Vocab Definitions Week 1
Terms
undefined, object
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- 1. Abeyance
- a temporary suspension of activity
- 2. Abstinence
- voluntarily refraining from eating certain foods or drink or from doing something pleasant but not good for you.
- 3. Abstruse
- hard to understand or grasp.
- 4. Adumbrate
- to suggest partly, to give a hint of things to come, to foreshadow vaguely.
- 5. Alacrity
- cheerful readiness, liveliness or eagerness
- 6. Ambulatory
- able to walk or move about
- 7. Apocryphal
- false, spurious, of a doubtful origin.
- 8. Arbiter
- a judge, one who decides
- 9. Ascetic
- hermitlike, self-denial, austere.
- 10. Assiduous
- hardworking, busy, diligent.
- 11. Capricious
- whimsical, fanciful, impulsive.
- 12. Castigate
- to punish, chastise, criticize severely.
- 13. Chary
- careful, cautious, wary.
- 14. Chicanery
- deception or trickery.
- 15. Chimerical
- wildly fanciful, absurd.
- 16. Circumlocution
- wordy language, an indirect, roundabout expression.
- 17. Contentious
- argumentative over a point, quarrelsome.
- 18. Belie
- to run counter to, to show something as false.
- 19. Brook
- to tolerate, to put up with something.
- 20. Debacle
- a disaster or violent breakdown
- 21. Deleterious
- harmful
- 22. Descry
- to discern, to see something, to catch sight of
- 23. Desiccate
- to dry out
- 24. Discomfit
- to confuse, deceive
- 25. Doff
- to take off ( usually clothing) as a sign of greeting.
- 26. Doggerel
- comic, sometimes crude, informal verse
- 27. Dossier
- a file of documents, letters and records
- 28. Dulcet
- having a nice, agreeable melodious sound
- 29. Encomium
- a eulogy or expression of high praise
- 30. Endemic
- native, belonging to a specific region
- 31. Espy
- to glimpse, to descry, to catch sight of
- 32. Evanescent
- vanishing, happening for the briefest moment.
- 33. Exemplar
- an excellent model, a typical example
- 34. Exigent
- urgent, demands prompt action
- 35. Extirpate
- to rip up by the roots, to abolish, to annihilate
- 36. Facetious
- humorous, joking in a somewhat inappropriate or clumsy manner.
- 37. Fecund
- fertile, productive, fruitful
- 38. Fusillade
- a rapid outburst, spray of gunfire
- 39. Gainsay
- to deny, to speak or act against
- 40. Garrulous
- talkative
- 41. Halitosis
- bad breath
- 42. Irascible
- hot tempered, cranky
- 43. Leitmotif
- a dominant or recurring theme
- 44. Levee
- an embankment designed to prevent a river from flooding
- 45. Lope
- to run at a steady, easy pace
- 46. Macerate
- to soften by soaking, to cause to waste away
- 47. Malapropism
- the humorous misuse of a word that sounds very much like the word intended
- 48. Matriculate
- to enroll, most particularly in college
- 49. Maudlin
- overly sentimental
- 50. Mellifluous
- sweetly flowing
- 51. Mordant
- bitingly sarcastic, incisive, caustic in manner
- 52. Moribund
- being in a dying or decaying condition
- 53. Munificent
- generous
- 54. Neophyte
- a beginner, a novice
- 55. Officious
- unnecessarily helpful, meddlesome, interfering
- 56. Omnivorous
- eating or absorbing everything, feeding on both animal and vegetable substances
- 57. Oscillate
- to swing back and forth
- 58. Ossify
- to become rigid, to become set in one’s ways
- 59. Palliate
- to hide the seriousness of something with excuses or apologies, to ease without curing
- 60. Pallid
- lacking color, wan
- 61. Panegyric
- lofty praise, eulogistic writing
- 62. Parsimonious
- stingy
- 63. Penury
- extreme poverty
- 64. Perfidious
- faithless, untrustworthy
- 65. Perfunctory
- careless, unenthusiastic, done merely as duty
- 66. Perorate
- to make a long, formal speech, to sum up a speech
- 67. Perspicacious
- shrewd, astute, showing strong powers of discernment
- 68. Petulant
- cranky, ill tempered, irritable, peevish
- 69. Piquant
- pungent, charmingly provocative
- 70. Prescient
- having foresight
- 71. Prevaricate
- to deviate from the truth
- 72. Profligate
- corrupt, degenerate, wildly extravagant
- 73. Propinquity
- nearness in place or time, kinship
- 74. Protean
- readily assuming different shapes or characters
- 75. Putrefy
- to rot
- 76. Recalcitrant
- stubbornly defiant and resistant of authority
- 77. Recondite
- hard to understand, abstruse, over one’s head
- 78. Reprobate
- a morally unprincipled person, a scoundrel
- 79. Reticent
- restrained, reluctant, uncommunicative
- 80. Ribald
- vulgar or indecent language
- 81. Sagacious
- wise, shrewd
- 82. Salubrious
- favorable to health
- 83. Scotch
- to put an end to
- 84. Sinuous
- winding, having many curves
- 85. Striated
- marked with thin lines or grooves
- 86. Supercilious
- arrogant, overbearing, condescending
- 87. Surreptitious
- sneaky, secret
- 88. Sycophant
- a flatterer, a self-serving yes-man
- 89. Temerity
- boldness, rashness, audacity
- 90. Truculent
- hostile, aggressive, savage
- 91. Vacuous
- empty, lacking intelligence
- 92. Viscosity
- a thick or sticky consistency of a liquid