BHP2
Terms
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- abjure
- v to renounce or reject solemnly; to recant, to avoid
- adumbrate
- v to forewhadow vaguely or intimate; to suggest or outline sketchily; to obscure or overshadow
- anathema
- n a solemn or ecclesiastical (religious) curse; accursed or thoroughly loathed person or thing
- anodyne
- a/n soothing, something that assuages or allays pains or comforts
- apogee
- n farthest or highest point, culmination, zenith
- apostate
- n one who abandons long-held religious or political convictions
- apotheosis
- n deification, glorification to godliness, an exalted example, a model of excellence or perfection
- asperity
- n severity, rigor, roughness, harshness, acrimony, irritability
- asseverate
- v to aver, allege, assert
- assiduous
- a diligent, hard-working, sedulous
- augury
- n omen, portent
- bellicose
- a belligerent, pugnacious, warlike
- calumniate
- v to slander, make a false accusation, calumny means slander, aspersion
- captious
- a disposed to point out trivial faults, calculated to confuse or entrap in argument
- cavil
- v to find fault without good reason
- celerity
- n speed, alacrity, think accelerate
- chimera
- n an illusion, originally an imaginary fire-breathing she-monster
- contumacious
- a insubordinate, rebellious, contumely means insult, scorn, aspersion
- debacle
- n rout, fiasco, complete failure, My first attempt at a souffle was a total debacle
- denouement
- n an outcome or solution, the unraveling of a plot
- descry
- v to discriminate or discern
- desuetude
- n disus, after years of desuetude, my French skills were finally put to use
- desultory
- a random, aimless, marked by a lack of plan or purpose: her desultory performance impressed no one
- diaphanous
- a transparent, gauzy
- diffident
- a reserved, shy, unassuming, lacking in self-confidence; surprisingly, the CEO of the corporation had been a diffident youth
- dirge
- n soung of grief or lamentation: we listened to the slow, funeral dirge
- encomium
- n glowing and enthusiastic praise; panegyric, tribute, eulogy
- eschew
- v to shun or avoid: she chose to eschew the movie theater, preferring to watch DVDs at home
- excoriate
- v to censure scathingly, to upbraid
- execrate
- v denounce, feel loathing for, curse, declare to be evil
- exegesis
- n critical examination, explication
- expiate
- v to atone or make amends for: Pia Zadora has expiated her movie career by works of charity
- extirpate
- v to destroy, exterminate, cut out, exscind
- fatuous
- a silly, innanely foolish: I would ignore such a fatuous comment
- fractious
- a quarrelsome, rebellious, unruly, refractory, irratibile
- gainsay
- v to deny, dispute, contradict, oppose
- heterodox
- a unorthodox, heretical, iconoclastic
- imbroglio
- n difficult or embarrassing situation
- indefatigable
- a not easily exaustible, tireless, dogged
- ineluctable
- a certain, inevitable
- inimitable
- a one of a kind, peerless
- insouciant
- a unconcerned, carefree, heedless
- inveterate
- a deep rooted, ingrained, habitual
- jejune
- a vapid, uninteresting, nugatory, childish, immature, puerile
- lubricious
- a lewd, wanton, greasy, slippery
- mendicant
- n a beggar, supplicant
- meretricious
- a cheap, gaudy, tawdry, flashy, showy, attracting by false show
- minatory
- a menacing, threatening (reminds you of the Minotaur, a threatening creature indeed)
- nadir
- n low point, perigee
- nonplussed
- a baffled, bewildered, at a loss for what to think or do
- obstreperous
- a noisily and stubbornly defiant, aggressively boisterous
- ossified
- a tending to become more rigid, conventional, sterile, and reactionary with age, literally, turned into bone
- palliate
- v to make something seem less serious, to gloss over, to make less severe or intense
- panegyric
- n formal praise, eulogy, encomium, panegyrical means expressing elaborate praise
- parsimonious
- a cheap, miserly: a parsimonious person parses out his money with great difficulty
- pellucid
- a transparent, easy to understand, limpid
- peroration
- n the concluding part of a speech, flowery, rhetorical speech
- plangent
- a pounding, thundering, resounding
- prolix
- a long-winded, verbose, proxility means verbosity: Michael Gorbachev is famous for his proxility
- propitiate
- v to appease, to conciliate, propitious means auspicious, favorable
- puerile
- a childish, immature, jejune, nugatory
- puissance
- n power, strength, puissant means powerful, strong, the senator deliveres a puissant speech to the convention
- pusillanimous
- a cowardly, craven
- remonstrate
- v to protest, object
- sagacious
- a having sound judgement, perceptive, wise, like a sage
- salacious
- a lustful, lascivious, bawdy
- salutary
- a remedial, wholesome, causing improvement
- sanguine
- a cheerful, confident, optimistic
- saturnine
- a gloomy, dark, sullen morose
- sententious
- a aphoristic or moralistic; epigrammatic, tending to moralize excessively
- stentorian
- a extremely loud and powerful
- stygian
- a dark, gloomy
- sycophant
- n toady, servile, self-seeking flatterer, parasite
- tendentious
- a biased, showing marked tendencies
- timorous
- a timid, fearful, diffident
- tyro
- n novice, greenhorn, rank amateur
- vitiate
- v to corrupt, debase, spoil, make inefective
- voluble
- a fluent, verbal, having easy use of spoken language