act vocab 7/9

Petulant

rude; cranky; ill-tempered

Phantasm

apparition; ghost; phantom

Philanthropy

love of mankind, especially by doing good deeds

Philistine

a smugly ignorant person with no appreciation of intellectual or artistic matters

Phlegmatic

calm or indifferent; not easily roused to excitement

Pilgrimage

religious or spiritual journey; excursion; peregrination

Pious

reverent or devout; outwardly (and sometimes falsely) reverent or devout; hypocritical

Pivotal

crucial

Placate

to pacify; to appease; to soothe

Placebo

a fake medication; a fake medication used as a control in tests of the effectiveness of drugs

Plaintive

expressing sadness or sorrow

Platitude

a dull or trite remark; a cliché

Platonic

nonsexual; purely spiritual

Plausible

believable; convincing

Plebian

common; vulgar; low-class

Plethora

an excess

Pliable

flexible; easy to bend; easy to convince, persuade, or mold

Plight

a dangerous, distressing, or unpleasant situation

Plunder

to loot; to ransack

Pluralism

a condition of society in which distinct groups exist and function together yet retain their own identities

Poignant

painfully emotional; extremely moving; sharp or astute

Polarize

to break up into opposing factions or groupings

Polemic

a powerful argument often made to attack or refute a controversial issue

Ponderous

so large as to be clumsy; massive; dull

Pontificate

to speak pompously or dogmatically

Prous

filled with many tiny holes; permeable; absorbent

Portent

an omen; a sign of something coming in the future

Posterity

future generations; descendants; heirs

Posthumous

occurring after one's death; published after the death of an author

Postulate

something accepted as true without proof; an axiom

Posture

to act or speak artificially or affectedly

Pragmatic

practical; down-to-earth' based on experience

Prattle

to chatter on and on; to babble childlishly

Precarious

dangerously insecure or unsteady

Precedent

an earlier example or model of something

Precept

a rule to live by;a principle establishing a certain kind of action or behavior; a maxim

Precipitate

to cause to happen abruptly

Precipitous

steep

Preclude

to prevent something from ever happening

Precocious

unusually mature; uncommonly gifted

Precursor

forerunner; something that goes before and anticipates or paves the way for whatever it is that follows

Predecessor

someone or something that precedes in time

Predicament

a dangerous or unpleasant situation; a dilemma

Predilection

a natural preference for something

Predispose

to make susceptible; to put in a frame of mind for; to incline toward

Predominant

most important; dominant; having power over others

Preeminent

better than anyone else; outstanding; supreme

Preempt

to seize something by prior right

Pregnant

highly significant; overflowing

Prelude

introduction; something that precedes something else

Premeditate

planned beforehand; prearranged; plotted

Premise

an assumption; the basis for a conclusion

Presonderance

superiority in weight, number, size extent, influence, etc.; majority; predominance

Prepossess

to preoccupy; to influence beforehand or prejudice; to make a good impression on beforehand

Prerogative

a right or privilege connected exclusively with a position, a person, a class, a nation, or some other group or classification

Presage

to portend; to foreshadow; to forecast or predict

Presentiment

the feeling that something (especially something bad) is about to happen

Presumably

probably; the assumption is that; doubtless