Wordsmart Sentence Completion

futile

A D+ average and no extracurricular interests to speak of meant that applying to Harvard was ____, but Lucinda hoped against hope.

Compelling

A _____ argument for buying a security system is one that makes you go out and buy a security system.

Distended

A _____ belly is one symptom of malnutrition.

fraternity

A _____ is an organization of men who have bound themselves together in a relationship analogous to that of real brothers.

Hedonist / Hedonism

A _____ practices _________ twenty-four hours a day.

Hypothetical / Hypotheses

A _________ explanation is a hypothesis, the plural of which is ______.

Circumscribed

A barbed-wire fence and armed guards _____ the movement of the prisoners.

Auspicious

A clear sky in the morning is a(n) _____ sign on the day of a picnic.

Harbinger

A cloud of bad breath and body odor, which preceded him by several yards everywhere he went, was Harold's _________.

Comprises

A company _____ employees.

flouts

A driver _____ the traffic laws by driving through red lights and knocking down pedestrians.

Comprise

A football team _____ eleven players on offense and eleven players on defense.

Anomaly

A house without a roof is an _______--a cold, wet _______.

Debacle

A political debate would become a(n) _____ if the candidates began screaming and throwing dinner rolls at each other.

Disinterested

A referee should be _____. He or she should not be rooting for one of the competing teams.

Aberration

A snowstorm in June is a(n) _____; snow doesn't normally fall in June.

Anomaly

A snowy winter day is not an _______, but a snowy July day is.

Debilitated/ Debilities

A surgeon who becomes _____ is one who has lost the ability to operate on the _____ of other people.

Cosmopolitan

A truly _____ traveler never feels like a foreigner anywhere on Earth.

Autocratic

A two-year-old can be very _____—he wants when he wants it.

Acumen

A woman who knows how to turn one dollar into a million overnight might be said to have a lot of business _____.

Compendium

A yearbook often contains a _____ of the offenses, achievements, and future plans of the members of the senior class.

Arbiter

A(n) _____ of fashion determines what other people will wear by wearing it herself.

faction

At the Republican National Convention, the candidate's _____ spent much of its time shouting at the other candidate's ________.

Avowed

At the age of twenty-five, Louis finally _____ that he couldn't stand his mother's apple pie.

euphemism

Aunt Angie, who couldn't bring herself to say the word death, said that Uncle George had taken the big bus uptown. "Taking the big bus uptown" was her _____ for dying.

fervor

Avid baseball fans frequently display their ___ for the game by throwing food at bad players.

Atheist

Hadley had always imagined a big religious wedding, but Emma, a life-long _____, preferred a Vegas elopement.

Ascendancy

Handheld gadgets have been in _____ for the past few years.

frugality

Hannah's ____ annoyed her husband, who loved spending money on tech gadgets.

Gesticulated

Harry _____ wildly on the other side of the theater in an attempt to get our attention.

Appreciate

Harry bought Joe's collection of old chewing-tobacco tins as an investment. His hope was that the tins would _____ over the next few years, enabling him to turn a profit by selling them to someone else.

Cajoled

I didn't want to give the speech, but Enrique _____ me into doing it by telling me what a good speaker I am. As it turned out, he simply hadn't been able to find anyone else.

Alleges

If I say, "Cedrick _____ that I stole his hat," I am saying two things.

Conjecture

If forced to _____, I would say the volcano will erupt in twenty-four hours.

Dextrous

Ilya was determined not to sell the restaurant on eBay; even the most _____ negotiator could not sway him.

Dissipated

Ilya's anger _____ as the day wore on, and he gradually forgot what had upset him.

Criterion

In choosing among the linemen, the most important _____ was quickness.

Desultory

In his _____ address, Rizal skipped from one topic to another and never came to the point.

Heyday

In his _________, Vernon was a world-class athlete; today he's just Vernon.

Ascetic

In his effort to save money, Roy led a(n) _____ existence: He never went out, he never ate anything but soup, and he never had any fun.

fettered

In his pursuit of an Olympic gold medal, the runner was ____ by multiple injuries.

enfranchised

In the United States, citizens become ____on their eighteenth birthdays.

Coup

In the attempted _____ in the Philippines, some army officers tried to take over the government.

Anachronism

In this day of impersonal hospitals, a doctor who remembers your name seems like a(n) _____.

Deleterious

Is watching a lot of TV really _____? Of course not.

egocentric

It never occurred to the ______musician that his audiences might like to hear someone else's songs every once in a while.

extricate

It took two and a half days to _____ the little girl from the abandoned well into which she had fallen.

Indiscreet

It was _____ of Laura to tell Salima how much she hated Bailey's new hairstyle, because Salima always tells Bailey everything.

Eccentric

The ______ inventor spent all his waking hours fiddling with what he said was a time machine, but it was actually just an old telephone booth.

Cosmopolitan

Marcello's interests were _____—he liked Greek wine, German beer, Dutch cheese, Japanese cars, and French fries.

Assimilated/ Assimilation

Margaret didn't have any friends when she first went to the new school, but she was gradually _____—she became part of the new community. When she was chosen for the cheerleading squad, her _____ was complete.

extrovert

Maria was quite an _____; she walked boldly into the roomful of strange adults and struck up many friendly conversations.

comprehensive

Maria's knowledge of English is _____; she even understands what comprehensive means.

Abortive

Marie and Elizabeth made a(n) _____ effort to bake a birthday cake; that is, their effort did not result in birthday cake.

Chasm

Mark was so stupid that his girlfriend wondered whether there wasn't a _____ where his brain should be.

Dogmatic

Marty is _____ on the subject of the creation of the world; he sneers at anyone whose views are not identical to his.

Copious

Matt had a _____supply of nails in his workshop. Everywhere you stepped, it seemed, there was a pile of nails.

Belied

Melvin's smile _____ the grief he was feeling; despite his happy expression he was terribly sad inside.

Heyday

The _________ of the British Navy ended a long, long time ago.

erudite

The _____biologist was viewed by many of his colleagues as a likely winner of the Nobel Prize.

elusive/eluded

The _____criminal was next to impossible for the police to catch. (The criminal ____ the police.)

Reconcile

The accountant managed to _____ the company books with the cash on hand only with great creativity.

Culpable

The accountant's failure to spot the errors made him _____ in the tax-fraud case.

Gesticulated

The after-dinner speaker _____ in such a strange way that the audience paid more attention to his hands than to his words.

exasperating

The algebra class's refusal to answer any questions was extremely _____ to the substitute teacher.

Approbation

The ambassador's actions met with the _____ of his commander in chief.

Gravity

The anchorman's nervous giggling was entirely inappropriate, given the _________ of the situation.

Circumvented

The angry school board _____ the students' effort to install televisions in every classroom.

Disseminated

News is _____ through many media: internet, radio, television, newspapers, magazines, and gossips.

Appropriated

Nick _____ my lunch; he grabbed it out of my hands and ate it. So I _____ Ed's.

empirical

Nicky's idea about the moon being made of pizza dough was not ______.

explicitly

No one ____ asked us to set the barn on fire, but we got the impression that that was what we were supposed to do.

Autocratic

No one at our office liked the _____ manager. He always insisted on having his own way, and he never let anyone make a decision without consulting him.

Definitive

No one could find anything to object to in Cindy's _____ explanation of how the meteorite had gotten into the bathtub.

Beleaguered

No one could leave the _____ city; the attacking army had closed off all the exits.

Credence

No one could prove Frank's theory, but his standing at the university helped it gain _____.

Gravity

No one realized the _________ of Myron's drug addiction until it was much too late to help him.

Dissolution

Nothing could prevent the _____ of the Jesse Ventura Fan Club after he retired to seek a political career.

Heterogeneous

On Halloween the children amassed a _______ collection of candy, chewing gum, popcorn, and cookies.

Capitulated

On the twentieth day of the strike, the workers _____ and went back to work without a new contract.

Beleaguered

Oscar felt _____ at work. He was months behind in his assignments, and he had little hope of catching up.

Amiable

Our _____ guide made us feel right at home in what would otherwise have been a cold and forbidding museum.

Contingent

Our agreement to buy their house is ______ upon the sellers' finding another house to move into. That is, they won't sell their house to us unless they can find another house to buy.

Aesthetic

Our art professor had a highly developed _____ sense; he found things to admire in paintings that, to us, looked like garbage.

fecund

Our compost heap became increasingly ____ as it decomposed.

Compelled

Our consciences _____ us to turn over the money we had found to the authorities.

Consonant

Our desires were _____ with theirs; we all wanted the same thing.

Civilly

Our dinner guests conducted themselves _____ when we told them we weren't going to serve them dinner after all. They didn't bang their cups on the table or throw their plates on the floor.

exonerated

Our dog was _____ when we discovered that it was in fact the cat that had eaten all the doughnuts.

Circumvented

Our hopes for an early end of the meeting were _____ by the chairperson's refusal to deal with the items on the agenda.

Disparate

Our interests were _____: Cathy liked to play with dolls, and I liked to throw her dolls out the window.

facetious

Our proposal about shipping our town's garbage to the moon was ______, but the first selectman took it seriously.

Creditable

Our record in raising money was very _____; we raised several thousand dollars every year.

expedited

Our wait for a table was _____ by a waiter who mistook Angela for a movie star.

Degenerated

Over the years, the nice old neighborhood had _____ into a terrible slum.

facile

Paolo's poems were ______ rather than truly accomplished; if you read them closely, you soon realized they were filled with clichés.

foibles

Patti's ____ included a tendency to prefer dogs to people.

fatuous/ infatuated

Pauline is so pretty that her suitors are often driven to _____ acts of devotion. They are _____ with her.

egalitarian

People often lose interest in _____ measures when such measures interfere with their own interests.

Copiously

Phil ate _____ at the banquet and went home feeling quite sick.

emigrated

Pierre _____from France because he had grown tired of speaking French. Pierre became an émigré (EM uh gray).

Archetype

Plato is the _____ of all philosophers.

Chicanery

Political news would be dull were it not for the _____ of our elected officials.

Agrarian

Politics in this country often pit the rural, _____ interests against the urban interests.

Aristocratic

Polo, which Prince Charles enjoys, is often said to be a(n) _____ sport because it is typically played by privileged people.

Recapitulate

So few students paid attention to Mr. Hernandez that he had to _____ his major points at the end of class.

Aptitude

Some rare students have a marked _____ for taking SAT. They earn high scores without any prep.

Complacent

The _____ camper paid no attention to the poison ivy around his campsite, and ended up going to the hospital.

Arduous

The _____ car trip was made even more difficult by the fact that all four tires went flat, one after another.

Apprehensive

The _____ child clung to his father's leg as the two of them walked into the main circus tent to watch the lion tamer.

Amorous

The _____ couple made quite a scene at the movie. The movie they were watching, Love Story, was pretty _____ itself. It was about a(n) _____ couple, one of whom died.

Caustic

The _____ detergent ate right through Henry's laundry.

Beleaguered

The _____ executive seldom emerged from his office as he struggled to deal with the growing scandal.

Arcane

The _____ formula for the cocktail was scrawled on a faded scrap of paper.

Circumspect

The _____ general did everything he could not t put his soldiers at unnecessary risk.

Credulous

The _____ housewife believed that she had won a million dollars through an email scam.

Disparate

The _____ interest groups were united only by their intense dislike of the candidate.

exacting

The _____ math teacher subtracted points if you didn't show every step of your work.

Deluded

The _____ mental patient believed that he was a chicken sandwich.

eclectic

The _____ menu included dishes from many different countries.

ethereal

The _____ mist on the hillside was delicate and beautiful.

ethereal

The _____ music we heard turned out to be not angels plucking on their harps but the wind blowing through the slats of the metal awning.

Confluence

The _____ of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers is at St. Louis; that's the place where they join together.

Ascendancy

The _____ of the new regime had been a great boon for the economy of the tiny tropical kingdom.

Cursor

The _____ on Dave's computer made a cursory sweep across the data as he scrolled down the page.

Duplicitous

The _____ salesman sold the red sports car to someone else even though he had promised to sell it to us.

Bucolic

The _____ scene didn't do much for the city child, who preferred screaming fire engines and honking horns to the sound of babbling brook.

Diffident

The _____ student never made a single comment in class.

Docile

The _____ students quietly memorized all the lessons their teacher told them.

Choleric

The _____ watchdog would sink his teeth into anyone who came within biting distance of his doghouse.

Burgeoning

The _____ weeds in our yard soon overwhelmed the grass.

Blithe

The ______ birds in the garden were making so much noise that Jamila began to think about the shotgun in the attic.

fraternal

The ______ feelings of the group were strengthened by monthly fishing trips.

elliptical

The announcement from the State Department was purposely _____—the government didn't really want reporters to know what was going on.

elusive/eluded

The answer to the problem was ____; every time the mathematician thought he was close, he discovered another error. (Or, one could say that the answer to the problem _____the mathematician.)

empirical

The apple-dropping experiment gave the scientists ____evidence that gravity exists.

Conventional

The architect's _____ designs didn't win him awards for originality.

Augment

The army _____ it's attack by sending in a few thousand more soldiers.

Definitive

The army completely wiped out the invaders; its victory was _____.

Contrived

The artist was widely admired for his originality, but his paintings seemed _____ to me.

Connoisseur

The artist's work was popular, but _____ rejected it as amateurish.

Concurred

The assistant wanted to keep his job, so he always _____ with his boss.

Brevity

The audience was deeply grateful for the _____ of the after-dinner speaker's remarks.

esoteric

The author's books were so _____that even his mother didn't buy any of them.

Docile

The baby raccoons appeared _____ at first, but they were almost impossible to control.

Chasm

The bad guys were gaining, so the hero grabbed the heroine and swung across the _____ on a slender vine.

fomented

The bad news from abroad _____ pessimism among professional investors.

Beset

The bereaved widow was _____ by grief.

Charisma

The glamorous presidential candidate had a lot of _____; voters didn't seem to support him so much as be entranced by him.

Clemency

The governor committed an act of _____ when he released all the convicts from the state penitentiary.

Arbitrary

The grades Mr. Simone gave is English students appeared to _____; they didn't seem related the work the students had done in class.

Desecration

The graffiti on the front door of the school is a _____.

Clique

The high school newspaper staff was a real _____; they all hung out together and wouldn't talk to anyone else. It was hard to have fun at that school if you weren't a member of the right clique. The cheerleaders were cliquish as well.

Antecedent

The horse-drawn wagon is a(n) _____ of the modern automobile.

Desiccated

The hot wind _____ the few grapes remaining on the vine; after a day or two, they looked like raisins.

fetters

The housewife's young children were the ____ that prevented her from pursuing a second Master's degree.

Awry

The hunter's bullet went _____. Interest of hitting the bear, it hit his truck.

Discernment

The ill-mannered people at Tisha's party proved that she had little _____ when it came to choosing friends.

Bereaved

The new widow was still _____ when we saw her. Every time anyone mentioned her dead husband's name, she burst into tears.

Genre

The novel is one literary _____. Poetry is another.

Disparate

The novel was difficult to read because the plot consisted of dozens of _____ threads that never came together.

Commensurate

The number of touchdowns scored by the team and the number of its victories were _____ (both zero).

expatriated

The rebels were ____ by the nervous general, who feared that they would cause trouble if they were allowed to remain in the country.

Compelling

The recruiter's speech was so _____ that nearly everyone in the auditorium enlisted in the Army when it was over.

Chronicled

The reporter _____ all the events of the revolution.

Undaunted

The rescue crew was _____ by the flames and ran into the burning house to look for survivors. The entire crew was dauntless in its effort to save the people inside.

Avarice

The rich man's _____ was annoying to everyone who wanted to lay hands on some of his money.

Arcane

The rites of the secret cult were _____; no one outside the cult knew what they were.

Animosity

The rivals for the state championship felt great _______ toward each other. Whenever they ran into each other, they snarled.

Bastion

The robbers terrorized the village for several weeks, and then escaped to their _____ high in the treacherous mountains.

Adulation

The rock star grew to abhor the _____ of his fans.

Eccentric

The rocket followed an ______course; first it veered in one direction, then it veered in another, then it crashed.

Distinguish

The rodent expert's eyesight was so acute that he was able to _____ between a shrew and a vole at more than a thousand paces.

Autocratic

The ruthless dictator's _____ reign ended when the rebels blew up his palace with plastic explosive.

extraneous

The salad contained several _____ ingredients, including hair, sand, and a single dead fly.

Circuitous

The salesman's route was _____—it wound aimlessly through many small towns.

Gratuitous

The scathing review of the movie contained several _________ remarks about the sex life of the director.

Grandiose

The scientist's _________ plan was to build a huge shopping center on the surface of the moon.

Concise

The scientist's explanation was _____; it was brief and it helped us understand the difficult concept.

farcical

The serious play quickly turned _____ when the leading man's belt broke and his pants fell to his ankles.

euphemistically

The sex-education instructor wasn't very effective. She was so embarrassed by the subject that she could only bring herself to speak ______ about it.

explicit

The sexually ____ movie received an X rating.

foundered

The ship ____ shortly after it hit the iceberg.

Daunting

The size of the players on the visiting team was_____; the players on the home team began to perspire nervously.

Amorphous

The sleepy little town was engulfed by an_____ blob of glowing protoplasm—a higher intelligence from outer space.

Degenerate

The slum neighborhood was _____.

Dissipated

The smoke _____ as soon as we opened the windows.

Dormant

The snow fell silently over the _____ village, which became snarled in traffic jams the following morning.

fidelity

The soldiers couldn't shoot straight, but their ___ to the cause of freedom was never in question.

Coalition

The southern _____ in Congress is the group of representatives from Southern states who often vote the same way.

Daunted

The steepness of the mountain _____ the team of amateur climbers, because they hadn't realized what they were in for.

Coup

The student council's great _____ was persuading Foo Fighters to play at our prom.

exacting

The surgeon's _____ task was to reconnect the patient's severed eyelid.

fabrication

The suspected murderer's alibi turned out to be an elaborate ______; in other words, he was lying when he said that he hadn't killed the victim.

Caustic

The teacher's _____ criticism of Sally's term paper left her in tears.

edify

The teacher's goal was to____ her students, not to force a handful of facts down their throats.

Despondency

The team fell into _____ after losing the state championship game by a single point.

elusive/eluded

The team played hard, but victory was _____and they suffered another defeat. (Victory ____ the hard-playing team.)

Abridged

The thoughtful editor _____ the massive book by removing the boring parts.

Benign

The threat of revolution turned out to be _____; nothing much came of it.

Assuaged

The thunderstorm made the baby cry, but I _____ her fears by singing her lullaby.

Distended

The tire ____ alarmingly as the forgetful gas station attendant kept pumping more and more air into it.

Catalyst

The tragic hijacking provided the _____ for Congress's new anti-terrorist legislation.

ephemeral

The tread on those used tires will probably turn out to be ______.

Appeased

The trembling farmer handed over all his grain, but still the emperor was not _____.

Archaic

The tribe's traditions are _____. They have been in force for thousands of years.

Discrete

The twins were identical but their personalities were _____.

Bemused

The two stood _____ in the middle of the parking lot at Disneyland, trying to remember where they had parked their car.

effaced

The vandals ____the delicate carving by rubbing it with sandpaper.

Curtailed

The vet _____ his effort to cut the cat's tail with the lawn mower. That is, he stopped trying.

Anecdote

The vice president set the crowd at ease with an _______ about his childhood desire to become a vice president.

eminent

The visiting poet was so _____ that our English teacher asked the poet for his autograph. Our English teacher thought the poet was preeminent in his field.

Concord

The war between the neighboring tribes ended thirty years of _____.

Covenant

The warring tribes made a(n) _____ not to fight each other anymore.

Capricious

The weather is often said to _____. One minute it's snowing; the next minute it's 120 degrees in the shade.

exacerbated

The widow's grief was ____ by the minister's momentary inability to remember her dead husband's name.

Conjured

The wizard _____ an evil spirit by mumbling some magic words and throwing little powdered eye of newt into the fire.

enigmas

The wizard spoke in riddles and ____, and no one could understand what he was saying.

exulted

The women's team ____ in its victory over the men's team at the badminton finals. They were exultant.

Beguile

The word _________ also means to deceive, but in a charming and not always bad way.

Assiduous

The workmen were _____ in their effort to get nothing done; instead of working, they drank coffee all day long.

endemic

The writer Tom Wolfe coined the term "Me Decade" to describe the egocentricity ______in the 1970s.

Histrionic

The young actor's _________s made everyone in the audience squirm.

Ardor

The young lovers were oblivious to everything except their _____ for each other.

Desecration

Their act of vandalism was a _____.

Gratuitous

Their attack against us was _________; we had never done anything to offend them.

Grandiose

Their house was genuinely impressive, although there were a few _________ touches: a fireplace the size of a garage, a kitchen with four ovens, and a computerized media center in every room.

Hierarchy

There appeared to be no _________ in the newly discovered tribe; there were no leaders and, for that matter; no followers.

Adulterated

We discovered that the town's drinking water had radioactive waste in it; we discovered, in other words, that it had been _____.

edifying

We found the pastor's sermon on the importance of not eating beans to be most _____.

Glut

We had a _____ of contributions but a dearth, or scarcity, of volunteers; it seemed that people would rather give their money than their time.

forego

We had some of the chocolate cake, some of the chocolate mousse, and some of the chocolate cream pie, but we were worried about our weight so we decided to ____ the chocolate-covered potato chips. That is, we forewent them.

Adverse

We had to play out soccer match under _____ conditions: It was snowing, and only three members of our team had bothered to show up.

Ambiguous

We listened to the weather report, but the forecast was _____; we couldn't tell whether the day was going to be rainy or sunny.

empirically

We proved the pie's deliciousness ______, by eating it.

fauna

We saw little evidence of ___ on our walk through the woods. We did, however, see plenty of flora, or plants.

Covenant

We signed a(n) _____ never to drive Masha's father's car without permission again.

efface

We tried to ____ the dirty words that had been written on the front of our house, but nothing would remove them.

forsake

We urged Buddy to _______ his life with the alien beings and return to his job at the drugstore.

frugal

We were as ____ as we could be, but we still ended up several thousand dollars in debt.

Dubiety

We were dubious about the team's chance of success and, as it turned out, our _____ was justified: The team lost.

Cadence

We wished the tone of Irwin's words would have a more pleasing _____, but he spoke in a dull monotone.

Belittled

We worked hard to put out the fire, but he fire chief _____ our efforts by saying he wished he had brought some marshmallows.

edification

We would have felt lost at the art show had not the excellent and informative programs been provided for our _______.

Assiduous

Wendell was the only _____ student in the entire math class; all the other students tried to copy their homework from him.

Banality

What made Yu fall asleep was the _____ of the dinner conversation.

Agenda

What's on the _____ for the board meeting? A little gossip, then lunch.

Hyperbole

When Joe said "I'm so hungry I could eat a hores," he was using _________ to convey the extent of his hunger.

Egocentric

______ Lou never read the newspaper unless there was something in it about him.

Histrionic

_________ behavior is referred to as ________s.

Husbandry

_________ is the practice of conserving money or resources. To ________ is to economize.

Homogenized / Homogenized / homogeneous

_________ milk is milk in which the cream, which usually floats on top, has been permanently mixed with the rest of the milk. Skim milk is milks from which the layer of cream has been skimmed off. When milk is _________, it becomes a _________ substance - that is, it's the same thought, or uniform.

Confluence

A(n) _____ of many factors (no ice, bad food, terrible music) made it inevitable that the party would be a flop.

Consummate

A(n) _____ pianist is an extremely good one. Nothing is lacking in the way he or she plays.

Desultory

Aadi made a few _____ attempts to start a garden, but nothing came of them.

Dilettantes

Antonella dismissed the members of the ladies' sculpture club as nothing more than a bunch of _____.

Coveted

Any position at MTV is a highly _____ job.

Capricious

Arjun was _____. One minute he said favorite car was a Volkswagen; the next minute he said it was a Toyota.

Circumspect

As a public speaker, Nick was extremely _____; he always took great care not to say the wrong thing or give offense.

encroached

As the city grew, it _____on the countryside surrounding it.

Alleviates

Aspirin _____ headache pain. When your headache comes back, take some more aspirin.

Hackneyed

"As cold as ice" is a _________ expression.

axiom

"Everything that is living dies" is an _____

dictum

"No pain, no gain" is a hackneyed ____of sadistic coaches everywhere

Abdicated

Abby _____ her responsibilities as a vice president by dumping in the garbage the reports she was supposed to present to the board of directors and flying to the Bahamas.

Congregation

About half the _____ attended the sunrise service.

Histrionic

Adele's _________ request for raise embarrassed everyone in the office. She gesticulated wildly, jumped up and down, pulled out handfuls of hair, threw herself to the ground, and groaned in agony.

Eclectic

Adolfo's taste in art was _____. He liked the Old Masters, the Impressionists, and Walt Disney.

Delineated

After Jack had _____ his plan, we had no doubt about what he intended to do.

Digression

After a lengthy _____, the lecturer returned to his speech and brought it to a conclusion.

Desiccated

After a week without water, the _____ plant fell over and died.

Conciliatory

After dinner at the all-you-can-eat pancake house, the divorced couple began to feel _____, so they flew to Las Vegas and were remarried.

Artful

After dinner, the _____ counselor told the campers that there was a madman loose in the woods, thus causing them to lie quietly in the tent.

Coherent

After puzzling over Grace's disorganized Holy Roman Empire essay for almost an hour, Ms. Fabricius needed only twenty minutes to read Arjun's _____ paper on the Defenestration of Prague.

Despondent

After the death of his wife, the man was _____ for many months.

Cognizant

Al was _____ of the dangers of sword swallowing, but he tried it anyway and hurt himself quite badly.

Belligerent

Al was so _____ that the party had the feel of a boxing match.

Aloof

Al, on the roof, felt very _____.

Genre

Alan displayed a great talent for a particular _____: the bawdy limerick.

espoused

Alex _____ so many causes that he sometimes had trouble remembering which side he was on.

Hapless

Alex led a _________ existence that made all his friends' lives seem fortunate by comparison.

Dissipated

Alex won the weekly lottery but _____ the entire winnings in one abandoned, fun-filled weekend.

forsaken

All the guru's followers had _____ him, so he became a real estate developer and turned his temple into an apartment building.

Culinary

Allison pursued her _____ interests by attending the _____ institute. Her first meal, which was burned beyond recognition, was a _____ disaster.

Anecdote

Alvare told an _______ about the time Jessica got her big toe stuck in a bowling ball.

Accosted

Amanda karate-chopped the stranger who _____ her in the street and was embarrassed to find he was an old, blind man.

Hegemony

America once held an unchallenged nuclear _________.

enfranchised

American women were not ______until the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which gave them the right to vote.

Atheist/ Agnosticism

An _____ himself, Jon concluded from Jorge's spiritual skepticism that they shared similar beliefs. In fact, Jorge's reluctance to affirm or discredit a god's existence reflects his ______.

exigency

An academic ____: You haven't opened a book all term and the final is tomorrow morning.

Blight

An early frost proved a _____ to the citrus crops last year, so we had no orange juice for breakfast.

egocentric

An egoist is an ______person. He believes the entire universe exists for his benefit.

Gregarious

Anna wasn't very _________; she went to the party, but she spent most of her time hiding in the closet.

effusive

Anna's _____ thanks for our silly little present made us feel somewhat embarrassed, so we decided to move to a different lunch table.

Abated /Unabated

Bad weather _____ when good weather begins to return. A rainstorm that does not let up continues _____.

Acerbic

Barry sat silently as his friends read the teacher's _____ comments on his paper.

Malefactors

Batman and Robin made life hell for _____ in Gotham City.

Affectation

Becky's English accent is a(n) _____. She spent only a week in England

exhaustively

Before you use a parachute, you should examine it _____ for defects. Once you jump, your decision is irrevocable.

enigma

Ben is an ____; he never does any homework but he always gets good grades.

enigmatic

Ben's good grades were ________ . So was the wizard's speech.

Aphorism/ Aphoristic

Benjamin Franklin was fond of _____. He was frequently _____.

Audacious

Bert made the _____ decision to climb Mt. Everest in bowling shoes.

Disdain

Bertram viewed the hot dog with _____, believing that to eat such a disgusting food was beneath him.

Assuaged

Beth was extremely angry, but I _____ her by promising to leave the house and never return.

Abstinent

Beulah used to be a chain-smoker; now she's _____ (it was just too hard to get those chains lit).

Ardent

Blanche happily made cakes from morning to night. She was a(n) _____ baker.

Corollary

Bloodshed and death are _____ of any declaration of war.

Apocryphal

Brandi's blog discredited the _____ report of Martians in Congress

Alloy

Brass is a(n) _____ of copper and zinc. That is, you make brass by combining copper and zinc.

Abstract

Bruno doesn't like _____ art; he thinks that a painting should resemble something real, not a lot of splattered paint.

Charlatan

Buck was selling what he claimed was a cure for cancer, but he was just a _____.

extrapolating

By _______ from a handful of pottery fragments, the archaeologists formed a possible picture of the ancient civilization.

Ambience

By decorating their house with plastic beach balls and Popsicle sticks, the Cramers created a playful _____ that delighted young children.

furtive

Cal wiggled his ears while the countess was talking to him in a _____ attempt to catch our attention.

Ebullient

Cammie was _____when her fairy godmother said she could use one of her three wishes to wish for three more wishes.

Adamant

Candice was _____: She would never go out with Paul again.

Diffidence

Carla's _____ led many participants to believe she hadn't been present at the meeting, even though she had.

fatalist

Carmine was such a _____ that he never wore a seat belt; he said that if he were meant to die in a car accident, there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

Decadent

Carousing in local bars instead of going to class is _____.

Benign

Charlie was worried that he had cancer, but the lump on his leg turned out to be _____.

Aphorism

Chef Hussain is particularly fond of Woolf's _____, "One cannot think well, love well, or sleep well, if one has not dined well."

esoteric

Chicken wrestling and underwater yodeling were just two of Earl's ____hobbies.

Affinity

Children have a(n) _____ for trouble; that is, they often find themselves in it.

Aggregate

Chili is a(n) _____ of meat and beans.

Beguiling

Clarence found Mary's beauty so _________ that he did anything she asked of him.

exalted

Cleaning out a septic tank is not an ____ task.

Arduous

Climbing the mountain was _____. We were so exhausted when we got to the top that we forgot to enjoy the view.

enervated

Clinging to a flagpole for a month without food or water _____me, and one day I fell asleep and ended up on the ground.

flaunted

Colleen ____ her engagement ring, shoving it in the face of almost anyone who came near her.

Conciliatory

Com on—be _____.

Austere

Conditions in Austria were very _____ after the war.

Culminated

Connie's years of practice _____ in a great victory at the international juggling championship.

Chimera

Could you take a picture of a _____ with a camera? No, of course not. It wouldn't show up on the film.

Bovine

Cows are _____, obviously. Eating grass is _____ concern.

Categorical

Crooked politicians often make _____ denials of various charges against them. Then they go to jail.

Abstinent

Cynthia, who was dieting, tried to be _____, but when she saw the chocolate cake she realized that she would probably have to eat the entire thing.

Chronic

DJ's _____ back pains often kept him from football practice, but the post-game internal bleeding lasting only a day.

Catholic

Da Vinci was a(n) _____ genius who excelled at everything he did.

Countenanced

Dad _____ our backyard rock fights even though he didn't really approve of them.

Deduced/ Deduction

Daffy _____ from the shape of its bill that the duck was really a chicken. That the duck was really a chicken was Daffy's _____.

extrovert

Damian was an ____ in the sense that he was always more interested in other people's business than in his own.

Deference

Danny stopped texting at the dinner table in _____ to the wishes of his mother.

Coerce

Darth Vader tried flattery, Darth Vader tried gifts, Darth Vader even tried to _____, but Darth Vader was never able to make Han Solo reveal the hidden rebel base.

Duplicity

Dave, in his _____, told us he wasn't going to rob the bank and then went right out and robbed it.

Alacrity

David could hardly wait for his parents to leave; he carried their luggage out to the car with great _____.

Blatantly

David was _____ critical of our effort; that is, he was noisy and obnoxious in making his criticisms.

facetious

David was sent to the principal's office for making a _____ remark about the intelligence of the French teacher.

Deference

Dean showed _____ to his grandfather: He let the old man have first dibs on the birthday cake.

figuratively

Desmond could literally eat money if he chewed up and swallowed a dollar bill. Desmond's car eats money only _____, in the sense that it is very expensive to operate.

exalted

Diamante felt _____ when he woke up to discover that his great-uncle had left him $100 million.

exacerbated

Dipping Austin in lye _____ his skin condition.

Gregarious

Dirk was too _________ to enjoy the fifty years he spent in solitary confinement.

Desecrates

Doodling in a book _____ the book, even if the book isn't a Bible.

Chagrin

Doug was filled with _____ when he lost the race because he had put his shoes on the wrong feet.

equivocal

Dr. Festen's _____diagnosis made us think that he had no idea what Mrs. Johnson had.

Affinity

Ducks have a(n) _____ for water; that is, they like to be in it.

epitome

Eating corn dogs and drinking root beer is the ___of the good life, as far as Wilson is concerned.

Countenance

Ed's harsh words belied his _____ which was kind and encouraging.

Amorphous

Ed's teacher said that his term paper was _____; it was as shapeless and disorganized as a cloud.

Audacity

Edgar's soaring leap off the top of the building was an act of great _____.

Affected

Edward _____ to be more of an artist than he really was. Everyone hated him for it.

Cryptic

Elaine's remarks were _____; Jerry was baffled by what she said.

Affectation

Elizabeth had somehow acquired the absurd _____ of pretending that she didn't know how to turn on a television set.

Abhorred

Emanuel _____ having to wake up before dawn.

extrapolating

Emeril came up with a probable recipe by _____ from the taste of the cookies he had eaten at the store.

egregious

Erik's manners were ______; he ate his mashed potatoes with his fingers and slurped the peas right off his plate.

Antithesis

Erin is the _____ of Aaron: Erin is bright and beautiful; Aaron is dull and plain.

Addressed/ Addressing

Ernie _____ the problem of _____ the convention by sitting down and writing his speech.

Acumen

Ernie's lack of _____ led him to invest all his money in a company that had already gone out of business.

Husbanded

Everyone _____ oil and electricity during the energy crisis of the 1970s.

extraneous

Extra ice cream would never be _____, unless everyone had already eaten so much that no one wanted any more.

Complement

Fish-flavored ice cream was a perfect _____ to the seafood dinner.

Belabored

For more than an hour, the boring speaker _____ his point about the challenge of foreign competition.

Connoisseur

Frank was a _____ of bad movies. He had seen them all and knew which ones were genuinely dreadful and which ones were merely poorly made.

exemplified

Fred participated in every class discussion and typed all of his papers. His teacher thought Fred _____ the model student; Fred's classmates thought he was sycophantic.

Abortive

Fred's attempt to climb the mountain was _____; he injured himself when he was halfway up.

Eccentric

Fred's political views are _____: He believes that we should have kings instead of presidents and that the government should raise money by holding bake sales.

Deduce

From the footprints on the ground, Clarice _____ that the criminal had feet.

Garrulous

Gabriella is gregarious and ________; she loves to hang out with the gang and gab.

Heresy / Heretic

Galileo was tried for the _________ of suggesting that the sun did not revolve around earth. He was almost convicted of being a ______, but he recanted his heretical view.

Apotheosis

Geoffrey is unbearable to be with. He thinks he's the _____ of masculinity.

forbore

George _______ to punch me in the nose, even though I told him that I thought he was a sniveling idiot.

Acrimonious

George and Elizabeth's discussion turned _____ when Elizabeth introduced the subject of George's perennial, incorrigible stupidity.

Abated

George spilled a cup of hot coffee on his leg. It hurt quite a bit. Then, gradually, the agony _____.

Hierarchy

George was very low in the state department _________. In fact his phone number was not been listed in the state department directory.

eclectic

George's _____ reading made him well rounded.

extrapolated

George's estimates were _____ from last year's data; he simply took all the old numbers and doubled them.

Derided

Gerald _____ Diana's driving ability after their hair-raising trip down the twisting mountain road.

Abstract

He liked oysters in the _____, but when he actually tried one he became nauseated.

Corroborated

Henny Penny's contention that the sky was falling could not be _____. This is, no one was able to find any fallen sky.

Broach

Henrietta was proud of her new dress, so no one knew how to _____ the subject with her of how silly grandmothers look in leather.

Concurrent

High prices, falling demand, and poor weather were there _____ trends that made life especially difficult for corn farmers last month.

Corollary

Higher prices were a(n) _____ of the two companies' agreement not to compete.

Distinguishing

His face had no _____ characteristics; there was nothing about his features that stuck in your memory.

Countenance

His father's confident _____ gave Lou the courage to preserve.

enormity

Hitler's soldiers stormed through the village, committing one _____ after another."

expatriated/expatriate

Hugo was fed up with his native country, so he ____ to America. In doing so, Hugo became an _____.

Categorically

I _____ refuse to do anything whatsoever at any time, in any place, with anyone.

Antipathetic

I feel _____ toward bananas wrapped in ham. I do not want them for dinner. I also feel a certain amount of antipathy toward the cook who keeps trying to force me to eat them. My feelings on these matters are quite _____.

emulating

I got ahead by _____those who had succeeded before me.

Corroborated

I knew my statement was correct when my colleague _____ it.

Connoisseur

I like sculpture, but I'm no _____; I probably can't describe to you why one statue is better than the other.

Distinguish

I studied and studied but I was never able to _____ between discrete and discreet.

Amenable

I suggested that Brad pay for my lunch as well as for his own; to my surprise, he was _____.

Aptitude

I tried to repair my car, but as I sat on the floor of my garage, surrounded by mysterious parts, I realized that I had no _____ for automobile repair.

Dubious

I was fairly certain that I would be able to fly if I could merely flap my arms hard enough, but Mary was _____; she said I'd better flap my legs as well.

Condescended

I was surprised that the president of the company had _____ to talk with me, a mere temporary employee.

Audacity

Ivan had the _____ to tell that nice old lady to shut up.

Absolved

Jake _____ Ciara of her obligation to go to the prom with him; he told her it was all right if she went with the captain of the football team instead.

Appeased

Jaleel _____ his angry mother by promising to make his bed every morning without fail until the end of time.

Hegemony

Japan and Germany vie for _________ in the foreign-car market.

fastidious

Jeb was so _____ in his work habits that he needed neither a wastebasket nor an eraser.

Chimera

Jie's dream of becoming a movie star was just a _____.

Apathetic

Jill didn't care on bit about current events; she was entirely _____.

Deferential

Joe was being _____ when he allowed Steve to go first.

Deferred

Joe was supposed to go first, but he _____ to Steve, who had been waiting longer.

Hapless

Joe's _________ search for fun led him from one disappointment to another.

equivocal

Joe's response was _____; we couldn't tell whether he meant yes or no, which is precisely what Joe wanted.

self-effacing

John is ______: When he won an Olympic gold medal, all he said was, "Aw, shucks. I'm just a regular fella."

equanimity

John's mother looked at the broken glass on the floor with ______; at least he didn't hurt himself when he knocked over the vase.

Guile

Jose used _________, not intelligence, to win the spelling bee; he cheated.

Castigated

Jose's mother-in-law _____ him for forgetting to pick her up at the airport.

Credulity

Judy was so credulous that she simply nodded happily when Kirven told her he could teach her how to fly. Judy's _____ was limitless.

Adroit

Julio was a(n) _____ salesperson: His highly skilled pitch, backed up by extensive product knowledge, nearly always resulted in a sale.

Benign

Karla has a ____ personality; she is not all unpleasant to be with.

Caprice

Kendra attempted a quadruple somersault off the ten-meter diving board as a _____. It was painful _____.

Caricature

Khoa sat for a _____ at the end of the marathon, but wasn't pleased with the result: The portrait exaggerated his already dominant face.

equitable

King Solomon's decision was certainly____ ; each mother would receive half the child.

Ardent

Larry's _____ wooing finally got on Cynthia's nerves, and she told him to get lost.

Credible/ Credulous

Larry's implausible story of heroism was not _____. Still, _____ old Louis believed it.

frugal

Laura was so ____ that she even tried to bargain with the checkout girl at the discount store.

Duplicity

Liars engage in _____ all the time; they say one thing and do another.

enervate

Life itself seemed to ____the old man. He grew weaker and paler with every breath he drew.

emulating

Little Joey imitated his athletic older brother in the hope of one day his ______ success.

Contentious

Liz figured that her _____ style would make her a perfect litigator; after law school, however, the would-be trial attorney discovered that passing the bar requires more than a will to argue.

Acrid

Long after the fire had been put out, we could feel the _____ sting of smoke in our nostrils.

Delude

Lori is so persuasive that she was able to _____ Leslie into thinking she was a countess.

Exculpate

Lou's confession didn't _____ Bob, because one of the things that Lou confessed was that Bob had helped him do it.

Distinguished

Lou's uneventful career as a dogcatcher was not _____ by adventure or excitement.

felicity/ infelicity

Love was not all ____ for Judy and Steve; they argued all the time. In fact their relationship was characterized by _____.

futility

Lucinda doesn't know what a _____ it is.

epitome

Luke's freshman year was the____ of a college experience; he made friends, joined a fraternity, and ate too much pizza.

Didactic

Luther's seemingly amusing talk had a(n) _____ purpose; he was trying to show his listeners the difference between right and wrong.

Affinity

Magnets and iron have a(n) _____ for each other; that is, each is attracted to the other.

Disinterested

Meredith claimed that the accident had been Louie's fault, but several _____ witnesses said that Meredith had actually bashed into his car after jumping the median and driving in the wrong lane for several miles.

Abashed

Meredith felt _____ by her inability to remember her lines in the school chorus of "Old McDonald Had a Farm."

evanescent

Meteors are ____: They last so briefly that it is hard to tell whether one has actually appeared.

Docility

Mia's _____ fooled the professor into believing that she was incapable of thinking for herself.

Hackneyed

Michael's book was full of clichés and _________ phrases.

Contrite

Mira was _____ about her mistake, so we forgave her.

extricate

Monica had no trouble driving her car into the ditch, but she needed a tow truck to ____ it.

Astute

Morris was a(n) _____ judge of character; he was very good at seeing what people were really like despite what they pretended to be.

Chastised

Mother _____ us for firing our bottle rockets too close to the house.

erudition

Mr. Fernicola's vast library was an indication of his ____.

Attrition

Mr. Gregory did not have the heart to fire his workers even though his company was losing millions each year. He altruistically preferred to lose workers through _____ when they moved away, retired, or decided to change jobs.

Belaboring

Mr. Irving spent the entire period _____ the obvious; he made the same dumb observation over and over again.

Avowed/ Avowal

Mr. Smith _____ on television that he had never paid any income tax. Shortly after his _____, he received a lengthy letter from the Internal Revenue Service.

Artifice

Mrs. Baker had to resort to _____ to get her children to take their medicine: She told them that it tasted like chocolate syrup.

Bastion

Mrs. Garnett's classroom is a _____ of banality; that is, it's a place where originality seldom, if ever, makes its way inside.

fastidious

Mrs. O'Hara was a _____ housekeeper; she cleaned up our crumbs almost before they hit the floor.

Depravity

Mrs. Prudinkle wondered whether the _____ of her class of eight-year-olds was the result of their watching Saturday morning television.

Dormant

Mt. Vesuvius erupted violently and then fell _____ for several hundred years.

Chagrin

Much to my _____, I began to giggle during the eulogy at the funeral.

Candor

My best friend exhibited _____ when he told me that for many years now he has believed me to be a jerk.

Ameliorated

My great-uncle's gift of several million dollars considerably _____ my financial condition.

Disparaged

My guidance counselor _____ my high school record by telling me that not everybody belongs in college.

Contingent

My happiness is _____ on yours; if you're unhappy, I'm unhappy.

encroached

My neighbor _____on my yard by building his new stockade fence a few feet on my side of the property line.

fabrication

My story about being the prince of Wales was a _____. I'm really the king of Denmark.

engendered

My winning lottery ticket ______a great deal of envy among my co-workers; they all wished that they had won.

egocentric

Nevitt was so ______that he could never give anyone else credit for doing anything.

Cosmopolitan

New York is a _____ city; you can hear nearly every language spoken there.

Construed

Preston _____ his contract as giving him the right to do anything he wanted.

Aristocratic/ Aristocracy

Prince Charles is _____. He is a member of the British _____.

Beset

Problems _____ the expedition almost from the beginning, and the mountain climbers soon returned to their base camp.

Avuncular

Professor Zia often gave us _____ advice; he took a real interest in our education and helped us with other problems that weren't related to multi-dimensional calculus.

Congregate

Protestors were granted permission to _____ peacefully on the plaza.

Austere

Quentin, with his _____ personality, didn't make many friends. Most people were too intimidated by him to introduce themselves and say hello.

Bemused

Ralph was _____ when all lights and appliances in his house began switching on and off for no apparent reason.

Dilettante

Reginald said he was an artist, but he was merely a _____; he didn't know a pencil from a paintbrush.

Acrimonious

Relations between the competing candidates were so _____ that each refused to acknowledge the presence of the other.

Gauche

Remember dextrous? Well, ______ is pretty much the exact opposite. It is the French word for left - the connection is that left-handed people were once thought to be clumsy (this was clearly before the invention of left-handed scissors) and perverse, even evil. These days, ______ tends to describe social, rather than physical, ineptness.

Apprehensive/ Apprehensions

Rhea was _____ about the exam, because she had forgotten to go to class for several months. As it turned out, her _____ were justified. She couldn't answer a single question on the test.

Commensurate

Ryan's salary is _____ with his ability; like his ability, his salary is small.

Chronicle

Sally's diary provided her mother with a detailed _____ of her daughter's extracurricular activities.

Contrived

Sam's acting was _____: No one in the audience believed his character or enjoyed his performance.

Doubtful/ Dubious

Sam's chances of getting the job were _____ because the employer was _____ of his claim that he had been president of the United States while in high school.

Apotheosis

Same people think that the Corvette is the _____ of American car making. They think it's the ideal.

enervated

Sander felt _____by his long ordeal and couldn't make himself get out of bed.

Cerebral

Sebastian was too _____ to be a baseball announcer; he kept talking about the existentialism of the outfield.

Diffident

Sebastian's stammer made him _____ in conversation and shy in groups of strangers.

Contingencies

Several ______ stand between us and the successful completion of our business proposal; several things could happen to screw it up.

Cogent

Shaft was _____ in explaining why he needed the confidential files, so we gave them to him.

felicity/ felicitious

Shakespeare wrote with great ____. His works are filled with _____ expressions.

Delineated

Sharon's peculiar feelings about her pet gorilla were _____ in the newspaper article about her.

expedient

Since the basement had nearly filled with water, the plumber felt it would be _____ to clear out the drain.

Gauche

Smadar had a poor sense of comic timig, and her _____ attempts to mock her left-handed friends soon left her with none.

engender

Smiles____ smiles.

Deleterious

Smoking cigarettes is _____ to your health.

Hiatus

Spencer looked forward to spring break as a welcome _________ from the rigors of campus parties.

Derided

Sportswriters _____ Columbia's football team, which hadn't won a game in three years.

Derogatory

Stephen could never seem to think of anything nice to say about anyone; virtually all of his comments were _____.

forbear

Stephen told me I could become a millionaire if I joined him in his business, but his lack of integrity makes me nervous so I decided to ________.

Despot

Stephen was a _____; workers who disagreed with him were fired.

Guile

Stuart was shocked by the _________ of the automobile mechanic, who had pocked a hole in his radiator and then told him that it had spruing a leak.

Ambivalent/ Ambivalence

Susan felt _____ about Alec as a boyfriend. Her frequent desire to break up with him reflected this _____.

Affable

Susan was a(n) _____ girl; she could strike up a pleasant conversation with almost anyone.

Aberration

Søren's bad behavior was a(n) _____. So was Harry's good behavior. That is, Søren's was usually good, and Harry's was usually bad.

Aberrant

Søren's behavior was _____. The summer snowstorm was _____.

Candor

Teddy appreciated Ross's _____; Teddy was glad to know that Ross thought Teddy's sideburns looked stupid.

Delusion

That he was a great poet was the _____ of the English teacher, who could scarcely write two complete sentences in a row.

endemic

That peculiar strain of influenza was ____to a small community in South Carolina; there were no cases anywhere else.

Deluge/ Deluged

The $1 million reward for the lost poodle brought in a _____ of hot leads. The distraught owner was _____ by phone calls all week.

emulated

The American company _____ its successful Japanese competitor but never quite managed to do as well.

Contingency

The Bowdens were prepared for any ______. Their front hall closet contained a first-aid kit, a fire extinguisher, a life raft, a parachute, and a pack of sled dogs.

Appreciated

The Browns bought their house twenty years ago for a hundred thousand dollars, but it has _____ considerably since then; today it's worth almost two million dollars.

facile/ facility

The CEO of the company was a _____ speaker. He could speak engagingly on almost any topic with very little preparation. He spoke with great _____.

Affable

The Jeffersons' dog was big but _____; it liked to lick little children on the face.

espouse

The Mormons used to_____ bigamy, or marriage to more than one woman.

Decorous

The New Year's Eve crowd was relatively _____ until midnight, when they went wild.

Censures

The Senate sometimes _____ senators for breaking laws or engaging in behavior unbecoming to an elected official.

Austere

The Smith's house was _____; there was no furniture in it, and there was nothing hanging on the walls.

emigrate

The Soviet dissidents were persecuted by the secret police, so they sought permission to _______.

Artifice

The Trojan Horse was a(n) _____ designed to get the soldiers inside the walls.

Consecrated

The Veterans Day speaker said that the battlefield had been _____ by the blood of the soldiers who had died there.

Autonomous

The West Coast office of the law firm was quite _____; it never asked the East Coast office for permission before it did anything.

fecund

The ____ mother rabbit gave birth to hundreds and hundreds of little rabbits.

fastidious

The ____ secretary was nearly driven mad by her boss, who used the floor as a file cabinet and his desk as a pantry.

Choleric

The _____ administrator kept all the secretaries in a state of terror.

Amenities

The _____ at the local club include a swimming pool, a golf course, and a tennis court.

Circuitous

The _____ bus route between the two cities wen here, there, and everywhere, and it took an extremely long time to get anywhere.

Brevity

The reader of this book may be grateful for the _____ of this example.

frenetic

The bird's _____ attempt to free itself from the thorn bush only made the situation worse.

engendered

The bitter lieutenant _____discontent among his troops.

Conventional

The bland politician maintained his popularity by never straying far from the _____ wisdom about any topic.

extraneous

The book's feeble plot was buried in a lot of _____ material about a talking dog.

Derided/ Derision

The boss _____ his secretary mercilessly, so she quit her job. She was someone who could not accept _____.

Adulation

The boss thrived on the _____ of his scheming secretary.

finesse

The boxer moved with such _____ that his opponent never knew what hit him.

Admonished

The boys' father _____ them not to eat the pie he had just baked. When they did so anyway he _____ them.

flaunt

The brand-new millionaire annoyed all his friends by driving around his old neighborhood to _____ his new Rolls-Royce.

furtive

The burglars were _____, but not _____ enough; the alert policeman grabbed them as they carried the TV through the Rubenstein's back door.

Defamed/ Defamation

The businessman who believed he had been _____ by the newspaper sued the paper's publisher for _____.

espoused

The candidate for governor ____ a program in which all taxes would be abolished and all the state's revenues would be supplied by income from bingo and horse racing.

Hyperbole

The candidate was guilty of _________; all the facts in his speech were exaggerated.

foundered

The candidate's campaign for the presidency _____ when it was revealed that he had once been married to a drug addict.

expedient

The candidate's position in favor of higher pay for teachers was an _____ one adopted for the national teachers' convention but abandoned shortly afterward.

expedient

The car repairman did not have his tool kit handy, so he used chewing gum as an ____ to patch a hole.

Belittling

The chairman's _____ comments made everyone feel small.

Histrionic

The chairman's _________ presentation persuaded no one.

Conducive

The chairs in the library are _____ to sleep. If you sit in them to study, you will fall asleep.

Copious

The champagne at the wedding reception was _____ but not very good.

Bucolic

The changing of the autumn leaves, old stone walls, distant views, and horses gazing in the green meadows are examples of _____ splendor.

Acrid

The cheese we had at the party had a(n) _____ taste; it was harsh and unpleasant.

Conjured

The chef _____ a fabulous gourmet meal using nothing more than the meager ingredients in Lucy's kitchen.

Aberration

The chef at this restaurant is dreadful; the meal we just had was an _____.

fecund

The child's imagination was so ____ that dozens of stories hopped out of him like a bunch of baby rabbits.

exasperated

The child's insistence on hopping backward on one foot _____ his mother, who was in a hurry.

Bereaved

The children were _____ by the death of their pet. Then they got a new pet.

Blithely

The children were playing _____ next to the hazardous-waste dump. While they played, they were _____ unaware that they were doing something dangerous.

Censure

The clumsy physician feared the _____ of his fellow doctors, so he stopped treating anything more complicated than the common cold.

exhort

The coach used his bullhorn to ____ us to try harder.

Consecration

The college chaplain delivered a sermon at the _____ ceremony for the new chapel.

Ascetic

The college student's apartment, which contained no furniture except a single tattered mattress, was uncomfortably _____.

Deluded

The con man _____ us into thinking that he would make us rich. Instead, he tricked us into giving him several hundred dollars.

Circumscribes

The constitution clearly _____ restrictions that can be placed on our personal freedoms.

Despondent

The cook became _____ when the wedding cake fell on the floor fifteen minutes before the reception.

Anarchy

The country fell into a state of _____ after the rebels kidnapped the president and locked the legislature inside the Capitol.

Arcane

We could make out only a little of the _____ inscription on the old trunk.

Concurrent

The criminal was sentenced to two _____ fifteen-year sentences; the sentences will run at the same time, and he will be out of jail in fifteen years.

Deprecating

The critic's _____ comments about my new novel put me in a bad mood for an entire month.

Approbation

The crowd expressed its _____ of the team's performance by gleefully covering the field with toilet paper.

fidelity

The crusader's life was marked by _____ to the cause of justice.

Consonant

The decision to construct a new gymnasium was _____ with the superintendent's belief in physical education.

Appropriated

The deer and raccoons _____ the vegetables in our garden last summer. This year we'll build a better fence.

elicit

The defendant tried to _____the sympathy of the jury by appearing at the trial in a wheelchair, but the jury convicted him anyway.

exonerated

The defendant, who had always claimed he wasn't guilty, expected to be _____ by the testimony of his best friend.

foibles

The delegates to the state convention ignored the candidates' positions on the major issues and concentrated on their ____.

Bureaucracy

The department of Motor Vehicles is a _____. The forms you have to fill out all request unnecessary information. After you finally get everything all filled out and handed in, you don't hear another word from the department for many months.

Banal

The dinner conversation was so _____ that Amanda fell asleep in her dessert dish.

Desultory

The discussion at our meeting was _____; no one's comments seemed to bear any relation to anyone else's.

Degenerated

The discussion quickly _____ into an argument.

Conjecture

The divorce lawyer for Mr. Davis argued that the putative cause of the lipstick on his collar was mere _____.

equitable

The divorce settlement was quite _____. Sheila got the right half of the house, and Tom got the left half.

finesse

The doctor sewed up the wound with _____, making stitches so small one could scarcely see them.

Amiable

The drama critic was so _____ in person that even the subjects of negative reviews found it impossible not to like her.

Discrete

The drop in the stock market was not the result of any single force but of many _____ trends.

equanimity

The entire apartment building was crumbling, but Rachel faced the disaster with _____. She ducked out of the way of a falling beam and continued searching for an exit.

eminent

The entire audience fell silent when the _____ musician walked onto the stage and picked up his banjo and bongo drums.

Charisma

The evangelist's undeniable _____ enabled him to bring in millions and millions of dollars in donations to his television show.

Allocate

The event had been a big failure, and David, Aaliyah, and Jan spent several hours attempting to _____ the blame. In the end, they decided it had all been Jan's fault.

Cliché

The expression "you can't judge a book by its cover" is a _____; it's been used so many times, that freshness has been worn away.

Concord

The faculty meeting was marked by _____; no one yelled at anyone else.

faction

The faculty was relatively happy, but there was a ___ that called for higher pay.

Degenerate

The fans' _____ behavior prompted the police to make several arrests.

Degenerated

The fans' behavior _____ as the game went on.

exhorted

The fearful forest ranger ____ us not to go into the cave, but we did so anyway and became lost in the center of the earth.

exacerbated

The fender-bender was ____ when two more cars plowed into the back of Margaret's car.

Accolades

The first break-dancing troupe to perform in Carnegie Hall, the Teflon Toughs, received _____.

epitome

The first paragraph of the new novel is an ___of the entire book; you can read it and understand what the author is trying to get across. It epitomizes the entire work.

Auspicious

The first quarter of the football game was not _____; the home team was outscored by thirty points.

Charlatans

The flea market usually attracts a lot of _____ who sell phony products that don't do what they claim they will.

Complemented

The flower arrangement _____ the table decorations.

Homily

The football coach began practice with a lengthy _________ on the virtues of clean living.

Debilitating

The football player's career was ended by a(n) _____ injury to his knee.

Complacent

The football team won so many games that it became _____, and the worst team in the league won the game.

farcical

The formerly secret documents detailed the CIA's ______attempt to discredit the dictator by sprinkling his shoes with a powder that was supposed to make his beard fall out.

Conciliatory

The formerly warring countries were _____ at the treaty conference.

Conducive

The foul weather was not _____ to our having a picnic.

Cryptic/ Crypt

The ghost made _____ comments about the _____ from which he had just emerged; that is, no one could figure out what the ghost meant.

Collusion

The increase in oil prices was the result of _____ by the oil-producing nations.

Circumlocution

The indicated executive evaded the reporters' questions by resorting to _____.

effaced

The inscription on the tombstone had been _______ by centuries of weather.

Comprehensive

The insurance policy was _____; it covered all possible losses.

Hackneyed

The intelligent design issue had been discussed so much as to become _________.

Glut

The international oil shortage turned into an international oil _____ with surprising speed.

elicited

The interviewer skillfully _____our true feelings by asking us questions that got to the heart of the matter.

Despot

The island kingdom was ruled by a ruthless _____ who executed suspected rebels at noon each day in the village square.

Homogeneous

The kindergarten class was extremely _________: All the children had blond hair, blue eyes, red shoes, and the same last name.

Adherents

The king's _____ threw a big birthday party for him, just to show how much they liked him.

Genteel

The ladies at the ball were too _____ to accept our invitation to the wrestling match.

Construed

The law had always been _____ as permitting the behavior for which Katya had been arrested.

expedited

The lawyer ____ the progress of our case through the courts by bribing a few judges.

Circumlocution

The lawyer's _____ left everyone in the courtroom wondering what had been said.

Cogency

The lawyer's argument on his client's behalf was not cogent, so the jury convicted his client. The jury was persuaded by the _____ of the prosecuting attorney's argument.

Congenial

The little cabin in the woods was _____ to the writer; he was able to get a lot of writing done there.

Beset

The little town was _____ by robberies, but the police could do nothing.

Defame

The local businessman accused the newspaper of _____ him by publishing an article that said his company was poorly managed.

explicit

The machine's instructions were _____—they told us exactly what to do.

effusion

The madman's writings consisted of a steady _____of nonsense.

exalt

The manager decided to _____ the lowly batboy by asking him to throw the first pitch in the opening game of the World Series.

Culmination

The masquerade ball was the _____ of our fund-raising efforts.

Disparaged

The mayor _____ our efforts to beautify the town square when he said that the flower bed we had planted looked somewhat worse than the bed of weeds it had replaced.

Disavowed

The mayor _____ the allegation that he had embezzled campaign contributions.

Connoisseur

The meal was exquisite enough to impress a _____.

Construed

The meaning of the poem, as I _____, had to do with the love of a man for his dog.

Apathy

The members of the student council accused the senior class of _____ because none of the seniors had bothered to sign up for the big fundraiser.

Belied

The messy appearance of the banquet table _____ the huge effort that had gone into setting it up.

extolled

The millionaire _____ the citizen who returned his gold watch but the only reward was a heartfelt handshake.

Disdain

The millionaire looked upon the poor workers with evident _____.

Degenerate

The mood of the party was spoiled when a drunken _____ wandered in from off the street.

Ameliorated

The mood of the prisoners was _____ when the warden gave them extra free time outside.

egregious

The mother's ______neglect was responsible for her child's accidental cross-country ride on the freight train.

semper fidelis

The motto of the United States Marine Corps is ____ , which is Latin for always loyal.

Abysmal

The nation's debt crisis was _____; there seemed to be no possible solution.

Grandiloquence

The new minister's _________ got him in trouble with deacons, who wanted him to be more restrained in his sermons.

Didactic

The new novel is painfully _____; the author's aim is always to instruct and never to entertain.

Congenial

The new restaurant has a(n) _____ atmosphere. We enjoy just sitting there playing with the ice in our water glasses.

fortuitous

The object was so perfectly formed that its creation could not have been ______.

Allocated

The office manager had _____ just seven paper clips for our entire department.

Arbitrary

The old judge was _____ in sentencing criminals; there was no sensible pattern to the sentences he handed down.

Anecdote

The old lady kept the motorcycle gang thoroughly amused with _______ after _______ about her cute little dog.

fatalist

The old man was a ____ about his illness, believing there was no sense in worrying about something he could not control.

Awry

The old man's hat was _____; it had dipped in front of his left eye.

Hermetic

The old men felt vulnerable and unwanted outside the _________ security of their club.

elliptical

The orbit of the earth is not perfectly round; it is _____.

Cacophony

The parade's two marching bands played simultaneously; the resulting _____ drove many spectators to tears.

Callowness

The patient was alarmed by the _____ of the medical staff. The doctors looked too young to have graduated from high school, much less from medical school.

Coalesced

The people in our neighborhood _____ into a powerful force for change in the community.

Dogmatic

The philosophy professor became increasingly _____ as he grew older and became more firmly convinced of his strange theories.

Acquiesced

The pirates asked Pete to walk the plank; he took one look at their swords and then _____.

equitably

The pirates distributed the loot ____among themselves, so that each pirate received the same share as every other pirate.

Amenable

The plumber was _____ to my paying my bill with jelly beans, which was lucky, because I had more jelly beans than money.

Ambiguous

The poem we read in English class was _____; no one had any idea what the poet was trying to say.

Hermetic

The poisonous substance was sealed _________ally inside a glass cylinder.

Dissipated

The police _____ the riotous crowd by spraying the demonstrators with fire hoses and firing rubber bullets over their heads.

Corroborate

The police could find no evidence of theft and thus could not _____ Greg's claim that he had been robbed.

Alleged

The police have _____ that he or she committed the crime, but a jury hasn't made a decision yet.

Delineated

The portrait artist _____ Sarah's features then filled in the shading.

expedited

The post office _____ mail delivery by hiring more letter carriers.

Hermetic

The president led a _________ existence in the white house, as his advisers attempted to seal him off from the outside world.

Complacency

The president of the student council was appalled by the _____ of his classmates; not one of the seniors seemed to care about the theme.

Grandiloquent

The president's speech was _____ rather than eloquent; there were some six-dollar words and some impressive phrases, but he really had nothing to say.

Consecrated

The priest _____ the building by sprinkling holy water on it.

Absolved

The priest _____ the sinner who had come to church to confess.

Didactic

The priest's conversation was always _____. He never said anything that wasn't intended to teach a lesson.

Condoned

The principal _____ the hoods' smoking in the bathroom; he simply ignored it.

Altruism

The private foundation depended on the _____ of the extremely rich old man. When he decided to start spending his money on his new twenty-year-old girlfriend, the foundation went out of business.

erudite

The professor said such ____things that none of us had the slightest idea of what he was saying

Abstruse

The professor's article, on the meaning of meaning, was _____. Michael couldn't even pronounce the words in it.

fortuitous

The program's outcome was not the result of any plan but was entirely _____.

Discreet

The psychiatrist was very _____; no matter how much we pestered him, he wouldn't gossip about the problems of his famous patients.

foment

The radicals spread several rumors in an effort to _______ rebellion among the peasants.

Confluence

There is a remarkable _____ in our thoughts: We think the same way about almost everything.

Dearth

There is no _____ of comedy at a convention of clowns.

Collusion

There was _____ among the owners of the baseball teams; they agreed secretly not to sign any expensive free agents.

Complicity

There was _____ between the bank robber and the dishonest teller. The teller neglected to turn on the alarm, and the robber rewarded him by sharing the loot.

Dearth

There was a _____ of gaiety at the boring Christmas party.

frenetic

There was a lot of _____ activity in the office, but nothing ever seemed to get accomplished.

Despotic

There was cheering in the street when the country's _____ government was overthrown.

Hypothetical

There were several _________ explanations for the strange phenomenon, but no one could say for certain what had caused it.

Anguish

Theresa had been a nurse in the emergency room for 20 years, but she had never gotten used to the _______ of accident victims.

Begets

Those who lie should be creative and have good memories, since one lie often _____ another lie, which _____ another.

Dextrous

Though not imposing in stature, Rashid was the most _____ basketball player on the court; he often beat taller competitors with his nimble management of the ball.

Deprecate

To _____ a colleague's work is to risk making yourself unwelcome in your colleague's office.

Covet

To _____ thy neighbor's wife is to want thy neighbor's wife for thyself.

Extrapolate/ Interpolate

To _____, a scientist uses the facts he has to project to facts outside; to ____, he tries to fill the gaps within his data

emulate

To _____someone is to try to be just as good as, or better than, him or her.

Self-deprecating

To be _____ is to belittle one's own efforts, often in the hope that someone else will say, "No, you're wonderful!"

Heterogeneous

To be _______ is to be mixed or varied.

Cursory

To give a book a _____ reading is to skim it quickly without comprehending much.

Analogy

To say having an allergy feels like being bitten by an alligator would be to make or draw and _____ between an allergy and an alligator bite.

Delusion

Todd, the well-known jerk, suffered from the _____ that he was a genuinely nice man.

Absolved

Tom's admission of guilt _____ Mary, who had originally been accused of the crime.

Misconstrue(d)

Tommy _____ Pamela's smile, but he certainly did not _____ the slap she gave him.

Burlesque

Vaudeville actors frequently performed _____ works on the stage.

Amoral

Very young children are _____; when they cry, they aren't being bad or good—they're merely doing what they have to do.

Alleviated

Visiting the charming pet cemetery _____ the woman's grief over the death of her canary.

Definitive

Walter wrote the _____ biography of Keats; nothing more could have been added by another book.

Harbinger

Warm weather is the _________ of spring.

Culpable

We all felt _____ when the homeless old man died in the doorway of our apartment building.

Abdicated

When King Edward VIII of England decided he would rather be married to Wallis Warfield Simpson, and American divorceé, than be king of England, he turned in his crown and _____.

Indiscretion

When Laura told Salima, she committed a(n) _____.

Criterion

When Norm judges a meal, he has only one _____: Is it edible?

Alluding/ allusion

When Ralph said, "I sometimes wonder whether to be or not to be," he was _____ to a famous line in Hamlet. If Ralph had said, "As Hamlet said, 'To be or not to be, that is the question,'" his statement would have been a direct reference, not a(n) _____.

emigrated/immigrated

When Solange ______ from France, she ______ to the United States.

Decimate

When locusts attack a crop, they sometimes _____ it, leaving very little that's fit for human consumption.

effusion

When the child was rescued from the well, there was an intense ____of emotion from the crowd that had gathered around the hole.

faction/ factious

When the controversial topic of the fund drive came up, the committee descended into bitterness and ______. It was a _____ topic.

Coalesced

When the dough _____ into a big blob, we began to wonder whether the cookies would be edible.

Choleric

When the grumpy old man was in one of his _____ moods, the children refused to go near him.

Catalyst

When the mad scientist dropped a few grains of the _____ into his test tube, the bubbling liquid began to boil furiously.

figuratively

When the mayor said that the housing market had sprouted wings, he was speaking _____. The housing market hadn't really sprouted wings; it had merely risen so rapidly that it had almost seemed to fly.

Cynics

When the pop star gave a million dollars to the museum, _____ said he was merely trying to buy himself a reputation as a cultured person.

Dearth

When there's a _____ of food, many people may starve.

Awry

When we couldn't find a restaurant, our dinner plans went _____.

Abject

While most people would quickly recover from a stumble on stage, Mia felt _____ humiliation.

Coup

Winning a gold medal at the Olympics was a real _____ for the fifty-year-old man.

encroaching

With an sense of ______dread, I slowly pushed open the blood-spattered door.

Astute

Yael, who notices everything important and many things that other people don't see, is a(n) _____ observer.

extricate

Yoshi had to pretend to be sick to ____ himself from the blind date with the ventriloquist who brought her puppet on the date with her.

Hedonism

Yoshi's life of _________ came to an end when his lottery winnings ran out; his massaging armchair and wide-screen TV were repossessed, he had to eat macaroni and cheese instead of champagne and lobster, and he could no longer pay to have Victoria's Secret models fan his with palm fronds and feed his grapes.

Decimated

You might say in jest that your family had _____ its turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, leaving nothing but a few crumbs and a pile of bones.

Inclement

You should wear a coat and carry an umbrella in _____ weather.

endemic

You won't find that kind of tree in California; it's _____to our part of the country.

Antecedents

Your parents and grandparents could be said to be your _____; they came before you.

ephemeral

Youth and flowers are both ______. They're gone before you know it.

foundered

Zeke successfully struggled through the first part of the course but _____ when the final examination was given.

Complicity

_____ among the students made it impossible to find out which of them had pulled the fire alarm.

Debauchery

_____ can be expensive; fortunately for Jeff, his wallet matched his appetite for extravagant pleasures. He died a poor, albeit happy, man.