR puh toad) n depravity, baseness
• Because he had been caught stealing from the orphanage's fund, he was immediately dismissed on the grounds of moral turpitude. • Claiming that shopping malls were marketplaces of turpitude, Ms. Snow declared that the morally correct thing to do was to shop exclusively by mail. |
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TYRO
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TYRO (TV roh) n novice, beginner in learning
• Although he was only a tyro at the game of chess, he was able to win most of his matches against more experienced players. • It became clear that he was a tyro when he showed the whole table his cards. Neophyte is a synonym for tyro. |
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UNDULATE
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UNDULATE (UN dyoo layt) v to move in wavelike fashion, fluctuate
• The small snake undulated over the twigs in the yard, seeming to flow over them in a way that was unlike the movement of any other animal. Undulations are the motions something makes when it undulates. • The audience was hypnotized by the belly dancer's undulations. |
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URBANE
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URBANE (ur BAYN) adj sophisticated, refined, elegant
• He was particularly proud of his urbane manners, since it was important to him that no one guesses he grew up in a log cabin. • She was always claiming that her urbane tastes could only truly be satisfied back in Paris or Milan, but we suspected she'd never even been there. |
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VAUNT
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VAUNT (vahnt) v to brag or boast
• Fred has a tendency to vaunt his own achievements, even though his friends remind him that it is often more effective to wait for other people to point out when one has done a good job. • The new model, much vaunted before its release by both the reviewers and the manufacturer, turned out to be a total dud. |
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VENAL
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VENAL (VEE nut) ad] capable of being bought or bribed, mercenary • The presence of the venal juror who accepted a bribe resulted in an acquittal.
Venality is the use of position for personal gain. • Rampant venality in city politics eroded everyone's trust in the system. Venal and venality share a root with vendors and vending machines—all refer to people (or machines) to whom we give money in exchange for goods and services. Venal, though, has a bad connotation—much worse than even a vending machine that eats your money and gives you nothing in return. |
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VERISIMILITUDE
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VERISIMILITUDE (ver uh si MIL i tood) n appearing true or real
• The verisimilitude of the wax figures was uncanny; they looked as if they would start to move and speak at any minute. • The playwright tried to achieve historical verisimilitude by writing dialogue in the dialect of the region and time in which the play was set. |
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VERITABLE
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VERITABLE (VER i tuh bul) ad] authentic, real, genuine
• Once thirty inches of snow had fallen and visibility had been reduced to nothing, we realized we were in the middle of a veritable blizzard. • In this district, for a candidate to receive sixty percent of the vote is a veritable landslide. |
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VITIATE
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VITIATE (VI shee ayt) v to reduce the value of, debase, spoil, make ineffective
• His failure to live up to his end of the deal vitiated the entire agreement as far as I was concerned. • The usefulness of the experimental results was vitiated by the lack of a control group against which to measure them. |
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VITUPERATE
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VITUPERATE (vy TOOP ur ayt) v to use harsh condemnatory language; abuse or censure severely
• Don't you vituperate me, missy, when you know you're every bit as much to blame. • After they had spent most of the day vituperating each other in the harshest terms possible, it was a little strange to see them settle their differences so easily and walk off arm in arm to get lunch. |
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WAFT
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WAFT (wahft) n a light breeze, a puff
• I must not have been holding on to the kite string very tightly, because just a single, gentle waft of air was enough to send it floating away over the rooftops. Waft as a verb means to send floating through the air or over water. • The ant wafted down the creek on a leaf raft. |
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WELTER
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WELTER (WEL tur) v to writhe, to toss about, to be in turmoil
• The lake weltered in the storm, tossing the boat up on huge waves. Welter is also a noun, meaning a state of turmoil or chaotic jumble. • He'd searched through the welter of papers on his desk for the contract but couldn't find it. |
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WEND
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WEND (wend) v to go, proceed, walk
• We wended our way through the market, buying vegetables for dinner. • As Fritz wended his long way home from work, he thought again about moving closer to town. |
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WHIMSICAL
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WHIMSICAL (WIM zi kul) adj imaginative; unpredictable
While you usually see this word used in a fanciful, playful way, it can have a bad connotation. • When Iris was a child, she dreamt of living in a whimsical world not unlike that in the fantasy cartoons she saw on television. Whim and whimsy are related nouns. • The entrepreneur ran her company like a dictatorship; everyone was subject to the whims of the boss. |
