Word Smart Vocabulary

recrimination

an accusation against someone to counter their accusation against you (generally used in plural, recriminations) (e.g. "their mutual recriminations in the peace talks showed that there was a long way to go before a lasting peace settlement could be created")

apathy

an absence of emotion or enthusiasm (e.g. "It seemed peculiar: when the death sentence was read the prisoner didn't seem angry or frightened; he seemed completely apathetic.")

aspersion

an abusive attack on a person's character or good name (e.g. "the speaker cast an aspersion on Mr. Smith's good name when the speaker hinted that dark deeds were contained in Mr. Smith's past")

compromise

an accommodation in which both sides make concessions (e.g. "the treaty ending the war was really a compromise; because neither side had definitively won, both side made unreasonable demands")

disservice

an act intended to help that turns out badly (e.g. "his mother did him a disservice by overfeeding him; he now weighs 500 pounds and is liable to have a heart attack")

enormity

an act of extreme wickedness (e.g. "among the enormities which Hitler committed was the murder of several million people")

rebuke

an act or expression of criticism and censure (e.g. "Harry's aunt rebuked him for standing on the restaurant table and starting to give a speech; she said his behavior was improper")

reprimand

an act or expression of criticism and censure; rebuke formally; censure severely or angrily (e.g. "Billy was reprimanded for yelling at his younger brother.")

abomination

an action that is vicious or vile (e.g. "such acts as were committed by those like Pol Pot and Hitler are abominations to all humankind")

angst

an acute but unspecific feeling of anxiety (e.g. "as I entered the haunted house, a distinct feeling of angst pierced my soul")

dilettante

an amateur who engages in an activity without serious intentions and who pretends to have knowledge (e.g. "although Mary pretends to be an art critic, she is merely a dilettante: she has read a couple books about art and wants everyone to think she's an expert")

double entendre

an ambiguity with one interpretation that is indelicate (e.g. "although at first glance the new novel may seem decent and respectable, in reality, it is full of double entendres with the most indecent meanings")

coterie

an exclusive circle of people with a common purpose (e.g. "our coterie exists for no other reason but to prove to the world that the moon does indeed consist largely of green cheese")

connoisseur

an expert able to appreciate a field (e.g. "The wine connoisseur has a discriminating palette; he only drinks the best.")

elocution

an expert manner of speaking involving control of voice and gesture (e.g. "although his elocution was masterful, I still do not agree with the point he was trying to make")

idiom

an expression whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up; a manner of speaking that is natural to native speakers of a language; the usage or vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people (e.g. "the saying 'he's a wolf in sheep's clothing' is an idiom; it's not meant to be taken literally: one doesn't mean that the person in question is literally a malevolent canine, nor that he is wearing wool clothing")

allegory

an expressive style that uses fictional characters and events to describe some subject by suggestive resemblances (e.g. "'The Pilgrim's Progress', by John Bunyan, is an allegory describing the travels of a man, Christian, on a journey to the Celestial City")

reactionary

an extreme conservative; extremely conservative (e.g. "After the French Revolution, many reactionary leaders in other European countries attempted to make sure that the same thing didn't happen in their countries.")

paragon

an ideal instance; model of excellence or perfection of a kind (e.g. "Although today such-and-such a computer may be considered to be the paragon of technology, tomorrow's computer will undoubtedly surpass it.")

sedition

an illegal action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to cause the disruption or overthrow of the government (e.g. "the act of insurrection is definitely sedition")

utopia

an imaginary place considered to be perfect or ideal (e.g. "although philosophers have envisioned utopia for eons, beginning with Plato thousands of years before Christ, an actual implementation of such a system has eluded man for an equally long time")

momentum

an impelling force or strength (e.g. "The football quarterback had the momentum to knock over everyone in his path as he raced towards the 100 yd. line")

derogatory

expressive of low opinion (e.g. "I was derogatory of his theory when he said that he had been able to prove that the moon was made of green cheese; I apologized later, but I told him I still thought he was crazy")

hyperbole

extravagant exaggeration (e.g. "it was a hyperbole when Jane said that Joe was dying; he had merely stubbed his toe")

plethora

extreme excess (e.g. "Beverly consumed a plethora of chocolate yesterday; as a result, she has a stomachache today")

harbinger

an indication of the approach of something or someone (e.g. "Eustace always smells awful; his stench is a harbinger of his approach. One can smell it when he is more than a mile away")

avarice

extreme greed for material wealth (e.g. "The man's avarice was his ruin; he became too greedy and ended up losing everything.")

anguish

extreme mental distress (e.g. "Her anguish at realizing her microwave oven was really a secret death-ray weapon was very great.")

harbinger

an indication of the approach of something or someone (e.g. "an economic downturn is a harbinger of an upcoming recession or depression")

herald

an indication of the approach of something or someone (e.g. "an economic downturn usually heralds an upcoming recession or depression")

precursor

an indication of the approach of something or someone (e.g. "in one of Aesop's classic tales, the mice desire to place a bell on a cat which terrorizes them; the ringing of the bell would then act as a precursor to the actual arrival of the cat, hopefully giving the mice enough time to get away")

vestige

an indication that something has been present (e.g. "the last vestige of the former regime is the constitution drafted during that era")

innuendo

an indirect (and usually malicious) implication (e.g. "Even in G-rated movies, there can be a number of sexual innuendos.")

circumlocution

an indirect way of expressing something (e.g. "When James's mother asked him how the light bulb got broken, he tried not to answer directly by resorting to circumlocutions.")

stint

an individual's prescribed share of work; an unbroken period of time during which you do something; supply sparingly and with restricted quantities (e.g. "Wow; I'll certainly admit that the bride and groom didn't stint with regards to wedding expenses; this must have cost a fortune!")

patrimony

an inheritance coming by right of birth (especially by primogeniture) (e.g. "The spoiled, rich kid inherited a patrimony of over $100 million when his father died.")

foray

an initial attempt (especially outside your usual areas of competence); a sudden short attack (e.g. "he made a foray into law for a while, but eventually he settled down as a doctor")

malignant

extremely malevolent or malicious (e.g. "Herold's tumor was not malignant -- that is, it was not cancerous. It was benign")

virulent

extremely poisonous or injurious (e.g. "the virulent nature of this virus causes close contact with those who are currently ill to be highly unrecommended")

precipitous

extremely steep (e.g. "the precipitous cliff is dangerous because there are no warning signs in front of it; many people have accidentally fallen to their deaths off of it")

nefarious

extremely wicked (e.g. "the nefarious plots of the evil dictator were caught by the undercover journalist")

placebo

an innocuous or inert medication (e.g. "No wonder the medication didn't seem to have any affect on you; the doctor accidentally prescribed a placebo for you, rather than something that would actually help your ailment!")

abortive

failing to accomplish an intended result (e.g. "The CIA's plan to assassinate Fidel Castro was abortive; he survived.")

equitable

fair (e.g. "the buyers of the new house paid an equitable price for it")

euphemism

an inoffensive expression that is substituted for one that is considered offensive (e.g. "when I say that in Modern Warfare 3 I 'took out' five people, I am using a euphemism to say that in the video game I killed five people")

epitaph

an inscription on a tombstone or monument in memory of the person buried there (e.g. "Hilbert was the most annoying person I've ever met; even the people at his funeral seemed glad he was dead, and his epitaph read, 'Thank goodness he's gone'")

query

an instance of questioning; pose a question (e.g. "'Are you sure you know what you're doing?' I queried.")

dearth

an insufficient quantity or number (e.g. "there is a dearth of plates; there aren't enough for all the guests to have one")

paucity

an insufficient quantity or number (e.g. "there was a paucity of sand at the beach. One normally expects there to be a lot of sand at a beach; unfortunately, at this one there was very little")

interlude

an intervening period or episode (e.g. "after the startling revelation but before the dramatic conclusion, there was a brief interlude in the television show during which advertisements ran")

medium

an intervening substance through which something is achieved; a liquid with which pigment is mixed by a painter (e.g. "I seriously doubt that your idea is best disseminated through the medium of television; I think that radio would be more suitable.")

mania

an irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action (e.g. "He has a mania for technology; he has to own the latest gizmos and the best gadgets, or else he is unhappy.")

anathema

an object of intense dislike; a curse or strong denunciation (e.g. "I hate spiders; spiders are anathema to me")

demagogue

an orator who appeals to the passions and prejudices of his audience (e.g. "Hitler was a demagogue: he appealed to everything but his listeners' reason and sense")

archetype

an original model on which something is patterned (e.g. "Although John Smith's archetype of a death ray machine he wanted to invent worked, when he tried to make the real thing, it blew up and killed him.")

rout

an overwhelming defeat; defeat disastrously; cause to flee (e.g. "Our forces have routed the rebel fleet, sir.")

vagary

an unexpected and inexplicable change in something (in a situation or a person's behavior, etc.) (e.g. "I find Mr. Smith's vagaries unsettling; he will so quickly change his mind, and vacillates so much, that I don't know what to think!")

arrears

an unpaid overdue debt (e.g. "your arrears total to over $500,000 dollars, and since you cannot pay the debt, I would recommend that you either declare bankruptcy at once or else start working immediately to pay off your debt")

prodigy

an unusually gifted or intelligent (young) person (e.g. "Mozart was a child prodigy: at the age of five he composed his own music, and at six he played before royalty")

indignant

angered at something unjust or wrong (e.g. "probably, Sarah Cleghorn wrote the poem 'The Golf Links Lie so Near the Mill' because she was indignant at the child labor which was rife at the time")

beleaguer

annoy persistently (e.g. "The fans of the baseball star constantly beleaguered him: out of the twenty-four hours in his day, not one of them was completely uninterrupted by his fans.")

caustic

any chemical substance that burns or destroys living tissue; also used metaphorically (e.g. "Maria's caustic words left no doubt in Bob's mind that she did not want to marry him.")

litany

any long and tedious address or recital (e.g. "Tiffany's litany about her accomplishments became so long and drawn out that eventually everybody in the room stopped listening to her.")

neophyte

any new participant in some activity (e.g. "How can you even purport to have an opinion on the subject? You're just a neophyte; you should learn more facts before drawing an opinion!")

conversant

familiar with; having knowledge of (e.g. "Einstein was more than simply conversant with his Theory of Relativity; after all, he basically built the Theory of Relativity")

jingoism

fanatical patriotism; an appeal intended to arouse patriotic emotions (e.g. "It is thought that the jingoists may have been responsible in part for the U.S.'s involvement in World War I.")

nepotism

favoritism shown to relatives or close friends by those in power (as by giving them jobs) (e.g. "the CEO of the company was obviously exhibiting nepotism when he gave his incompetent brother an administrative position")'

consternation

fear resulting from the awareness of danger (e.g. "to his mother's consternation, Jimmy was abducted by aliens")

adventitious

associated by chance and not an integral part (e.g. "your arrival was adventitious; although it will be easier to pull off with you helping, I believe that my plan would have succeeded without you")

impugn

attack as false or wrong (e.g. "I impugned his testimony against me; I said it was completely false")

auspicious

attended by favorable circumstances (e.g. "Joe's circumstances seem peculiarly auspicious: he won the lottery ten times in a row.")

obsequious

attentive in an ingratiating or servile manner (e.g. "the king found that, although he had many obsequious flatterers seeking to win royal favor to advance their own ends, he had very few true friends")

engaging

attracting or delighting (e.g. "his engaging personality ensures that he will always have friends")

ascribe

attribute or credit to (e.g. "when the Olympic champion was asked by reporters how she accomplished what she did, she ascribed her success to her coach")

attest

authenticate, affirm to be true, genuine, or correct, as in an official capacity, provide evidence for (e.g. "the witness attested to the fact that the defendant was indeed miles away from the scene of the crime when the crime was committed")

circumvent

avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues) (e.g. "When James's mother asked him how the light bulb got broken, he tried to circumvent the question.")

malinger

avoid responsibilities and duties, e.g., by pretending to be ill (e.g. "when Tim was accused of malingering so that he could play video games at home instead of going to school, he vehemently denied the charge")

ostracize

avoid speaking to or dealing with; expel from a community or group (e.g. "Kennie was ostracized from the meeting of senior citizens when it was discovered that he was not yet 65 -- he was only 64.")

frugal

avoiding waste (e.g. "the difference between frugality and stinginess is this: the frugal person will spend only enough money to buy what he really needs, but the stingy person won't buy anything at all")

cognizant

aware (e.g. "Joe was rarely cognizant of his surroundings; he was usually to involved with the anti-gravity mixture he was going to create to be concerned with his surroundings.")

barrage

barrier laid down by artillery fire; overwhelming profusion; large number of questions or statements (e.g. "the troops leaped out of the trenches and attempted to storm the enemy's trench lines amidst a barrage of gunfire")

hypothetical

based on hypothesis (e.g. "hypothetically, wormholes may exist in outer space; however, there is no empirical proof for this")

tenable

based on sound reasoning or evidence (e.g. "John's theory that the moon is made of green cheese is not tenable")

patronize

be a regular customer or client of (e.g. "I patronized the restaurant regularly; I was a regular patron of the restaurant. That is, I regularly ate there")

afford

be able to spare or give up (e.g. "although I would like to buy the restaurant, I'm afraid I can't afford it")

abound

be abundant or plentiful (e.g. "weeds abound in my garden, but there are flowers")

equivocate

be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information (e.g. "John Smith from the last example equivocated when asked why he had forced everyone to eat peanut butter and pickle sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, because he didn't want people to know that he thought that they were delicious")

elusive

be difficult to detect or grasp by the mind, skillful at eluding capture (e.g. "in Dickens's book 'Oliver Twist', one character, known as 'the Artful Dodger', is very skilled at eluding police; he is very elusive")

waft

be driven or carried along, as by the air; blow gently (e.g. "The scent of fresh baking bread wafted to my nose.")

delude

be false to (e.g. "Jim deluded Bob into thinking Jim was his friend, when Jim was really a charlatan wanting to take his money")

concord

be in accord (e.g. "The musicians played in concordance; that is, they played together, and it sounded good.")

banter

be silly or tease one another (e.g. "the banter between my friend and myself degenerated into name-calling when my friend said that if Descartes was correct when he said 'I think, therefore I am,' then I didn't exist")

suffice

be sufficient (e.g. "When asked how much of an advance on her allowance she wanted, Sally replied, 'I think five million dollars will suffice.'")

vacillate

be undecided about something (e.g. "at that moment, Jane was vacillating between buying a dress and buying a skirt -- she couldn't decide which to buy")

prolific

bearing in abundance (e.g. "Haydn was a prolific composer; he composed over 100 symphonies")

temerity

fearless daring (e.g. "his reckless temerity when mountain climbing played a direct role in his death")

strife

bitter conflict (e.g. "the bitter strife in the country is a result of several ethnicities, which cannot seem to live together in the same country")

sacrilege

blasphemous behavior (e.g. "the nonexistent 'Fanatical Chocolate Lovers of America' society might consider it sacrilege to comment that chocolate, in large doses, can be very unhealthy")

blasphemy

blasphemous language (expressing disrespect for God or for something sacred) (e.g. "The chocolate lover claimed that the Healthy Food Convention was committing blasphemy by saying that chocolate could, in excessive amounts, make one fat.")

ballyhoo

blatant or sensational promotion; advertize noisily or blatantly (e.g. "All the ballyhoo about the new movie is rubbish; it was a poorly done, sloppily-edited R-rated film.")

impede

block passage through; be a hindrance or obstacle to (e.g. "the presence of the brick wall blocking my path impeded my progress")

renounce

cast off or disown (e.g. "the prisoner renounced his citizenship of the country which had put him in jail because he was so offended that any country would dare to put him behind bars")

vex

cause annoyance in (e.g. "his apparent indifference vexed me, for after all, he had as much at stake as I")

cloy

cause surfeit through excess though initially pleasing (e.g. "the smell of the sweet-smelling perfume began to cloy as it became heavier and heavier")

abash

cause to be embarrassed (e.g. "He was abashed after his date told him he was as ugly as a toad.")

pacify

cause to be more favorably inclined (e.g. "a baby's pacifier is meant to pacify a baby")

evince

give expression to (e.g. "he evinced no desire to watch the movie with me; on the contrary, he evinced a desire to study for his upcoming exam instead")

underscore

give extra weight to (a communication) (e.g. "The speaker underscored his point, as he considered it especially relevant.")

empower

give or delegate power or authority to (e.g. "the king empowered the nobleman to do whatever the nobleman chose to do to the rebels, in the name of the king")

allot

give out (e.g. "I was allotted two dollars -- a mere two dollars -- with which I had to buy a Christmas present for my brother")

abdicate

give up, such as power, as of monarchs and emperors, or duties and obligations (e.g. "John Smith abdicated the throne of Timbuktu after rebel forces took over the city.")

placate

cause to be more favorably inclined (e.g. "the king was implacable -- that is, he could not be placated: he insisted that either his demands be met or that all those who had assisted in his demands not being met have their heads chopped off")

disseminate

cause to become widely known (e.g. "one of the purposes of the new intellectual club was 'the dissemination of knowledge'")

monolithic

characterized by massiveness and rigidity and total uniformity (e.g. "the monolithic organization tried to entirely eliminate all of its competition")

consign

give, transfer, or deliver, as if by signing over; hand over; commit (e.g. "after the dictator was captured by the rebels, he consigned rulership of the country to them in exchange for his life")

mendacious

given to lying (e.g. "Jim has a talent for mendacity -- he is very mendacious; he has probably never told the truth in his life")

fodder

coarse food (especially for cattle and horses) composed of entire plants or the leaves and stalks of a cereal crop (especially metaphorically) (e.g. "all of the books in the house became fodder for the voracious reader")

protocol

code of correct conduct; forms of ceremony and etiquette observed by diplomats and heads of state (e.g. "'Jimmy, it is not correct protocol to make faces at the table,' said his father sternly.")

amass

collect or gather (e.g. "the crowd which amassed outside the Bastille at the beginning of the French Revolution eventually forced its way inside and cut the governor's head off")

synthesis

combining parts into a whole (e.g. "in chemistry, a chemical reaction is a synthesis reaction if it combines all of the reactants into a single product")

harp

come back to (e.g. "'why do you keep harping on that?' asked Samuel")

vanquish

come out better in a competition, race, or conflict (e.g. "In the chess tournament, I utterly vanquished him.")

fathom

come to understand (e.g. "I could not fathom what could cause a man to commit such evil")

congregate

come together, usually for a purpose (e.g. "We have congregated together this day to ponder what would happen if a zombie apocalypse occurred tomorrow.")

droll

comical in an odd or whimsical manner (e.g. "the street performers droll humor was charming and offbeat") (note: example sentence from WikiAnswers)

proscribe

command against (e.g. "the doctor, in his recommendations for the patient, proscribed alcoholic beverages of any kind, saying that they would wreak havoc on the patient's internal organs")

inaugurate

commence officially (e.g. "when an American President is sworn into office, it is called the 'inauguration ceremony' -- it is the ceremony in which the President-elect actually becomes the President")

reparation

compensation (given or received) for an insult or injury (e.g. "after World War I, Germany was forced to pay war reparations to the Allies")

vie

compete for something (e.g. "The nobles vied for possession of the throne.")

fatuous

complacently foolish (e.g. "in the book 'Pride and Prejudice', most of the Bennet children are fatuous--all they are really concerned with is being married to a rich husband")

inane

complacently foolish (e.g. "most of the Bennett children from 'Pride and Prejudice' could be considered inane -- they seem to have no other wish but to be married to a rich husband")

recondite

difficult to penetrate (e.g. "quantum theory seems rather recondite to me; I can't make heads or tails out of it")

abstruse

difficult to understand (e.g. "John Smith's theory was very abstruse; even he had a hard time understanding it.")

affable

diffusing warmth and friendliness (e.g. "His affable nature was such that I don't believe he could possibly be offended at anyone.")

osmosis

diffusion of molecules through a semipermeable membrane from a place of higher concentration to a place of lower concentration until the concentration on both sides is equal (e.g. "He learned how to play the piano by osmosis: he worked with, ate with, played with, and lived with piano-players, so he eventually figured it out as well.")

exhume

dig up for reburial or for medical investigation (e.g. "the dead body of the rebel was exhumed from his grave so that he could be 'formally' tried and convicted and sentenced to death, even though he was already dead")

channel

direct the flow of (e.g. "Bob had difficulty channeling his natural competitiveness into useful areas like sports or academics; all he ever seemed to do with it was get into fights")

bandy

discuss lightly (e.g. the two physicists bandied complicated formulas and other complicated things")

sardonic

disdainfully or ironically humorous (e.g. "one can eventually get tired of his sardonic sense of humor; all it consists of is petty sarcasm")

indolent

disinclined to work or exertion (e.g. "in the aforementioned poem from the last example, the grown-ups are indolent, while the children are forced to work")

disarray

disorder, confusion; to throw into disorder (e.g. "the nuclear explosion in the middle of the city threw the city -- what was left of it, that is -- into disarray")

credulous

disposed to believe on little evidence; gullible (e.g. "Jerry is unbelievably credulous; when I told him that scientists had just discovered that the Earth was flat, not round, he believed me.")

apportion

distribute according to a plan or set apart for a special purpose (e.g. "the meager supply of soup was apportioned out to the people at the table")

disquiet

disturb in mind or make uneasy or cause to be worried or alarmed (e.g. "I was disquieted when I realized that the house that I was living in was haunted")

turmoil

disturbance usually in protest; a violent disturbance; violent agitation (e.g. "The mixed expression on his face was a fair sampling of his inner turmoil within.")

schism

division of a group into opposing factions (e.g. "The period in Catholic church history in which there were two popes, each claiming to be the true pope, was called the Great Schism.")

condescend

do something that one considers to be below one's dignity (e.g. "When I asked the prince to loan me 50 dollars, he said condescendingly, 'I never deal in small change.'")

deign

do something that one considers to be below one's dignity (e.g. "when the man invited the king of England over to his house for dinner, the king did not deign to make a reply")

fastidious

giving and careful attention to detail (e.g. "Albert is very fastidious; when he starts a project, it will seem to take him forever before he finishes it, but it will be done correctly when he does finish")

transcend

go beyond (e.g. "most believers of most religions believe in some higher reality which transcends everyday experience")

serendipity

good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries (e.g. "it was very serendipitous that I won the lottery with a ticket I found lying in the gutter")

plunder

goods or money obtained illegally; destroy and strip of its possession; steal goods; plunder (a town) after capture; take illegally (e.g. "Although much of the pirates' plunder looks valuable, much of it is worthless trash.")

enfranchise

grant voting rights (e.g. "the 15th amendment of the United States Constitution enfranchised African-American people--they were given the right to vote")

clout

great influence (especially political or social); hard blow with fist (e.g. "the president of the United States holds great political clout over Congress")

preeminent

greatest in importance or degree or significance or achievement (e.g. "Stephen Hawking could be considered preeminent in the field of physics")

unconscionable

greatly exceeding bounds of reason or moderation (e.g. "stealing candy from young children is an unconscionable act")

exorbitant

greatly exceeding bounds of reason or moderation (e.g. "whenever a glutton eats, he always consumes exorbitant amounts of food")

burgeon

grow and flourish (e.g. "Governmental bureaucracy is burgeoning -- it's getting larger.")

accrue

grow by addition (e.g. "if you put money in the bank, it will accrue interest")

emaciate

grow weak and thin or waste away physically (e.g. "since the boy refused to eat, he quickly became emaciated and died")

degenerate

grow worse (e.g. "the mental patient's behavior slowly degenerated from semi-normal to raving lunacy")

underwrite

guarantee financial support of; protect by insurance (e.g. "The wealthy baron offered to underwrite the explorer's expedition.")

complicity

guilt as an accomplice in a crime or offense (e.g. "Although Sharon's complicity in the crime is disputed by some -- mostly her relatives -- it is accepted by the police that she was an accomplice to the murderer.")

recidivism

habitual relapse into crime (e.g. "The rate of recidivism for ex-offenders shows that the current system by which offenders are punished may be somewhat lacking, or so say some.")

querulous

habitually complaining (e.g. "the querulous child nearly drove his mother crazy with all of his whining")

taciturn

habitually reserved and uncommunicative (e.g. "the guide's taciturn exterior caused him to seem almost forbidding")

deleterious

harmful to living things (e.g. "the alien death-ray was deleterious; it killed everything it touched")

censure

harsh criticism or disapproval (e.g. "The English teacher's censure of Ann's paper left her in tears.")

transitory

enduring a very short time (e.g. "although the effects of the pain medication are only transitory, they still provide some respite from pain")

ephemeral

enduring a very short time (e.g. "when I look up into the sky, I can sometimes find patterns in the clouds; however, these are usually ephemeral and disappear within a few seconds")

litigate

engage in legal proceedings (e.g. "I avoided the confrontation so as to avoid the possibility of resultant litigation") (Note: example sentence from wikianswers")

augment

enlarge or increase (e.g. "A good knowledge of chemistry augments one's knowledge of biology.")

acclaim

enthusiastic approval (e.g. "the scientist's theory met widespread acclaim among fellow scientists")

tantamount

equivalent (e.g. "firing a gun at someone is tantamount to murder")

misapprehension

error; misunderstanding; V. misapprehend (Leo's fear that his parents would be angry that he flunked his history test turned out to be a misapprehension; they weren't angry.")

corroborate

establish or strengthen as with new evidence or facts (e.g. "Jim's new evidence corroborates Jacob's old theory: it strengthens it.")

antedate

establish something as being earlier relative to something else (e.g. "although Thomas Edison is credited with the invention of the light bulb, he did not invent it, but only invented a practical version of it; the very first light bulb ever invented antedates Edison's version by a considerable time")

stout

euphemisms for 'fat'; dependable; having rugged physical strength (e.g. "His stout exterior belied the shrewd man within.")

conjure

evoke or call forth, with or as if by magic (e.g. "In Shakespeare's 'The Tempest,' the character Prospero has the ability to conjure up spirits.")

antithesis

exact opposite (e.g. "The book 'War and Peace' seems to contain two items, both of which seem to be the antithesis of the other: war and peace.")

scrupulous

exact, careful, attending thoroughly to details; having high moral standards, principled (e.g. "the scrupulous student would not cheat on the test, even though he knew that he was smart enough not to get caught if he did cheat")

peruse

examine or consider with attention and in detail (e.g. "the lawyer perused the legal document") (Note: this word is usually used as a synonym of 'skim'. However, this is an extremely erroneous usage: it really means the opposite of what most people think it means")

introspective

examining own sensory and perceptual experiences (e.g. "the hermit saw his time of meditation as a time of introspective thought, in which he examined the events of his life")

pernicious

exceedingly harmful (e.g. "toxic gases are pernicious")

surfeit

excess (e.g. "at Thanksgiving, many people consume a surfeit of food")

inordinate

excessive (e.g. "Jane Doe seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time discussing the healthfulness of chocolate")

fetish

excessive or irrational devotion to some activity (e.g. "he made fastidiousness his fetish, and now he can't even go into a dirty room without shuddering")

rife

excessively abundant; encountered generally especially at the present time (e.g. "Excesses of all kinds were accepted, bribery and blackmail were rife, and the entire society was engulfed in moral profligacy.")

frenetic

excessively agitated (e.g. "in 'Around the World in Eighty Days,' when one setback occurs after another, Passepartout becomes frenetic, but Phileas Fogg stays as calm as a rock")

rapacious

excessively greedy and grasping (e.g. "Scrooge, from 'A Christmas Carol', by Dickens, was exceedingly rapacious")

voracious

excessively greedy and grasping; devouring or craving food in great quantities (e.g. "His voluminous collection of encyclopedias remained largely unused, probably because it would take an extremely voracious reader to read even half of the material contained in them.")

lugubrious

excessively mournful (e.g. "although Jane had a right to be somewhat sorrowful over the death of her pet cat, I believe she was rather overly lugubrious: she was still mourning five years later")

sanctimonious

excessively or hypocritically pious (e.g. "the sanctimonious behavior of the character 'Mr. Bumble' from Charles Dickens' classic work 'Oliver Twist' is positively revolting")

parsimonious

excessively unwilling to spend (e.g. "the rich man was so parsimonious that, although he had the money to live like a king, he lived like a pauper in a tiny hovel out in the middle of nowhere")

condone

excuse, overlook, or make allowances for (e.g. "When President Ford pardoned Nixon's deeds, he could have been seen by some as condoning Nixon's actions.")

impunity

exemption from punishment or loss (e.g. "the ambassador is able to commit minor crimes with impunity, for if the country to which he is an ambassador were to throw him in jail, the country which he represents would consider that an act of war committed by the former country")

harass

exhaust by attacking repeatedly; annoy continually or chronically (e.g. "my little brother was harassing me, trying to get me to allow him to eat my chocolate bar")

integral

existing as an essential constituent or characteristic (e.g. "gravity is an integral force of nature: without it, all humans would probably be very unhappy")

integral

existing as an essential constituent or characteristic (e.g. "keys are an integral part of a piano")

autonomous

existing as an independent entity ("Although in theory Tibet is an autonomous state, it is really part of China.")

expatriate

expel from a country, voluntarily absent from home or country, move away from one's native country and adopt a new residence abroad; also such a person (e.g. "during the Irish potato famines in the 1800s, many Irish expatriates moved to America")

debunk

expose while ridiculing (e.g. "the scientist easily debunked the claim that the moon was made of green cheese")

disparage

express a negative opinion of (e.g. "the rebel forces of Timbuktu disparaged the current monarch, John Smith")

acerbic

harsh or corrosive in tone (e.g. "Her reply was acerbic: 'I wouldn't marry you in a million years!'")

vitriolic

harsh or corrosive in tone (e.g. "his answer was vitriolic, and I drew back, surprised by his caustic tone") (note: example sentence from WikiAnswers")

astringent

harsh; severe (e.g. "although the math teacher's astringent rules may seem draconian, they are extremely effective in enforcing order and discipline in the classroom")

cursory

hasty and without attention to detail (e.g. "My teacher's cursory reading of my essay led me to think that he didn't think that it was very interesting.")

cursory

hasty and without attention to detail (e.g. "the man made a cursory check to make sure that no cars were coming his way before he started to walk across the street")

perfunctory

hasty and without attention to detail (e.g. "the most favorable adjective which one could use to describe the manner in which Rosa carried out her jury duty would be 'perfunctory': obviously, she didn't care much about her task")

misanthropic

hating mankind in general (e.g. "the misanthropic billionaire spent millions of dollars finding more and more ways to effectively seal himself off from what he saw as 'the bane of the universe': mankind. The rest of the world saw him as the bane of mankind")

concentric

having a common center (e.g. "a dartboard has a number of concentric circles of various sizes on it")

diurnal

having a daily cycle or occurring every day (e.g. "most human behavior is modeled after a diurnal routine")

averse

having a deep-seated distaste; opposed, unwilling (e.g. "Amazingly, he seemed averse to the idea of being a guinea pig for the scientists' highly dangerous experiments.")

iridescent

having a play of lustrous rainbow-like colors; varying in color when seen in different lights or from different angles (e.g. "The iridescent sheen of the oil on the water is surprising; one would never suspect that something so beautiful could have such a harmful effect on the local wildlife.")

cryptic

having a puzzling terseness (e.g. "Hans's cryptic statement had us all puzzled for weeks; we had no clue what it meant.")

salient

having a quality that thrusts itself into attention (e.g. "the salient flowers are notable mostly for smelling of rotting garbage")

redolent

having a strong distinctive fragrance (e.g. "a latrine is redolent of feces")

affluent

having an abundant supply of money or possessions of value (e.g. "The affluent man had a widescreen TV, three cars (One of which was a Ferrari), and a mansion with its mortgage completely paid off.")

notorious

having an exceedingly bad reputation (e.g. "the notorious criminal found that being infamous has its downsides: he couldn't achieve anonymity no matter where he wenty")

infamous

having an exceedingly bad reputation (e.g. "the old-West gangster Jesse James had an infamous reputation: he was known everywhere as a criminal")

defunct

having ceased to exist or live (e.g. "my computer is defunct: it doesn't work")

aboriginal

having existed from the beginning (e.g. "the aboriginal people of the island are rather primitive")

imply

express or state indirectly (e.g. "although he didn't say so directly, I got the distinct impression that he was implying that I should burn down kindly old Mr. Jones's barn")

deplore

express strong disapproval of (e.g. "I deplore laziness")

deprecate

express strong disapproval of (e.g. "James deprecated the CEO of the company when James said that the CEO was a thief")

decry

express strong disapproval of (e.g. "the early American patriots decried the idea of taxation without representation")

quantitative

expressible as a quantity or relating to or susceptible of measurement (e.g. "in the last example sentence, if I had looked at the two people quantitatively, I could not have reached a decision, for beauty is not expressible in units")

lyrical

expressing deep personal emotion (e.g. "His lyrical account of his vacation caused me to desire to have a similar vacation to his.")

pejorative

expressing disapproval (e.g. "the phrase 'goody-two-shoes' is almost always used in the pejorative sense: that is, it is rarely, if ever, used to express approval")

baleful

expressing hatred or evil; harmful, ominous (e.g. "his baleful glare was a portentous sign of his revenge that he would pursue against me")

concise

expressing much in few words (e.g. "Concision was not one of Joan's virtues: she couldn't seem to say the simplest thing without at least two hours of time and 10,000 words.")

plaintive

expressing sorrow (e.g. "after the five-year-old's lollipop was accidentally thrown into a trash can, she let out a plaintive wail")

byzantine

highly involved or intricate (e.g. "the byzantine nature of the modern legal code is such that one must study fo many years before he can ever hope to even begin to understand it'")

thwart

hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of (e.g. "His plan to take over the world was thwarted by his sheer and absolute incompetence.")

undermine

hollow out as if making a cave or opening; destroy property or hinder normal operations (e.g. "The presence of fifth-columnists in the country undermined its war effort.")

deem

keep in mind or convey as a conviction or view (e.g. "when explaining to the police my account of the murder to which I had been an eyewitness, I deemed it unnecessary to explain to them that I had been an accomplice to the murderer")

wizened

lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness (e.g. "His wizened face beamed happiness at my arrival.")

emigrate

leave one's country of residence for a new one (e.g. "in the 1800s, during the Irish potato famine, many emigrated from Ireland")

bequeath

leave or give by will after one's death (e.g. "The generous benefactor bequeathed $1,000,000 to the new university.")

forsake

leave someone who needs or counts on you (e.g. "after the aliens abducted Jim, Bob decided to forsake his friend and run for his life")

stigmatize

mark with a stigma or stigmata (e.g. "people who commit crimes against humanity are stigmatized, or at least ought to be stigmatized")

pedantic

marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning especially its trivial aspects (e.g. "Sue showed an almost pedantic interest in the ancient Akkadian empire")

avid

marked by active interest and enthusiasm (e.g. "he's an avid mountain-biker; it seems that all he ever does in his spare time is mountain-bike")

zealous

marked by active interest and enthusiasm (e.g. "the fanatic seems very zealous for his cause")

coherent

marked by an orderly, logical, and aesthetically consistent relation of parts (e.g. "Walter's incoherent speech failed to convince anyone in the audience that he was right.")

nonchalant

marked by blithe unconcern (e.g. "His nonchalant reaction to my news that the stock market had crashed led me to believe that he had not invested very heavily in stocks.")

insouciant

marked by blithe unconcern (e.g. "his insouciant behavior at the funeral drew the wrath of the mourners")

assiduous

marked by care and persistent effort (e.g. "I am supposed to be assiduous in doing my schoolwork.")

insolent

marked by casual disrespect (e.g. "the modern stereotype of the insolent teenager originated in the 1960s")

grandiose

impressive because of unnecessary largeness or grandeur (e.g. "John Smith, the main architect of Timbuktu, wanted to build a ten-kilometer-tall skyscraper; however, his advising board told him that that sounded unnecessarily grandiose")

noxious

injurious to physical or mental health (e.g. "the noxious gases had no effect on the alien from Mars, because he had an anti-noxious-gas-ray")

desultory

jumping from one thing to another; disconnected (e.g. "Hank's desultory speech was the epitome of digression: he couldn't seem to stay on a single topic for more than three seconds")

preclude

keep from happening or arising (e.g. "the fact that there is a law in affect which forbids people from killing each other does not preclude the possibility of murders: unfortunately, not everyone obeys this law")

forestall

keep from happening or arising; act in advance of (e.g. "to forestall the possibility of punishment, Jimmy made up a story of how the lamp had gotten broken so that he wouldn't have to tell the truth")

olfactory

of or relating to olfaction (e.g. "Although my olfactory sense is somewhat more acute than other peoples', I still can tolerate having a person smoking a cigarette close beside me.")

toxic

of or relating to or caused by a toxin or poison (e.g. "Although the paint is supposedly not toxic, I certainly wouldn't like to drink some of it to find out for certain.")

indigenous

originating where it is found (e.g. "the indigenous tribes of Polynesia -- that is, the first ones there -- really didn't originate there; one theory suggests that some emigrated there from South America")

effusion

outpouring (e.g. "there would have been an effusion of laughter when James accidentally served the members of the sobriety society alcoholic beverages, except that it is against the rules of the society to laugh")

bureaucracy

over-regulated administrative system marked by red tape (e.g. "Modern governmental bureaucracy is so complicated compared to how it was in George Washington's day that if he saw our modern government, he'd probably be surprised.")

juxtapose

place side by side (e.g. "imagine juxtaposing the Space Needle from Seattle by the Empire State Building from New York City. Which one would look more impressive?")

specious

plausible but false (e.g. "the charlatan had specious theories about how his product cures all ills")

specious

plausible but false; based on pretense (e.g. "His specious pseudo-intellectual theories have corrupted the minds of the citizens of this town.")

parochial

narrowly restricted in outlook or scope (e.g. "the mayor of the tiny town with a mere 400 people held a rather parochial perspective, probably because he had never left his hometown and therefore had no experience outside of it")

endemic

native to or confined to a certain region or era (e.g. "narrow-mindedness is not endemic to a particular area; it's widespread; it's everywhere")

figurative

not literal but metaphorical; using a figure (impression) of speech (e.g. "Donald believes that the moon is made of green cheese. Figuratively speaking, this could be considered an intellectual fetter.")

benign

not malignant; not bad (e.g. "Joshua was afraid his tumor was cancerous, but it wasn't: it was benign.")

categorical

not modified or restricted by reservations (e.g. "John Smith of Timbuktu categorically claimed that he was guilty of no wrongdoing.")

subtle

not obvious (e.g. "many observation exercises ask a person to examine two apparently identical pictures and find the subtle differences")

latent

not presently active (e.g. "we did not realize he had an infection at first -- it was latent -- until the day he died")

climatic

of or relating to a climate (e.g. "most scientists believe that over the last few centuries, there have been some major climatic changes, one of which is known as 'global warming'")

feline

of or relating to cats (e.g. "Some people, as opposed to those in the last example, consider felines to be man's best friend.")

conjugal

of or relating to marriage or to the relationship between a wife and husband (e.g. "their conjugal relationship leaves much to be desired; neither of them seems to be willing to be unselfish and put the other before him/herself")

provident

providing carefully for the future, careful in regard to your own interests (e.g. "his provident spending habits caused him to be able to enjoy a comfortable retirement")

stark

providing no shelter or sustenance; complete or extreme; severely simple; completely (e.g. "Stark, unmitigated terror gripped my heart as the Klingon lunged at my throat.")

instigate

provoke or stir up (e.g. "I didn't know that by calling Bob a stupid idiot that I would be instigating a fight")

chaste

pure and simple in design or style; morally pure (especially not having experienced sexual intercourse) (e.g. "the artist's chaste, unadorned style stood out from all of the baroque paintings in the same gallery")

promulgate

put a law into effect by formal declaration (e.g. "Jane Doe, queen of Kalamazoo, promulgated the decree that everyone had to eat peanut butter and cream cheese sandwiches for lunch every day")

propound

put forward, as of an idea (e.g. "The chairman of the 'Moon is Made of Green Cheese' Society propounded the idea that the moon is made of green cheese.")

disgruntle

put into a bad mood or into bad humor (e.g. "a disgruntled ex-employee attacked his former boss with a machete")

felicity

pleasing and appropriate manner or style (especially manner or style of expression), state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy (e.g. "Bob told Jim, with great felicity, that he had just won the lottery")

mellifluous

pleasing to the ear (e.g. "the mellifluous notes of the symphonic orchestra soothed my ears after the hard rock concert")

exonerate

pronounce not guilty of criminal charges (e.g. "the court exonerated me of the crime of eating all of the ice cream; I wasn't the one who did it")

acquit

pronounce not guilty of criminal charges (e.g. "the defendant was acquitted of all charges brought against him")

competent

properly or sufficiently qualified or capable or efficient (e.g. "unfortunately, our company is littered with employee who aren't competent or even qualified for the job at all")

refute

prove to be false or incorrect (e.g. "Jim refuted Bob's assertion that the moon was made of green cheese")

rebut

prove to be false or incorrect (e.g. "the scientist easily rebutted the lunatic's claim that the moon was made of green cheese")

render

provide or furnish with; cause to become; bestow; pass down, give or supply; show in, or as in, a picture; give an interpretation or rendition of; give back; make over as a return (e.g. "My attempt to render the sunset in a painting failed miserably, as the sunset had an ineffable aura of majesty about it which my canvas simply could not capture.")

alleviate

provide physical relief, as from pain (e.g. "Although the ointment alleviated some of the pain of the gunshot wound, I knew I'd need to see a real doctor.")

assuage

provide physical relief, as from pain (e.g. "Her soothing words assuaged his bruised ego.")

document

provide written evidence (e.g. "not only do do we claim that the defendant is guilty, but we have documentation to prove it! That is, the evidence has been documented")

dialectical

relating to discussions (e.g. "although he considered himself a great conversationalist, he was not dialectical at all: he always did all of the talking, and technically to have a conversation, the other person has to say something")

equine

relating to horses (e.g. "The barn had a big sign on the front: 'Attention: this is an equine facility'.")

chronological

relating to or arranged according to temporal order (e.g. "My chronological account of the history of the world has some problems; one of them would be that I said that World War II began in 1776.")

imperial

relating to or associated with an empire (e.g. "Napoleon was imperial in the most literal sense of the word -- he literally had control over an empire")

paternal

relating to or characteristic of or befitting a parent (e.g. "Jim held paternal feelings for Bob. This makes sense; Bob was his son")

piscine

relating to or suggesting fish (e.g. "Many piscine products, such as trout and salmon, are sold in stores.")

porcine

relating to or suggesting swine (e.g. "Many porcine products, such as sausage and bacon, are sold in stores.")

agrarian

relating to rural matters (e.g. "The Federal Government subsidizes agrarian industries.")

ancillary

relating to something that is added but is not essential (e.g. "the new garage has an ancillary position to the house; it isn't strictly necessary for the existence of the house, but it is a helpful thing to have")

antipodal

relating to the antipodes or situated at opposite sides of the earth (e.g. "China is said to be at an antipodal location on Earth relative to the United States; this is why some benighted people say that if you dig a deep enough hole, you will pop out in China")

extricate

release from entanglement of difficulty (e.g. "after I got stuck in the giant toaster oven, my sister had a hard time extricating me from it, and she eventually had to call the police to get me out")

germane

relevant (e.g. "the defendant claimed that the question of whether he had committed perjury or not was not germane to the question of whether or not he should go to jail; the jury disagreed")

reticent

reluctant to draw attention to oneself (e.g. "I suggested to Ronald that he take some of the accolades -- which he truly deserved -- for himself, but he was overly reticent and refused.")

oust

remove and replace; remove from a position or office (e.g. "After the former ruler was ousted, the army generals set up a junta, with which they effectively ruled the country for the next 12 years.")

expunge

remove by erasing or crossing out (e.g. "little Jimmy sent a letter to Santa Claus, begging Santa Claus to expunge all records of his naughtiness from the past year so that he would get a Christmas present and not merely a lump of coal")

efface

remove by or as if by rubbing or erasing (e.g. "King Thutmose III of Egypt attempted to efface all memory of the previous pharaoh, Hatshepsut")

desiccate

remove water from (e.g. "the turkey was desiccated; it was very overdone, and was scorched")

consecrate

render holy by means of religious rites (e.g. "The priest consecrated the altar.")

hackneyed

repeated too often (e.g. "the phrase 'a penny saved is a penny earned' has been hackneyed to the point that it has become a cliché")

tautological

repetition of same sense in different words (e.g. "first the defendant pleaded 'not guilty'. Then the defendant pleaded innocent. His pleadings were tautological")

belie

represent falsely; be in contradiction with (e.g. "John Smith said that he had the courage to face the evil dragon, but his countenance belied his words.")

ostensible

represented or appearing as such (e.g. "although ostensibly Maria went into town to buy her daughter a Christmas present, her real reason was that she wanted to buy something for herself")

quintessential

representing the perfect example of a class or quality (e.g. "Captain Kirk is the quintessential starship captain.")

invoke

request earnestly (something from somebody); cite as an authority; evoke or call forth, with or as if by magic (e.g. "When I was trying to convince my friend that the Earth was round, not flat, he invoked a source from the 15th century which stated that the author felt that if the Earth was round, then everyone on the bottom of it would fall off, so therefore the Earth wasn't round; I questioned the validity of his source.")

fester

ripen and generate pus (usually metaphorically), a sore that has become inflamed and formed pus (e.g. "his anger and hatred festered within him, until finally they burst out in a rage of malice and ill-will")

dour

showing a brooding ill humor (e.g. "Scrooge's dour personality did not prevent his nephew from inviting him over for a Christmas dinner")

morose

showing a brooding ill humor (e.g. "the character Scrooge from 'A Christmas Carol,' by Charles Dickens, was definitely morose: he was also a misanthrope")

cavalier

showing an offhand or carefree disregard; arrogant (e.g. "his cavalier disregard for the value of human life has, to put it gently, not helped him to ingratiate himself to me")

hoary

showing characteristics of age, especially having gray or white hair (e.g. "his hoary pet turtle was well over 22")

contrived

showing effects of planning or manipulation (e.g. "Johnny's speech sounded contrived; it didn't sound as if it came from his heart.")

solicitous

showing hovering attentiveness (e.g. "the solicitous salesperson is irritating in that he won't leave me alone so that I can decide whether I really want to buy the product; he is constantly trying to convince me to buy it.)

flippant

showing inappropriate levity (e.g. "the pastor seemed almost flippant at the funeral of one of the members of his congregation")

phlegmatic

showing little emotion (e.g. "When I got an F on my paper, I tried to be phlegmatic about it, but I completely failed.")

vindictive

showing malicious ill will and a desire to hurt (e.g. "Harry's vindictive spirit causes him to commit needless acts of cruelty")

indifferent

showing no care or concern in attitude or action (e.g. "Jane Doe seemed indifferent to the fact that, by eating all of the chocolate herself, she was leaving none for anyone else")

wistful

showing pensive sadness (e.g. "Harry seemed rather wistful as he commented on all of the various things he could have become had he but chosen a different career")

obdurate

showing unfeeling resistance to tender feelings (e.g. "Although all evidence was against her, Ciara was still obdurate in her conclusion that the prisoner was innocent") (note: example sentence from YahooAnswers")

prudent

showing wise self-restraint in speech and behavior especially in preserving prudent silence (e.g. "when the malevolent dictator started screaming in Samuel's face, Samuel considered telling him that he was making no sense; however, knowing that the dictator could easily order his head to be chopped off, he prudently remained silent")

guile

shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception (e.g. "the character Oliver Twist from the book 'Oliver Twist' is guileless -- that is, he possesses no guile, which means that he is always frank and candid -- he never lies, even when it would be to his own advantage")

acumen

shrewdness shown by keen insight (e.g. "His acumen caused him to make a fortune in the 1920s, and to completely pull out from the stock market right before the Great Depression began.")

cringe

shrink back as if in fear; cower (e.g. "I cringed before the purple alien with the huge ray gun to show that I was not a threat to it")

presuppose

require as a necessary antecedent or precondition; take for granted or as a given (e.g. "I have taken the liberty of presupposing that if you are doing this set of Quizlet flashcards then you are probably a high schooler preparing for the SAT.")

exacting

requiring precise accuracy (e.g. "creating the mirror in the Hubble Space Telescope required exacting precision: being off by even one fifth of the width of a hair would cause a dramatic decrease in the telescope's ability")

surreal

resembling a dream; characterized by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtapositions (e.g. "The surreal atmosphere of the scene was accentuated by the flying pigs I saw overhead.")

serpentine

resembling a serpent in form (e.g. "Do not drive on that serpentine road if you are prone to carsickness; you will surely become carsick if you try.")

homage

respectful deference (e.g. "I paid homage to the monarch of Timbuktu")

circumscribe

restrict or confine (e.g. "After James broke the light bulb, his mother circumscribed him to his room.")

manifest

reveal its presence or make an appearance (e.g. "the disease does not make itself manifest until it is in its final stage; by then nothing can be done about it, and the patient will die")

pious

reverent or devout; outwardly (and sometimes falsely) reverent or devout; hypocritical (e.g. "the character Mr. Bumble from Dickens's classic novel 'Oliver Twist' seems horrified at the vanity of the world around him while piously countenancing his own family's vanities")

resurrection

revival from inactivity and disuse (e.g. "One way to resurrect overdone pasta is to soak it in cold water; the pasta may achieve a resurrection.")

abrogate

revoke formally (e.g. "the king abrogated his subject's right to bear arms after the subject had repeatedly abused the right")

sumptuous

rich and superior in quality (e.g. "The sumptuous food that the king had at his banquet must have cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars!")

opulent

rich and superior in quality (e.g. "the opulent man was so wealthy that he actually hired people to turn off his alarm clock for him")

lampoon

ridicule with satire (e.g. "I lampooned my math teacher -- out of his hearing, of course -- at every opportunity; when my math teacher found out, he was very unhappy")

profound

situated at or extending to great depth; very deep; deeply felt; intellectually deep (e.g. "when asked, the sage gave a few profound comments about the meaning of life and the dietary importance of lime Jello")

dexterous

skillful in physical movements (e.g. "if a person is ambidextrous, then he is skillful at writing in both hands")

deft

skillful in physical movements (e.g. "the criminal deftly opened the safe without making any noise")

oblique

slanting or inclined in direction or course or position--neither parallel nor perpendicular (e.g. "the stick had been thrust into the ground at an oblique angle")

interloper

someone who intrudes on the privacy or property of another without permission (e.g. "the sign read, 'interlopers will not be tolerated' -- that is, 'no trespassing'")

cynic

someone who is critical of the motives of others (e.g. "my sister from the previous example was a cynic: she didn't believe my motives were pure when I accidentally killed the cat; she insisted the killing was intentional")

virtuoso

someone who is dazzlingly skilled in any field (e.g. "Mozart was, without doubt, a virtuoso")

layman

someone who is not a clergyman or a professional person (e.g. "Although most physicists could probably understand this paper, I doubt that many laymen could.")

entrepreneur

someone who organizes a business venture and assumes the risk for it (e.g. "the entrepreneur thought that his new advertising technique would help him to sell millions of dollars' worth of his products; he was wrong, and his business was a failure")

perpetrator

someone who perpetrates wrongdoing (e.g. "After the murder was committed, the perpetrator was speedily apprehended and indicted; he awaits his trial.")

iconoclast

someone who tries to destroy traditional ideas or institutions (e.g. "the hippies of the 1960s were iconoclasts; they loved everything, it seemed, that their parents abhorred")

adjunct

something added to another thing but not an essential part of it (e.g. "the new garage is adjunct to the house")

complement

something added to complete or make perfect (e.g. "I believe that the green curtains complement the decor of the rest of the room.")

phantasm

something existing in perception only; a ghostly appearing figure (e.g. "The phantasm could not be killed by bullets, grenades, or bombs, because a phantasm has no physical substance to destroy.")

subterfuge

something intended to misrepresent the true nature of an activity (e.g. "Although he indicated that his scientific work was for purely peaceful purposes, his remarks were merely clever subterfuge: he was in reality working on building a death-ray gun.")

anachronism

something or someone out of place in terms of historical or chronological context ("The old man wearing a ten-gallon hat and riding a horse down Main Street seemed anachronistic, considering that probably nobody else in the town owned a horse, preferring to drive a car instead, and that certainly no one else in town owned a ten-gallon hat.")

amenity

something that adds to one's comfort or convenience (e.g. "The amenities at the hotel included a hot tub, a pool, and a free breakfast in the morning.")

enigma

something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained (e.g. "Albert's behavior this past week was an enigma; of course, Albert's behavior every week is enigmatic, so this week was pretty normal")

balm

something that heals or comforts; soothing; an oil or ointment (e.g. "her soothing words were balm to his seared heart")

provocation

something that incites or provokes; unfriendly behavior that causes anger or resentment (e.g. "I'm warning you, if you say that to him, he'll explode; he blows up at the slightest provocation, and so I wouldn't recommend that you say that to him.")

prelude

something that serves as a preceding event or introduces what follows (e.g. "I have a feeling that this first battle is only the prelude to what will become a bloody, gruesome war.")

bane

something which causes misery or death (e.g. "The dull speaker in the last example is the bane of my existence, because I have to listen to one of his speeches every day.")

bereaved

sorrowful through loss or deprivation; also, a person who has suffered a loss or deprivation (e.g. "She is bereaved as a result of the murder of her husband.")

austere

spartan, lacking ornament (e.g. "Hermits live an austere existence.")

articulate

speak, pronounce, or utter in a certain way (e.g. "I believe that the speaker articulated his views concisely and cogently")

jargon

specialized technical terminology characteristic of a particular subject (e.g. "Believe me, if you desire to learn computer programming, you will have to learn an entire jargon completely foreign to everyone of every other field")

expedite

speed up the progress of (e.g. "the fact that our car had a rocket engine inside of it expedited our journey to the post office")

squander

spend thoughtlessly (e.g. "after the man won the lottery, he squandered all of his winnings on more lottery tickets. He won nothing")

slander

spoken defamation (e.g. "in the last example sentence, assuming that the newspaper article's claim was untrue, then it was slander against the CEO")

defile

spot, stain, or pollute; make dirty or spotty, as by exposure to air; place under suspicion or cast doubt upon (e.g. "I will not defile my integrity by committing such an unseemly act")

revile

spread negative information about (e.g. "I reviled him after he called me an idiot.")

vilify

spread negative information about (e.g. "although my opponent has succeeded to a large degree in vilifying me, I still will campaign for the office of mayor of this city")

pervade

spread or diffuse through (e.g. "the smell of sulfur pervaded the sulfur mine")

rhetoric

study of the technique and rules for using language effectively (especially in public speaking) (e.g. "the art of rhetoric was one of the trivium -- one of three main points of study -- for learners in times past")

servile

submissive or fawning in attitude or behavior (e.g. "the rich man had many sycophants and servile flatterers, but very few true friends")

finesse

subtly skillful handling of a situation (e.g. "when the peaceful aliens landed on Earth, the country in which they had landed didn't exactly handle the situation with finesse: they killed all of them with tanks")

imbue

suffuse with color; spread or diffuse through; fill or soak totally (e.g. "staining wood imbues it with dye")

anthropomorphic

suggesting human characteristics for animals or inanimate things (e.g. "myths from uncivilized cultures may anthropomorphize inanimate objects; a legend from Hawai'i, for example, lends human attributes to rocks")

martial

suggesting war or military life (e.g. "Tim found martial life too demanding, so he quit the army and found another job")

pastoral

suggestive of an idyll; used of idealized country life (e.g. "The pastoral setting was perfect for the artist, who specialized in bucolic scenes.")

incisive

suitable for cutting or piercing (e.g. "John Wheelock's poem 'Earth' is an incisive reminder of what humans may do to themselves if they exercise no restraint")

recapitulate

summarize briefly (e.g. "None of the students were listening to the history lecture the first time, so Mr. John Smith, our history teacher, decided to recapitulate the main points.")

kinetic

supplying motive force; characterized by motion; relating to the motion of material bodies and the forces associated therewith (e.g. "in physics, the kinetic energy of an object is its energy due to its motion")

definitive

supplying or being a final or conclusive settlement (e.g. "Oxford publishes a definitive dictionary of the English language; it has every word in the language in it")

champion

support militantly; fight for; N: person who fights for or supports strongly (a principle, movement, person, etc.) (e.g. "Martin Luther King, Jr. was a champion of the cause of civil rights in the United States")

subsidize

support through subsidies, secure the assistance of by granting a subsidy; as of nations or military forces (e.g. "The government subsidizes ethanol production.")

quell

suppress or crush completely; overcome or allay (e.g. "The Empire tried to quell the Rebellion using its new battle station, the Death Star; however, the Empire was unsuccessful, because the Rebellion blew up the Death Star.")

capitulate

surrender under agreed conditions (e.g. "After the rebel forces surrounded the castle, John Smith, dictator of Timbuktu, capitulated to the demands that he resign.")

capitulate

surrender under agreed conditions (e.g. "General Lee capitulated at Appomattox Court House to General Grant; this event, for all practical intents and purposes, ended the American Civil War")

amid

surrounded by; in the middle of (e.g. "I glimpsed my friend amid the crowd")

moratorium

suspension of an ongoing activity; a legally authorized postponement before some obligation must be discharged (e.g. "The CEO of the company declared a moratorium on monetary compensation for everybody but himself.")

distend

swell from or as if from internal pressure (e.g. "he ate so much that he had a distended stomach: it bulged out from the rest of his body")

ideology

system of ideas characteristic of a group or culture (e.g. "Hitler's ideology was very provocative; a part of it was that the so-called 'Aryan' race was dominant over all others and should rule the world")

genocide

systematic killing of a racial or cultural group (e.g. "Hitler is infamous for his inhumane policy of genocide of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and other groups which he considered 'sub-human'")

revel

take delight in; unrestrained merrymaking; celebrate noisily; often indulging in drinking (e.g. "Cinderella reveled in her new-found ability to have her wishes granted by a fairy godmother.")

demur

take exception to (e.g. "Darth Vader told Luke Skywalker to join the Dark Side; Luke demurred")

supersede

take the place or move into the position of (e.g. "The president vetoed the bill, but Congress superseded his veto, and the bill was passed nonetheless.")

reprove

take to task (e.g. "Bob's aunt reproved him for standing on top of the restaurant table and starting to give a speech; she said that his behavior was improper")

espouse

take up the cause, ideology, practice, method, of someone and use it as one's own (e.g. "Bob espoused the philosophy of Socrates, which had the basic tenet that the key to knowledge is asking questions")

sweeping

taking in or moving over (or as if over) a wide area; having broad range or effect; ignoring distinctions (e.g. "The law instituted sweeping reforms, including freeing all of the serfs and giving all of them land.")

pontificate

talk in a dogmatic and pompous manner (e.g. "The character Mr. Bumble from 'Oliver Twist', by Charles Dickens, is a highly unsympathetic character: when he speaks, he always pontificates.")

inculcate

teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions (e.g. "he attempted to inculcate virtue into his youngest son; however, his son was obdurate, and refused to be taught")

infuse

teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions; fill, as with a certain quality (e.g. "the little boy was infused with honesty, prudence, and fortitude")

rend

tear or be torn violently (e.g. "In ancient Israel, the act of the high priest rending his garment was a symbolic gesture of his extreme disapproval.")

abeyance

temporary cessation or suspension (e.g. "although Tom's startling remark held his friend's anger in temporary abeyance, it was clear that the storm of his friend's wrath had by no means blown itself out")

bivouac

temporary living quarters specially built by the army for soldiers; temporary encampment (e.g. "after the soldiers constructed their bivouac, they tensely waited as the long night passed, each moment thinking that the enemy was about to attack")

conducive

tending to bring about (e.g. "Toxic gases are not conducive to health.")

compelling

tending to persuade by forcefulness of argument (e.g. "His argument was compelling, but I was still unconvinced that the moon was made of green cheese.")

salutary

tending to promote physical well-being (e.g. "the salutary effects of countryside life cannot be overstated")

evanescent

tending to vanish like vapor (e.g. "suddenly, I knew how to invent an anti-gravity potion--but the idea was evanescent, and I immediately forgot it")

entity

that which is perceived or known or inferred to have its own distinct existence (living or nonliving) (e.g. "although no living entities are known to exist outside of Earth, that alone is not proof that none exist")

apostasy

the act of abandoning a party or cause (e.g. "the 'Society of Believers that the Moon is Made of Green Cheese' said that James had committed apostasy when he admitted that the evidence shows that the moon is made of rock, not cheese")

remission

the act of absolving or remitting; an abatement in intensity or degree (as in the manifestations of a disease); (law) the act of remitting (especially the referral of a law case to another court) (e.g. "Although the cancer has gone into remission, it is unfortunately somewhat likely that it will return sometime during the next several years.")

access

the act of approaching or entering (e.g. "access to the scene of the crime is restricted; it is available only to those with appropriate security clearance")

brevity

the attribute of being brief or fleeting (e.g. "Brevity is not one of Leo's virtues: the shortest sentence he ever wrote was at least as long as three normal-sized paragraphs.")

electorate

the body of enfranchised citizens (e.g. "the politician felt that he was the greatest thing since George Washington; the electorate felt otherwise, and the politician didn't get a single vote")

constituency

the body of voters who elect a representative for their area (e.g. "the politician did not win the election; his values did not align with those of his constituency, so he lost")

pathology

the branch of medical science that studies the causes and nature and effects of diseases (e.g. "a pathologist is a doctor who specializes in diseases")

demography

the branch of sociology that studies the characteristics of human populations (e.g. "the study of demography can be very informative because it can reveal patterns in human behavior for a specific subset of the population")

capital

the city that is the seat of government of a state, nation, or province; any human-made resource that is used to create other goods and services (e.g. "attaining the necessary capital for your business plan will require a substantial loan from the bank")

solace

the comfort you feel when consoled in times of disappointment; the act of consoling; comfort in disappointment or misery (e.g. "He solaced himself by playing his computer game.")

wake

the consequences of an event (especially a catastrophic event) (e.g. "Mass hysteria followed in the wake of the zombie attack.")

criterion

the ideal in terms of which something can be judged (e.g. "Marie's sole criterion for a good meal is, 'is it eatable?'")

psyche

the immaterial part of a person; that which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings (e.g. "Although this definition says that the psyche is the immaterial part of the person, this is in question -- whether or not the psyche -- or mind, or even soul, if you will -- has any relation transcending matter, or whether it is merely material, is a question faced by some.")

progeny

the immediate descendants of a person (e.g. "The Founding Fathers of America did not create American government merely for themselves, but also for their progeny , as is evidenced by a quote from the Preamble of the Constitution: 'We the people of the United States...to ensure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.")

theology

the learned profession acquired by specialized courses in religion (usually taught at a college or seminary) (e.g. "the theology classes taught me very much about human traditions, but, ironically, taught me very little of religion")

ethics

the principles of right and wrong that guide an individual in making decisions (e.g. "I believe that societal ethics are being degraded; in fact, some would say that modern society has no ethics, since to have ethics one must have a standard of right and wrong, and some people nowadays don't even believe in right or wrong!")

influx

the process of flowing in (e.g. "the current influx of immigrants from Kalamazoo is due to the harsh political climate there")

cuisine

the practice or manner of preparing food or the food so prepared (e.g. "the cuisine at the restaurant is really very good; I highly recommend it")

deficit

the property of being an amount by which something is less than expected or required (e.g. "the federal deficit is the amount of money that the government spends in a year minus the amount of money that the government collects in taxes in a year")

proximity

the property of being close together (e.g. "the meal Harry consumed has not agreed with him; he will have to stay in close proximity to the restroom for the next few hours")

accede

to agree or express agreement (e.g. "after I laid out my proposal, the other members of the board acceded that it was indeed an excellent idea")

accost

to approach and speak to first; to confront in a challenging or aggressive way (e.g. "John Smith was accosted by three men with baseball bats and clubs, who the police subsequently arrested for aggressive action.")

allege

to assert without proof or confirmation (e.g. "Allegedly, John Smith murdered Jane Doe and Richard Roe, but since the only person who claims to have seen the deed was John Smith's worst enemy, I really doubt it.")

spawn

to bring forth; to produce a large number (e.g. "Harry's great idea spawned an entire movement designed to bring that great idea to fruition")

evoke

to call forth or call to mind (e.g. "the word 'home' evokes different images for different people")

appease

to calm; to make satisfied (often only temporarily) (e.g. "After rebel forces took over Timbuktu, John Smith, former ruler of the city, attempted to appease their leader by offering him one million dollars, but the leader said no and cut off his head.")

coerce

to cause to do through pressure or necessity, by physical, moral or intellectual means (e.g. "When John tried to coerce Ali into giving him a billion dollars, Ali called the police.")

engender

to cause, to produce, to create (e.g. "Louella slapped Mr. Jones on the face; this act engendered hostility toward Louella in Mr. Jones")

absolve

to clear from blame, responsibility, or guilt (ex. "The king absolved John Smith from any wrongdoing whatsoever.")

emanate

to come forth (e.g. "shock waves emanated from the epicenter of the earthquake")

subjugate

to conquer by force, bring under complete control (e.g. "the ruler of the country subjugated all of the surrounding nations")

confer

to consult, talk over, exchange opinions; to present as a gift, favor, or honor (e.g. "after the criminals conferred with each other for a few hours, they decided not to attempt to try to break into Fort Knox because it was too heavily guarded")

enumerate

to count, list, or itemize (e.g. "as the entrepreneur tried to enumerate his losses, he was stunned to find that they amounted to over $10,000,000")

beget

to create; to become the father of (e.g. "Violence begets violence.")

curtail

to cut short (e.g. "my monologue about how I had accidentally killed the cat was curtailed by my sister, who denounced me as a cat-murderer")

assert

to declare or state as truth, maintain or defend, put forward forcefully (e.g. "I asserted -- correctly -- that the moon was not made of green cheese; unfortunately, the person to whom I was speaking believed otherwise")

embellish

to decorate, adorn, touch up; to improve by adding details (e.g. "although his masterful victory in battle was a coup in and of itself, James always embellished the story so that he appeared even more heroic than he really was")

foreclose

to deprive a mortgagor of his or her right to redeem a property; to shut out or exclude (e.g. "the banker foreclosed on the owner's property, because the owner hadn't paid his monthly payments in over a year")

dismay

to destroy courage or resolution; to cause to lose enthusiasm, to disillusion (e.g. "I was dismayed when I was abducted by aliens")

elicit

to draw forth, bring out from some source (such as another person) (e.g. "Daniel's mother attempted to elicit from him a confession of why he had blown up their toilet")

titillate

to excite; to stimulate; to tease (e.g. "His curiosity was titillated by the ending of the movie; now, he will certainly watch the sequel, when it is released.")

ebb

to fade away, recede (e.g. "his interest in his new toy ebbed, and eventually he forgot about it completely")

commiserate

to feel or express sympathy or compassion (e.g. "I commiserated with Peter; I could empathize with him, for I had gone through a similar trial myself")

infer

to find out by reasoning; to arrive at a conclusion on the basis of thought (e.g. "the fictitious detective Sherlock Holmes made extremely shrewd inferences during the course of each book")

classic

top-notch; of the highest quality; serving as a standard or model (e.g. "a classic example of a sentence using the word 'classic' would be this sentence")

absolute

total (e.g. "The king was an absolute ruler; that is, he could do whatever he wanted to his people; his rule was final.")

oblivion

total forgetfulness (e.g. "the alien pointed his death ray gun at Harry and pulled the trigger, and Harry was blasted into oblivion")

propagate

transmit or cause to broaden or spread; multiply sexually or asexually; cause to propagate, as by grafting or layering; cause to become widely known; become distributed or widespread; transmit (e.g. "The scientist accused the chairman of the 'Moon is Made of Green Cheese' Society of propagating falsehoods.")

peregrination

travel (especially by foot) (e.g. "Our team of explorers has decided to make a series of several peregrinations, as it were: the first will be to Machu Pichu.")

circumnavigate

travel around, either by plane or ship (e.g. "Ferdinand Magellan is the first person proven to have circumnavigated the globe")

itinerant

traveling from place to place (e.g. "the itinerant musician traveled from town to town, playing excellent music wherever he went")

deride

treat or speak of with contempt (e.g. "I derided him when he said that he had been able to prove that the moon was made of green cheese; I apologized later, but I told him I still thought he was crazy")

flout

treat with contemptuous disregard (e.g. "In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker flouted the Dark side of the Force--that is, he turned his back on it")

affront

treat, mention, or speak to rudely (e.g. "although the man to whom I was speaking considered that I had affronted him when I said that he was an idiot, I can't see why; after all, it was true")

fawn

try to gain favor by cringing or flattering (e.g. "the king realized that he had many fawning sycophants, but very few true friends")

foment

try to stir up public opinion (e.g. "after a perceived injustice was committed against him, Jimmy fomented discussion all over his school, trying to receive justice")

dissuade

turn away from by persuasion (e.g. "I tried to dissuade Bob from trying to drink a whole bottle of Tabasco sauce")

atone

turn away from sin or do penitence (e.g. "to atone for your actions, you must make restitution to all those who you have hurt")

foreswear

turn away from; do without or cease to hold or adhere to (e.g. "the former alcoholic foreswore strong drink")

avert

turn away or aside (e.g. "I averted my gaze from the scene of destruction and ruin")

blanch

turn pale, as if in fear (e.g. "the other man blanched white as a sheet. 'Surely he wouldn't dare to do something so horrible!' he said")

delve

turn up, loosen, or remove earth, usually metaphorically (e.g. "what are you waiting for? Delve into your SAT vocabulary preparation so that you can get a very good SAT score!")

converse

turned about in order or relation (e.g. "although the statement 'all men are fools' is untrue, its converse is true: 'all fools are men'")

convolution

turns, windings, circumventions (e.g. "I could not follow all the convolutions of the plot of the story; it was very complicated")

disinterested

unaffected by self-interest (e.g. "the neighbors agreed that their argument should be settled by a disinterested third party")

dispassionate

unaffected by strong emotion or prejudice (e.g. "the presidential candidate gave a logical, dispassionate argument about why his constituency should vote for him")

ambivalent

undecided (e.g. "Her ambivalent reply to his proposal for marriage led him to believe that she really didn't want to marry him.")

provisional

under terms not final or fully worked out or agreed upon (e.g. "after the military coup overthrew the corrupt government, it established a provisional government, which continued until plans for a new constitution could be drafted")

tentative

under terms not final or fully worked out or agreed upon (e.g. "the countries have worked out a tentative peace agreement, containing conditions which may yet change")

empathy

understanding and entering into another's feelings (e.g. "his feelings of empathy for the wounded man arose from the knowledge that had circumstances been but slightly different, he too might have been badly wounded")

downplay

understate the importance or quality of (e.g. "his political opponents tried to downplay the importance of the new study which said that the political position they were holding was untenable because it caused economic disaster")

embryonic

undeveloped; rudimentary; N. embryo: organism in the early stage of development (e.g. "although the plan for the two countries to combine into one is still in the embryonic stages, we feel confidant that it will be satisfactory for all sides involved")

benighted

unenlightened (e.g. "all those benighted people in the Middle Ages didn't even know what uranium was!")

odious

unequivocally detestable (e.g. "He made himself odious to his king by never performing his duties.")

prosaic

unimaginative; dull (e.g. "in the classic book 'Anne of Green Gables,' the protagonist, Anne Shirley, generally finds that her life is too prosaic, and tries to imagine how it could be less so")

unremitting

uninterrupted in time and indefinitely long continuing (e.g. "the baby let out a long, unremitting wail which eventually drove her mother crazy")

catholic

universal; broad and comprehensive (e.g. "His catholic plan to abolish all taxes was unfeasible.")

innocuous

unlikely to harm or disturb anyone (e.g. "senile old Mr. Jones wouldn't dream of -- and isn't physically capable of -- hurting a fly; that is, he's innocuous")

pallor

unnatural lack of color in the skin (as from bruising or sickness or emotional distress) (e.g. "His pallor spoke louder than any words possibly could regarding the horror he felt.")

gratuitous

unnecessary and unwarranted (e.g. "some people today believe that many modern movies contain gratuitous violence -- that is, violence which was unnecessary to the plot")

unctuous

unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech (e.g. "the unctuous manner of the court attendant -- who was trying to ingratiate himself to the king -- only managed to cause the king to get tired of him and have his head chopped off")

raucous

unpleasantly loud and harsh; disturbing the public peace (e.g. "The sound of the raucous heavy metal playing in the adjoining apartment caused the elderly couple to lose much sleep.")

skittish

unpredictably excitable (especially of horses) (e.g. "The baby's apparently skittish behavior could simply be because it is mildly hypoglycemic.")

rampant

unrestrained and violent (e.g. "If allowed to run rampant, the zombies will eventually conquer the world.")

loath

unwillingness to do something contrary to your custom (e.g. "I was loath to assault him, even though he asked me to")

veracity

unwillingness to tell lies (e.g. "his prudence and veracity are known throughout the kingdom")

cogitate

use or exercise the mind or one's power of reason in order to make inferences, decisions, or arrive at a solution or judgments (e.g. "as Sherlock Holmes cogitated over the mystery, I, Watson, was wondering how even Holmes could solve such a puzzler")

prevail

use persuasion successfully, prove superior (e.g. "if the average man on the street were to engage in an intelligence contest with Albert Einstein, Albert Einstein would probably prevail")

deplete

use up (resources or materials) (e.g. "once your stores of food are depleted, you will die of starvation")

stalwart

used especially of persons; dependable; having rugged physical strength (e.g. "His outwardly scrawny appearance conceals a stalwart heart.")

forensic

used of legal argumentation (e.g. "although the defendant claimed that he was innocent, the forensic evidence showed otherwise: his fingerprints were found at the scene of the crime")

insufferable

used of unacceptable behavior (e.g. "his insouciant behavior at the funeral was insufferable because at a funeral, people are supposed to act solemn, and his behavior was anything but solemn")

futile

useless; hopeless; ineffectual (e.g. "in Star Trek, one of the alien races, the Borg, frequently inform their victims, "resistance is futile" -- that is, any resistance their victims attempt will be ultimately fruitless")

verbose

using or containing too many words (e.g. "my verbose account of what I had done on my vacation only succeeded in confusing all of my listeners")

contiguous

very close or connected in space or time (e.g. "The 48 states of the United States that are on the American continent and are connected are known as the contiguous states; they are connected to the others, unlike Alaska and Hawaii.")

munificent

very generous (e.g. "the philanthropic billionaire was very munificent; for that matter, any philanthropists, whether billionaires or not, are munificent; munificence is a natural requirement for philanthropy")

devout

very religious (e.g. "his aunt is very devout; she prays before every meal and tries to be nice to everyone, even those who aren't nice to her")

minuscule

very small (e.g. "I squashed the minuscule bug on top of my dresser")

exhaustive

very thorough (e.g. "even though this list is not an exhaustive list of vocabulary words, they are still ones you should know for the SAT")

vivacious

vigorous and active (e.g. "Gregory snorted. 'His abnormally vivacious behavior is probably a mere result of his excess sugar intake over the past 24 hours,' he stated haughtily.")

desecrate

violate the sacred character of a place or language (e.g. "The teenager desecrated the moment by burping in the middle of the prayer.")

profane

violate the sacred character of a place or language (e.g. "the word 'profanity' comes from the word 'profane': to use profanity is to profane the nature of the area in which you swear")

philanthropy

voluntary promotion of human welfare (e.g. "a philanthropist is a person who exercises philanthropy")

digress

wander from a direct or straight course (e.g. "the speaker was obviously unskilled; he was constantly digressing from his main point and talking about something almost entirely unrelated from the topic at hand")

delinquent

wanting, failing, overdue (e.g. "the professor was delinquent in his teaching responsibilities; he spent so much of his time doing research that he almost completely neglected his students")

enervate

weaken mentally or morally (e.g. "even though it was set on low power, the alien death ray enervated Jim's strength")

subside

wear off or die down; descend into or as if into some soft substance or place; sink down or precipitate; sink to a lower level or form a depression (e.g. "After taking this pain medication, the pain should subside after about 15 minutes.")

secular

worldly; not pertaining to church matters or religion; temporal (e.g. "it seems that 'secular clergy' would be an oxymoron; however, centuries ago, there were clergy called this")

dross

worthless material that should be removed (e.g. "although the essay does contain some brilliant remarks on the state of a humanity which has chosen to adopt Machiavellian principles, much of the rest of the essay is simply dross")

chaff

worthless matter (e.g. "although your essay has some brilliant points, 99% of it is chaff")

nemesis

(Greek mythology) the goddess of divine retribution and vengeance; something causes misery or death (e.g. "I would call my roommate my nemesis; I am a complete slob, and he is a cleanliness freak, and we don't exactly get along.")

karma

(Hinduism and Buddhism) the effects of a person's actions that determine his destiny in his next incarnation (e.g. "Hindus and Buddhists believe that if a person behaves poorly in this life, then it will be his karma to be reincarnated in a lower caste -- or worse, as a lower creature, such as a dog or a rat.")

chutzpah

(Yiddish) unbelievable gall (e.g. "after eating six plates of spaghetti, I cannot believe that even you could have the chutzpah to pretend that you are still hungry")

adverse

(adj) unfavorable, negative; working against, hostile (e.g. "The adverse economic conditions caused our investments to lose money.")

volatile

(adj.) highly changeable, fickle; tending to become violent or explosive; changing readily from the liquid to the gaseous state (e.g. "in chemistry, a liquid is considered volatile if its molecules can easily escape the liquid state and become a vapor; gasoline is volatile")

subordinate

(adj.) lower in rank or position, secondary; (n.) one who is in a lower position or under the orders of someone else; (v.) to put in a lower or secondary position (e.g. "a sergeant in the army is subordinate to a major general")

provincial

(adj.) pertaining to an outlying area; local; narrow in mind or outlook, countrified in the sense of being limited and backward; of a simple, plain design that originated in the countryside; (n.) a person with a narrow point of view; a person from an outlying area; a soldier from a province or colony (e.g. "that the hermit possesses an extremely provincial attitude to foreign affairs should not come as a surprise: he has never crept more than ten yards away from the cave where he dwells")

awry

(adj., adv.) in a turned or twisted position or direction; wrong, out of the right or hoped-for course (e.g. "The best laid plans have gone awry.")

demeanor

(behavioral attributes) the way a person behaves toward other people (e.g. "nobody found the curmudgeon's grumpy demeanor to be particularly endearing")

catalyst

(chemistry) a substance that initiates or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected (e.g. "Billy and Bob didn't like each other anyway, but the presence of their mutual girlfriend was a catalyst which caused them to fight.")

bequest

(law) a gift of personal property by will (e.g. "The generous benefactor's bequest of $1,000,000 to the new university was greatly appreciated by the university.")

legacy

(law) a gift of personal property by will (e.g. "the man left his son a legacy of ten million dollars in gold")

injunction

(law) a judicial remedy issued in order to prohibit a party from doing or continuing to do a certain activity (e.g. "after he started calling his ex-girlfriend on the phone in excess of twenty times per day, he received a court injunction prohibiting him from calling her at all")

rationale

(law) an explanation of the fundamental reasons (especially an explanation of the working of some device in terms of laws of nature) (e.g. "The defendant failed to come up with a plausible rationale to explain why he had broken into the jeweler's shop at 2 a.m., and so he was convicted for breaking and entering.")

axiom

(logic) a proposition that is not susceptible of proof or disproof (e.g. "Euclid considered the idea that two parallel lines never meet to be an axiom; modern geometricians disagree.")

paradox

(logic) a self-contradiction (e.g. "in the first book of the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, one of Bilbo's poems begins like this: 'All that's gold does not glitter; not all who wander are lost'. This, taken literally, seems to be a paradox")

regimen

(medicine) a systematic plan for therapy (often including diet) (e.g. "According to the regimen instituted by the Kyoto Protocol, the US had to reduce its CO2 emissions by 7% by 2010 from its 1990 levels.")

blight

(n.) a disease that causes plants to wither and die; a condition of disease or ruin; (v.) to destroy, ruin (e.g. "the blight of the cotton crops that year caused the price of cotton to skyrocket.")

citadel

(n.) a fortress that overlooks and protects a city; any strong or commanding place (e.g. "the citadel was well fortified and virtually impregnable to any form of attack")

apparition

(n.) a ghost or ghostly figure; an unexplained or unusual appearance (e.g. "the apparition that appeared in my living room at midnight said that he was the ghost of my father's brother-in-law's aunt; I didn't believe him")

attribute

(n.) a quality or characteristic belonging to or associated with someone or something; (v.) to assign to, credit with; to regard as caused by or resulting from (e.g. "the Olympic champion attributed his success to his excellent upbringing, as his family had encouraged him to develop his physical abilities")

cascade

(n.) a steep, narrow waterfall; something falling or rushing forward in quantity; (v.) to flow downward (like a waterfall) (e.g. "on Black Friday, the moment Walmart opened, a cascade of people stampeded inside to get the best deals on items")

accord

(n.) agreement, harmony; (v.) to agree, be in harmony or bring into harmony; to grant, bestow on (e.g. "although I thought that I would have to force Dick to eat his vegetables, to my astonishment he did so of his own accord")

breach

(n.) an opening, gap, rupture, rift; a violation or infraction; (v.) to create an opening, break through (e.g. "the breach in the castle's defenses is small, but it is large enough to be their undoing")

rebuff

a deliberate discourteous act (usually as an expression of anger or disapproval); an instance of driving away or warding off; reject outright and bluntly; force or drive back (e.g. "The huge army easily rebuffed the feeble attack from the puny little army.")

benediction

Blessing (e.g. "after the man gave a brief benediction asking God to bless the food, he started to eat")

affectation

a deliberate pretense or exaggerated display (e.g. "The rich man's apparent delight at the return of his long-lost sister was merely an affectation, because he didn't want to have to share any of his money with her.")

archives

a depository containing historical records and documents (e.g. "although I personally don't know the answer to your question, you could look through the city archives; they probably have the answer")

wane

a gradual decline (in size or strength or power or number) (e.g. "His interest in the subject started to wane as the speaker droned on and on and generally made the topic seem extremely dull.")

conservatory

a greenhouse or place where plants are raised; a school for music and art (e.g. "the conservatory has plants of all kinds, from the common to the exotic")

chimera

a grotesque product of the imagination (e.g. "My vision of heaven as a place where hard-rock and heavy metal plays all day long is merely a chimera.")

cohort

a group (e.g. "the rebel leader and his cohort besieged the fort")

avant-garde

a group active in the invention and application of new techniques in a given field, especially in the arts (e.g. "although he enjoys deceiving himself by believing that he is among the avant-garde of painters, he is really nothing but a dilettante")

clone

a group of genetically identical cells or organisms derived from a single cell or individual by some kind of asexual reproduction, an unauthorized copy or imitation, a person who is almost identical to another, make multiple identical copies of (e.g. "Jacob almost seems to be a clone of Marcus; admittedly, they are identical twins, so technically they truly are clones, but I meant that their personalities seem very similar")

archipelago

a group of many islands in a large body of water (e.g. "the Philippine Islands compose an archipelago")

junta

a group of military officers who rule a country after seizing power (e.g. "After staging a coup d'état, the junta executed the former monarch and instituted a bunch of new laws.")

lobby

a group of people who try actively to influence legislation (e.g. "The CEO of the company lobbied to get a bill passed which would automatically give all CEOs in the country $5 million of federal government funds")

triumvirate

a group of three men responsible for public administration or civil authority (e.g. "After Julius Caesar's death, Rome was ruled by a triumvirate.")

elite

a group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual or social or economic status (e.g. "although the elite in a Communist society do indeed possess great wealth, the common people -- the plebeians, if you will -- possess very little, which is rather ironic, since the purpose of a socialist state is to provide equal wealth and opportunity for all")

exodus

a journey by a large group to escape from a hostile environment (e.g. "after the person announced that the theater was on fire, there was a mass exodus from the theater")

jaunt

a journey taken for pleasure (e.g. "After our trip to Honduras, we plan on taking a little jaunt to Australia, before coming back to England")

pilgrimage

a journey to a sacred place (e.g. "After my pilgrimage to Elvis Presley's hometown, I plan on visiting the hometowns of other famous musicians.")

genre

a kind of literary or artistic work (e.g. "Sherlock Holmes was perhaps one of the most interesting characters of the entire detective fiction genre")

myriad

a large indefinite number (e.g. "myriad bullets flew about the room as the police attempted to halt the bank robbery")

protagonist

Main character (e.g. "in the classic book 'Anne of Green Gables,' the protagonist, Anne Shirley, generally finds that her life is too prosaic, and tries to imagine how it could be less so")

fiat

a legally binding command or decision entered on the court record (as if issued by a court or judge) (e.g. "the king issued a fiat decreeing that no one could speak at all without first asking for his express written approval")

facade

a deceptive outward appearance; a misrepresentation (e.g. "his outer lightheartedness was merely a facade covering the pain and anger he felt within")

chasm

a deep opening in the earth's surface (e.g. "After Mary said she didn't like chocolate, a huge chasm opened up beneath her, and she fell in: a classic case of retribution after a person defies the natural order.")

epithet

a defamatory or abusive word or phrase (e.g. "ever since Harry robbed the nursery, people refer to him as 'Horrible Harry'; needless to say, Harry did not appreciate this epithet")

edict

a legally binding command or decision entered on the court record (as if issued by a court or judge) (e.g. "the king made an edict decreeing that no people could eat or drink anything without his express permission; this law was disobeyed almost immediately")

referendum

a legislative act is referred for final approval to a popular vote by the electorate (e.g. "The Populists of the late 1800s were some of the first to suggest that major issues should be decided by referendum, rather than entirely by the will of the legislators; although the Populist party was never wildly successful, most, if not all, of its platform has been adopted into American government.")

queue

a line of people or vehicles waiting for something; form a queue; form a line; stand in line (e.g. "The people in the queue all seem rather impatient; it's probably because they've all been standing there since yesterday.")

crevice

a long narrow opening; a long narrow depression in a surface (e.g. "as the mountain-climber's foot slipped and he began to fall, he frantically grasped for a crevice to slip his hand into to hold him up; he missed, and fell to his death")

odyssey

a long wandering and eventful journey (e.g. "My odyssey to the shopping mall and back finally ended, and I was $200 poorer and I had all sorts of things I'd never use.")

stratagem

a maneuver in a game or conversation; an elaborate or deceitful scheme contrived to deceive or evade (e.g. "I tried to invent a stratagem which would allow me to get out of doing my chores; it did not succeed.")

gambit

a maneuver in a game or conversation; an opening remark intended to secure an advantage for the speaker (e.g. "Jamie has a rather competitive outlook on society; he sees all actions to be committed for the sole purpose of gaining an advantage in life; he even saw normal conversation as an endless procession of gambits and counter-gambits")

gravity

a manner that is serious and solemn, a solemn and dignified feeling (e.g. "when the teenager burped loudly at the funeral, he got in trouble because the pastor giving the sermon thought that the teen's behavior was inconsistent with the intended gravity of the scene")

implication

a meaning that is not expressly stated but can be inferred; an accusation that brings into intimate and usually incriminating connection; a relation implicated by virtue of involvement or close connection (especially an incriminating involvement) (e.g. "Einstein's theory had startling implications on the scientific world of the time, as it stated that time is relative, and only the speed of light itself is constant")

correlation

a measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other (e.g. "it seems that there is a strong correlation between how much a person eats, and how much he weighs")

mercenary

a person hired to fight for another country than their own (e.g. "in the American Revolution, the British hired mercenaries to fight against America; this action was not conducive to peaceful relations between the Americans and the British")

epicure

a person devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment (especially good food and drink) (e.g. "the epicure was never satisfied unless he had a plate of food and a glass of wine before him")

forebear

a person from whom one are descended (e.g. "Jim is very interested in his ancestry; he is certain that one of his forebears was Albert Einstein")

buffoon

a person who amuses others by ridiculous behavior (e.g. "after little Jimmy finished standing on his head on top of the restaurant table, his mother rebuked him: 'Jimmy, you're acting like a buffoon!'")

visionary

a person given to fanciful speculations and enthusiasms with little regard for what is actually possible (e.g. "Don Quixote, from 'Don Quixote', by Cervantes, was a visionary; also, he was slightly mad")

egalitarian

a person who believes in the equality of all people, favoring social equality (e.g. "Beverly was a fervent egalitarian: she believe in equal economic opportunity and equal access to education for all")

pathos

a quality that arouses emotions (especially pity or sorrow); a feeling of sympathy and sorrow for the misfortunes of others; a style that has the power to evoke feelings (e.g. "Hitler's pathos was able to persuade many people that he was the messiah of Germany.")

retort

a quick reply to a question or remark (especially a witty or critical one); answer back (e.g. "My retort to his insult included a clever allusion to Shakespeare; unfortunately, he had absolutely no knowledge of Shakespeare, so he was unimpressed.")

epigraph

a quotation at the beginning of some piece of writing (e.g. "All of my books began with an epigraph by Mark Twain; he was my favorite author")

prodigal

a recklessly extravagant consumer (e.g. "Bill won the lottery; however, he was so extremely prodigal with his money that he wasted it all in a matter of months")

cadence

a recurrent rhythmical series (e.g. "The cadence of his voice was smooth, but held hidden menace beneath the surface.")

tenet

a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof (e.g. "one of the tenets of Buddhism is the caste system")

effigy

a representation of a person (especially in the form of sculpture) (e.g. "the effigy of the man is not true-to-life; I believe that the real man has a much larger nose than the depiction here")

dissident

a person who dissents from some established policy; also (adj.) used to describe such a person (e.g. "in the United States, dissidents are tolerated; dissidents have the right to free speech, and this is part of the first amendment to the Constitution")

agnostic

a person who doubts truth of religion (e.g. "C.S. Lewis, formerly an agnostic, eventually became one of the most well-known Christians of all time.")

benefactor

a person who helps people or institutions (especially with financial help) (e.g. "The generous benefactor gave $1,000,000 to the new university.")

denizen

a person who inhabits a particular place (e.g. "in some books fish are called the 'denizens of the sea'; however, this is a cliché, and should not be used")

dolt

a person who is not very bright (e.g. "when I called my best friend a dolt, he immediately became my ex-best friend")

confederate

a person who joins with another in carrying out some plan (especially an unethical or illegal plan) (e.g. "the criminal and his confederates pondered over how they were going to try to break into Fort Knox")

advocate

a person who pleads for a cause or propounds an idea (e.g. "the advocates of the new government bill said that it would help advance technological progress in America")

proponent

a person who pleads for a cause or propounds an idea (e.g. "the major proponents of the new bill, which called for federal subsidies to go to the builders of a new dam, were members of the company which was building the dam")

protégé

a person who receives support and protection from an influential patron who furthers the protégé's career (e.g. "He not only knew Hitler, he was actually Hitler's protégé; he was directly influenced by Hitler!")

penitent

a person who repents for wrongdoing (e.g. "after five-year-old Tommy accidentally instigated an international incident which culminated in a global thermonuclear war, he was penitent; that is, he was sorry")

pedestrian

a person who travels by foot (e.g. "the red, octagonal road sign read, 'all motorized vehicles STOP and look both ways before continuing: this is a pedestrian crossing'")

sycophant

a person who tries to please someone in order to gain a personal advantage (e.g. "although the king found himself surrounded by sycophants and flatterers, he found that he had very few true friends")

peripatetic

a person who walks from place to place (e.g. "although the man described himself as a peripatetic, the word 'tramp' would probably be a more suitable noun")

eccentric

a person with an unusual or odd personality (e.g. 'Albert Einstein was a bit of an eccentric genius: he was brilliant, but he was not a very social person")

reprobate

a person without moral scruples (e.g. "What kind of reprobate would go around stealing toys from nurseries?")

charisma

a personal attractiveness that enables one to influence others (e.g. "Hitler had an aura of charisma around him, which was in part why he was able to say and do such unbelievably bad things without a civil uprising.")

peccadillo

a petty misdeed (e.g. "although the person had committed minor peccadilloes during his lifetimes, including a number of speeding tickets, he hadn't committed any 'major' crimes")

arsenal

a place where arms are manufactured; a military structure where arms and ammunition and other military equipment are stored and training is given in the use of arms; all the weapons and equipment that a country has (e.g. "the country's arsenal includes a formidable array of nuclear weapons, so I wouldn't recommend provoking war against them")

confluence

a place where things merge or flow together (especially rivers) (e.g. "Quebec was built at the confluence of two rivers")

confluence

a place where things merge or flow together (especially rivers) (e.g. "Quebec was built on the confluence of two rivers.")

oligarchy

a political system governed by a few people (e.g. "Ancient Rome was an oligarchy: the patricians held all the power, and the plebeians held little, or none.")

corollary

a practical consequence that follows naturally (e.g. "In geometry, a theorem which can be proved easily from an existing theorem is called a corollary, because it follows naturally from the existing theorem.")

corollary

a practical consequence that follows naturally (e.g. "a corollary of the struggling financial market, many people do not have jobs")

antecedent

a preceding occurrence or cause or event (e.g. "The invention of the airplane was an antecedent to the development of space flight.")

predilection

a predisposition in favor of something (e.g. "the art of ballet began with an obsession of Louis XIV, who had an unusual predilection for seeing people standing on their toes")

exigency

a pressing or urgent situation (e.g. "if you wait until the day before the SAT to start learning new vocabulary words, you may find yourself in an exigency--so don't wait!")

itinerary

a proposed route of travel (e.g. "all travelers should, before embarking on their trip, have a reasonably comprehensive itinerary, including where they will stay each night and where they will eat breakfast each morning")

bulwark

a protective structure of stone or concrete (e.g. "the castle was fortified with protective bulwarks all around it")

alchemy

a pseudoscientific forerunner of chemistry in medieval times (e.g. "although alchemists are generally considered to be frauds, alchemy did contribute to science in that the alchemists established a rudimentary process for taking matter apart and analyzing it")

paranoia

a psychological disorder characterized by delusions of persecution or grandeur (e.g. "His paranoia was not lessened by his friend's reasoning, because his paranoia was not based on reason, but on illogical delusions.")

manifesto

a public declaration of intentions (as issued by a political party or government) (e.g. "Karl Marx wrote 'The Communist Manifesto', which was a book which contained his political theories regarding Communism")

predicament

a situation from which extrication is difficult especially an unpleasant or trying one (e.g. "After the aliens from Mars kidnapped Mr. Smith and subjected him to all kinds of dangerous radiation, Mr. Smith considered himself to be in a rather unenviable predicament; he was right.")

plight

a situation from which extrication is difficult especially an unpleasant or trying one (e.g. "Our plight is rather difficult; it is hard to see how we can escape from half a dozen big, green aliens with big, blue ray guns.")

impasse

a situation in which no progress can be made or no advancement is possible (e.g. "in my argument with my friend, we reached an impasse: both of us dogmatically held onto our own views, yet we each sought futilely to convince the other that the other was wrong")

artisan

a skilled worker who practices some trade or handicraft (e.g. "the artisan tried to convince us to buy some of his wares")

vignette

a small illustrative sketch (as sometimes placed at the beginning of chapters in books); a photograph whose edges shade off gradually; a brief literary description (e.g. "The book opened with a brief vignette about each of the major characters.")

clique

a small, exclusive group of people (e.g. "If you weren't in Mary's clique, she wouldn't didn't regard you as worth noticing.")

proletariat

a social class comprising those who do manual labor or work for wages (e.g. "according to Karl Marx, some day the proletariat will overthrow the bourgeois of every country on earth")

apartheid

a social policy or racial segregation involving political and economic and legal discrimination against non-whites (e.g. "Until recently, apartheid was practiced in South Africa; those of African descent were discriminated against.")

gaffe

a socially awkward or tactless act (e.g. "when Howard burped loudly at the table, everyone else at the table considered it to be a gaffe")

chortle

a soft partly suppressed laugh (e.g. "Uncle Joe chortled. 'I don't think that you will get very far, if you do it that way,' he said")

dirge

a song or hymn of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person (e.g. "at the funeral, the choir sang a dirge for the man who had died")

millennium

a span of 1000 years (e.g. "Although for millennia our civilization has been oppressed by all others, we now will conquer the world!")

tirade

a speech of violent denunciation (e.g. "after the mother finished her tirade against her young son for his 'despicable behavior in public', she sent him to bed early and without supper")

impresario

a sponsor who books and stages public entertainments (e.g. "the impresario is not a philanthropist: he charges an exorbitant fee to all who wish to see the operas and other entertainments which he sponsors")

paradigm

a standard or typical example (e.g. "Leo considered himself to be the paradigm of affluence: he had three cars, a huge house, and tons of extra money")

rapture

a state of being carried away by overwhelming emotion; a state of elated bliss (e.g. "His rapture at winning the prestigious award was not quelled by the fact that he had not earned it honestly.")

enmity

a state of deep-seated ill-will (e.g. "I feel enmity towards Joe Smith, because he insulted me")

ignominy

a state of dishonor (e.g. "criminals are typically held in ignominy by the general public")

bedlam

a state of extreme confusion and disorder (e.g. "the word 'bedlam' originates from an insane asylum in England named 'Bedlam'; to say that a place was in a state of bedlam is to say that it figuratively reminded one of an insane asylum")

doldrums

a state of inactivity (in business or art etc) (e.g. "honestly, it seems that their economy is in the doldrums; nothing is really happening, no new businesses are starting, and generally things aren't doing so well economically over there")

stagnation

a state of inactivity (in business or art etc) (e.g. "stagnation is lethal to a business. If a business stops being innovative and stops selling new, interesting products that people want to buy, people will stop buying from them")

anarchy

a state of lawlessness and disorder (usually resulting from a failure of government) (e.g. "After the President of Timbuktu was assassinated, total anarchy reigned.")

armistice

a state of peace agreed to between opponents so they can discuss peace terms (e.g. "considering that the country against which we are warring has enough firepower to blow us off of the face of the planet, I would recommend that we campaign for an armistice between our country and theirs")

aberration

a state or condition markedly different from the norm (e.g. "Charles's A+ on his exam was an aberration from his average grade, which was a C-.")

premise

a statement that is assumed to be true and from which a conclusion can be drawn (e.g. "a syllogism has three parts: a major premise, a minor premise, and the conclusion drawn from them")

caricature

a representation of a person that is exaggerated for comic effect (e.g. "Caricatures of the current President of the United States usually draw him with a very thin head and extremely large ears; such caricatures are intentionally inaccurate.")

stricture

a restraint or limit (e.g. "Benign esophageal stricture is a narrowing or tightening of the esophagus") (note: example sentence from Wikipedia)

shackle

a restraint that confines or restricts freedom (especially something used to tie down or restrain a prisoner); restrain with fetters, bind the arms of (e.g. "Galileo was metaphorically shackled by the geocentric views of the Catholic Church of the day; he also may have been physically shackled for the same reason.")

reprisal

a retaliatory action against an enemy in wartime (e.g. "After Kalamazoo attacked Timbuktu, in reprisal Timbuktu launched missiles at Kalamazoo.")

reprisal

a retaliatory action against an enemy in wartime (e.g. "when Timbuktu attacked Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo's military reprisals nearly wiped out Timbuktu's entire army")

prerogative

a right reserved exclusively by a particular person or group (especially a hereditary or official right) (e.g. "it was the prerogative of the nobles of the oligarchy to make up the rules; the rest of the people simply had to live with it")

perquisite

a right reserved exclusively by a particular person or group (in other words, a perk) (e.g. "being able to fly around in your own private jet is just one of the perquisites of being the CEO of a big company")

incantation

a ritual recitation of words or sounds believed to have a magical effect (e.g. "the witchdoctor chanted a few words of hocus-pocus and then announced that his incantation would make the world blow up in four hours")

contumely

a rude expression intended to offend or hurt (e.g. "after he insulted me, I responded with some contumelies about the state of his intelligence")

maxim

a saying that widely accepted on its own merits (e.g. "the maxim, 'a penny saved is a penny earned' has been repeated to the point that it has become platitudinous")

cabal

a secret group seeking to overturn something (e.g. "the cabal's main goal was to overthrow the current dictator of the country")

tryst

a secret rendezvous (especially between lovers); a date (e.g. "After all of their careful planning, their planned tryst didn't work out -- a building was being built on the site of their planned meeting.")

egocentric

a self-centered person with little regard for others; also an adjective to describe such a person (e.g. "William's egocentric personality did not win him any lifelong friends; all the people he came into contact with walked away with the impression that William was merely a conceited jerk")

critique

a serious examination and judgment of something (e.g. "my English teacher's critique of my paper left me elated, as she had said nothing but compliments about it")

homily

a sermon on a moral or religious topic (e.g. "the priest preaches a homily every week, usually from a passage of the Bible")

inquisition

a severe interrogation (often violating the rights or privacy of individuals) (e.g. "during the Spanish Inquisition, a period in time in which the Catholic Church persecuted and tortured "heretics", the Church demonstrated a pathetic failure to behave according to the verse in the Bible which reads, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'")

fetter

a shackle for the ankles or feet (e.g. "the fact that Donald believes that the moon is made of green cheese is a metaphorical fetter for his intellectual growth")

configuration

a shape or outline; a method of arrangement (e.g. "the configuration of the Pentagon is like a pentagon")

asylum

a shelter from danger or hardship; a hospital for mentally incompetent or unbalanced person (e.g. "the political prisoner escaped from jail and immediately sought asylum in another country")

parable

a short moral story (often with animal characters) (e.g. "The parable of the tortoise and the hare was allegedly written by Aesop.")

epilogue

a short passage added at the end of a literary work (e.g. "I did not feel that the end of the book was satisfactory; I believe that it needed a short epilogue to wrap up all of the remaining plot lines")

aphorism

a short pithy instructive saying (e.g. "My friend always seemed to be quoting financial aphorisms at me: 'a penny saved it a penny earned,' he said to me one day; 'save your money, and maybe someday you'll be a millionaire' he said to me the next (I think he made up that last one).")

portent

a sign of something about to happen (e.g. "in ancient times, a comet was seen as a portent of great evil")

covenant

a signed written agreement between two or more parties (nations) to perform some action (e.g. "When America gained its freedom from Britain, it signed a covenant with Britain at the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, which said that it was an independent country.")

solvent

a statement that solves a problem or explains how to solve the problem (e.g. "in chemistry, if one substance dissolves another, the former substance is called the solvent, and the latter substance is called the solute")

penchant

a strong liking (e.g. "the alcoholic expressed a penchant for strong drink")

bastion

a stronghold into which people could go for shelter during a battle (e.g. "The members of Krakow, Poland used the central castle of the city as a bastion when the Mongols invaded it.")

arcade

a structure composed of a series of arches supported (e.g. "as I walked through the arcade, I noticed that the weather was becoming rather stormy")

edifice

a structure that has a roof and walls and stands more or less permanently in one place (e.g. "the Empire State Building is an imposing edifice")

doctrinaire

a stubborn person of arbitrary or arrogant opinions (e.g. "Ted was a doctrinaire: he was fully convinced that the moon was made of green cheese, and no amount of argument could sway his opinion")

sect

a subdivision of a larger religious group; a dissenting clique (e.g. "The Gnostics -- various offshoot religious sects in the first several centuries AD -- believed that they and they alone had found the true way to heaven, and that all of the other nearly identical sects were dead wrong.")

affiliate

a subordinate or subsidiary associate (e.g. "the law firm is named 'Smith and affiliates'; that is, Smith is the main member, but there are other supporting members as well")

nuance

a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude (e.g. "although one may not think much about it, the English language is very difficult; the subtle nuances of word choices, slight modulations of vocal inflection -- all of these can dramatically alter the meaning of a sentence")

debacle

a sudden and violent collapse (e.g. "James is the actor who played Hamlet in our town's Shakespeare festival, and he is normally very good; however, this last performance was a real debacle: his pants fell down halfway through the performance")

fiasco

a sudden and violent collapse (e.g. "after the Watergate fiasco, the American public had much less trust in their president")

apoplexy

a sudden loss of consciousness resulting when the rupture or occlusion of a blood vessel leads to oxygen lack in the brain (e.g. "the patient's fit of apoplexy seems to have been related to a nervous shock he experienced about that time")

paroxysm

a sudden uncontrollable attack (e.g. "His paroxysm of anger was brought about by the realization that he had been duped by a con-man.")

stipend

a sum of money allotted on a regular basis (e.g. "Those on government welfare receive a monthly stipend from the federal government.")

aggregate

a sum total of many heterogeneous things taken together (e.g. "Although each of the criminal's actions would only have put him behind bars for a few years, taken aggregately, they were enough to warrant a sentence of life in prison.")

prowess

a superior skill that you can learn by study and practice and observation (e.g. "In Homer's 'Iliad', men such as Hector and Achilles showed great prowess in battle.")

preponderance

a superiority in numbers or amount; exceeding in heaviness; superiority in power or influence (e.g. "I believe that there is a preponderance of bedbugs in this mattress.")

appurtenance

a supplementary component that improves capability (e.g. "although the expansion pack is only an appurtenance and not entirely necessary to game play, it is highly recommended")

bravado

a swaggering show of courage (e.g. "'Give me liberty, or give me death!' Patrick Henry finished with bravado.")

ecosystem

a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their physical environment (e.g. "one reason why pollution can so drastically effect an ecosystem is that all of the species in an ecosystem effect each other; if one species is affected, the others are affected as well")

underpinning

a system of supports beneath; a foundation or basis (e.g. "The bomb destroyed the underpinnings of the building. Shortly thereafter, the building collapsed.")

nomenclature

a system of words used in a particular discipline (e.g. "Carolus Linnaeus invented modern biological nomenclature.")

exposition

a systematic interpretation or explanation (usually written) of a specific topic (e.g. "Albert Einstein wrote an exposition regarding his Theory of Relativity")

agenda

a temporally organized plan for matters to be attended to (e.g. "The first item on the city council's agenda was to perform a roll call.")

overture

a tentative suggestion designed to elicit the reactions of others; orchestral music played at the beginning of an opera or oratorio; something that serves as a preceding event or introduces what follows (e.g. "My initial overtures to my father were flatly rejected, and as I saw no purpose in pursuing the matter further, I let the matter drop.")

thesis

a treatise advancing a new point of view resulting from research; an unproved statement put forward as a premise in an argument (e.g. "Although I personally disagree with the thesis of your argument, I do agree that it was brilliantly argued.")

bromide

a trite or obvious remark (e.g "the essay was full of bromides and not much original thought")

platitude

a trite or obvious remark (e.g. "'a penny saved is a penny earned' is a common platitude")

solidarity

a union of interests or purposes or sympathies among members of a group (e.g. "Although the sense of solidarity among the workers eventually waned, it could not be disputed that they were still much more keenly interested in one another's welfare than most.")

throttle

a valve that regulates the supply of fuel to the engine; kill by squeezing the throat of so as to cut off the air (e.g. "'If you say that again, I'll throttle you!' warned the man.")

embargo

(n.) an order forbidding the trade in or movement of commercial goods; any restraint or hindrance; (v.) to forbid to enter or leave port; to forbid trade with (e.g. "the United States has a limited trade embargo with Cuba; it is illegal to bring Cuban cigars into the country for this reason")

decree

(n.) an order having the force of law; (v.) to issue such an order; to command firmly or forcefully (e.g. "the king decreed that no one in the kingdom could eat anything other than spaghetti without his express written approval")

derelict

(n.) someone or something that is abandoned or neglected; (adj.) left abandoned; neglectful of duty (e.g. "all that was left of what was once a glorious castle was a derelict shell of a building")

discursive

(of e.g. speech and writing) tending to depart from the main point or cover a wide range of subjects (e.g. "I considered the student's essay to be poor because a good portion of the essay strayed from the main point of the essay; it was discursive")

turbid

(of especially liquids) clouded as with sediment (e.g. "He looked down into the turbid waters with apprehension.")

nomadic

(of groups of people) tending to travel and change settlements frequently (e.g. "I lived a nomadic lifestyle; I didn't have a fixed abode.")

limpid

(of language) transparently clear (e.g. "I found the paper to be limpid; it was very clear.")

lucid

(of language) transparently clear (e.g. "quantum theory could hardly be considered a lucid field; after all, even Einstein himself was incorrect with regarding some of his theories regarding it")

exempt

(of persons) freed from or not subject to an obligation or liability (as e.g. taxes) to which others or other things are subject (e.g. "the king was exempt from paying taxes, because all tax money went to him anyway")

crass

(of persons) so unrefined as to be lacking in discrimination and sensibility (e.g. "it seemed crass to me when my friend started yelling across the room at someone who my friend mistakenly thought had intended to offend him")

inclement

(of weather of climate) physically severe (e.g. "Due to inclement weather, the flight was canceled.")

susceptible

(often followed by 'of' or 'to') yielding readily to or capable of; easily impressed emotionally (e.g. "As it is, our fortress is completely susceptible to enemy attack; we have no defensive fortifications whatsoever.")

myopia

(ophthalmology) eyesight abnormality resulting from the eye's faulty refractive ability; also used metaphorically (e.g. "the politician's political myopia did not allow him to see the long-term consequences of the bill he was proposing")

catharsis

(psychoanalysis) purging of emotional tensions (e.g. "The mentally distressed man underwent a catharsis during his visit to the countryside.")

extrovert

(psychology) a person concerned more with practical realities than with inner thoughts and feelings (e.g. "Tom possesses an extroverted personality; that is, he socializes well and makes friends easily")

introvert

(psychology) a person who tends to shrink from social contacts and to become preoccupied with their own thoughts (e.g. "Albert possesses a rather introverted personality; that is, he generally doesn't socialize well and is more concerned with his own thoughts that his surroundings")

mores

(sociology) the conventions that embody the fundamental values of a group (e.g. "Mores in America in the 1600s were significantly different from those today; for an example of this, note the differences in lifestyle between the Puritans and modern Americans.")

askance

(used especially of glances) directed to one side with or as if with doubt or suspicion or envy (e.g. "the passers-by looked askance at Bob after he asked a pedestrian whether he was a Martian")

opprobrious

(used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame; expressing offensive reproach (e.g. "His opprobrious glance at me caused me to believe that he was displeased with my recent behavior.")

eminent

(used of persons) standing above others in character or attainment or reputation (e.g. "Albert Einstein was eminent in the field of physics for many years")

dilate

(v) to make or become larger or wider; to expand upon (e.g. "his pupils dilated as his eyes adjusted to the dark")

avail

(v.) to be of use or benefit to; to make use of; to take advantage of; to profit or benefit; (n.) use, benefit, or value (e.g. "the extra fortifications for the castle which were built in preparation of the coming attack were of no avail to the castle members, for the enemy bypassed them completely by digging a tunnel under them")

consolidate

(v.) to combine, unite; to make solid or firm (e.g. "after the rebels captured the country, they consolidated their rule by killing all people who had been associated with the previous regime")

denounce

(v.) to condemn openly; to accuse formally (e.g. "when a member of the 'Moon is Made of Green Cheese Society' admitted that the moon is probably not made of cheese, the president of the society condemned him for believing absurd things")

disclaim

(v.) to deny interest in or connection with; to give up all claim to (e.g. "he disclaimed all right to the first piece of apple pie")

embody

(v.) to give form to; to incorporate, include; to personify (e.g. "the biblical figure of Satan embodies pure evil")

depict

(v.) to portray; to represent or show in the form of a picture (e.g. "I believe that the artist's depiction of the pastoral scene is really very good; it seems almost lifelike")

deploy

(v.) to position or arrange; to utilize; to form up (e.g. "the king deployed all of his troops for battle")

excise

(v.) to remove by cutting; (n.) an indirect tax on the manufacture, sale, or distribution of a commodity or service (e.g. "the surgeon excised the tumor from the patient's rear")

diffuse

(v.) to spread or scatter freely or widely; (adj.) wordy, long-winded, or unfocused; scattered or widely spread (e.g. "one of the purposes of the Smithsonian is to diffuse knowledge around the country")

convey

(v.) to transport; to transmit; to communicate, make known; to transfer ownership or title to (e.g. "I found it hard to convey Einstein's Theory of Relativity to the four-year-old")

prurient

characterized by lust (e.g. "His prurient lifestyle is neither decent nor chaste.")

indulgent

tolerant or lenient (e.g. "my uncle is very indulgent; he buys me whatever I want")

conviction

A fixed or strong belief (e.g. "Jeremy held the conviction that the moon was made of green cheese; his conviction was incorrect")

expedient

A means to an end; advantageous, useful (e.g. "John wanted all of Mary's money; he deemed that marrying her would be an expedient to acquiring the money")

epitome

A summary, condensed account; an instance that represents a larger reality (e.g. "'War and Peace' is such a long book that instead of reading it, I asked my friend, who had read it, to give me a brief epitome of the main plot")

apocalypse

An event involving destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale; also: the end of the world as given by Revelation from the Christian Bible (e.g. "Although people have claimed for years that someday all dead people will rise up from their graves and there will be a zombie apocalypse, I don't believe that it will happen anytime soon.")

disposition

Attitude or mood (e.g. "a stomachache did not sweeten his already choleric disposition")

canine

Dog, related to dogs; doglike (e.g. "Some people consider canines to be man's best friend.")

aghast

Horrified (e.g. "Lucy was aghast at the sight of the really big spider; she hates spiders")

concede

To admit as true; to yield, submit (e.g. "my opponent in the argument finally conceded the fact that the moon is not made of green cheese")

cleave

To cut or split open; to cling to (e.g. "using his ax, the man cleaved the piece of wood in two")

succumb

To give up or give in to; to yield; to die (e.g. "after a long fight with cancer, so-and-so succumbed to the illness")

extrapolate

To infer or estimate by extending or projecting known information (e.g. "by looking at the past and present economic situations, the economist was able to extrapolate and create an economic forecast for the next year")

abase

To lower in rank, prestige, or esteem (e.g. "my friend was abased in my eyes after he exhibited atrocious behavior")

implement

To put into action; execute (e.g. "the city council had refused to implement Jane Doe's plan, because it had cost too much money")

disperse

To scatter, spread far and wide (e.g. "one purpose of the Smithsonian is to disperse knowledge around the country")

churl

a bad-tempered person; a selfish person who is unwilling to give or spend; a crude, uncouth, ill-bred person lacking culture or refinement (e.g. "to call someone a churl is tautological to calling him/her a philistine")

touchstone

a basis for comparison (e.g. "e.g. "standardized tests are a touchstone by which a teacher can compare all of his/her students' abilities in major subjects against national averages")

foible

a behavioral attribute that is distinctive and peculiar to an individual (e.g. "one of Johanna's foibles was that she absolutely refused to touch anything round")

idiosyncrasy

a behavioral attribute that is distinctive and peculiar to an individual (e.g. "one of Melissa's idiosyncrasies was that she would refuse to touch anything which was round")

incendiary

a bomb that is designed to start fires; capable of catching fire spontaneously or causing fires or burning readily; arousing to action or rebellion; involving deliberate burning of property (e.g. "the newcomer's incendiary remarks about the condition of the current fiscal policy of the country alienated him from everyone else in the room")

coup

a brilliant and notable success (e.g. "Brock winning the math contest was a real coup, because he was never particularly good at math.")

affliction

a cause of great suffering and distress (e.g. "in 'Anne of Green Gables', Anne Shirley, the protagonist, states that her lifelong affliction is the fact that she has red hair")

chameleon

a changeable or inconstant person (e.g. "I dislike chameleons: they will always mouth the party line, but they don't seem to have any opinions of their own")

liaison

a channel for communication between groups; a usually secretive or illicit sexual relationship (e.g. "Dr. Smith will serve as a liaison between the different rebel groups.")

inclination

a characteristic likelihood of or natural disposition toward a certain condition or character or effect (e.g. "he possesses an inclination to doing math problems; he actually enjoys doing that")

caucus

a closed political meeting, meet to select a candidate or promote a policy (e.g. "at the caucus, the members of the political party attempted to agree on a politician to endorse to run for president")

menagerie

a collection of live animals for study or display; the facility where wild animals are housed for exhibition (e.g. "'Why, it's a veritable menagerie in here!' exclaimed the woman, when she saw that her neighbor owned five cats, three dogs, six parakeets, two baboons, and a cheetah.")

anthology

a collection of selected literary passages (e.g. "I own several anthologies of poetry; my favorite is one with poems only by Robert Frost")

genesis

a coming into being (e.g. "the genesis of modern culture could be said to have been the French court at Versailles, under Louis XIV")

subsidiary

a company that is completely controlled by another company; an assistant subject to the authority or control of another; functioning in a subsidiary or supporting capacity; relating to something that is added but is not essential (e.g. "Actually, we only operate in a subsidiary capacity under the auspices of the university.")

gamut

a complete extent or range (e.g. "the buffet contains the whole gamut of options for food, from french fries to filet mignon")

travesty

a composition that imitates somebody's style in a humorous way; a comedy characterized by broad satire and improbable situations; make a travesty of (e.g. "Although the defendant had hoped to receive a fair trial, the kangaroo trial which followed was not a fair trial at all and was a travesty of what he had hoped to receive.")

cache

a concealed store of goods or valuables (e.g. "his cache of food was stored in his basement")

egotist

a conceited and self-centered person (e.g. "William, mentioned in the last example, was an egotist")

abstract

a concept or idea not associated with any specific instance (e.g. "Surprisingly, John Smith's theory, which was based in abstract principles such as Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation, failed to explain various phenomena in the real world.")

compendium

a concise but comprehensive summary of a larger work (e.g. "'War and Peace' is such a long book that instead of reading it, I bought a compendium of it at a bookstore and read that instead.")

adage

a condensed but memorable saying embodying some important fact of experience that is taken as true by many people (e.g. "'a penny saved is a penny earned' is an adage attributed to Benjamin Franklin")

brouhaha

a confused hodgepodge of sounds, hubbub; an uproar or commotion that goes far beyond what is justified (e.g. "after the man finished his startling remark, brouhaha ensued")

melancholy

a constitutional tendency to be gloomy and depressed; characterized by or causing or expressing sadness; a humor that was once believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen and to cause sadness and melancholy; a feeling of thoughtful sadness (e.g. "His feeling of melancholy was precipitated by the extremely low grades he achieved on his finals.")

continuum

a continuous nonspatial whole or extent or succession in which no part or portion is distinct of distinguishable from adjacent parts (e.g. "Einstein came to the conclusion that time and space should not be viewed as separate and distinct from each other, but as components of a unified continuum")

grimace

a contorted facial expression; contort the face to indicate a certain mental or emotional state (e.g. "when his mother asked him if he had eaten his vegetables, he grimaced and replied, 'no, but I don't like them'")

figment

a contrived or fantastic idea (e.g. "I don't believe that you really saw flying cows; I think that they're a figment of your imagination")

polemic

a controversy (especially over a belief or dogma) (e.g. "the polemic discussion regarding the composition of the moon quickly degenerated into a riot, with half of the people claiming it was made of green cheese and the other half claiming it was made of yellow cheese")

depravity

a corrupt or depraved or degenerate act or practice ("e.g. "some people might say that watching TV constitutes the utmost depravity; however, I disagree")

turpitude

a corrupt or depraved or degenerate act or practice (e.g. "stealing candy from young children is an act of moral turpitude")

deference

a courteous expression (by word or deed) of esteem or regard (e.g. "I showed deference to my aunt when I let her choose the first piece of cake")

cloister

a courtyard with covered walks (as in religious institutions); residence that is a place of religious seclusion (such as a monastery); seclude from the world in or as if in a cloister, surround with a cloister; as of a garden (e.g. "after her husband died, Mrs. Smith cloistered herself in her bedroom and starved herself to death")

covert

a covering that serves to conceal or shelter something (e.g. "Damon covertly burned the records which proved that he had stolen five million dollars from the company.")

machination

a crafty and involved plot to achieve one's (usually sinister) ends (e.g. "Hank's machinations regarding his plot to take over the world were so labyrinthine and involved that he eventually became too confused to actually carry out his plot")

intrigue

a crafty and involved plot to achieve your (usually sinister) ends (e.g. "When the emperor found out about the intrigue among his chief nobles seeking to dethrone him, he had them all beheaded.")

infraction

a crime less serious than a felony (e.g. "murder is more than a minor infraction")

despot

a cruel and oppressive dictator (e.g. "John Smith of Timbuktu was a despot; he allowed no one to say that he was a rich, greedy miser and that he oppressed the people, even though he was a rich, greedy miser and he oppressed the people")

curmudgeon

a crusty irascible cantankerous old person full of stubborn ideas (e.g. "although at first glance the old man might appear to be a curmudgeon, he is really very sweet once you get to know him")

meander

a curve in a stream; to move or cause to move in a sinuous, spiral, or circular course (e.g. "The meandering nature of his essay led me to believe that he hadn't written an outline beforehand.")

rogue

a deceitful and unreliable scoundrel (e.g. "in 'Pride and Prejudice', one character, Lizzy, falls in love with Mr. Wickham, who is a rogue")

artifice

a deceptive maneuver (especially to avoid capture) (e.g. "The general's artifice was unparalleled: using it, he managed to outstrategize an army ten times larger than his; his forces won the battle.")

motif

a design that consists of recurring shapes or colors; a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work; a theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music (e.g. "The central motif of this quizlet set is that all high-schoolers should learn SAT vocabulary.")

ramification

a development or consequence resulting from a course of action (e.g. "the ramifications of such a course of action as was described by the other man were such that I knew that I could not seriously consider implementing it")

discrepancy

a difference between conflicting facts or claims or opinions (e.g. "there seems to be a discrepancy between the two witnesses' accounts of the crime")

conundrum

a difficult problem (e.g. "Mr. Smith was in a conundrum: he had enough money to buy either a soda or a candy bar, but he wanted both")

repose

a disposition free from stress or emotion; the absence of mental stress or anxiety; freedom from activity (work or strain or responsibility) (e.g. "Although I could not manage to appear to be in a disposition of repose -- that is, I didn't look reposed -- I was able to at least appear resigned.")

facet

a distinct feature or element in a problem (e.g. "it appears that we have not been working on separate problems; on the contrary, we have merely been working on different facets of the same problem!")

denomination

a division of a branch that unites a number of local congregations in a single legal and administrative body (e.g. "not only is the millionaire rich, but he also only carries large denominations of currency in his wallet: 50s and 100s")

dogma

a doctrine or code of beliefs accepted as authoritative (e.g. "Ted, mentioned two examples ago, holds the dogma that the moon is made of green cheese. His dogma is very incorrect")

mandate

a document giving an official instruction or command (e.g. "John Smith, ruler of Timbuktu, mandated that everyone had to give him 99.99% of their yearly income")

calumny

a false and malicious accusation (e.g. "his calumny in court is reason enough to throw him in jail; for it was perjury, which is a criminal offense")

shibboleth

a favorite saying of a sect or political group; a manner of speaking that is distinctive of a particular group of people (e.g. "The word 'shibboleth' has an interesting etymology: in ancient Israel, the word 'shibboleth' was the shibboleth of certain guards; to pass them, you had to pronounce 'shibboleth' correctly; if you couldn't, they killed you.")

trepidation

a feeling of alarm or dread (e.g. "Marsha felt some trepidation when she saw a tornado less than 30 yards away from her")

rancor

a feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will (e.g. "the rancor I felt at the other man after he punched me in the nose passed all bounds")

compunction

a feeling of deep regret (usually for some misdeed) (e.g. "after the young child had stolen the candy, he felt compunction for his deed and returned it")

presentiment

a feeling of evil to come (e.g. "I had a presentiment that everything might not go OK when I first saw that flying saucer disintegrate New York City!")

jubilation

a feeling of extreme joy (e.g. "His feeling of jubilation at winning the lottery did not entirely cease even after his second cousin duped him out of half of his winnings.")

antipathy

a feeling of intense dislike (e.g. "Different tribes in Africa feel antipathy towards each other; tribal wars occur relatively often.")

elation

a feeling of joy and pride (e.g. "he felt a feeling of elation as he stepped onto to the stage to claim his well-deserved reward")

pseudonym

a fictitious name used when the person performs a particular social role (e.g. "It is thought by some that 'Lewis Carroll,' the name of the person who wrote 'Alice in Wonderland', is only a pseudonym -- that is, it's not his real name.")

patina

a fine coating of oxide on the surface of a metal (e.g. "Examine the patina on the surface of this silver lampstand; the object is obviously many years old.")

eulogy

a formal expression of praise (e.g. "the pastor gave a eulogy at Herbert's funeral, praising Herbert's many achievements")

panegyric

a formal expression of praise; formally expressing praise (e.g. "His panegyric regarding his own accomplishments nearly made me sick.")

duplicity

a fraudulent or duplicitous representation (e.g. "the interpreter for the two people had great duplicity: he would say to each person that the other had said something which, in fact, the other had truly not said")

hiatus

a gap, opening, break (e.g. "schoolchildren are given a hiatus from their studies around Christmastime")

insurgent

a member of an irregular armed force that fights a stronger force by sabotage and harassment (e.g. "when the people of Timbuktu became fed up with their monarch, John Smith, they organized an army of insurgents: John Smith called out the army, but the army didn't know who to shoot at, because the insurgents operated under cover of darkness and no one could figure out who was an insurgent and who was merely an ordinary citizen")

patrician

a member of the aristocracy (e.g. "the patricians and the plebeians were the two main classes of people in Rome the republic: the patricians were the rich, and the plebeians were the poor")

bourgeois

a member of the middle class (e.g. "According to Karl Marx, someday the working class is going to overthrow the bourgeois in every country on earth.")

specter

a mental representation of some haunting experience; a ghostly appearing figure (e.g. "The specter approached me slowly; my feet were rooted to the floor.")

sage

a mentor in spiritual and philosophical topics who is renowned for profound wisdom (e.g. "the sage was able to help me in my mid-life crisis")

surmise

a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence; infer from incomplete evidence; imagine to be the case or true or probable (e.g. "I surmise that you have been drinking again, since your speech is slurred and the smell of alcohol is on your breath.")

reproach

a mild rebuke or criticism (e.g. "Bob's aunt reproached him for standing on top of the restaurant table and starting to give a speech; she said that his behavior was improper")

microcosm

a miniature model of something (e.g. "Biosphere 2 was meant to be a microcosm of the world's ecosystems -- it was meant to be a closed, contained environment in which the various species within could interact as they would have interacted in their native habitat")

skirmish

a minor short-term fight; engage in a skirmish (e.g. "Although the official government newspaper of the country called the most recent battle in the civil war against the rebels a 'skirmish', both sides privately admitted that it was much more than a skirmish, and neither side had won a conclusive victory.")

fallacy

a misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning (e.g. "my opponent in the debate used reasoning which had so many fallacies in it that I couldn't even address them all in my next speech")

elegy

a mournful poem (e.g. "Albert wrote an elegy to commemorate the anniversary of his dog's death")

repercussion

a movement back from an impact (e.g. "the repercussions of the Dred Scott decision in 1857 were felt until after the Civil War")

sovereign

a nation's ruler or head of state usually by hereditary right; greatest in status or authority or power; of political bodies (e.g. "In most countries today, the sovereign is merely a figurehead, and has very little true power.")

affinity

a natural attraction or feeling of kinship (e.g. "The savant had an affinity for hard math problems; he could do a problem in ten minutes that would take me ten days!")

propensity

a natural inclination (e.g. "Thomas Edison had a rather unhealthy propensity to fall asleep at his job")

incarnation

a new personification of a familiar idea; the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas etc. (e.g. "he is the incarnation of intelligence; in fact, I think he's related to Einstein")

neologism

a newly invented word or phrase (e.g. "to help him with my SAT vocabulary, Sam always had a special 'Word of the Day' which he tried to use at least once on any given day. Unfortunately, his words for each day were always neologisms which he had invented himself, so they didn't help him much")

melee

a noisy riotous fight (e.g. "The melee was precipitated by the assault on the person of John Smith.")

appendage

a part that is joined to something larger (e.g. "spiders have the ability to lose appendages and still function; for example, if a spider were to lose two or three legs, it could still manage to function")

respite

a pause from doing something (as work) (e.g. "spring break is a welcome respite from schoolwork for students")

surrogate

a person appointed to represent or act on behalf of others (e.g. "the surrogate computer-repairman was only at the computer-repair shop that day because the normal computer-repairman was sick")

vicissitude

a variation in circumstances or fortune at different times in one's life or in the development of something (e.g. "Mary decided that she did not have the nerves of steel necessary to ride out the vicissitudes of the stock market, so she sold all of the stocks she owned")

sally

a venture off the beaten path; a military action in which besieged troops burst forth from their position; witty remark (e.g. "The initial sally of the troops accomplished nothing; they gained practically no ground, and the ground they gained they lost again by the next day.")

conflagration

a very intense and uncontrolled fire (e.g. "during World War II, the Allies bombed Germany with incendiary bombs; these bombs would start a conflagration which would be nearly impossible to put out")

magnate

a very wealthy or powerful businessman (e.g. "John Smith, oil magnate of Timbuktu, holds a monopoly on the oil there -- he can charge whatever prices he wants, and the public must still buy from him")

cataclysm

a violent upheaval that causes great destruction and change (e.g. "the earthquake devastated the entire prehistoric continent; such a cataclysm has never been seen before or since")

bacchanal

a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity (e.g. "the bacchanal was not an event that people with any sense of morality should attend; on the contrary, only those without any sense of decent behavior were there")

debauchery

a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity (e.g. "the meeting of the delinquent teens was characterized by drinking too much alcohol and general debauchery")

mentor

a wise and trusted guide and adviser (e.g. "Harry's mentor taught him all sorts of useful things, such as the meaning of life, the evils of mankind, and what to do in a zombie apocalypse")

epigram

a witty saying (e.g. "in the book, 'The Secret Garden,' the playmates of the main character, Mary, invent a rhyme about her: 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?'. Although they might have considered this an epigram, it really wasn't all that witty at all")

acronym

a word formed from the initial letters of a multi-word name (e.g. "although most people simply call the TV network 'CNN', 'CNN' is really an acronym for 'Cable News Network'")

cliché

a worn-out idea or overused expression (e.g. "'A penny saved is a penny earned' is a well-known cliché.")

warrant

a writ from a court commanding police to perform specified acts; a written assurance that some product or service will be provided or will meet certain specifications; formal and explicit approval (e.g. "It is illegal for the police to arrest you in the U.S. without a warrant.")

orthodox

adhering to what is commonly accepted (e.g. "Jamie's rather unorthodox plan for world peace includes the stipulation that he must be made dictator of the world")

slavish

abjectly submissive (e.g. "his slavish devotion to his boss is sickening")

compatible

able to get along or work well together; capable of use with some other model or system (e.g. "although the computer program was written for Windows, it is compatible with Linux")

impregnable

able to withstand attack; impossible to take by storm (e.g. "the castle is impregnable to attack: it is surrounded by a succession of five moats which are continually refilled with boiling oil and three sets of outer walls; additionally, it has the best archers in the land, and dozens of guardsmen patrol the castle at all hours")

sententious

abounding in or given to pompous or aphoristic moralizing (e.g. "Mr. Bumble, from Dickens' 'Oliver Twist', was sententious -- he was constantly pontificating about morality, and he broke every single rule that he himself said that everyone should follow.")

sobriety

abstaining from excess (e.g. "the diehard alcoholic turned over a new leaf and joined the city's Sobriety Society")

celibacy

abstaining from sexual relations (as because of religious vows) (e.g. "Most monks in the early Catholic Church were supposed to practice celibacy.")

abstinent

abstaining; voluntarily not doing something, especially something pleasant that is bad for you or has a bad reputation (e.g. "Mary Jones had no problem abstaining from chocolate for a month; she's allergic to it anyway.")

invective

abusive or venomous language used to express blame or censure or bitter deep-seated ill will (e.g. "after I called him a stupid idiot, he spouted all kinds of invective at me")

palatable

acceptable to the taste or mind (e.g. "His suggestion was unpalatable to me, for although I could understand his reasoning, I took exception to the means by which he meant to accomplish his goal.")

accouterments

accessories (e.g. "our accouterments were few, as our monetary funds were so limited that anything more than the bare necessities would have been a most prodigal extravagance")

concomitant

accompanying (e.g. "if I choose to work harder than I do now, there will be a concomitant increase in my salary")

indict

accuse formally of a crime (e.g. "the defendant-to-be was indicted of the crime on Wednesday")

arraign

accuse of a wrong or an inadequacy; call before a court to answer an indictment (e.g. "I arraigned my enemy with the accusation that he was an idiot; he did not deny the charge")

self-made

achieving wealth or influence through one's own effort rather than being born to a privileged family (e.g. "The self-made man felt disdain for all non-self-made people, since they hadn't had as many obstacles to success as he had.")

mediate

act between parties with a view to reconciling differences (e.g. "the self-appointed mediator tried to mediate between the two street-fighters; his only success was in getting himself beaten up")

comply

act in accordance with someone's rules, commands, or wishes (e.g. "I complied with my mother's wishes by setting the table as she had asked")

transgress

act in disregard of laws and rules (e.g. "the driver transgressed the speed limit law for that area by speeding at 95 miles per hour in a 15 miles per hour zone")

redress

act of correcting an error or a fault or an evil; a sum of money paid in compensation for loss or injury; make reparations or amends for (e.g. "'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.' -- the 1st amendment to the Constitution of the United States")

privation

act of depriving someone of food or money or rights; a state of extreme poverty (e.g. "Although a significant minority, if not indeed a majority, of persons in the United States may deem themselves to be 'poor', compared with the poor of third-world countries, who indeed experience true privation, many, if not all, of the 'poor' of America are actually fairly well off.")

sagacious

acutely insightful and wise (e.g. "the sagacious man was able to help me in my mid-life crisis")

qualify

add a modifier to a constituent (e.g. "after John had complemented Andrew about how well Andrew had done in the spelling bee, John qualified himself: 'for an idiot'")

aggrandize

add details to (e.g. "David has aggrandized the story about the first fish he ever caught; he has exaggerated the story unbelievably")

abet

assist or encourage, usually in some wrongdoing (e.g. "the defendant is thought to have abetted the murderer, who is already in jail")

repartee

adroitness and cleverness in reply (e.g. "In the play 'Cyrano de Bergerac', the main character, Cyrano, is an extremely witty character; his use of repartee is admirable and extremely effective.")

avow

admit openly and bluntly (e.g. "The defendant avowed that he was the murderer.")

infringe

advance beyond the usual limit, go against, as of rules and laws (e.g. "if I am speaking, and a government official tells me to shut up, then he is infringing on my right to freedom of speech")

adduce

advance evidence for (e.g. "the man tried to adduce evidence to prove that the moon was made of green cheese; however, he couldn't come up with any")

tout

advertise in strongly positive terms (e.g. "although the producer touted the movie as being 'child-friendly', it was really a very scary movie and not suitable for children")

dejected

affected or marked by low spirits (e.g. "I felt dejected after getting an F on my paper")

demure

affectedly modest or shy especially in a playful or provocative way (e.g. "Lovisa demurely asked Harry to dance with her")

systemic

affecting an entire system (e.g. "Although I sincerely wish that I could propose a 'quick-fix solution', unfortunately, the problem is systemic -- to fix the problem would require an overhaul of the entire system.")

copious

affording an abundant supply (e.g. "Our copious supply of candy was enough to satisfy all trick-or-treaters on Halloween.")

copious

affording an abundant supply (e.g. "there was a copious supply of hot dogs and hamburgers at the barbecue, but there was little or no healthy food")

precarious

affording no ease or reassurance; fraught with danger; not secure; dangerously insecure (e.g. "His position of manager of the company is precarious now that his guilt has been proven; the board of executives may fire him and hire someone else for the job.")

audacity

aggressive boldness or unmitigated effrontery (e.g. "The manager of the store had the audacity to ask the robbers to give him their ID. Amazingly, they did!")

congenial

agreeable (e.g. "His behavior seemed congenial; little did I know that his behavior was merely a facade.")

consensus

agreement in the judgment or opinion reached by a group as a whole (e.g. "After we reached a consensus, we decided to inform our teacher of our idea for our project.")

posterity

all future generations; all of the offspring of a given progenitor (e.g. "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and ensure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.")

homogeneous

all of the same or similar kind or nature (e.g. "in chemistry, a mixture is considered to be a solution if it is entirely homogeneous -- that is, if there is an equal concentration of all of its various chemicals throughout")

fauna

all the animal life in a particular region (e.g. "although the plant life on the Galapagos Islands is spectacular, the zoologist found the fauna more interesting")

flora

all the plant life in a particular region (e.g. "although the animal life on the Galapagos Islands is spectacular, the plant scientist found the flora more interesting")

cherub

an angel of the second order whose gift is knowledge, a sweet innocent baby (e.g. "although cherubim (pl. of cherub) are usually represented by winged babies, there is no indication in the Christian Bible -- the book which contains mention of cherubim -- that that is their physical appearance")

guise

an artful or simulated semblance (e.g. "although environmentalism is certainly a legitimate cause, there are some pseudo-scientific organizations which, although masked by the guise of legitimate environmentalism, seek to push their own unscientific agendas")

forte

an asset of special worth or utility (e.g. "although he is reasonably good at everything, mathematics is his forte")

behest

an authoritative command or request (e.g. "at my mother's behest, I apologized to the person whom I had previously offended")

dictum

an authoritative declaration (e.g. "John Smith, monarch of Timbuktu, issued a dictum that everyone would have to eat peanut butter and pickle sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; the people rebelled")

monarchy

an autocracy governed by a monarch who usually inherits the authority (e.g. "Before the rebels took over, Timbuktu was a monarchy, and John Smith was the king.")

contretemps

an awkward clash (e.g. "Nixon lost his job over a contretemps known as 'Watergate'")

lout

an awkward stupid person (e.g. "You lout! You just destroyed my prize vase!")

capitalism

an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth (e.g. "John Smith is a great believer in capitalism, probably because he made a million dollars through it.")

botch

an embarrassing mistake; make a mess of, destroy or ruin (e.g. "the criminals tried to murder Mr. Smith; however, they botched the job and merely wounded him")

trauma

an emotional wound or shock often having long-lasting effects; any physical damage to the body caused by violence or accident or fracture etc. (e.g. "Although he may recover from his physical trauma within a few weeks, it could take months or years to recover from his emotional trauma.")

verity

an enduring or necessary ethical or religious or aesthetic truth; conformity to reality or actuality (e.g. "I highly doubt the verity of that textbook, especially considering that it was written in the 1500s and also states that the Earth is flat.")

pandemic

an epidemic that is geographically widespread; existing everywhere; epidemic over a wide geographical area (e.g. "Deception and hypocrisy are pandemic throughout the world, because they are arguably part of human nature, and humans exist throughout the world.")

canon

an established set of principles or code of laws, often religious in nature; a complete list of saints that have been recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, a rule or especially body of rules or principles generally established as valid and fundamental in a field or art or philosophy (e.g. "unfortunately, your style of painting breaks every rule of the canon of art")

hedonism

an ethical system that evaluates the pursuit of pleasure as the highest good (e.g. "some people today say that modern society has become focused on hedonism -- that is, that everybody does what they themselves want, usually without concern for others' wants")

cavil

an evasion of the point of an argument by raising irrelevant distinctions or objections (e.g. "the defendant attempted to circumvent the question directly posed to him by raising petty cavils in an attempt to distract the focus of the hearing onto something other than it was")

calamity

an event resulting in great loss and misfortune (e.g. "after the calamity -- a tsunami -- in which the woman lost her husband and both sons, she withdrew into seclusion and mourned her loss")

precedent

an example that is used to justify similar occurrences at a later time (e.g. "one of the major considerations a judge must harbor when deciding a case is, 'is this precedented?' That is, 'has a case similar to this been judged before? If so, what was the verdict?'")

narcissism

an exceptional interest in and admiration for oneself (e.g. "this word originates from Greek mythology, with the character Narcissus, after whom the flower narcissus was named, according to the ancient Greeks. This man fell in love with himself")

heresy

any opinions or doctrines at variance with the official or orthodox position (e.g. "several centuries ago, the Catholic Church was considered absolutely correct, and everyone who differed was considered a heretic, and a believer of heretical views -- they were considered guilty of heresy")

nirvana

any place of complete bliss and delight and peace; (Hinduism and Buddhism) the beatitude that transcends the cycle of reincarnation (e.g. "Jamie considered listening to lots of loud music to be nirvana; his mother disagreed.")

deity

any supernatural being worshiped as controlling some part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force (e.g. "some animistic cultures regard virtually everything as a deity -- trees, water, the sky, etc.")

atrophy

any weakening or degeneration (especially through lack of use) (e.g. "the former weightlifter reminisced on his better days, trying not to look at his badly atrophied muscles")

fatalist

anyone who submits to the belief that they are powerless to change their destiny (e.g. "Ronald was a fatalist; he believed that his karma was unchangeable and that if he was destined to die that day, he would die, no matter what he did. As a result, he was very careless, and got hit by a car one day and died.")

requisite

anything indispensable (e.g. "being a good speaker is a requisite for running for president")

sloth

apathy and inactivity in the practice of virtue (personified as one of the deadly sins) (e.g. "sloth is not good, because if one is slothful, then he is wasting time which could have been better spent")

apogee

apoapsis in Earth orbit (e.g. "as the moon reaches its apogee, as viewed from those locations on Earth where it is visible at the time, it may appear to be slightly smaller than normal when viewed through a telescope; however, the difference is, for most intents and purposes, negligible")

sensuous

appealing to the senses (e.g. "a sensuous flower would be a very good-smelling flower")

precocious

appearing or developing early; characterized by or characteristic of exceptionally early development or maturity (especially in mental aptitude) (e.g. "Albert Einstein was a precocious child, even though his teacher claimed that he wouldn't ever accomplish anything in life.")

plausible

appearing to merit belief or acceptance; within the realm of credibility; likely but not certain to be or become true or real; apparently reasonable and valid (e.g. "The belief the the moon is made of green cheese is implausible.")

generic

applicable to an entire class or group; (of drugs) not protected by trademark (e.g. "it is usually cheaper to buy a generic brand of a product than to buy a name-brand of the same product")

ratify

approve and express assent, responsibility, or obligation (e.g. "When Congress failed to ratify the new bill, this meant that the proposed changes in government policy would not take place.")

remonstrate

argue in protest or opposition (e.g. "when Jimmy told his mother that the moon was made of green cheese, his mother remonstrated, 'oh, Jimmy, you know that's not correct; haven't you been paying attention in science class?'")

alienate

arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness (e.g. "I alienated my best friend when I said that I thought that he had behaved really stupidly")

disaffect

arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness (e.g. "when I called my best friend an idiot, I disaffected him from myself")

estrange

arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness (e.g. "when I called my friend an idiot, I estranged myself from him")

poignant

arousing affect (e.g. "arguably, the most poignant scene of 'Romeo and Juliet', by William Shakespeare, is the scene in which Juliet commits suicide after the death of her lover")

chronology

arrangement of events in time (e.g. "My chronology mentioned in the last example was flawed.")

advent

arrival that has been awaited (especially of something momentous) (e.g. "the advent of tablet devices may eventually cause the traditional computer to become obsolete")

imperious

arrogantly domineering or overbearing (e.g. "my older sister seems to be one of the most imperious people on earth -- she's always bossing me around")

quasi

as if; somewhat (e.g. "The quasi-intellectual groups in our town claim to support logical, method scientific reasoning, and they actually manage to make good their claim -- sometimes; they certainly don't manage to do that all of the time.")

entreat

ask for or request earnestly (e.g. "the beggar entreated the rich businessman to give him a few pennies")

beset

assail or attack on all sides (e.g. "The zebra was beset by leopards.")

garner

assemble or get together; acquire or deserve by one's efforts or actions (e.g. "although he found it difficult to garner enough support for his cause, he managed to do it")

relegate

assign to a lower position (e.g. "after the company official was found to be incompetent, his superiors relegated him to the position of a sales clerk")

allocate

assign; set apart for a particular purpose (e.g. The government allocates a certain amount of money each year for various projects.")

languish

become feeble (e.g. "as our hero attempted to rescue the heroine, who was languishing in the castle dungeons, he got lost in the labyrinthine passages of the castle, and died of starvation")

congeal

become gelatinous (e.g. "the material in the test tube began to congeal, so what had formerly been a liquid was quickly becoming a gelatinous solid")

abate

become less in amount or intensity (e.g. "The force of the hurricane abated as it blew inland.")

integrate

become one (e.g. "After the United States Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation was unconstitutional, the public schools were integrated -- that is, the schools that had previously been available only to students of a Caucasian background were now available to everybody.")

assimilate

become similar to one's environment (e.g. "The teacher was surprised at the student's ability to assimilate data: he learned it very quickly.")

importune

beg persistently and urgently (e.g. "the beggar importuned him for a loaf of bread")

posture

behave affectedly or unnaturally in order to impress others (e.g. "All members of the human species appear to exhibit a natural inclination to claim that someone else is posturing simply to make a good impression, while simultaneously posturing themselves.")

flounder

behave awkwardly (e.g. "after we caught the fish, it floundered awkwardly on the deck for a few minutes before expiring because of a lack of oxygen")

wanton

behave extremely cruelly and brutally (e.g. "I have no choice but to believe that the defendant's senseless act of cruelty was merely a destructive act of wanton violence")

rudimentary

being in the earliest stages of development (e.g. "one who knows only basic addition has only a rudimentary grasp of mathematics")

chronic

being long-lasting and recurrent or characterized by long suffering (e.g. "He has chronic asthma: it has lasted his entire life.")

pivotal

being of crucial importance (e.g. "the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 is regarded as a pivotal moment in history; in fact, as a result of it, 1453 is considered by some to be the beginning of the modern era")

pertinent

being of striking appropriateness (e.g. "the man regarded his comments about Santa Claus to be pertinent to the general discussion about Christmas")

apt

being of striking appropriateness and pertinence (e.g. "if you put the question to him directly, he is apt to say 'yes'; I can't guarantee that that will be his answer, but it will probably be")

apposite

being of striking appropriateness and pertinence (e.g. "your appearance, James, is particularly apposite, since we were just discussing you")

ubiquitous

being present everywhere at once (e.g. "it seems that the advertising industry is ubiquitous in western culture -- it's on TV, on billboards, in the mail, and practically everywhere else as well")

titular

being such in name only (e.g. "Although in a communist state, the people are said to possess the power, in reality, the people are only the titular power holders; the party leaders truly have the authority.")

nominal

being such in name only (e.g. "although in Japan before World War II the emperor was supposed to be the head of state, his position was nominal; he was merely a figurehead. The shogun held the real power")

substantive

being the essence or essential element of a thing (e.g. "There will be no substantive changes to our contract until next year") (note: example sentence from WikiAnswers")

dichotomy

being twofold (e.g. "the rich man firmly believes in redistribution of wealth, and he also believes that he has the moral right to try to get as much money as he possibly can as fast as he can; his opinions are dichotomous")

wrath

belligerence aroused by a real or supposed wrong (personified as one of the deadly sins); intense anger (usually on an epic scale) (e.g. "The king's intense wrath is a result of his subjects' refusal to worship him.")

intrinsic

belonging to a thing by its very nature (e.g. "there were several intrinsic flaws with Jacob's plan; one of them was that one of his starting assumptions was that the moon is made of green cheese")

perfidy

betrayal of a trust (e.g. "although Jim Jones expressed undying loyalty to his country, Jim was being perfidious: he was really a secret agent for another country which was spying on the country to which he perfidiously pledged loyalty")

incredible

beyond belief or understanding; incapable of being believed (e.g. "The theory that the Earth is flat, not round, is incredible.")

singular

beyond or deviating from the usual or expected (e.g. "I found Smith's behavior to be quite singular, especially considering his typical personality.")

singular

beyond or deviating from the usual or expected (e.g. "it seemed extremely singular that the man forwent his breakfast, for he normally ate like a pig")

uncanny

beyond what is natural; suggesting the operation of supernatural influences (e.g. "The psychic had an uncanny ability to read my mind.")

founder

break down, literally or metaphorically (e.g. "the Titanic foundered in the icy waters of the North Atlantic")

aggrieve

break the heart of (e.g. "Simon's mother was aggrieved when she discovered how much trouble Simon had gotten himself into")

laconic

brief and to the point (e.g. "it cannot be said of Jose that one of his vices was being overfond of loquacity; on the contrary, if he had any vices at all, one of them was most assuredly his overly laconic nature, rather than the reverse")

terse

brief and to the point (e.g. "the taciturn guide rarely speaks; when he does, his speech is terse")

succinct

briefly giving the gist of something (e.g. "when I asked him if he knew anything about such-and-such a topic, he succinctly related its important points")

precipitate

bring about abruptly (e.g. "in the early 1800s, the pirates of Tripoli precipitated a war with the United States after they demanded an increased bribe so that they wouldn't prey upon the ships passing through their territory")

broach

bring up a topic for discussion (e.g. "He tried unsuccessfully to broach the topic, but to no avail: evidently his friend was intentionally steering clear of it.")

reprehensible

bringing or deserving severe rebuke or censure (e.g. "the reprehensible actions of Richard Nixon caused him to have to relinquish the office of President of the United States")

thorny

bristling with perplexities (e.g. "It's a thorny problem; I certainly wouldn't have wanted to have to make that decision myself, but as long as you act within your own convictions, I won't hold it against you.")

spectrum

broad range of related values or qualities or ideas or activities (e.g. "The spectrum of severity of this mental disorder is broad.")

crestfallen

brought low in spirit (e.g. "I was somewhat crestfallen when I discovered that I had not gotten anything for my birthday")

willful

by conscious design or purpose, habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition (e.g. "the child's willful nature predisposes her to such unfortunate tendencies such as disobedience and stubbornness")

presumably

by reasonable assumption (e.g. "Presumably, if you are reading these SAT words, you are doing it so that you can score well on the SAT.")

delectable

capable of arousing desire; extremely pleasing to the sense of taste (e.g. "the food at the restaurant is delectable")

credible

capable of being believed (e.g. "The theory that the Earth is flat, not round, is not credible.")

venal

capable of being corrupted (e.g. "the venal court attendant tried to ingratiate himself to the king with the vain hope that he would be appointed the king's successor")

palpable

capable of being perceived by the senses or the mind (e.g. "the tension in the room was almost palpable; that is, I could practically feel it")

malleable

capable of being shaped or bent or drawn out (e.g. "gold is one of the most malleable metals known to man")

pliable

capable of being shaped or bent or drawn out; capable of being bent or flexed or twisted without breaking; able to adjust readily to different conditions; susceptible to being led or directed (e.g. "Gold is the most pliable metal known to man.")

fecund

capable of producing offspring or vegetation, intellectually productive (e.g. "Mark Twain was fecund; he was intellectually productive in that he produced many great works of literature")

viable

capable of working, functioning, or developing adequately (e.g. "unfortunately, the patient is no longer viable; there is nothing we can do to keep him alive")

efficacy

capacity or power to produce a desired effect (e.g. "our methods possess efficacy; they are efficacious; that is, they are effectual")

blithe

carefree and happy and lighthearted (e.g. "When he asked her to marry him, she blithely said 'yes'.")

vigilant

carefully observant or attentive (e.g. "Be vigilant! Don't let the enemy get past you when you aren't looking!")

ethereal

characterized by lightness and insubstantiality (e.g. "clouds could be considered ethereal--they are very light")

polarize

cause to concentrate about two conflicting or contrasting positions (e.g. "apparently, Andrew Jackson, one of America's presidents during the 1800s, had a tendency to polarize people, at least when it came to people's opinions regarding him: many people loved him, some people hated him, but no people held lukewarm feelings about him")

perpetuate

cause to continue or prevail (e.g. "Although e-mail and instant messaging continue to facilitate and perpetuate bad grammar, we have high hopes that eventually such atrocious grammar as routinely occurs today will be a thing of the past.")

induce

cause to do, cause to arise (e.g. "toxic: not for children: drinking this product may cause gastrointestinal abnormalities; do not induce vomiting if swallowed; contact your local Poison Control center immediately")

proliferate

cause to grow or increase rapidly (e.g. "rabbits proliferate extremely rapidly")

daunt

cause to lose courage (e.g. "the brave firefighters were not daunted by the flames coming from the house")

discomfit

cause to lose one's composure (e.g. "I was discomfited when I got all Fs on my report card")

disconcert

cause to lose one's composure (e.g. "the presidential candidate felt disconcerted when he came in last in the polls")

suffuse

cause to spread or flush or flood through, over, or across; to become overspread as with a fluid, a color, a gleam of light (e.g. "The room was suffused with a vaguely cloying odor, one which inexplicably filled me with an undefined angst.")

appalling

causing consternation (e.g. "my friend's appalling lack of self-control at the bar led me to believe that he needs to take some classes on anger management")

dire

causing fear or dread or terror (e.g. "I was in a dire situation when the aliens abducted me")

quiescent

causing no symptoms; being quiet or still or inactive; not active or activated; marked by a state of tranquil repose (e.g. "This particular disease is typically not discovered until it is in its final, terminal stage which inevitably ends in the death of the patient; it is not discovered earlier because its earlier stages are practically entire quiescent; there are no symptoms by which it would be revealed until it is too late.")

carcinogenic

causing or tending to cause cancer (e.g. "cigarettes are carcinogenic")

castigate

censure severely (e.g. "Peter castigated John for investing all their money in a bankrupt company.")

chastise

censure severely (e.g. "The children's mother chastised them for jumping on the bed.")

histrionic

characteristic of acting or a stage performance (e.g. "Margaret thought John was being histrionic when he screamed and fainted after he stubbed his toe")

autocratic

characteristic of an absolute ruler or absolute rule (e.g. "The king and queen were autocratic: they held absolute power over their people.")

belligerent

characteristic of an enemy or one eager to fight; also, an enemy or one eager to fight (e.g. "The belligerents have been fighting for four hours straight and have shown no sign of letting up.")

proprietary

characteristic of an owner of property; constituting property (e.g. "a restaurant is a proprietary establishment")

colloquial

characteristic of informal spoken language or conversation (e.g. "It is my firm belief that colloquial speech has a highly negative effect on one's IQ: one should always speak very formally.")

verdant

characterized by abundance of verdure (e.g. "The verdant hills of a thousand years ago are now no more, thanks to the presence of modern humanity.")

irascible

characterized by anger (e.g. "the irascible nature of the pit bull was such that if anyone came within twenty feet of it, it would rush at them and chase them away")

incandescent

characterized by ardent emotion or intensity or brilliance (e.g. "the plankton seemed almost incandescent -- it almost seemed to physically glow")

dogmatic

characterized by arrogant assertion of unproved or unprovable principles (e.g. "Ted, mentioned in the last example sentence, was dogmatic")

premeditated

characterized by deliberate purpose and some degree of planning (e.g. "Premeditated murder is considered worse than unpremeditated murder, because if something is premeditated, then it wasn't just a spur-of-the-moment burst of anger; it had been carefully planned.")

forthright

characterized by directness in manner or speech; directly and without evasion (e.g. "to avoid getting into further trouble, when asked by his parents how the lamp had gotten broken, Jimmy answered with forthright honesty")

lavish

characterized by extravagance and profusion (e.g. "I found the banquet to be excessively lavish; there must have been thirty different types of steak, thirty different types of apple pie, and thirty different types of strawberry ice cream")

painstaking

characterized by extreme care and great effort (e.g. "John painstakingly retraced his route, trying to find the secret document which had apparently fallen out of his pocket")

ardent

characterized by intense emotion (e.g. "Mary Jones is an ardent lover of baseball; it's all she ever talks about")

jocular

characterized by jokes and good humor (e.g. "His jocular mood seemed unusual to me, for I had known him to be a rather introverted fellow.")

decorous

characterized by propriety and dignity and good taste in manners and conduct (e.g. "Hannah's dinner was decorous; it was very proper")

resolute

characterized by quickness and firmness; firm in purpose or belief (e.g. "I begged him to change his mind, but he was resolute: he would stick with his decision")

arduous

characterized by toilsome effort to the point of exhaustion (e.g. "After the traveler's arduous journey, he was glad to rest at the nearby inn.")

impetuous

characterized by undue haste and lack of thought or deliberation (e.g. "in the 'Hardy Boys' books, Joe Hardy is described as impetuous -- that is, at times he reacts to a situation without thought")

impetuous

characterized by undue haste and lack of thought or deliberation; marked by violent force (e.g. "he was overly impetuous: he would tend to act before thinking, instead of vice versa, and this usually got him into trouble")

inflammatory

characterized or caused by inflammation; arousing to action or rebellion (e.g. "his inflammatory remarks at the political convention about the complete lawlessness of all politicians did not ingratiate him to all of the politicians the convention")

defame

charge falsely or with malicious intent (e.g. "the mayor claimed that the newspaper had defamed his character when it said that he was a no-good cheat; however, most of the people thought that the mayor really was a no-good cheat, so the newspaper got away with it")

impeach

charge with an offense or misdemeanor (e.g. "after the Watergate debacle, President Nixon was impeached; he later resigned")

idyllic

charming in a rustic way; naturally peaceful (e.g. "the bucolic scene before me seemed idyllic")

bauble

cheap showy jewelry or ornament on clothing (e.g. "although I do enjoy examining antique baubles, I have better things to do with my time")

cardinal

chief; most important; N: priest; cardinal number: number that shows quantity rather than order (e.g. "the cardinal figure among those at the conference was Mr. Smith")

purported

claimed as true, but probably false (e.g. "the press of the foreign country purports that the economic situation there is not dangerous; however, nobody believes that")

exemplify

clarify by giving an example of (e.g. "Please notice that I exemplify each vocabulary word by having an example next to its definition")

vindicate

clear of accusation, blame, suspicion, or doubt with supporting proof (e.g. "the defendant was vindicated when it was discovered that someone else had committed the murder")

patent

clearly apparent or obvious to the mind or senses (e.g. "Jimmy was a patent liar; one could tell simply by being near him that he was a liar")

trenchant

clearly or sharply defined to the mind; having keenness and forcefulness and penetration in thought, expression, or intellect; characterized by or full of force and vigor (e.g. "The debater's trenchant arguments convinced the judge of the debate that his side was the correct one, so he won the debate.")

facetious

cleverly amusing in tone (e.g. "when Bob dared Jim to eat 200 doughnuts at one sitting, he was merely being facetious; he didn't intend for Jim to actually try it. Unfortunately, Jim was not aware of this. He is now in the Cleveland, Ohio city hospital")

adjourn

close at the end of a session (e.g. "the judge adjourned the court after he stated his decision")

impending

close in time (e.g. "an aura of impending doom pervaded the room")

imminent

close in time (e.g. "some people say that the end of the world is imminent -- that it will happen soon")

complacent

contented to a fault (e.g. "After hearing his death sentence, the defendant was oddly complacent: he didn't even look upset.")

nihilism

complete denial of all established authority and institutions (e.g. "the nihilist believed that the correct answer to the question, 'what is the meaning of life?' was simply 'there is no meaning' because he did not acknowledge the right for any government to rule and he did not believe in any religion or Supreme Being.

serene

completely clear and fine; characterized by absence of emotional agitation (e.g. "The serenity of the landscape stood in stark contrast to the turmoil of my heart.")

ludicrous

completely devoid of wisdom or good sense (e.g. "It would be ludicrous to believe that the moon is made of green cheese")

hermetic

completely sealed (e.g. "a vacuum-sealed tube is hermetically sealed -- no substance can possible enter or exit it; its contents are a closed system")

labyrinth

complex system of paths or tunnels in which it is easy to get lost (e.g. "as our hero attempted to rescue the heroine from the castle dungeons, he got lost in the labyrinthine passages of the castle, and died of starvation")

duress

compulsory force or threat (e.g. "I was under duress when I promised eternal devotion to my older sister for life; that is, she was threatening to kill me if I didn't")

muster

compulsory military service; a gathering of military personnel for duty; call to duty, military service, jury duty, etc.; gather or bring together (e.g. "The country managed to muster up a standing army of 50,000 men.")

pragmatic

concerned with practical matters (e.g. "although Louie continues to harbor pie-in-the-sky hopes of winning the lottery, John is more pragmatic: he knows that he is more likely to become rich by working hard and saving money than by staking his hopes on an infinitesimally small probability")

aesthetic

concerning or characterized by an appreciation of beauty or good taste (e.g. "The restaurant's exterior had a certain aesthetic appeal; although it couldn't be considered beautiful per se, it was charming.")

clandestine

conducted with or marked by hidden aims or methods (e.g. "although the stated mission of the secret agent was simply to retrieve some non-classified papers that had been misplaced, he had clandestine orders to attempt to rescue a fellow agent who had been captured by enemy forces")

surreptitious

conducted with or marked by hidden aims or methods (e.g. "the spy surreptitiously followed his target")

esoteric

confined to and understandable by only an enlightened inner circle (e.g. "when people asked Albert Einstein to tell them about his General Theory of Relativity, his response was usually esoteric--only other scientists, and not all of those, could understand him")

materialistic

conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class; marked by materialism (e.g. "Some people say that our culture is too materialistic, too focused on materialism.")

confound

confuse; puzzle (e.g. "quantum theory confounds me; I can't make heads or tails out of it")

oxymoron

conjoining contradictory terms (e.g. "The term, 'a definite possibility' is an oxymoron; if something is definite, then it is certain to occur, but if something is only a possibility, it might occur, but it isn't certain.")

sentient

consciously perceiving (e.g. "if you can read this example sentence, then you are sentient")

countenance

consent to, give permission (e.g. "By not punishing the murderers, John Smith, monarch of Timbuktu, in effect countenanced the murder.")

heterogeneous

consisting of elements that are not of the same kind or nature (e.g. "if I were to randomly select 100 people, their personalities would probably be heterogeneous -- that is, their personalities would be widely disparate")

fragmentary

consisting of small disconnected parts (e.g. "although we have only fragmentary evidence regarding that civilization, we at least know that it at one time existed")

blatant

conspicuously and offensively loud (e.g. "The man blatantly announced that he was robbing the bank.")

vociferous

conspicuously and offensively loud (e.g. "the opponents of the bill have been extremely vociferous and have made their point; however, I still believe that the bill would be an asset to the 'life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness,' as it were, of the citizens of this country")

flagrant

conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible (e.g. "Bob stole from a nursery; he is now held in disrepute by the entire town for the flagrant act")

egregious

conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible (e.g. "the people high up in the Nazi hierarchy -- and even those lower down, for that matter -- committed egregious acts against humanity, for which many were punished at the Nuremberg trials")

discrete

constituting a separate entity or part (e.g. "in a heterogeneous mixture, each of the substances in the mix are discrete: they are not all conjoined into one, but are separated")

invidious

containing or implying a slight or showing prejudice (e.g. "The invidious nature of his speech was such that I have serious doubts concerning whether such a monologue is truly covered by the First Amendment's promise of freedom of speech.")

retrospect

contemplation of things past (e.g. "In retrospect, I realize that my decision was extremely foolish.")

paltry

contemptibly small in amount (e.g. "the charity fundraiser had attempted to raise $10,000; all they managed to raise was a paltry $500")

illicit

contrary to or forbidden by law (e.g. "his illicit possession of cocaine was eventually discovered by the police")

concert

contrive (a plan) by mutual agreement (e.g. "by acting in concert, the Green Beret team was able to accomplish a mission that certainly none of them would have been able to accomplish alone")

ascendancy

controlling influence; domination (e.g. "A king has ascendancy over his people.")

redeem

convert into cash; save from sins; pay off (loans or promissory notes); exchange or buy back for money (e.g. "The general idea in the Star Wars saga is that of redemption -- Anakin is redeemed.")

proselytize

convert to another faith or religion (e.g. "James, member of a religion he had made up and one of the major tenets of which stated that all new converts had to give him a million dollars, tried to proselytize Bob. Bob, however, was not interested")

coddle

cook in nearly boiling water; treat with excessive indulgence (e.g. "his mother really coddles that child; unfortunately, I do believe that he will grow up to be a spoiled brat")

propriety

correct or appropriate behavior (e.g. "Joe's aunt strongly reprimanded him after he stood on the restaurant table and started to give a speech. She said that his behavior passed all bounds of propriety.

commensurate

corresponding in size or degree or extent (e.g. "His salary was commensurate with his skills: since he wasn't good at anything, he wasn't paid anything.")

adulterate

corrupt, debase, or make impure by adding a foreign or inferior substance (e.g. "The sewer water adulterated the pure mountain spring.")

cordial

courteous and gracious; friendly; warm (e.g. "he was greeted with a cordial welcome by the inhabitants of the house")

perjury

criminal offense of making false statements under oath (e.g. "Tim committed perjury when he said under oath that he had not committed perjury two days before")

fulminate

criticize severely (e.g. "the reformers fulminated against the decline in societal morality")

concave

curving inward (e.g. "the inside of a hollow sphere is a concave surface")

eclipse

darken; extinguish; outshine; surpass; cause an eclipse (e.g. "my admiration turned to jealousy as his achievements rapidly eclipsed my own")

explicit

definite, clearly stated (e.g. "Jim explicitly told Bob to burn down Jones's barn; he told Bob plainly that he wanted Jones's barn burned down")

ineffable

defying expression or description (e.g. "even the most skilled poet would have to admit that there is some ineffable quality to a beautiful sunrise which simply cannot be put down on paper")

inimitable

defying imitation (e.g. "his inimitable style pf painting is such that if he ever becomes famous, he won't have to worry about anyone forging his work, because it's practically unforgable!")

rigorous

demanding strict attention to rules and procedures (e.g. "a rigorous study of geometry can be fairly difficult; the style of formal proofs can be somewhat intimidating")

stringent

demanding strict attention to rules and procedures (e.g. "the teacher's stringent rules are draconian to such an extent that all of the students hate her")

abnegate

deny or renounce (e.g. "The CEO abnegated his right to arbitrarily change his employees' wages.")

dismal

depressing in character or appearance (e.g. "the dreary, dismal weather outside did nothing to raise my spirits")

disfranchise

deprive of voting rights (e.g. "after the American Civil War, some southern states tried to disfranchise those of African-American persuasion by forcing voters to pay a tax, called a poll tax, which prevent the poor--including some African-Americans--from being able to vote")

existential

derived from experience or the experience of existence (e.g. "the man lives in existential dread and isolation") (note: example sentence from dictionary.com)

empirical

derived from experiment and observation rather than theory (e.g. "Bob's theory was proved empirically: it proved accurate in the real world")

delineate

describe in vivid detail (e.g. "I delineated to him my plan to take over the world; he didn't think it was very good")

culpable

deserving blame or censure as being wrong or evil or injurious (e.g. "Hank was culpable for murdering Hannah.")

hapless

deserving or inciting pity (e.g. "the character Oliver Twist from the book 'Oliver Twist' is hapless -- his early life circumstances are very poor -- he doesn't know who his mother is, and he lives in a poorhouse in England")

discern

detect with the senses (e.g. "despite John's quiet demeanor, James discerned the surging tides of emotions which lay beneath the surface")

distinguish

detect with the senses (e.g. "even at this distance the man was able to distinguish that the mountain was considerably taller than any he had ever climbed before")

capricious

determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason (e.g. "Mary Jones is capricious when it comes to buying products: she won't buy what she can afford or what she needs, but whatever she happens to want at the moment.")

contingent

determined by conditions or circumstances not yet established (e.g. "My getting to watch a movie tonight is contingent upon my finishing my homework early.")

depose

dethrone; remove from office; give a deposition; testify (e.g. "the rebels deposed the current king and placed one of their number on the throne as his replacement")

circuitous

deviating from a straight course (e.g. "James's circuitous account to his mother about how the light bulb got broken didn't satisfy her, so she grounded him to his room.")

anomaly

deviation from the normal or common order or form or rule (e.g. "Unfortunately, tribal wars in Africa are not an anomaly; they are the rule, not the exception.")

concoct

devise or invent (e.g. "to try to get out of trouble, Jeremy concocted an unbelievable lie to try to explain away everything")

vacuous

devoid of significance or point; complacently or inanely foolish (e.g. "I attempted to fill the awkward silence by making a few vacuous comments about the weather.")

partisan

devoted to a cause or party (e.g. "nowadays, if a committee in the federal government wants to be reasonably fair, it must be bipartisan: it must have members from the two major political parties of the U.S.")

temporize

draw out a discussion or process in order to gain time (e.g. "During the debate round, the other team had three minutes to cross-examine me; after they asked me a question to which I didn't know the answer, I temporized for the remainder of the three minutes so that I wouldn't have to be embarrassed by admitting my ignorance.")

analogy

drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity in some respect (e.g. "I believe that his analogy, in which he compared me to a gorilla, was somewhat flawed.")

lascivious

driven by lust (e.g. "his lascivious acts have given him a bad reputation among all women under 30")

tedium

dullness owing to length or slowness; the feeling of being bored by something tedious (e.g. "I abhor visits to museums as I find the tedium there to be stifling.")

parallel

duplicate or match (e.g. "There are disturbing parallels between modern society and ancient Rome, according to some.")

acquisitive

eager to acquire and possess things especially material possessions or ideas (e.g. "Scrooge was very acquisitive; he was a 'miserable, grasping wretch', as Dickens put it")

petulant

easily irritated or annoyed (e.g. "Mary's petulant behavior astonished me; she was usually very tranquil, and I had never before seen her become angered")

conspicuous

easy to notice; obvious (e.g. "one conspicuous change which occurred directly after the rebels captured the country is that the country suffered an economic downturn")

corrosive

eating away gradually, acid-like; bitterly sarcastic (e.g. "his corrosive comments about the state of modern politics and government in general left all of the politicians in the room feeling either infuriated or depressed")

effectual

effective; adequate (e.g. "although our methods may seem crude to some, they are effectual")

maudlin

effusively or insincerely emotional (e.g. "Jane's maudlin aunt went into long periods of fasting and mourning after her cat died; ten years later she still hadn't recovered from the emotional shock")

mawkish

effusively or insincerely emotional (e.g. "She has a tendency to be mawkish; after her parakeet died, she mourned for over two years.")

baroque

elaborate an extensive ornamentation in decorative art and architecture that flourished in Europe in the 17th century; having elaborate symmetrical ornamentation (e.g. "I found that the architecture which had been touted as 'plain and simple' had an almost baroque quality to it -- that is, 'plain and simple' were two words which absolutely did not describe it")

explicate

elaborate, as of theories and hypotheses (e.g. "I had no clue what the physicist was talking about, but I didn't want to appear stupid, so I asked him to explicate further")

florid

elaborately or excessively ornamented (e.g. "whenever he talks, he uses slang, but whenever he writes anything -- even a grocery list -- he uses college-level vocabulary and florid sentence structures")

elliptical

elliptic; oval; of an ellipse; containing an ellipsis; ambiguous either purposely or because key words have been left out (e.g. "Daniel's confession to his mother about why he had blown up their toilet was elliptical: it was so ambiguous that at the end she knew no more than she had to start with")

callous

emotionally hardened, unfeeling (e.g. "the callous wretch had not a clue that there was anything to be gained in the world other than money and power; such abstracts as love and hope perpetually eluded him")

culminate

end, especially to reach a final or climactic stage (e.g. "The Shakespearean play culminated in everybody dying.")

transient

enduring a very short time (e.g. "although the effects of the pain medication are only transient, they still provide some respite from pain")

exult

feel extreme happiness or elation (e.g. "Bob was exultant when, contrary to all expectations, he won an Olympic medal")

contrite

feeling regret for a fault or offense (e.g. "After he broke his aunt's expensive vase, Harry felt contrite; he apologized, and even offered to pay for a replacement.")

fervor

feelings of great warmth and intensity (e.g. "Donald really believes -- and with great fervor -- that the moon is made of green cheese")

inundate

fill or cover completely, usually with water (e.g. "each year since ancient times, the Nile river would burst out of its banks and inundate the surrounding countryside")

replenish

fill something that had previously been emptied (e.g. "Josephine drove to the gas station to replenish her car's supply of gasoline, for it was almost out")

replete

fill to satisfaction (e.g. "the fabulous buffet was replete with every treat I could have wanted") (note: the example sentence was from WikiAnswers")

pregnant

filled with or attended with; rich in significance or implication (e.g. "The atmosphere was pregnant with suspense.")

doleful

filled with or evoking sadness (e.g. "after Jimmy's mother refused to give him seconds for dessert, he said in a doleful voice, 'well, then, I guess I'll die of starvation'")

ascertain

find out, learn, or determine with certainty, usually by making an inquiry or other effort (e.g. "I had great difficulty in ascertaining exactly what species the specimen before me belonged to")

staunch

firm and dependable especially in loyalty (e.g. "the only staunch supporters of the candidate are the people to whom the candidate has promised money")

steadfast

firm and dependable especially in loyalty (e.g. "the only steadfast supporters of the candidate are the people to whom the candidate has promised money")

inveterate

firmly established, long-standing; habitual (e.g. "Harry is an inveterate liar; he has never told the truth once in his life")

conventional

following accepted customs and proprieties (e.g. "Juliette's idea to have people pay their taxes by giving all politicians twenty free meals during the year was not conventional; it was unusual.")

folly

foolish or senseless behavior (e.g. "one folly of modern society is its emphasis on fashion; fashion is fickle, and unworthy of emphasis")

embroil

force into some kind of situation, condition, or course of action (e.g. "as the Soviet Union became embroiled in Afghanistan, they slowly realized one thing, the same thing that America had realized in Viet Nam -- a guerrilla war simply cannot be won without overpowering brutality on the part of the invading force")

connive

form intrigues (for) in an underhand manner, encourage or assent to illegally or criminally (e.g. "the conniving criminals pondered about how they were going to invade Fort Knox")

recant

formally reject or disavow a formerly held belief, usually under pressure (e.g. "the authorities forced Galileo to recant his opinion that the earth revolved around the sun. Even so, he knew that they were wrong and he was right in his belief")

abjure

formally reject or disavow a formerly held belief, usually under pressure (e.g. "the scientist pleaded with the main to abjure the belief that the moon is made of green cheese")

burlesque

give an imitation that ridicules; imitate mockingly (e.g. "My burlesque imitation of my French teacher didn't make her very happy.")

sordid

foul and run-down and repulsive (e.g. "the sordid apartment building is extremely dirty, smelly, and generally not a great place to live")

sordid

foul and run-down and repulsive; unethical or dishonest; morally degraded (e.g. "The sordid condition of the hotel did not cause me to wish to stay there.")

mundane

found in the ordinary course of events (e.g. "Tim felt that life in was becoming a bit mundane, so he tried to find something novel to do")

quotidian

found in the ordinary course of events (e.g. "Winning the lottery is not a quotidian event.")

platonic

free from physical desire (e.g. "When I advised you to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, I was advising you to feel a platonic love towards all mankind.")

impartial

free from undue bias or preconceived opinions (e.g. "in court, judges are supposed to be impartial -- they aren't supposed to have decided beforehand who they believe is right")

anterior

front (e.g. "the historic sinking of the Titanic in 1912 began when its anterior collided with an iceberg")

porous

full of pores or vessels or holes; allowing passage in and out; able to absorb fluids (e.g. "If raincoats were porous, then everyone wearing them out in the rain would be soaking wet.")

garrulous

full of trivial conversation (e.g. "Harry's taciturn personality did not conflict with Jerry's garrulous one -- Jerry was happy to be able to talk all he pleased, and Harry was happy not to have to talk at all")

loquacious

full of trivial conversation (e.g. "I found it difficult to end the conversation; whenever I tried, my loquacious acquaintance would begin a long monologue about something, and I wouldn't be able to get a word in edgewise for over half of an hour")

auxiliary

functioning in a subsidiary or supporting capacity (e.g. "the normal motor and the auxiliary motor on the boat both ceased to function about the same time; unfortunately, the boat was about 50 miles from shore at the time and there were no oars")

disparate

fundamentally different or distinct in quality or kind (e.g. pens and pencils may look similar, but their constructions are disparate: they are made in two very different ways")

livid

furiously angry (e.g. "James' political opponent became livid when James pointed out all of the flaws in the opponent's views")

voluptuous

furnishing gratification of the senses (e.g. "The voluptuous meal, although admittedly grand, certainly added at least 10 pounds to my weight!")

coalesce

fuse or cause to grow together (e.g. "The particles in the test tube began to coalesce into a giant blob.")

ingratiate

gain favor with somebody by deliberate efforts (e.g. "the politician attempted to ingratiated himself with his constituency")

inept

generally incompetent and ineffectual (e.g. "the inept politician of Timbuktu was fired by the monarch, John Smith")

magnanimous

generous and understanding and tolerant (e.g. "although John Smith is supposedly a great philanthropist, his friends know that his magnanimous behavior is merely a facade to win public approval")

procure

get by special effort (e.g. "Although the prisoner found it difficult to procure an automatic escape-from-jail machine, he was able to bribe one of the guards to get one for him.")

intervene

get involved, so as to alter or hinder an action, or through force or threat of force; occur between other event or between certain points of time; be placed or located between other things or extend between spaces and events (e.g. "the United Nations intervened between the two warring parties")

address

give a speech to (e.g. "Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is considered one of the high points of American History.")

primal

having existed from the beginning; serving as an essential component (e.g. "It seems to be a primal instinct for members of a species to attempt to outcompete each other, a phenomenon dubbed as 'survival of the fittest'; it is through this process that natural selection occurs.")

resplendent

having great beauty and splendor; richly and brilliantly colorful (e.g. "Her wedding gown was a resplendent white.")

ponderous

having great mass and weight and unwieldiness (e.g. "in 'A Christmas Carol', by Charles Dickens, the ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge's dead business partner Jacob Marley claims that Scrooge has a 'ponderous chain' created from taking advantage of people and not helping the destitute")

tenuous

having little substance or significance (e.g. "the countries have a tenuous peace, which may be broken by any apparently hostile action from either side")

rarefied

having low density; of high moral or intellectual value; reserved for an elite group (e.g. "Human life is not viable on Mars due to its rarefied atmosphere -- at least, not viable unless the person is wearing a spacesuit.")

corporeal

having material or physical form or substance (e.g. "I will not believe that this theory is correct until I have corporeal proof of it")

ambiguous

having more than one possible meaning (e.g. "His mumble was ambiguous: I couldn't hear whether he had said 'nine' or 'none'.")

fortuitous

having no cause or apparent cause (e.g. "fortuitously, my car stopped working; I never could figure out why, and I eventually bought a new one")

amorphous

having no definite form or distinct shape (e.g. "Amoebas are amorphous; they constantly change shape.")

acute

having or experiencing a rapid onset and short but severe course (e.g. "The disease's symptoms include acute pain, difficulty breathing, liver failure, yellow skin, and death.")

stolid

having or revealing little emotion or sensibility (e.g. "His stolid nature would be well-suited for such an expedition.")

supercilious

having or showing arrogant superiority to and disdain of those one views as unworthy (e.g. "his supercilious personality drives me crazy: he really isn't talented at anything, but he seems to think that he is the best at everything")

proficient

having or showing knowledge and skill and aptitude (e.g. "surprisingly, when in university, Albert Einstein showed a remarkable lack of proficiency in many subjects")

benevolent

having or showing or arising from a desire to promote the welfare or happiness of others (e.g. "The generous benefactor mentioned two examples ago was benevolent.")

erudite

having or showing profound knowledge (e.g. "when people asked Albert Einstein to tell them about his General Theory of Relativity, his response was usually erudite to the point of being abstruse, so no one understood him")

motley

having sections or patches colored differently and usually brightly; a collection containing a variety of sorts of things; consisting of a haphazard assortment of different kinds (even to the point of incongruity) (e.g. "This quizlet set contains a motley assortment of various unrelated vocabulary words.")

tangible

having substance or material existence (e.g. "although hope and mercy do not have any direct tangible qualities (since they exist as abstract concepts), concrete actions can embody them")

viscous

having the properties of glue; having a relatively high resistance to flow (e.g. "Cold molasses is very viscous.")

cognitive

having to do with an organism's thinking and understanding (e.g. "The newly discovered alien has a very low cognitive capacity: it has an IQ of 2.")

rivet

heavy pin having a head at one end and the other end being hammered flat after being passed through holes in the pieces that are fastened together; direct one's attention on something, hold (someone's attention) (e.g. "My attention was riveted by his account of his escape from Cannibal Island.")

circumspect

heedful of potential consequences (e.g. "Had James been more circumspect, he would not have broken the light bulb, so he wouldn't have been grounded to his room.")

foster

help develop; help grow, promote the growth of (e.g. "the intellectual atmosphere of the Enlightenment fostered scientific advancement")

intricate

highly involved (e.g. "The plot was so convoluted and intricate that I couldn't follow it.")

mode

how something is done or how it happens (e.g. "After blasting all of the puny humans into dust, the space alien turned his blaster into invisibility mode, pointed it at himself, and disappeared.")

parody

humorous or satirical mimicry (e.g. "a parody of a book would be another book which sought to poke fun at the first; for example, one parody of the book 'Pride and Prejudice', by Jane Austen, is 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies'; this latter book, although it has very little literary value, still could be considered amusing because of the similarity of wording and sentence structure between it and the former book mentioned")

ironic

humorously sarcastic or mocking (e.g. "it seemed faintly ironic that the oppressive dictator was assassinated by someone who thought that he hadn't been oppressive enough")

ribald

humorously vulgar (e.g. "The ribald character of those jokes caused them to be unfit for placement in a clean joke book.")

appellation

identifying word or words by which someone or something is called and classified or distinguished from others; a name (e.g. "one appellation which Barack Obama could use to describe himself would be 'President of the United States'")

prattle

idle or foolish and irrelevant talk; speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly (e.g. "As Mrs. Smith prattled about the latest tabloid scandals, Mr. Smith was wondering how much it cost to get a divorce.")

halcyon

idyllically calm and peaceful; marked by peace and prosperity (e.g. "the halcyon days of the past are long gone; they have been replaced by nothing but a vast void of empty consumerism, inane foolishness, and utter stupidity")

contraband

illegal traffic, smuggled goods; illegal, prohibited (e.g. "the smugglers tried to sneak contraband into the country; however, the border guards caught them")

pristine

immaculately clean and unused (e.g. "to understate, Joe's house does not look pristine: honestly, it looks as if someone intentionally lived as messily as possible in it for six months without doing any cleanup work")

pristine

immaculately clean and unused; completely free from dirt or contamination (e.g. "The apartment was in pristine condition; it looked as if no one had ever lived in it before.")

sophomoric

immature and overconfident (e.g. "His sophomoric behavior could be a result of his being a sophomore.")

incorrigible

impervious to correction by punishment (e.g. "in Shakespeare's play 'The Tempest', one character, Caliban, is seen as being incorrigible: he is seen as being a character who will not and cannot repent of his evil deeds")

encroach

impinge or infringe upon (e.g. "one of the main rules of law is that a person is not allowed to encroach upon another person or their property")

implicit

implied though not directly expressed (e.g. "Jim didn't explicitly tell Tom to burn down Jones's barn, but the request was implicit in everything Jim said: that is, he didn't plainly tell Tom to burn down Jones's barn, but he communicated that general idea to Tom nonetheless")

intimate

imply as a possibility (e.g. "She did not directly state that if he asked her to marry him that she would say 'no'; but she did intimate it.")

entail

impose, involve, or imply as a necessary accompaniment or result (e.g. "unfortunately, a feasible plan for capturing the enemy city must by necessity entail the killing of all of its soldiers; considering that I am a pacifist, I do not feel that I can agree to such a plan")

ineluctable

impossible to avoid or evade (e.g. "although the rebel army fought courageously on, defeat was ineluctable")

irrevocable

impossible to retract or revoke (e.g. "John Smith made the irrevocable decision to fire nuclear missiles at Kalamazoo; his decision was irrevocable because the missiles could not be deactivated once they were in flight")

insatiable

impossible to satiate or satisfy (e.g. "the young child have an insatiable curiosity; no matter how many questions were answered to him, he always had another to ask")

insuperable

impossible to surmount (e.g. "attempting to get an A+ on his history test seemed like an insuperable challenge, especially considering that usually he only got very poor grades")

impenetrable

impossible to understand; not admitting of penetration or passage into or through; permitting little if any light to pass through because of denseness of matter (e.g. "quantum mechanics tend to be considered impenetrable for non-scientists")

dilapidated

in deplorable condition (e.g. "the dilapidated, old barn has not been used for decades; now, no one uses it because everyone is afraid that it would collapse on them if they tried to use it")

apprehensive

in fear or dread of possible evil or harm (e.g. "Leo was apprehensive about what his parents would say after he got an F on his history test.")

underlying

in the nature of something though not readily apparent; being or involving basic facts or principles; located beneath or below (e.g. "The underlying principles which we stand upon include honesty, justice, and integrity.")

lethargy

inactivity (e.g. "a sense of lethargy began to steal over the man; only after he was extremely tired did he realize that his lethargy was an effect of the poisonous gases seeping through the floor")

torpor

inactivity resulting from torpidity and lack of vigor or energy (e.g. "it is only very rarely that I demonstrate torpor; usually I am quite industrious")

innate

inborn (e.g. "some behaviors of various animals are innate: a squirrel doesn't have to learn how to eat acorns; they already know how")

inherent

inborn (e.g. "some people believe that humans are born inherently good and are then corrupted to become bad; others believe that humans are inherently bad and then have to be educated to become good")

inalienable

incapable of being repudiated or transferred to another; not subject to forfeiture (e.g. "we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness")

sanguine

inclined to a healthy reddish color often associated with outdoor life (e.g. "I found out that the man I was speaking to, who was sanguine and ruddy, was a farmer by trade")

amorous

inclined toward or displaying love (e.g. "His amorous manner caused her to believe that he thought she was in love with him; she showed him in no uncertain terms that she didn't: she slapped his face and walked out of the room.")

comprise

include or contain (e.g. "Jerry's plan to take over the world basically comprised a whole bunch of nonsense.")

comprehensive

including all or everything (e.g. "The teacher enjoyed her student's comprehensive summary of Theodore Roosevelt's life that he gave as an oral report; so she gave him an A on that assignment.")

annuity

income from capital investment paid in a series of regular payments (e.g. "in the Chilean privatized Social Security system, after one retires, his money, formerly in a pension fund, may be transferred into an annuity with an insurance company")

presage

indicate by signs (e.g. "In times long past, the sighting of a comet was supposed to presage bad luck.")

augur

indicate by signs; (ancient Rome) a religious official who interpreted omens to guide public policy (e.g. "the moral decay of society does not augur well for those reformers in society who seek to improve societal morality")

tacit

indicated by necessary connotation though not expressed directly (e.g. "there was tacit approval of the plan among the leaders of the country")

infinitesimal

infinitely or immeasurably small (e.g. "Calculus could be considered the study of infinitesimals, the study of the infinitely small")

omniscient

infinitely wise (e.g. "How could he have possibly known what I was thinking? Is he omniscient or something?")

punitive

inflicting punishment (e.g. "Puritan society was incredibly punitive -- for committing adultery, one could be put to death.")

prepossess

influence (somebody's) opinion in advance (e.g. "when the lamp got broken after my brother and I were fighting, I quickly ran to my mother to tell her my side of the story; unfortunately for me, my brother had got there first, and had prepossessed her with regards to the fight")

cajole

influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering (e.g. "She tried to cajole him into giving her a million dollars, but he was steadfast: he wasn't going to give her any money.")

cant

insincere talk about religion or morals (e.g. "the character Mr. Bumble from 'Oliver Twist' by Charles Dickens has some stringent rules regarding moral and decent behavior in others; however, his apparent piety is proven to be merely cant when he himself breaks the standard by which he judges others")

hypocrisy

insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or beliefs that you do not really have; an expression of agreement that is not supported by real conviction (e.g. "the character Mr. Bumble from 'Oliver Twist' by Charles Dickens exhibits great hypocrisy; he lauds the virtue of humility and then goes on to prove himself to be a prideful bigot")

sublime

inspiring awe (e.g. "the sunset was perfectly sublime")

didactic

instructive (especially excessively) (e.g. "the priest's didactic lecture was very helpful to all who listened")

ostentatious

intended to attract notice and impress others (e.g. "he ostentatiously flaunted all his possessions, including his Ferrari and Rolex watch")

spurious

intended to deceive (e.g. "the man's spurious account of the fight was designed to cover up his major role as its instigator")

insidious

intended to deceive or entrap; sly, treacherous (e.g. "although the monarch of Timbuktu seemed willing enough to arrange peace talks with Kalamazoo, the talks were merely an insidious trap designed to give Timbuktu a 'legitimate' reason to attack Kalamazoo")

subversive

intended to undermine or overthrow (e.g. "Harry's subversive plot to overthrow all the governments in the world at once and take over had innumerable flaws, one of which was that his plan was so abstruse that even he didn't understand it")

revulsion

intense aversion (e.g. "I pulled back in revulsion at the sight of the creepy-looking spider.")

woe

intense mournfulness; misery resulting from affliction (e.g. "Woe is me! I accidentally flushed my homework down the toilet!")

officious

intrusive in a meddling or offensive manner (e.g. "the officious salesperson seemed to be continually hovering behind me, apparently believing that if he left for a moment, I would decide not to buy the product")

bracing

invigorating (e.g. "I find a bracing wind to be very healthful")

superficial

involving a surface only (e.g. "although there are some similarities between a pen and a pencil, most of these are superficial: their actual constructions are very different")

qualitative

involving distinctions based on qualities (e.g. "when looking at them qualitatively, I can hold the opinion that Lesa is more pretty than Hannah")

fiscal

involving financial matters (e.g. "Arnold, you need to learn fiscal responsibility; otherwise you'll bankrupt the whole company!")

cerebral

involving intelligence rather than emotions or instinct ("Albert is very cerebral: he never does anything based on his emotions; whenever a decision is placed before him, he takes into account possible advantages and disadvantages, current events, and the current economic situation without any bias to come to a decision.")

unilateral

involving only one part or side (e.g. "Children hate it when their parents make unilateral decisions; that is, when their parents make decisions without giving them any input.")

consonant

involving or characterized by harmony (e.g. "The musicians sounded consonant: the instruments sounded good together.")

sensory

involving or derived from the senses (e.g. "one's sensory input is derived mostly from five sources: one's sight, hearing, sense of touch, taste, and smell")

contentious

involving or likely to cause controversy (e.g. "The last example sentence might cause politicians to become contentious; they might disagree; after all, they know their job better than I.")

intrepid

invulnerable to fear or intimidation (e.g. "the intrepid explorers hiked many miles, scaled tall cliffs, and generally did things which are highly unrecommended for amateurs")

bilious

irritable as if suffering from indigestion; suffering from or suggesting a liver disorder or gastric distress; relating to or containing bile (e.g. "I did not find his bilious nature pleasing; I never heard him say a kind word to anyone")

ensue

issue or terminate (in a specified way, state, etc.) (e.g. "after the atomic bomb blew up in the center of the city, mayhem ensued in all parts of the city that still had anyone alive in them")

ebullient

joyously unrestrained (e.g. "Pauli had an ebullient personality; it, figuratively speaking, seemed to froth and bubble over with happiness")

exuberant

joyously unrestrained (e.g. "his exuberant attitude was appropriate, considering that he had just won the Nobel Prize")

decimate

kill in large numbers (e.g. "in ancient Rome, if an army had shown cowardice, it was common practice to have the army decimated: one out of every ten would be beaten to death. This is where the word 'decimated' comes from; deci- means one-tenth; one-tenth of the whole army would be beaten to death")

auspices

kindly endorsement and guidance (e.g. "our laboratory operates under the auspices of the university down the street; they fund us and give us guidance with our experiments")

disdain

lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike (e.g. "the wine connoisseur mentioned in the last example has a feeling of disdain for all lesser wines")

scorn

lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike; open disrespect for a person or thing; reject with contempt; look down on with disdain (e.g. "The athlete felt scorn and derision for all non-athletes.")

nebulous

lacking definition or definite content (e.g. "a word similar to this is 'nebula'. A nebula is a region of space containing dust and gases where stars are thought to be forming. The objects in nebulae are nebulous")

nebulous

lacking definition or definite content; lacking definite form or limits (e.g. "His plan to take over the world is pretty nebulous; all he knows is that he wants his takeover to involve lots of large nuclear explosions, but he hasn't gotten any farther than that.")

craven

lacking even the rudiments of courage (e.g. "craven men should not enlist in the army")

callow

lacking experience of life (e.g. "The callow man was an easy target for charlatans and other unscrupulous people to rip off.")

dissonant

lacking in harmony (e.g. "The musicians sounded dissonant: the instruments did not sound as if they were meant to be played together.")

incongruous

lacking in harmony or compatibility or appropriateness (e.g. "his formal suit and tie seemed incongruous with the overall atmosphere of the pool party")

purblind

lacking in insight or discernment; having greatly reduced vision (e.g. "In 'Star Wars,' the Jedi were purblind in that they didn't see Senator Palpatine for what he really was.")

lax

lacking in rigor or strictness (e.g. "The principal's standards are far too lax; the last time a student attacked his teacher, he wasn't even suspended")

ingenuous

lacking in sophistication or worldliness (e.g. "in the movie 'Mr. Smith goes to Washington', Mr. Smith is portrayed as the United States' only ingenuous politician")

licentious

lacking moral discipline (e.g. "His licentious behavior has given him a bad reputation among all women over 30")

impotent

lacking power or ability (e.g. "although there is still a traditional queen of England, she is impotent -- she doesn't have the ability to arbitrarily make war on other countries, like the kings and queens did centuries ago")

diffident

lacking self-confidence (e.g. "Harold's diffident nature caused it to be extremely difficult for him to have a successful job interview")

vapid

lacking significance or liveliness or spirit or zest (e.g. "the vapid nature of the reptile, when its environment has been sufficiently chilled, can be its destruction, for its torpidity may prevent it from escaping from a predator")

gauche

lacking social polish (e.g. "Louise is so narrow-minded -- she automatically assumes that anyone who picks their nose two nostrils at a time is gauche")

insipid

lacking taste or flavor or tang (e.g. "the insipid soup was not foul-tasting, per se; but it was so bland that I couldn't eat it")

arid

lacking vitality or spirit; lacking sufficient water or rainfall (e.g. "the climate here is particularly arid; less than eight inches of rain fall here per year")

listless

lacking zest or vivacity (e.g. "He listlessly performed his duties, but he didn't have that cheerfulness about him which normally characterizes his behavior.")

commodious

large and roomy ('convenient' is archaic in this sense) (e.g. "the commodious hotel room was far larger than we had expected; it was a pleasant surprise")

capacious

large in capacity (e.g. "this capacious house feels lonely to me; I believe that a smaller one would suit me better")

voluminous

large in number or quantity (especially of discourse); large in volume or bulk (e.g. "His voluminous collection of encyclopedias remained largely unused, probably because it would take an extremely voracious reader to read even half of the material contained in them.")

assail

launch an attack or assault on (e.g. "the opposing army assailed the castle, but were unable to break through its extensive outer fortifications")

protract

lengthen in time (e.g. "the protracted negotiations for a new peace treaty ended in failure")

clemency

leniency and compassion shown toward offenders by a person or agency charged with administering justice (e.g. "After President Nixon resigned, the next president offered him clemency: that is, he pardoned him.")

palliate

lessen or to try to lessen the seriousness or extent of (e.g. "the Marshall Plan was meant to palliate the damage done to Europe during World War II")

belittle

lessen the authority, dignity, or reputation of (e.g. "My older brother constantly belittled me by telling me about how the subjects he was doing in school were so much more advanced than what I was doing, etc., etc.")

fickle

liable to sudden unpredictable change (e.g. "fashion is fickle; what is fashionable today will be anachronistic tomorrow")

mercurial

liable to sudden unpredictable change; relating to or having characteristics (eloquence, shrewdness, swiftness, thievishness) attributed to the god Mercury (e.g. "the mercurial personality of Todd's anthropology professor causes him to fear his anthropology class -- he do not know whether his professor was going to seem nasty or pleasant on any given day")

levity

lightness of manner (e.g. "the comedian's manner was one of levity; in fact, all comedians' manners are ones of levity; if their manners weren't, then they wouldn't be comedians")

avuncular

like an uncle in kindness or indulgence (e.g. "My math teacher was almost avuncular in nature: he was very helpful in giving me advice on non-mathematically related topics.")

scant

limit in quality or quantity; supply sparingly and with restricted quantities (e.g. "Our scant supply of food in the refrigerator will not be sufficient to feed all of our guests.")

literal

limited to the explicit meaning of a word or text (e.g. "Donald believes that the moon is made of green cheese. Figuratively speaking, this could be considered an intellectual fetter. However, it could not be considered a literal fetter, because his belief does not literally consist of shackles binding him")

alacrity

liveliness and eagerness (e.g. "My parents ask me to do my chores with alacrity.")

grandiloquent

lofty in style (e.g. "the grandiloquent Mr. Bumble from 'Oliver Twist' was definitely supposed to be an unsympathetic character; he was bigoted and hypocritical")

ratiocination

logical and methodical reasoning (e.g. "Computers are renowned for their ratiocination.")

nostalgia

longing for something past (e.g. "drive-in movie theaters are mostly a phenomenon of the past; however, some still exist today. Probably much of their business comes from elderly people nostalgic about 'the good old days' and who are trying to relive them")

depreciate

lose in value (e.g. "In the adverse economic climate, all of my stocks depreciated")

waive

lose or lose the right to by some error, offense, or crime; do without or cease to hold or adhere to (e.g. "I waived my right to a lawyer after I was arrested.")

cacophony

loud confusing disagreeable sounds (e.g. "The band director threw up his hands and walked out the door when he heard the cacophony of his musicians' music.")

downcast

low in spirits (e.g. "I was understandably downcast after I got an F on my exam")

dispirit

lower someone's spirits (e.g. "I was dispirited when I got all Fs on my report card")

degrade

lower the grade of something; reduce in worth or character, usually verbally (e.g. "Harry considered janitorial work to be degrading to him")

farcical

ludicrous (e.g. "when Bob dared Jim to eat 200 doughnuts at one sitting, he was being farcical; there was no way anyone could eat 200 doughnuts at once. Jim, however, was not aware of this, and tried it")

careen

lurch; sway from side to side; move with irregular swinging movement; stagger (e.g. "the drunk driver careened down the road in his car")

postulate

maintain or assert (e.g. "Euclid, the Father of Geometry, built a system of geometry containing ten basic postulates")

harry

make a pillaging or destructive raid on (a place), as in wartime; annoy continually or chronically (e.g. "my little brother was harrying me, trying to get me to allow him to eat my chocolate bar")

forebode

make a prediction about (e.g. "the explosion of the atomic bomb over the capitol building does not forebode well for the future of our nation")

expiate

make amends for (e.g. "the criminal tried to expiate his crime by returning all that he had stolen")

stipulate

make an oral contract or agreement in the verbal form of question and answer that is necessary to give it legal force (e.g. "the teacher stipulated that the all homework assignments would have to be turned in by the next school day")

endear

make attractive or lovable (e.g. "his irascible personality did not aid his attempt to endear himself to me")

apprise

make aware of (e.g. "have you been apprised that John, your best friend, is really a Martian?")

dissemble

make believe with the intent to deceive (e.g. "Jimmy tried to dissemble and convince his mother that he hadn't broken the lamp and that it had been someone else; his mother didn't believe him")

feign

make believe with the intent to deceive (e.g. "the girl feigned happiness at her Christmas present, but in reality, she was bitterly disappointed that she had not gotten something else")

incense

make furious (e.g. "my argument against child-labor so incensed the pro-child-labor fanatic that he became apoplectic")

vitiate

make imperfect (e.g. "a drop of toilet water would vitiate the freshness and pureness of the spring water")

nullify

make ineffective by counterbalancing the effect of; show to be invalid; declare invalid (e.g. "The king nullified the age-old law which stated that anyone who didn't conform to the beliefs of the state had to be put to death.")

divulge

make known to the public information that was previously known only to a few people or that was meant to be kept a secret (e.g. "the man who divulged all of the nasty things that the ruler of the country was doing was executed by the ruler of the country")

slake

make less active or intense; satisfy (thirst) (e.g. "His thirst was slaked by drinking at the river.")

mollify

make less rigid or softer (e.g. "the mother attempted to mollify the baby by sticking a pacifier into his mouth")

mitigate

make less severe or harsh (e.g. "after John saw that his words had cut deeper into Laura than he had intended, he tried to mitigate the acerbity of his past words, but it was impossible: the damage was already done")

obfuscate

make obscure or unclear (e.g. "when Tommy's mother asked him how he had managed to 'accidentally' burn their house down, cause a train wreck, and instigate global thermonuclear war all in a period of less than two hours, Tommy attempted to obfuscate the answer to her question, because he didn't want to tell the truth")

replicate

make or do or perform again; biology: reproduce or make an exact copy of (e.g. "When a simple microbe, for example a unicellular prokaryote, replicates asexually, the resulting two organisms have an identical genetic complement to the original.")

consummate

make perfect (e.g. "He was the consummate politician: he never answered a question straight, but always resorted to circumlocutions to avoid really answering it.")

impoverish

make poor; take away (e.g. "the formerly affluent man was impoverished by the unfair tax policies of the king")

habituate

make psychologically or physically used (to something) (e.g. "Alfred tried to habituate himself to his new lifestyle, but he could not")

marshal

make ready for action or use (e.g. "when the Confederate States of America besieged Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln marshaled the United States Army for war")

predispose

make susceptible (e.g. "Honestly, one major reason I disagree with you is that I was predisposed to believe a view other than yours; that is, I was raised believing otherwise.")

debilitate

make weak (e.g. "he was debilitated by the alien death-ray")

exacerbate

make worse (e.g. "Bob tried to comfort Mary over the death of her brother; however, his comments merely exacerbated her feelings")

exasperate

make worse (e.g. "I exasperated my mother by not doing any of the household chores")

improvise

manage in a makeshift way; perform without preparation (e.g. "after I was seized with the urge to practice my acting skills, I decided to improvise something on the spot, so I gave an impromptu one-man rendition of Hamlet")

stupor

marginal consciousness; the feeling of distress and disbelief that you have when something bad happens accidentally (e.g. "He shook off his feeling of stupor, realizing that it would not help him to regain his lost position.")

decadent

marked by excessive self-indulgence and moral decay (e.g. "the meeting of the delinquent teens, mentioned two examples ago, was decadent")

vehement

marked by extreme intensity of emotions or convictions (e.g. "when asked whether he had committed the murder, Bob Smith's vehement denial convinced the jury that he was innocent")

infatuated

marked by foolish or unreasoning fondness (e.g. "John Smith seems infatuated with Jane Doe -- everything he says is about her")

perverse

marked by immorality; resistant to guidance or discipline; marked by a disposition to oppose and contradict (e.g. "Unfortunately, sadists take a perverse pleasure in inflicting pain on others.")

wary

marked by keen caution and watchful prudence; openly distrustful and unwilling to confide (e.g. "I was understandably wary as the martian approached me.")

astute

marked by practical hardheaded intelligence (e.g. "His astuteness, combined with a lack of scruples, caused him to be able to make a fortune unrivaled in the country.")

shrewd

marked by practical hardheaded intelligence; used of persons (e.g. "Through shrewd investments, he made a fortune out of his original $1000.")

punctilious

marked by precise accordance with details (e.g. "Although the man is certainly punctilious with regards to his own work -- that is, he accepts nothing but the best from himself -- he doesn't impose his standards of excellence on others, in that he doesn't require others to live up to his standards of excellence.")

meticulous

marked by precise accordance with details; marked by extreme care in treatment of details (e.g. "The anthropologist meticulously examined all of the artifacts at the dig before creating a theory of the way of life of the ancient culture.")

discreet

marked by prudence or modesty and wise self-restraint (e.g. "he was very discreet; he never gossiped")

genteel

marked by refinement in taste and manners (e.g. "his facade of genteelness was merely a covering for his inner crassness")

brusque

marked by rude or peremptory shortness (e.g. "'Come with me,' said the man brusquely")

artful

marked by skill in achieving a desired end especially with cunning or craft (e.g. "In Dickens's work 'Oliver Twist', the 'Artful Dodger' is a nickname for one of the characters who is very adept at avoiding capture by the police.")

acrimonious

marked by strong resentment or cynicism (e.g. "Their response to his plan was acrimonious, and not without cause: his name was Adolf Hitler, and his plan involved mass murder.")

recalcitrant

marked by stubborn resistance to authority (e.g. "the Roman Catholic authorities probably saw Galileo as an extremely recalcitrant man: he tried to claim that the earth revolved around the sun, and not vice versa. The authorities believed that if people believed him, it would be a blow to their power")

urbane

marked by wide-ranging knowledge and appreciation of many parts of the world arising from urban life and wide travel (e.g. "the urbane traveler delighted us with his stories of New Delhi, Calcutta and New York City, none of which we had even personally seen")

peculiar

markedly different from the usual; beyond or deviating from the usual or expected (e.g. "The peculiar design of this artifact shows that it apparently served a purpose yet unknown to archaeologists.")

convene

meet formally, call together (e.g. "after the meeting had convened, I brought some matters to the attention of the group which I considered extremely important")

dotage

mental infirmity as a consequence of old age (e.g. "his grandmother is well into her dotage; she cannot look after herself and has to live in a nursing home")

immigration

migration into a place (especially migration to a country of which one are not a native in order to settle there) (e.g. "in the 1800s, during the Irish potato famine, many immigrated to the United States")

disinformation

misinformation that is deliberately disseminated in order to influence or confuse rivals (foreign enemies or business competitors etc.) (e.g. "the one country disseminated disinformation about the size of its armed forces so that the country with which it had a very tenuous peace wouldn't consider it prudent to attack it")

alloy

mixture as of metals; something added that lowers in value or purity; mix; make less pure; lower in value or quality; spoil (e.g. "Bronze is an alloy, composed of copper and tin.")

apotheosis

model of excellence or perfection of a kind (e.g. "Leonardo da Vinci was the apotheosis of the Renaissance man.")

tepid

moderately warm (e.g. "I realized that something was wrong with our water heater after I found that the water coming out of the 'hot water' spigot was merely tepid.")

puritanical

morally rigorous and strict; exaggeratedly proper (e.g. "Although the word 'puritanical' is derived directly from the word 'Puritan', the Puritans were in many ways undeserving of the word; however, in many situations, they were; for example, they were incredibly punitive -- for committing adultery, one could be put to death.")

superfluous

more than is needed, desired, or required (e.g. "I asked Albert to tell me a little bit about quantum theory; he did, but then he went on to give me more and more superfluous information, which I could not understand even if I had tried")

redundant

more than is needed, desired, or required (e.g. "it can be a good thing for equipment to have redundant parts; that way, if one of the parts fails, there is a backup which can take over for it")

predominant

most frequent or common; having superior power and influence (e.g. "Although in ancient Rome a polytheistic worldview was predominant, nowadays monotheistic and atheistic worldviews are the main worldviews.")

abject

most unfortunate or miserable (e.g. "The abject beggar lay on the streets, begging for food.")

dissipate

move away from each other (e.g. "as the toxic gas dissipated, everyone who was still alive was able to breathe again")

teem

move in large numbers; be teeming, be abuzz (e.g. "The ants teemed over the remnant of sticky syrup that had been left on the table.")

oscillate

move or swing from side to side regularly; be undecided about something (e.g. "As a pendulum oscillates from side to side, the amplitude of its swings will gradually slow as a result of the ever-present air resistance.")

brawn

muscular strength (e.g. "'I didn't hire you for your brains,' said the supervisor, 'I hired you for your brawn.'")

inviolate

must be kept sacred (e.g. "Unfortunately, the mosaic did not survive World War II inviolate; it was badly cracked by an explosion from Allied bombs.")

sacrosanct

must be kept sacred (e.g. "the nonexistent 'Fanatical Chocolate Lovers of America' society might believe that the idea that chocolate is always healthy is sacrosanct")

reciprocal

mutual (e.g. "my feelings of hate for Bob were reciprocated by his feelings of hate for me")

panacea

mythological remedy for all ills or diseases (e.g. "in the days of Lewis and Clark, a particular type of laxative was considered to be a panacea: whenever anyone was sick, that was what they were forced to take")

exculpate

pronounce not guilty of criminal charges (e.g. "Henry was exculpated with regards to the murder; he was pronounced 'not guilty'.")

bemoan

regret strongly (e.g. "'Oh, why didn't I listen to the advice of those wiser than me?' the broken man bemoaned")

lament

regret strongly (e.g. "the widow loudly lamented her husband's death")

spurn

reject with contempt (e.g. "Despite his former graciousness to me, I spurned his pleas and allowed him to be thrown off of the cliff.")

gesticulate

show, express or direct through movement (e.g. "pantomimes do not speak; to communicate, they gesticulate")

intersperse

place at intervals in or among (e.g. "the jewels were interspersed among the chaff")

insular

narrowly restricted in outlook or scope (e.g. "the hermit lived an insular existence; he never ventured more than 50 feet from his cave")

novel

new; original (e.g. "Tim had a novel idea for achieving world peace: 'why don't all the governments in the world give their powers to me?' he asked. 'If I had all the power, then I could be a despot, and then nobody would be happy, but all the countries in the world would have a common trouble, which would help unite them'")

altercation

noisy quarrel (e.g. "unfortunately, my mother heard the altercation between my brother and myself, so both my brother and I got in big trouble")

cipher

nonentity; worthless person or thing; zero; secret code; V. (e.g. "if one has three apples, and then he eats three of his apples, how many uneaten apples does he have left? Cipher")

ineradicable

not able to be destroyed or rooted out (e.g. "it seems that corruption in government is ineradicable; it can't be completely removed")

dormant

not active but capable of becoming active (e.g. "the volcano was not currently active, but it was dormant--although it wasn't currently showing any signs of spewing lava, it could have begun any time")

static

not active or moving (e.g. "the position of the ship remains static -- it still isn't moving")

impervious

not admitting of passage or capable of being affected (e.g. "the alien invaders from outer space were impervious to the machine gun bullets being fired at them -- the bullets merely bounced off of the aliens' force field.")

unwitting

not aware or knowing (e.g. "charlatans will usually attempt to prey upon unwitting passers-by")

adamant

not capable of being swayed or diverted from a course (e.g. "He was adamant: all the money in the world wouldn't convince him to aid Mr. Bad Guy with his evil plot.")

intransigent

not capable of being swayed or diverted from a course (e.g. "although the nations of the world gave a heroic defense, the alien army was intransigent in its pursuit of conquering the entire world; they succeeded after a 22-year war")

inexorable

not capable of being swayed or diverted from a course (e.g. "during the Civil War, the Union forces, commanded by Grant, inexorably approached the Confederate capital, Richmond, during the final stages of the war")

opaque

not clear (e.g. "curtains are supposed to be opaque, or at least translucent; they aren't supposed to allow someone on the other side to see in")

obscure

not clearly understood or expressed (e.g. "when I asked Jane why she believed that the moon was made of green cheese, she cited all kinds of obscure sources from the 1400s")

incredulous

not disposed or willing to believe (e.g. "When I lied to Jimmy and told him that scientists had just discovered that the Earth was flat, not round, he was incredulous; he didn't believe me.")

indiscrete

not divided or divisible into parts (e.g. "in a homogeneous mixture, all of the substances have mixed together, being conjoined into one whole; it is an indiscrete mixture")

forbear

not do something (e.g. "Bob decided to forbear having a fifth piece of chocolate cake")

onerous

not easily borne (e.g. "Jack found the task of babysitting his little sister when his parents were away so onerous that he enrolled her in a 24-hr. daycare center")

extraneous

not essential (e.g. "although iPads and iPhones are fun and can be enjoyable, they are extraneous on a camping trip")

temperate

not extreme (e.g. "the temperate latitudes are neither extremely north or south (where it is very cold) nor very near the equator (where it is very hot): they are in-between")

inimical

not friendly (e.g. "the inimical remarks that he made regarding my essay led me to believe that either he didn't like me, or else my essay was terrible")

faux

not genuine or real (e.g. "the necklace contains merely faux diamonds")

impecunious

not having enough money to pay for necessities (e.g. "typically, beggars are impecunious")

paranormal

not in accordance with scientific laws; seemingly outside normal sensory channels (e.g. "The apparently paranormal events of yesterday most assuredly have a natural, reasonable explanation.")

sedentary

not involving motion(e.g. "His corpulence is probably a result of his sedentary lifestyle.")

disproportionate

not proportionate (e.g. "the unfair treasurer of the company divided the profits disproportionately; he let everyone else have 1% of the profits, and he took 99% for himself")

civil

not rude (e.g. "Knights are supposed to be civil when conversing with ladies.")

quixotic

not sensible about practical matters (e.g. "the quixotic man galloped around on his horse, mistaking windmills for giants and generally making a fool of himself") (note: if the example sentence does not make much sense, read 'Don Quixote', by Cervantes; 'quixotic' comes from the main character of that work")

tortuous

not straightforward; marked by repeated turns and bends; highly involved or intricate (e.g. "It would be difficult to argue that our modern tax code is not tortuous; even the advice which the IRS gives is wrong a significant percentage of the time.")

immutable

not subject or susceptible to change or variation in form or quality or nature (e.g. "one of the immutable laws of human nature is that humans will generally try to get as much 'stuff' as they can for the least effort")

insubordinate

not submissive to authority (e.g. "in the navy, insubordination is a crime")

distinct

not the same; different or separate (e.g. "there are two distinct and separate parts to the test: a multiple choice section and a free-response section")

intractable

not tractable (e.g. "mules are generally considered to be the epitome of intractability")

extort

obtain by coercion or intimidation (e.g. "my elder sister tried to extort money from me by threatening to attack me with the Ping-Pong ball gun if I didn't")

banal

obvious and dull (e.g. "The speaker's banal speech put everyone in the audience to sleep.")

occult

occult practices and techniques; supernatural forces and events and beings collectively; having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence (e.g. "Although some people believe in spirits and other occult stuff, other people believe that it is all nonsense.")

convivial

occupied with or fond of the pleasures of good company (e.g. "Ali was a very convivial person; he always seemed to have at least five or six guests over for dinner.")

posthumous

occurring or coming into existence after a person's death (e.g. "'The Diary of Anne Frank' was published posthumously.")

concurrent

occurring or operating at the same time (e.g. "Their house had two TVs running concurrently, and each had a different show on; the result was extremely discordant.")

incessant

occurring so frequently as to seem ceaseless or uninterrupted (e.g. "the children's incessant whining nearly drove their mother mad")

apropos

of an appropriate or pertinent nature (e.g. "your appearance, James, is strikingly apropos, since we were just discussing you")

domestic

of concern to or concerning the internal affairs of a nation (e.g. "one of the lines in the Preamble to the American Constitution is, 'to ensure domestic tranquility'--one of the purposes of American government it to keep the nation tranquil")

exquisite

of extreme beauty; intense or sharp (e.g. "when stabbed, one feels exquisite pain")

grievous

of great gravity or crucial import; causing fear or anxiety by threatening great harm; shockingly brutal or cruel; causing or marked by grief or anguish (e.g. "the grievous sins of the populous weighed heavily upon the king")

aristocratic

of noble birth; snobbish (e.g. "Louis XVI was aristocratic, so the leaders of the French Revolution cut off his head.")

ecclesiastical

of or associated with a church (especially a Christian Church) (e.g. "'although I would enjoy staying longer, I have my ecclesiastical duties to attend to,' said the bishop politely")

tactical

of or pertaining to tactic or tactics (e.g. "We believe that the Empire has made a tactical error: although the Death Star is impregnable to an attack by our larger cruisers, it does have a weakness which can be exploited by our one-man fighters.")

draconian

of or relating to Draco or his harsh code of laws (e.g. "my draconian math teacher has given the entire class all sorts of extremely difficult math problems that Einstein himself probably couldn't solve")

acquiesce

to accept without protest; to agree or submit (e.g. "The man acquiesced to the dictator's demands.")

equestrian

of or relating to or featuring horseback riding (e.g. "the sign read, 'this is an equestrian facility; according to state and federal law, any injuries which occur in this facility as a result of personal stupidity will be your own fault, so you will be unable to sue us'")

temporal

of or relating to or limited by time (e.g. "Most world religions espouse a belief in a reality other than that which is temporal.")

ursine

of or relating to or similar to bears (e.g. "Many national parks containing bears have special trash-receptacle boxes which are ursine-resistant.")

culinary

of or relating to or used in cooking (e.g. "The chef called his best dish his 'culinary delight', which was rather redundant, because all food is culinary.")

municipal

of or relating to the government of a municipality; relating or belonging to or characteristic of a municipality (e.g. "It is a municipal regulation in this town that it is illegal to drive over 55 miles per hour.")

apocryphal

of questionable authenticity (e.g. "Mary's tale about how she caught a killer whale with a fishhook is apocryphal.")

marginal

of something or someone close to a lower limit or lower class; of a bare living gained by great labor, at or constituting a border or edge; of questionable or minimal quality; producing at a rate that barely covers production costs; just barely adequate or within a lower limit (e.g. "Although it may have been possible for a person to make a marginal living in the factories during the Industrial Revolution, surely even the most staunch supporter of the techniques employed there would be forced to admit that the living standards which were affordable given the compensation for a person's labor were hardly conducive to healthfulness or happiness.")

tangential

of superficial relevance if any (e.g. "although the lecture seemed to have only a tangential relevance to the topic that the lecturer was actually supposed to be lecturing about, I enjoyed it nonetheless")

sensual

of the appetites and passions of the body (e.g. "human beings are ipso facto sensual creatures; they desire to experience pleasure, and generally do not seek to avoid it")

cosmopolitan

of worldwide scope or applicability (e.g. "His views were cosmopolitan, not limited to any one city or state.")

repugnant

offensive to the mind (e.g. "The very thought of abstinence from alcohol was repugnant to the alcoholic.")

noisome

offensively malodorous; causing or able to cause nausea (e.g. "That noisome stench is apparently coming from the broken toilet upstairs.")

supine

offering no resistance; lying face upward (e.g. "After a patient in the operating room is anesthetized, he is completely supine.")

sanction

official permission or approval; a mechanism of social control for enforcing a society's standards; the act of final authorization, formal and explicit approval; give sanction to; give authority or permission to (e.g. "I believe that either the country will sanction the country's policies, or else they'll impose sanctions on the country that instituted them.")

moribund

on the point of death (e.g. "just before he died, the moribund man gave a last deathbed confession to his mother: on the morning of June 15, 1985, he hadn't brushed his teeth")

stratum

one of several parallel layers of material arranged one on top of another (such as a layer of tissue or cells in an organism) (e.g. "the rock strata (pl. of stratum) are arranged in several varying heterogeneous layers")

plebeian

one of the common people (e.g. "in the days of the Roman Republic, there were two main classes of people: the patricians, or the influential, affluent class, and the plebeians")

predecessor

one who precedes you in time (as in holding a position or office) (e.g. "The predecessor of Barack Obama was George Bush, Jr.")

charlatan

one who pretends to have knowledge in order to swindle others ("Bernie Madoff was a charlatan: he managed to swindle billions and billions of dollars out of people's pockets.")

martyr

one who suffers for the sake of principle (e.g. "Todd considered himself a martyr for the cause of nutrition: when he had mentioned to a diehard chocolate lover that he believed that chocolate, in excessive amounts, was bad for a person, the chocolate lover had whacked him over the head with a large book")

incipient

only partly in existence (e.g. "Nelson's plan to take over the world was merely in its incipient stages -- he had not yet formulated all of the details")

equivocal

open to two or more interpretations (e.g. "when reporters in Timbuktu asked John Smith, the monarch, to elaborate on why he had recently imposed a law that everyone had to eat peanut butter and pickle sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, John Smith's answer was equivocal, probably because he didn't want people to know the truth")

insurrection

organized opposition to authority (e.g. "President Abraham Lincoln declared that the Confederate States of America had not truly been their own country, but that they had merely been a part of the United States of America that had been in a state of insurrection against the rest of the country")

hubris

overbearing pride or presumption (e.g. "he had the hubris to assume that he would win the boxing match without effort; as a result, he did not exercise beforehand, and so he very nearly lost")

reclaim

overcome the wildness of; make useful again; bring, lead, or force to abandon a wrong or evil course of life, conduct, and adopt a right one; claim back; of materials from waste products (e.g. "Although irresponsible environmental practices in the distant past may have contributed to the enlargement of deserts, such as the Sahara, it is possible that some of the now arid land can be reclaimed for cultivation.")

conciliatory

overcoming animosity or hostility (e.g. "His attitude was conciliatory when he said he would have to sue me; I thought this was pretty ironic.")

saccharine

overly sweet (e.g. "the dessert was, unfortunately, more than merely sweet; it was cloying; its saccharine taste nearly made me gag")

allusion

passing reference or indirect mention (e.g. "His numerous allusions to Shakespeare in his speech led me to believe that he was a very well-read man.")

zenith

peak; pinnacle (e.g. "The zenith of the authority of kings and monarchs was arguably during the late Middle Ages.")

permeate

penetrate mutually or be interlocked (e.g. "unfortunately, rather dubious moral values permeated Roman society during its days as an empire; it is thought that this may be one of the reasons for its decline and eventual fall")

divine

perceive intuitively or through some inexplicable perceptive powers (e.g. "he actually seems to have the ability to divine the upcoming vicissitudes of the stock market; he's made a fortune in it")

seamless

perfectly consistent and coherent; not having or joined by a seam or seams (e.g. "Admittedly, his story is seamless; even so, I don't believe that he's telling the truth.")

vicarious

performed, suffered, or otherwise experienced by one person in place of another (e.g. "Harry took a sort of twisted vicarious pleasure in watching his older cousin punch his worst enemy in the nose")

facile

performing adroitly and without effort, arrived at without due care or effort (e.g. "the speaker's speech was facile; he spoke clearly and well, but it was obvious that he had had practically no preparation, because he didn't seem to have anything to talk about")

epoch

period of time (e.g. "the beginning of the Atomic Age signaled both the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new one")

quizzical

perplexed (as if being expected to know something that you do not know); playfully vexing (especially by ridicule) (e.g. "The quizzical expression of the faces of all his students caused the professor to believe that he hadn't done a very good job explaining to the students the lesson for that day.")

bemused

perplexed by many conflicting situations or statements (e.g. "Mary Jones was bemused by the United States tax code: she wasn't sure how much money she had to pay.")

bovine

pertaining to cows or cattle (e.g. "The bovine experimental facility kept hundreds of cows surreptitiously locked up somewhere inside it, so that the SPCA would not find them.")

malaise

physical discomfort (as mild sickness or depression) (e.g. "Mickey is a hypochondriac -- when he had any malaise, he was convinced that it was the onset of bubonic plague")

cull

pick out; reject (e.g. "the nasty teacher culled all of the most difficult mathematics problems from the entire textbook and assigned them all to her students on the first day of class")

transfix

pierce with a sharp stake or point; to render motionless, as with a fixed stare or by arousing terror or awe (e.g. "The animal was transfixed by the car's headlights.")

appraise

place a value on (e.g. "the jeweler appraised the diamond")

assess

place a value on (e.g. "the jeweler assessed the gem, and finally declared its value to be about $5300")

destitute

poor enough to need help from others (e.g. "many religions say that their followers should help the destitute to survive")

indigent

poor enough to need help from others (e.g. "one of the key components of many major world religions is that those who have more than the basic necessities of life should give to the indigent -- those who have nothing")

cogent

powerfully persuasive (e.g. "His cogent response to the reporter's question made a powerful impact on those listening.")

mendicant

practicing beggary (e.g. "the Franciscan and Dominican orders of the Catholic priesthood were once referred to as the mendicant orders, because their members begged for their daily food")

ascetic

practicing great self-denial (e.g. "Hermits live an ascetic existence.")

exalt

praise, glorify, or honor (e.g. "I exalted Mr. Smith by kowtowing before him")

extol

praise, glorify, or honor (e.g. "I extolled Albert Einstein for being the greatest genius in the world")

laud

praise, glorify, or honor (e.g. "I loudly lauded Albert Einstein for his geniusness")

proclaim

praise, glorify, or honor; state or announce; declare formally; affirm or declare as an attribute or quality of (e.g. "The king proclaimed the day to be a day of celebration since his armies had just defeated the armies of his enemy.")

ominous

presaging ill-fortune; threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments (e.g. "The ominous storm clouds in the sky dissipated, and it generally looked as if it was going to be a very cheerful day.")

congenital

present at birth but not necessarily hereditary (e.g. "My birthmark is a congenital defect; it was present at birth.")

propitious

presenting favorable circumstances (e.g. "one can only call it fate--or Providence, if you will--that such a propitious event as did occur -- I had previously won the lottery with a ticket I found on the ground -- could possibly occur")

preempt

prevent in advance; head off(forestall); forestall by acting first; appropriate for oneself before others; supplant; take the place of; displace; e.g. preempt any attempts; adjective: preemptive (e.g. "I did not want to be a part of a huge practical joke war; however, my elder brother preempted me and forced me to take part")

obviate

prevent the occurrence of; do away with (e.g. "The tornado which swept through our house obviated our quandary of whether or not we should add an extension to the house.")

judicious

proceeding from good sense or judgment (e.g. "Bob's judicious behavior won his many friends")

profuse

produced or growing in extreme abundance (e.g. "when James saved Margaret's daughter's life, she thanked him profusely")

fruitful

productive or conducive to producing in abundance; productive of profit (e.g. "his period as a writer was especially fruitful; he produced over a dozen novels and short stories during this period")

august

profoundly honored (e.g. "the manner of the mob was, to understate, not august -- it contained the rabble of society, and absolutely was not stately, grand, or majestic (synonyms of august)")

repress

put out of one's consciousness; conceal or hide; put down by force or intimidation (e.g. "Repression of freedom of the press was an unfortunate and unexpected result of the Alien and Sedition Acts, passed in 1798 in the United States; they were subsequently repealed.")

accentuate

put stress on (e.g. "in my explanation about how I knew that the moon was not made of green cheese, I accentuated the fact that astronauts had been there, and no cheese was to be found")

compose

put together out of existing material (e.g. "Jerry's plan to take over the world is composed of a whole bunch of nonsense.")

compile

put together out of existing material; use a computer program to translate source code written in a particular programming language into computer-readable machine code that can be executed; get or gather together (e.g. "although compiling such a comprehensive list has taken me several weeks, I believe that the effort has been worth it")

peremptory

putting an end to all debate or action (e.g. "the CEO peremptorily decided that the company was indeed going to produce the new product, even though almost everyone on the company's Board of Directors thought that that would be a foolish move")

adroit

quick or skillful or adept in action or thought (e.g. "He adroitly pulled off the robbery of the bank with little, if any, needless bloodshed; when he was caught he still received a 15 year prison sentence.")

choleric

quickly aroused to anger (e.g. "Johanna's character was, to understate, very choleric: you couldn't say a word to her without her thinking that you were trying to offend her.")

deduce

reason by deduction (e.g. "in Sherlock Holmes novels, Holmes always deduces the identity of the murderer by the end")

expostulate

reason with (somebody) for the purpose of dissuasion (e.g. "when my friend decided that he wanted to try to drink the entire bottle of Tabasco sauce, I expostulated with him, hoping to dissuade him from a course of action which could have no end result but utter ruin of his gastrointestinal system")

conjecture

reasoning that involves the formation of conclusions from incomplete evidence (e.g. "My theory is just conjecture; I don't have any evidence to support it.")

profligate

recklessly wasteful (e.g. "Bill won the lottery. However, he was so profligate with his money that he blew it all in a few months")

discriminate

recognize or perceive the difference (e.g. "the wine connoisseur has a discriminating palette; he only drinks the best")

chronicle

record in chronological order; also such a record (e.g. "My attempt to write a chronicle of the history of the world was beset by problems, one of which was that I know nothing whatsoever about history.")

perennial

recurring again and again (e.g. "flowers which bloom every year are called 'perennials' because they bloom regularly every year")

sporadic

recurring in scattered and irregular or unpredictable instances (e.g. "although there was still some sporadic violence, the war was basically over")

abridge

reduce in scope while retaining essential elements (e.g. "The editor of the children's versions of the great classics abridged them ruthlessly; after she got through with them, not even the basic story-line was intact.")

ruminate

reflect deeply on a subject (e.g. "I ruminated deeply on quantum theory; after I finished, I still couldn't make heads or tails out of it")

muse

reflect deeply on a subject; the source of an artist's inspiration (e.g. "He mused over the difference between cherry and lime Jello.")

forgo

refrain from consuming (e.g. "I decided to forgo having a sixth piece of cake")

repudiate

refuse to acknowledge, ratify, or recognize as valid (e.g. "during the Great Schism, two popes each claimed to rule over Christendom, and each repudiated the other's claim to the throne")

revere

regard with feelings of respect and reverence (e.g. "probably, many physics scientists revere Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking")

venerate

regard with feelings of respect and reverence (e.g. "some physics professors may revere Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking")

attrition

rubbing away by friction; gradual decrease in numbers or strength; reduction in the work force without firing employees; wearing away of opposition by means of harassment (e.g. "In this factory, the attrition rate is high: many people are unsatisfied with the conditions here, and leave.")

precept

rule of personal conduct (e.g. "the precepts of the corrupt manager were nil: he didn't have any")

rustic

rural (e.g. "I believed that the rustic setting was perfect for a painting")

bucolic

rustic and pastoral; characteristic of rural areas and their inhabitants ("I felt that the bucolic setting was ideal for a proposal of marriage.")

rue

sadness associated with some wrong done or some disappointment; feel remorse for (e.g. "After that encounter, I mournfully rued the day that I had set foot on the island.")

rhapsodize

say (something) with great enthusiasm (e.g. "Jerry rhapsodized at great length regarding the new music album.")

contempt

scorn, extreme dislike or disdain (e.g. "I feel contempt for all those people in the country who are not interested in what they can do for their country, but only about what their country can do for them")

collusion

secret agreement (e.g. "The collusion between Jim and Bob basically states that if one of them wins the lottery, he'll share half of the winnings with the other.")

furtive

secret and sly or sordid (e.g. "as Jim walked, he noticed a furtive figure skulking behind the bushes")

gregarious

seeking and enjoying the company of others (e.g. "geese are gregarious creatures: one does not usually see a single goose by itself; they are almost always seen in flocks")

stoic

seeming unaffected by pleasure or pain (e.g. "this philosophy -- called stoicism -- was held by several influential ancient Romans, such as Marcus Aurelius. That is, Marcus Aurelius was a Stoic")

usurp

seize and take control without authority and possibly with force (e.g. "in 'Prince Caspian', by C.S. Lewis, the protagonist's uncle, King Miraz, has no rightful claim over the throne but merely usurped it")

eclectic

selecting what seems best of various styles or ideas (e.g. "If a parent decides to home-school their child or children, they may eclectically choose material which seems to them to be the most educational to teach them")

segregate

separate or isolate (one thing) from another and place in a group apart from others (e.g. "During the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. fought against racial segregation with his policy of nonviolent resistance.")

dissolution

separation into component parts (e.g. "the legal contract was rendered dissolute; it was no longer valid. The dissolution of the legal contract caused great grief in the hearts of many unscrupulous people who could have used it to their own advantage")

composed

serenely self-possessed and free from agitation especially in times of stress (e.g. "considering that he had just been abducted by aliens, he seemed reasonably composed")

discourse

serious speech, writing, or conversation; formal discussion (either written or spoken); conversation; V. (e.g. "while the revered physicist was discoursing about quantum theory and relativity, I had a glazed look over my face, and I wasn't understanding a word of what he said")

sequester

set apart from others (e.g. "the cattle ranchers sequestered the genetically defective cattle from the rest so that they would not reproduce with the rest to produce another generation of genetically defective cattle")

constitute

set up or lay the groundwork for (e.g. "Whacking someone over the head with a baseball bat constitutes a federal assault.")

brazen

shameless, impudent; made of brass (e.g. "'I won't retract my statement; I really do believe that you're an idiot!' said the girl brazenly")

corrugated

shaped into alternating parallel grooves and ridges (e.g. "the corrugated iron siding to the house looks tacky")

pungent

sharp biting or acrid especially in taste or smell; capable of wounding (e.g. "Vinegar has a pungent odor.")

heinous

shockingly brutal or cruel (e.g. "members of the Nazi party who were accused of committing heinous crimes were tried at the Nuremberg trials")

ghastly

shockingly repellent; gruesomely indicative of death or the dead (e.g. "Louis told the most ghastly ghost stories by the campfire")

anecdote

short account of an incident (especially a biographical one) (e.g. "My anecdotes about John Smith and Timbuktu aren't really true.")

cower

show submission or fear (e.g. "I cowered before the purple alien with the huge ray gun")

soporific

sleep inducing (e.g. "the dull speaker's soporific speech soon literally put all 563 members of the audience to sleep")

inert

slow and apathetic (e.g. "in chemistry, the noble gases are considered inert -- they don't react with anything")

obtuse

slow to learn or understand (e.g. "the obtuse man did not realize that the criminal was threatening him until the criminal whacked him over the head")

philistine

smug and ignorant and indifferent or hostile to artistic and cultural values (e.g. "originally, the Philistines were a people group mentioned in the Christian Bible who fought against the Israelites. Obviously, these people must not have been seen by the Israelites as being very cultured! That is, the Philistines were philistine")

abysmal

so deep as to be immeasurable (e.g. "His abysmal despair from not winning the national worm-eating championships caused him to commit suicide.")

stupendous

so great in size or force or extent as to elicit awe (e.g. "Welcome to Barnum and Bailey's stupendous, colossal, magnificent circus!")

prodigious

so great in size or force or extent as to elicit awe (e.g. "after eating a prodigiously large amount of food, the man had a dreadful stomachache")

luminous

softly bright or radiant (e.g. "if an object is glowing, it is said to be luminous. If an object is visible because of light shed upon it by a luminous body, the object is said to be illuminated")

mire

soil with mud, muck, or mire; a soft wet area of low-lying land that sinks underfoot; be unable to move further; cause to get stuck as if in a mire; entrap (e.g. "He became mired in all of the little, pesky details, and lost sight of the big picture.")

substantiate

solidify, firm, or strengthen; make real or concrete; establish or strengthen as with new evidence or facts; represent in bodily form (e.g. "The man couldn't substantiate his claim that the moon was made of green cheese.")

imperative

some duty that is essential and urgent (e.g. "'so therefore, friends, neighbors, and countrymen,' finished the speaker, 'we have a moral imperative to promote the diffusion of knowledge throughout the world!'")

emissary

someone sent on a mission to represent the interests of someone else (e.g. "the emissary of Sparta commanded the Athenians, in the name of the Spartan king, to surrender to the Spartans; the Athenians refused, beginning the Peloponnesian War")

confidant

someone to whom private matters are confided (e.g. "although the king had many sycophants, he had no true confidants with whom he could reveal his inner struggles and challenges")

adherent

someone who believes and helps to spread the doctrine of another (e.g. "Hitler's adherents called themselves Nazis.")

mystic

someone who believes in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension; having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; relating to or characteristic of mysticism; relating to or resembling mysticism (e.g. "Although there are forces which in times long past might have seemed mystic to the peoples and cultures of the day -- for example, magnetism -- nowadays, we can see that such forces are only an expression of some fundamental principles of nature.")

maverick

someone who exhibits great independence in thought and action (e.g. "in the Old West, Mr. Maverick was a banker who refused to brand his cows; nowadays a maverick is someone who refuses to be 'branded' -- but under a specific label; a maverick deserves a class all his own")

matriculate

someone who has been admitted to a college or university (e.g. "the matriculate deemed himself to be better than everyone else simply because he had been admitted to a small college somewhere out in the middle of nowhere")

pundit

someone who has been admitted to membership in a scholarly field (e.g. "Although it is common belief that the word 'peruse' means to skim quickly, pundits will tell you that this is not the case.")

savant

someone who has been admitted to membership in a scholarly field (e.g. "Only a few savants are aware of this new scientific theory; no one else knows of it.")

malefactor

someone who has committed (or been legally convicted of) a crime (e.g. "The excellent police force of Timbuktu made life very difficult for the malefactors in the city.")

insolvent

someone who has insufficient assets to cover their debts (e.g. "if a person is financially insolvent, they will soon become bankrupt")

annex

to add to, attach; to incorporate; an attachment or addition (e.g. "the United States annexed Hawai'i in 1898")

profess

state insincerely (e.g. "under duress from the Catholic Church, Galileo professed that he was incorrect regarding his heliocentric theory and that the universe was geocentric; even so, he knew he was right and that the Church was wrong")

dilemma

state of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavorable options (e.g. "Jamie was in a dilemma: would he buy an ice cream cone, or a soda?")

quandary

state of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavorable options; a situation from which extrication is difficult especially an unpleasant or trying one (e.g. "I am in a quandary -- ought I to buy an ice-cream sundae, or a root beer float?")

crescendo

steadily increasing in volume or force (e.g. "as the opera singer's voice began to crescendo in a breathtaking finale, all the glass in the room shattered")

equanimity

steadiness of mind under stress (e.g. "Joan was exhibiting great equanimity, considering that she had lost her job, been chased by zombies and been abducted by aliens all in one day")

obtrusive

sticking out; undesirably noticeable (e.g. "I considered Eugene to be obtrusive when he kept asking me whether he could have a piece of my used gum.")

extant

still in existence (e.g. "there is only one extant copy of that type of artifact; all of the others are merely copies")

fuel

stimulate (e.g. "the discovery of new evidence fueled the debate")

intermittent

stopping and starting at irregular intervals (e.g. "at intermittent periods, the invaders would swoop down into our territory, and ransack it of all things valuable")

quaint

strange in an interesting or pleasing way; very strange or unusual; attractively old-fashioned (but not necessarily authentic) (e.g. "Nowadays, the ideas of the medieval alchemists are seen as quaint -- they certainly aren't correct, but they are somewhat interesting.")

utilitarian

stressing practical use over other values (e.g. "the utilitarian house has no frills, no decorations, and no beauty -- its purpose is simply to be a place to live, and that is the only purpose it could possibly serve")

discord

strife resulting from a lack of agreement (e.g. "The music sounded discordant; that is, it sounded as if the various instruments did not belong together.")

pummel

strike, usually with the fist (e.g. "Although the team walked onto the field certain that they would pummel the other team, they were the ones who ended up being pummeled -- that is, they lost badly.")

emulate

strive to equal or match, especially by imitating (e.g. "I tried to emulate Albert Einstein in every way; however, I wasn't able to")

robust

strong and healthy (e.g. "the robust man looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger")

acrid

strong and sharp (e.g. "The acrid smell of sulfur led me to believe that rotten eggs were nearby.")

animosity

strong dislike; bitter hostility (e.g. "Many tribes in Africa today exhibit great animosity towards each other; tribal wars occur relatively frequently.")

chagrin

strong feelings of embarrassment (e.g. "His chagrin when he realized that he had kicked the soccer ball into the wrong goal was immense.")

refractory

stubbornly resistant to authority or control; not responding to treatment; marked by stubborn resistance to and defiant of authority or guidance; resistant to authority or control (e.g. "Mules are refractory.")

tenacious

stubbornly unyielding (e.g. "even though the evidence was entirely against them, the members of the (nonexistent) 'Green Cheese Moon Society' tenaciously held on to the opinion that the moon is made of green cheese")

supplication

the act of communicating with a deity (especially as a petition or in adoration or contrition or thanksgiving); a humble request for help from someone in authority; a prayer asking God's help as part of a religious service (e.g. "As part of the five-year-old's supplication to Santa Claus in his letter, he asked for lots and lots of money as well as some real estate.")

diminution

the act of decreasing or reducing something (e.g. "the diminution of popular support for the new government bill has caused it to be scrapped")

flaunt

the act of displaying something ostentatiously (e.g. "Darth Vader from 'Star Wars' flaunted his Force abilities")

partition

the act of dividing or partitioning; a vertical structure that divides or separates (as a wall divides one room from another); divide into parts, pieces, or sections; separate or apportion into sections (e.g. "Although we could partition the room into several parts, we have decided that we like it better as a single room.")

incursion

the act of entering some territory or domain (often in large numbers); an attack that penetrates into enemy territory; the mistake of incurring liability or blame (e.g. "the enemies have made an incursion into our land")

armament

the act of equipping with weapons in preparation for war; weaponry used by military or naval force (e.g. "the country in question has a formidable armament; it would be foolish to provoke war against it")

resignation

the act of giving up (a claim or office or possession etc.); acceptance of despair (e.g. "His resignation at always being second-best led him to stop trying, so as a result he never was anything better than second-best.")

usury

the act of lending money at an exorbitant rate of interest; an exorbitant or unlawful rate of interest (e.g. "Shylock from 'The Merchant of Venice', by Shakespeare, practiced usury.")

volition

the act of making a choice (e.g. "although Dick would have never turned down a piece of chocolate cake of his own volition, his mother made the choice for him")

tumult

the act of making a noisy disturbance; violent agitation; a state of commotion and noise and confusion (e.g. "The little boy called for his mother, but he could barely hear even his own voice above the tumult.")

override

the act of nullifying; rule against; a manually operated device to correct the operation of an automatic device; prevail over (e.g. "The committee overrode my decision, and they didn't accept my plan.")

obeisance

the act of obeying; bending the head or body or knee as a sign of reverence or submission or shame (e.g. "all the people of the country showed great obeisance to their queen.")

ordinance

the act of ordaining; a statute enacted by a city government; an authoritative rule (e.g. "The city ordinance declares that double-parking is illegal.")

remuneration

the act of paying for goods or services or to recompense for losses (e.g. "Generally, white-collar workers receive greater remuneration than blue-collar workers.")

dissent

the act of protesting (e.g. "in the United States, people have the right to verbally dissent from the official opinion of the government; this right is part of the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States")

curb

the act of restraining power or action or limiting excess (e.g. "he tried to curb his sweet tooth by abstaining from all foods with excess sugar")

seclusion

the act of secluding yourself from others; the quality of being secluded from the presence or view of others (e.g. "The man withdrew into total seclusion for five hours so that he could try to learn to meditate; however, as his cell-phone kept ringing every five minutes, he did not succeed.")

larceny

the act of taking something from someone unlawfully (e.g. "when James stole Jenny's iPod, he was committing larceny")

aversion

the act of turning oneself (or one's gaze) away, a feeling of intense dislike (e.g. "in the book 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,' by Robert Louis Stevenson, those who look at Mr. Hyde feel an instinctive aversion towards him")

increment

the amount by which something increases (e.g. "each time a level is beaten in a computer game, the computer automatically increments the difficulty level")

verisimilitude

the appearance of truth (e.g. "the pseudo-scientific paper may seem very accurate; however, its verisimilitude is merely an act of fraud; it is, in actuality, completely false")

gastronomy

the art and practice of choosing and preparing and eating good food (e.g. "the cook doesn't like to be called a cook; he prefers to be called a gastronomical artist; that is, an artist of gastronomy")

ambiance

the atmosphere of an environment (e.g. "The ambiance of the cafeteria was such that I never wanted to go back again: the entire time a woman was standing on top of her table and screaming for a waiter, everybody in the building was shouting to everyone else at the top of their lungs, and there was only one waiter in the entire restaurant.")

fabrication

the deliberate act of deviating from the truth (e.g. "when my mother asked me how I became lodged in her giant toaster oven, I fabricated the truth to prevent her from figuring it out. However, my fabrication did not fool her")

pluralism

the doctrine that reality consists of several basic substances or elements (e.g. "Although such a concept of religious pluralism has been foreign to humankind for practically all of human history -- excepting, of course, the last few decades -- some today proclaim that it is the key to religious tolerance for all.")

hegemony

the domination of one state over its allies, or more generally one group dominating another (e.g. "Karl Marx decried the hegemony of the rich, the bourgeois, over the poor, the proletariat")

milieu

the environmental condition (e.g. "the milieu of the restaurant was rather unsuited to my tastes; everyone had to wear a suit and tie, and generally it seemed overly formal")

vernacular

the everyday speech of the people (e.g. "many reformers over the centuries -- including Martin Luther -- campaigned to have the Bible printed in the vernacular, instead of in Greek or Latin, so that the common people could understand it")

extremity

the farthest or outermost point or part; the greatest degree; grave danger, necessity, or distress; an extreme measure (e.g. "I hoped that the situation wouldn't come to this dire extremity, but since it has, I urge the council to enact a new course of action")

ennui

the feeling of being bored by something tedious (e.g. "Sherlock Holmes's feelings of ennui only vanished when he was in the middle of an exciting case")

objective

the goal intended to be attained (and which is believed to be attainable); belonging to immediate experience of actual things or events; serving as or indicating the object of a verb or of certain prepositions and used for certain other purposes, emphasizing or expressing things as perceived without distortion of personal feelings or interpretation; undistorted by emotion or personal bias (e.g. "I cannot look at the deeds of that great man objectively, because that great man is me!")

syntax

the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences; studies of the rules for forming admissible sentences; a systematic orderly arrangement (e.g. "Although the syntax of your essay is well-done, the actual content of it leaves much to be desired.")

apex

the highest point (of something) (e.g. "the apex of his career was in 1953; at no other point during his life did his fame even come close to the fame he possessed then")

brink

the limit beyond which something happens or changes (e.g. "the country's monetary policies took it to the brink of destruction")

allegiance

the loyalty that citizens owe to their country (or subjects to their sovereign) (e.g. "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America...")

cartography

the making of maps and charts (e.g. "cartography used to be an art -- cartographers would draw in serpents or dragons in areas on maps where explorers had not yet gone; nowadays, this is no longer the case")

patriarch

the male head of family or tribe (e.g. "before Rome was an empire, and even before it was a republic, its society was literally patriarchal. The eldest male in an extended family held absolute power over the rest of the family, holding even the power of life and death over them")

metamorphosis

the marked and rapid transformation of a larva into an adult that occurs in some animals; also used figuratively to describe a rapid, drastic change (e.g. "the metamorphosis of Rome from a peaceful republic to a bloodthirsty empire occurred in a remarkably short period of time")

credence

the mental attitude that something is believable and should be accepted as true (e.g. "The theory that the Earth is flat carries no credence; it is completely unbelievable.")

crux

the most important point (e.g. "the crux of the matter really is simply that you want to be selfish and do whatever you want, and I want to be selfish and do whatever I want, and so we have reached an impasse as our desires have conflicted")

spate

the occurrence of a water flow resulting from sudden rain or melting snow; a sudden forceful flow; (often followed by 'of') a large number or amount or extent (e.g. "After the spate of uprisings following the French Revolution, the heads of state of the various countries of Europe organized the Congress of Vienna, at which the reactionary rules of the day sought to restore the status quo to what it had been before the French Revolution.")

incumbent

the official who holds an office; currently holding an office (e.g. "the incumbent politician was able to ensure that he would win the election by embezzling money from the public treasury; he used this money on the campaign trail")

hierarchy

the organization of people at different ranks in an administrative body (e.g. "most companies have a hierarchy of power, culminating with the CEO at the top")

regime

the organization that is the governing authority of a political unit (e.g. "Although the current regime in Kalamazoo is rather lenient compared to previous regimes, it still shows a disturbing disregard for human rights.")

aftermath

the outcome of an event especially as relative to an individual (e.g. "the aftermath of the tsunami involved massive homelessness and general poverty for all in the immediate vicinity")

periphery

the outside boundary or surface of something (e.g. "the outer periphery of the earth's atmosphere is called the exosphere")

vocation

the particular occupation for which you are trained (e.g. "although one's vocation is important, one ought to have enough spare time in a day to engage in some avocational pursuits")

heyday

the period of greatest prosperity or productivity (e.g. "the heyday of the former movie star is long gone; now only people over sixty even recognize her name")

junction

the place where two or more things come together; something that joins or connects (e.g. "It appears that I missed the junction between 1st Street and Straight Street")

vogue

the popular taste at a given time; a current state of general acceptance and use (e.g. "Those who spend money attempting to keep up with the vogue of the hour will inevitably end their lives penniless as well as, ironically, completely out of fashion.")

husbandry

the practice of cultivating the land or raising stock (e.g. "animal husbandry consists of raising animals for milk and food")

antiquity

the quality of being ancient; ancient times (e.g. "archaeologists have found artifacts from antiquity; that is, from ancient times")

fidelity

the quality of being faithful (e.g. "marital fidelity is considered one of the most significant tenets of morality")

candor

the quality of being honest and straightforward in attitude and speech (e.g. "The president didn't try to avoid the question, but answered with candor.")

glut

the quality of being so overabundant that prices fall (e.g. "10-year-old Johnny decided to open a lemonade stand during the summer; unfortunately for him, at least 2,000 other children had the same idea, so there was a lemonade glut, and no one was able to make very much money")

altruism

the quality of unselfish concern for the welfare of others (e.g. "Although the man was very poor, he was altruistic at heart; he gave every spare penny he had to charities.")

beneficiary

the recipient of funds or other benefits (e.g. "The beneficiary of the payment was the new university mentioned in the last example.")

renaissance

the revival of learning and culture (e.g. "the Renaissance (with a capital 'R') was a major revival of learning and culture (approximately) during the 14th through 16th centuries. This word can also be used with a lowercase 'r' to discuss any other revival of learning and culture.")

suffrage

the right to vote (e.g. "Although suffrage for African-Americans was guaranteed by the 15th amendment to the Constitution, sadly, many southern states instituted stringent laws designed to prevent them from actually voting.")

deluge

the rising of a body of water and its overflowing onto normally dry land (e.g. "if a dam breaks, a town near it may be swept away by the deluge")

uniform

the same throughout in structure or composition (e.g. "the density of the earth is not uniform -- it varies in different places")

threshold

the sill of a door; a region marking a boundary (e.g. "The 'event horizon' is a mathematical surface, existing in the abstract as the threshold between the unknown within a black hole, and the known without.")

zeitgeist

the spirit of the time (e.g. "The attitudes of automatic entitlement and 'bread and circuses', as it were, were embodied in the zeitgeist of the era.")

taint

the state of being contaminated; place under suspicion or cast doubt upon; contaminate with a disease or microorganism (e.g. "Although the detractors' claims were never proven, their comments still tainted his reputation.")

dubiety

the state of being unsure of something (e.g. "I expressed dubiety when my friend told me that the moon was made of green cheese")

belabor

to work at or to absurd length (e.g. "The dull speaker belabored his point until everyone in the audience fell asleep and started snoring.")

infrastructure

the stock of basic facilities and capital equipment needed for the functioning of a country or area; the basic structure or features of a system or organization (e.g. "after the nuclear weapon annihilated the capital, the infrastructure of the rest of the country completely broke down")

interim

the time between one event, process, or period and another (e.g. "the war between the two member states was interrupted by a temporary treaty; alas, the treaty was soon broken, and the countries attacked each other with still greater ferocity than before; however, in the interim, both countries had amassed a still greater arsenal of weaponry than they had had before, so ironically, as a result of the temporary treaty, more people died than otherwise would have")

demise

the time when something ends (e.g. "curiosity killed the cat; curiosity was the cat's tragic flaw and played a direct role in his demise")

malapropism

the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar (e.g. "Several of Shakespeare's plays derive some of their humor from the fact that several characters may accidentally use malapropisms.")

coalition

the union of diverse things into one body or form or group; also such a group (e.g. "The teacher's coalition advocated higher pay for teachers all over the country.")

chicanery

the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them) (e.g. "The charlatan's chicanery was successful: he swindled two hundred dollars from Louie that day, and a total of five thousand dollars over the next four months.")

arrant

thoroughgoing, out-and-out; shameless, blatant (e.g. "Don Quixote, the protagonist from 'Don Quixote', by Miguel Cervantes, was an arrant Romanticist")

putative

thought-to-be (e.g. "his putative ability to strangle a bear with his bare hands has never actually been tested")

pensive

thoughtful; melancholy (e.g. "Johanna was usually very gregarious, so I was surprised at her pensive behavior")

sinister

threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments (e.g. "it seemed sinister that the ex-murderer, now out of jail, was stockpiling weapons of all kinds in his attic")

perturb

throw into great confusion or disorder (e.g. "the earthquake perturbed the citizens of the town")

diatribe

thunderous verbal attack (e.g. "the politician gave a diatribe aimed against all those people who believe that all politicians are lying, dangerous cheats; incidentally, the politician giving the speech was a lying, dangerous cheat")

timorous

timid by nature or revealing timidity (e.g. "As a result of his timorous nature, he never accomplished much in life, because he was never willing to step forward and be assertive.")

interminable

tiresomely long (e.g. "the wait must have seemed interminable to young Jane; yet eventually, it was finally over")

canvass

to go through an area in order to procure votes, sales, or opinions; to go over in detail; to discuss (e.g. "the pollsters canvassed the entire state, trying to predict whether the upcoming referendum would pass")

bestow

to grant or to give (e.g. "the king bestowed knighthood upon the honorable gentleman")

mortify

to humiliate (e.g. "Jane was mortified to find that her ex-boyfriend had been spreading nasty rumors about her all over town")

ad-lib

to improvise (e.g. "although I forgot some of my lines and had to ad-lib them, on the whole, I think that I did a pretty good job in the play")

denote

to indicate (e.g. "the asterisk at the end of the line of advertising denotes that the deal may not be as good as it seems, because the asterisk denotes the fact that there is pertinent small print at the bottom of the page, and the small print denotes that the deal is not as good as it seems to be at first glance")

edify

to instruct morally and spiritually ("the pastor's sermon didn't seem to be meant to edify its listeners, but merely to rail against television and modern telephones")

construe

to interpret (e.g. "I construed his statement to mean that he hated me; it turned out later that I had misconstrued his statement; that is, that I had construed incorrectly.")

relinquish

to let go, give up (e.g. "after former American President Nixon was accused of crime, he relinquished the office of President of the United States; if he hadn't resigned, he would probably have been kicked out of office")

scrutinize

to look at critically or searchingly, or in minute detail (e.g. "he scrutinized my face, checking to see if there were any signs that I was lying")

debase

to lower in character, quality, or value; to degrade, adulterate; to cause to deteriorate (e.g. "the federal government has debased the value of the actual metal in the penny; they used to be almost entirely copper; they have very little copper now")

ameliorate

to make better (e.g. "The little boy skinned his knee and started crying, but a hot-fudge sundae ameliorated the situation.")

revamp

to patch up or renovate (e.g. "The hotel was completely revamped; it didn't even look the same.")

envision

to picture in the mind; to imagine (e.g. "I envisioned a utopian society without poverty or strife")

depredate

to plunder, pillage, ravage or destroy; to exploit in a predatory manner (e.g. "the Vikings depredated the medieval village")

suppress

to put down by force or authority; keep under control; put out of one's consciousness; control and refrain from showing; come down on or keep down by unjust use of one's authority (e.g. "The army refused to suppress the opposition to the coup, and so the coup fell.")

balk

to refuse stubbornly or abruptly; to stop short and refuse to go on (e.g. "I balked at the thought of being the test experiment for the scientist")

reiterate

to say, state, or perform again (e.g. "during our final preparation for the test, our teacher reiterated its importance: our score determined whether we would be able to enter a selective college or not")

commemorate

to serve as a memorial to; to remember in a solemn manner (e.g. "we commemorate December 7 as a memorial to all those who died in the attack on Pearl Harbor just before the start of America's involvement in World War Two")

emancipate

to set free (e.g. "Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation emancipated all slaves in Confederate territories")

bristle

to show irritation (e.g "the other man bristled. 'I don't care what you think!' he said, storming out of the room")

scintillate

to sparkle; to twinkle; to sparkle intellectually (e.g. "Albert Einstein scintillates in the sky of intellectualism, for he was one of the greatest physicists of all time")

galvanize

to stimulate to action (e.g. "the news that the enemy was less than thirteen kilometers away galvanized the army to action")

desist

to stop; discontinue (e.g. "I asked the alien to desist from zapping people with his big laser gun")

insinuate

to suggest or hint slyly (e.g. "Mary Jones insinuated that she thought that John Smith was uglier than a baboon; John resented this insinuation")

stymie

to thwart or stump (e.g. "the math problem had me stymied, until I realized that it could be simplified into a basic trigonometry question")

exhort

to urge strongly, advise earnestly (e.g. "reader, I exhort you to learn these vocabulary words so that you will do will on the SAT")

brandish

to wave or flourish in a menacing or vigorous fashion (e.g. "the man brandished his knife threateningly, and I backed away, frightened")

modulate

vary the frequency, amplitude, phase, or other characteristic of (electromagnetic waves); adjust the pitch, tone, or volume of; fix or adjust the time, amount, degree, or rate of; of one's speech, varying the pitch; change the key of, in music (e.g. "The man modulated his views once he realized that his arguments in favor of his extremist ideas aren't convincing anybody.")

quay

wharf usually built parallel to the shoreline (e.g. "The boat was moored along the quay; unfortunately, it was destroyed during the tsunami.")

docile

willing to be taught or led or supervised or directed (e.g. "the pit bull looked very fierce; however, surprisingly enough, it was truly quite docile")

begrudge

wish ill or allow unwillingly (e.g. "'your performance was admirable,' my opponent said begrudgingly")

covet

wish, long, or crave for (something, especially the property of another person) (e.g. "Mary coveted Julie's pearls; she envied her.")

malevolent

wishing or appearing to wish evil to others (e.g. "the malevolent alien zapped everyone in the room with his death ray")

impromptu

with little or no preparation or forethought; without advance preparation (e.g. "after I was seized with the urge to practice my acting skills, I decided to give an impromptu one-man rendition of Hamlet")

secede

withdraw from an organization or communion (e.g. "When the Confederate States of America tried to secede from the Union, Abraham Lincoln was there to stop them.")

reclusive

withdrawn, hermit-like (e.g. "the reclusive man seemed aloof to me; but then, all reclusive people are ipso facto aloof, so that isn't saying much")

impeccable

without fault or error (e.g. "Santa Claus's credentials are impeccable -- he's been running a non-profit charity and has over two thousand years of job experience")

inadvertent

without intention (especially resulting from heedless action) (e.g. "the nuclear weapon which the enemy used to annihilate our headquarters also had the inadvertent result of vaporizing over 780,000 men, women, and children")

amoral

without moral standards or principles (e.g. "Many people today could be considered amoral: their lifestyle doesn't reflect any definite moral absolutes or ethics.")

despondent

without or almost without hope (e.g. "the heiress wannabe was despondent when she heard that her rich uncle had bequeathed all his money to someone else")

gratis

without payment (e.g. "the cookie is gratis with the meal")

sarcasm

witty language used to convey insults or scorn (e.g. "'Wow, that was brilliant,' I stated with sarcasm.")

salutation

word of greeting used to begin a letter; (usually plural) an acknowledgment or expression of good will (especially on meeting); an act of honor or courteous recognition (e.g. "I sent my salutations to the new bride and groom.")

toil

work hard; productive work (especially physical work done for wages) (e.g. "And what do we receive after our years of toil? Nothing except a $500 check and a pat on the back.")

estimable

worthy of admiration; capable of being estimated (e.g. "the amount of money to gain is indeed estimable, in that I can estimate with precision; however, it is not estimable in another meaning of the word, since the amount of money we could gain is not worthy of admiration: it is only 4 cents!")

creditable

worthy of often limited commendation (e.g. "The theory that the Earth is flat is not creditable; it is worthy of absolutely zero commendation.")

affidavit

written declaration made under oath (e.g. "the affidavit stated that the man had full knowledge of the actions of his son and, indeed, that he even condoned them")

libel

written untruths that are harmful to someone's reputation (e.g. "the CEO of the company accused the newspaper editor of libel when a newspaper article claimed that the CEO was 'a stinking, lying, no-good cheat'")

malfeasance

wrongful conduct by a public official (e.g. "President Ford pardoned Nixon of his malfeasance -- that is, Ford pardoned Nixon for his complicity in the Watergate scandal")

fledgling

young and inexperienced (e.g. "fledgling readers generally do not have a large vocabulary")