AP English Literature | Summer Reading 2025 Vocabulary Flashcards

Flashcards covering the bold vocabulary terms from the notes, with concise definitions useful for study.

Proscribe (v)

to prohibit or put outside the law

Debauch (v), Debauchery (n), Profligacy (n)

to engage in wild and corruptive living, immorality

Licentious (adj), Prurient(adj), Salacious (adj)

immoral lewd, corruptive

Demagogue, Demagoguery (n.)

political leader who seeks support by appealing to desires rather than by using rational argument.

Umbrage (n)

(to take) Offense or annoyance.

Travail (n)

Suffering and hardship.

Veracity (n), Veracious (adj)

(vers, veris in Latin) truth

Voracious (adj), rapacious (adj), rapacity (n)

greedy, grasping

Encomium (n)

great praise.

Plaudits, accolades, laudation, panegyric

(laud = praise (Latin)) all mean praise or honors

Banal, Prosaic (adj)

ordinary and dull

Dereliction (n)

Failure to perform an official duty or responsibility.

Derelict (adj.)

In very poor condition due to disuse and neglect.

Derelict (n.)

a person without a home, job, or property, failure to perform an official duty or responsibility.

Travesty (n)

a farce.

Anathema (n)

anything forbidden socially

Perfidy (n), Perfidious (adj), Treachery (n), Treacherous (adj)

Treason or double-dealing

Ignominy (n), ignominious (adj)

Disgraceful.

Pyrrhic (adj)

Some win or victory accomplished at too great a cost

Surfeit (adj)

An excess or overabundance

Dour (adj)

Gloomy, solemn

Slothful (adj), Sloth (n)

Lazy; indolent.

Pithy, Terse, Laconic (adj)

Brief, to the point. (in language)

Orotund, bloviating, bombastic (adj)

Wordy, pompous, high sounding, dull of himself - all pejorative

Nemesis (n)

A long-standing rival or archenemy.

Acquisitive (adj)

Comes from acquire but has a pejorative or negative connotation; greedy or materialistic

Pariah (n)

An outcast. (from the Hindu caste system)

Paradigm (n)

An outstandingly clear or typical example of something; a model.

Ebullient (adj), Ebullience (n)

Buoyant, bubbly, enthusiastic, full of energy

Culpable (adj), Culpability (n)

Guilt.

Exculpate (v), Exonerated (v)

To free from blame.

Recondite (adj)

Little known

Arcane, Esoteric, abstruse, obscure (adjs)

Knowledge understood by few, difficult to understand.

Peremptory (adj)

Final; irrevocable

Countermand (v)

To go against

Pertinacious (adj)

Holding firmly to a belief or course of action; stubbornly persistent, tenacious.

Lambent (adj)

(of light or fire) Glowing, gleaming, or flickering with a soft radiance

Peccadillo (n)

A small, relatively unimportant offense or sin.

Cupidity (n)

inordinate desire for wealth

Tawdry and Meretricious (adj)

cheap and gaudy in appearance or quality

Internecine (adj)

Destructive for all parties involved

Imbroglio (n)

A confused, complicated messy situation.

Impetus (n)

The force or incentive that makes something happen more quickly, a push.

Perspicacious (adj)

of acute mental vision or discernment, a ready insight and understanding of things

Confluence (n)

A flowing together

Effluence (n)

iterally means flowing out of. It has come to mean any pollution that flows into water

Simplistic (adj)

Too simple

Ablutions (n)

literally a religious word meaning purifying with water

Abstemious (adj)

comes from abstain, not self-indulgent, especially when eating and drinking

Amulet, Talisman (n)

an ornament or small piece of jewelry thought to give protection against evil, danger or disease, lucky charm

Mitigate, Alleviate (v)

make (suffering, deficiency, or a problem) less severe

Analogous (adj)

from analogy, comparable in certain respects

Apparition, Specter, Wraith (n)

A ghost

Parse, Peruse (v)

To read carefully, analyze or examine minutely or carefully

Artifice, Ruse, Machination, Stratagem, Ploy, Gambit (n)

Clever trick

Atrophy (v)

a wasting away or diminution, gradual decline in effectiveness due to underuse or neglect- OF THE BODY- usually muscles

Degeneration, deterioration

wasting away or progressive decline.

Attenuate (v)

Specifically means to weaken

Guile (n)

sly or cunning intelligence

Guileless (adj)

Innocent; ingenuous.

Disingenuous

acting innocent but knowing the truth

Beguile

To charm or deceive.

Bereft (adj)

grieving because of loss

Flaccid (adj)

limp or flabby, as in soft- of the body

Premonition (n)

A strong feeling that something is about to happen. (Pre- means before they happen)

Presentiment

an intuitive feeling, foreboding (Pre- means before they happen)

Prescience

foreknowledge of events (Pre- means before they happen)

Gourmet (n)

a connoisseur of good food; a person with a discerning palate

Gourmand (n)

A person who enjoys eating and often eats too much.

Ubiquitous (adj)

Occurring everywhere.

Admonish (v)

to express warning or disapproval to especially in a gentle, earnest, or solicitous manner

Exhort (exhortation), importune

To urgent strongly

Caveat (n)

a warning or proviso of specific stipulations, conditions, or limitations

Derogate (v)

Synonyms: denigrate, disparage, malign, impugn

Adjective forms: derogatory, disparaging.

to blacken or defame someone

Traduce, Pillory (v)

both words mean to publicly ridicule someone

Cosset (v), Cosseted (adj)

to pamper someone or treat him as a pet

Acquiesce (v)

Synonyms: capitulated, acceded

to give into

Beleaguered (adj)

troubled, harassed, besieged (feelings )

Machiavellian (adj)

ruthless and scheming, usually politically- negative connotation

Draconian (adj)

Unduly harsh

Extirpate, Eradicate, Annihilate (v)

to wipe out, root out and destroy completely

Decimate

partically eradicate

Attrition (n)

the process of gradually reducing the strength of something, the act of weakening or exhausting, ex. A war of attrition. (not physical)

Tangential or peripheral (adj)

both mean around the outside or something, peripheral not germane or relevant to the issue at hand

Exacerbate (v)

To make worse or worsen.

Abrogate, Terminate (v)

to end, to repeal, do away with: a law, an agreement

Truncate (v)

to shorten by or reduce in size by cutting off

Convoluted (adj), Convolution (n)

complicated, complex and hard to follow

Synergy (n), synergistic (adj)

interaction when combined has a total effect greater than the

sum of the individuals; happy cooperation

Ersatz (adj)

An inferior or uncoventional substitute.

Inexorable, Ineluctable (adj)

inevitable or bound to happen

Desultory (adj)

wandering and aimless.

Quotidian (adj)

Everyday events; ordinary.

Sanctimonious (adj)

too “holier than thou”, used with a person and certainly negative; originally a negative term involving religion but has expanded to any area where someone acts “holier than thou”, morally superior.

Sanctimony (n)

the act of acting sanctimonious, affected or hypocritical holiness

Pontificate (v)

what a sanctimonious person can do, he pontificates about his ideas, to express ideas in a way considered annoying and pompous

Inure (v)

to become accustomed to (usually something unpleasant)