Vocabulary Workshop Level H Unit 6- Completing the Sentence

The coach devised a clever strategy, but it proved ______ when our team failed to execute it properly.

Abortive

I certainly have no intention of turning my back on them simply because it has been _______ about the town they are involved in some sort of scandal.

Bruited

The speaker paid no attention to the ______ remarks of a few hecklers in the crowd but went right on with her speech.

Contumelious

It is one thing to offer a person opinion; it is quite another to issue a(n) _______ as though you are the only one with any knowledge of the subject.

Dictum

And such as the quirks of fate that there Maria was, after all her mishaps and blunders, firmly _____ as the president of the firm.

Ensconced

As she thoroughly enjoys taking potshots at sacred cows, I'd describe her attitude as definitely _______.

Iconoclastic

To gain the immediate attention of the reader, the short-story writer sometimes begins a narrative _____, rather than at the very beginning of events.

In Medias Res

What we are facing in this organization is not healthy competition among the executives but a(n) _______ struggle that will destroy the company.

Internecine

If you are so _____ in handling your own personal affairs, how can you presume to advise others how to manage their lives?

Maladroit

The deathbed scene might have been effective if it had been played with restraint, but their woefully ham-handed acting turned into a(n) _______ tearjerker.

Maudlin

Though the critic still has nothing good to say about modern art, age and experience have somewhat _______ the intensity of his disapproval.

Modulated

Though the guests at the gala benefit tried to maintain an air or cheer, the _______ news of the international crisis hung like a pall over the gathering.

Portentous

For years, Churchill's warnings about Hitler were dismissed as alarmism; only after the outbreak of World War II did people appreciate his ______.

Prescience

How can you expect them to cooperate with us unless they receive some reasonable ______ to their efforts?

Quid Pro Quo

In our bored and depressed mood, her buoyant personality had a most _____ effect.

Salubrious

A group of elderly people sitting about sipping tea and discussing the weather is scarcely my idea of _______ revelry.

Saturnalian

More than anything else, the ability to create distinctive characters and make them come alive on the page is the ______ of a great novelist.

Touchstone

I was an extremely sensitive child, and the death of my beloved mother certainly had a(n) ______ effect upon me.

Traumatic

All the evidence presented at such length by their lawyers does not seriously _______ the case against the accused.

Vitiate

If he would only devote more time in school to serious study and less to ______ pranks, his grades would probably improve.

Waggish