UA English 2 Honors SAT Vocab #1-3

abjure

to renounce, repudiate under oath; to avoid, shun (To prove his honesty, the president abjured the evil policies of his wicked predecessor.)

acerbic

biting, bitter in tone or taste (Biff became extremely acerbic and began to cruelly make fun of all his friends.)

acrimony

bitterness, discord (Though they vowed that no girl would ever come between them, Biff and Trevor could not keep acrimony from overwhelming their friendship after they both fell in love with the lovely Teresa.)

acumen

keen insight (Because of her mathematical acumen, Josephina was able to figure out in minutes problems that took other students hours.)

alacrity

eagerness, speed (For some reason, Chuck loved to help his mother whenever he could, so when his mother asked him to set the table, he did so with alacrity.)

antipathy

a strong dislike, repugnance (I know you love me, but because you are a liar and a thief, I feel nothing but antipathy for you.)

approbation

praise (The crowd welcomed the heroes with approbation.)

aspersion

a curse, an expression of ill-will or slander (The rival politicians repeatedly cast aspersions on each other's integrity.)

assiduous

persistent, hard-working, diligent (The construction workers erected the skyscraper during two years of assiduous labor.)

boon

a gift or blessing (The good weather has been a boon for many businesses located near the beach.)

cajole

to urge, coax (Sarah's buddies cajoled her into performing at the poetry slam.)

calumny

an attempt to spoil someone else's reputation by spreading lies (The local official's calumny ended up ruining his opponent's prospect of winning the election.)

capricious

subject to whim, fickle (The young boy's capricious tendencies made it difficult for him to focus on achieving his goals.)

cogent

intellectually convincing (Irene's arguments in favor of abstinence were so cogent that I could not resist them.)

credulity

readiness to believe (His credulity made him an easy target for con men.)

cursory

brief to the point of being superficial (Late for the meeting, she cast a cursory glance at the agenda.)

deride

to laugh at mockingly, scorn (The bullies derided the foreign student's accent.)

diffident

shy, quiet, modest (While eating dinner with the adults, the diffident youth did not speak for fear of seeming presumptuous.)

dissemble

to conceal, fake (Not wanting to appear heartlessly greedy, she dissembled and hid her intention to sell her ailing father's stamp collection.)

dither

to be indecisive (Not wanting to offend either friend, he dithered about which of the two birthday parties he should attend.)

egregious

extremely bad (The student who threw sloppy joes across the cafeteria was punished for his egregious behavior.)

enervate

to weaken, exhaust (Writing these sentences enervates me so much that I will have to take a nap after I finish.)

ephemeral

short-lived, fleeting (She promised she'd love me forever, but her 'forever' was only ephemeral: she left me after one week.)

eschew

to shun, avoid (George hates the color green so much that he eschews all green food.)

evince

to show, reveal (Christopher's hand-wringing and nail-biting evince how nervous he is about the upcoming English test.)

exigent

urgent, critical (The patient has an exigent need for medication, or else he will lose his sight.)

fallacious

incorrect, misleading (Emily offered me cigarettes on the fallacious assumption that I smoked.)

fastidious

meticulous, demanding, having high and often unattainable standards (Mark is so fastidious that he is never able to finish a project because it always seems imperfect to him.)

fecund

fruitful, fertile (The fecund tree bore enough apples to last us through the entire season.)

fetid

having a foul odor (I can tell from the fetid smell in your refrigerator that your milk has spoiled.)

garrulous

talkative, wordy (Some talk-show hosts are so garrulous that their guests can't get a word in edgewise.)

gregarious

drawn to the company of others, sociable (She is such a gregarious person--always the life of the party!)

hackneyed

(adj.) unoriginal, trite (Some people might find the plots of rom-coms a little hackneyed.)

hapless

(adj.) unlucky (My poor, hapless family never seems to pick a sunny week to go on vacation.)

iconoclast

(n.) one who attacks common beliefs or institutions (Are you always challenging the establishment? Or provoking popular thought by attacking traditions and institutions? Then you're definitely an iconoclast.)

implacable

(adj.) incapable of being appeased or mitigated (Watch out: Once you shun Grandma's cooking, she is totally implacable.)

impudent

(adj.) casually rude, insolent, impertinent (If your teacher asks the class to open their textbooks, and you snap back, "Let's not and say we did," you're being impudent. Or, if you are chatting on Teams while the teacher is talking, then you are also being impudent.)

inexorable

(adj.) incapable of being persuaded or placated (Although I begged for hours, Mom was inexorable and refused to let me stay out all night after the prom.)

inimical

(adj.) hostile (I don't see how I could ever work for a company that was so cold and inimical to me during my interviews.)

insidious

(adj.) appealing but imperceptibly harmful, seductive (Lisa's insidious chocolate cake tastes so good but makes you feel so sick later on!)

laconic

(adj.) terse in speech or writing (The author's laconic style has won him many followers who dislike wordiness.)

largesse

(n.) the generous giving of lavish gifts (My boss demonstrated great largesse by giving me a new car.)

latent

(adj.) hidden, but capable of being exposed (Sigmund's dream represented his latent paranoid obsession with other people's shoes.)

legerdemain

(n.) deception, slight-of-hand (Smuggling the French plants through customs by claiming that they were fake was a remarkable bit of legerdemain.)

maelstrom

(n.) a destructive whirlpool which rapidly sucks in objects: can be used literally or metaphorically (Little did the explorers know that as they turned the next bend of the calm river a vicious maelstrom would catch their boat.)

malediction

(n.) a curse (The schoolyard bully hurled maledictions. Think "mal" (bad) plus "diction" (words).

manifold

(adj.) diverse, varied (The popularity of Jane Eyre is partly due to the fact that the work allows for manifold interpretations.)

maudlin

(adj.) weakly sentimental (Although many people enjoy romantic comedies, I usually find them maudlin and shallow.)

mendacious

(adj.) having a lying, false character (The mendacious content of the tabloid magazines is at least entertaining.)

nadir

(n.) the lowest point of something (My day was boring, but the nadir came when I accidentally spilled a bowl of spaghetti on my head.)

nascent

(adj.) in the process of being born or coming into existence (Unfortunately, my brilliant paper was only in its nascent form on the morning that it was due.)

obfuscate

(v.) to render incomprehensible (The detective did not want to answer the newspaperman's questions, so he obfuscated the truth.)

obstreperous

(adj.) noisy, unruly (Billy's obstreperous behavior prompted the librarian to ask him to leave the reading room.)

officious

offering one's services when they are neither wanted nor needed (Brenda resented Allan's officious behavior when he selected colors that might best improve her artwork.)

ostensible

supposed, apparent, seeming (Jack's ostensible reason for driving was that airfare was too expensive, but in reality, he was afraid of flying.)

palliate

to reduce the severity of (The doctor trusted that the new medication would palliate her patient's discomfort.)

panacea

a remedy for all ills or difficulties (Doctors wish there was a single panacea for every disease, but sadly there is not.)

paragon

a model of excellence or perfection (The mythical Helen of Troy was considered a paragon of female beauty.)

parsimony

frugality, stinginess (Many relatives believed that my aunt's wealth resulted from her parsimony.)

paucity

small in quantity (Gilbert lamented the paucity of twentieth-century literature courses available at the college.)

penurious

miserly, stingy (Stella complained that her husband's penurious ways made it impossible to live the lifestyle she felt she deserved.)

perfidious

disloyal, unfaithful (After the official was caught selling government secrets to enemy agents, he was executed for his perfidious ways.)

perspicacity

shrewdness, perceptiveness, showing keen insight (The detective was too humble to acknowledge that his perspicacity was the reason for his professional success.)

pithy

concisely meaningful (My father's long-winded explanation was a stark contrast to his usually pithy statements.)

portent

an omen (When a black cat crossed my sister's path while she was walking to school, she took it as a portent that she would do badly on her spelling test.)

probity

virtue, integrity (Because he was never viewed as a man of great probity, no one was surprised by Mr. Samson's immoral behavior.)

prosaic

plain, lacking liveliness (Heather's prosaic recital of the poem bored the audience.)

puerile

juvenile, immature (The judge demanded order after the lawyer's puerile attempt to object by stomping his feet on the courtroom floor.)

querulous

whiny, complaining (If deprived of his pacifier, young Brendan becomes querulous.)

quixotic

idealistic, impractical (Edward entertained a quixotic desire to fall in love at first sight in a laundromat.)

recalcitrant

defiant, unapologetic (Even when scolded, the recalcitrant young girl simply stomped her foot and refused to finish her lima beans.)

reprove

to scold, rebuke (Lara reproved her son for sticking each and every one of his fingers into the strawberry pie.)

ribald

coarsely, crudely humorous (While some giggled at the ribald joke involving a parson's daughter, most sighed and rolled their eyes.)

rife

abundant (Surprisingly, the famous novelist's writing was rife with spelling errors.)

sagacity

shrewdness, soundness of perspective through wisdom (With remarkable sagacity, the wise old man predicted and thwarted his children's plan to ship him off to a nursing home.)