The Importance of Being Earnest - Act 1 Vocabulary

Forte

Forte means an area in which you are strong or good. Having two left feet and no sense of rhythm, dancing would not be considered your forte. Better to impress people with card tricks, if that's your area of expertise, or your forte.

Demoralize

If something demoralizes you, it makes you feel bad or hopeless. When your soccer team was trounced by the last-place team in the league, the loss seemed to demoralize everyone, from players to coaches to fans.

Languid

Languid comes from the Latin verb, languere, "to be weak or faint" and is a somewhat literary word for something that doesn't use much energy. If someone says goodbye to you with a languid wave of the hand, there's not too much movement involved. You can describe yourself as languid when you have that feeling of not being entirely awake — kind of lazy in the mind.

Earnest

If you are earnest, it means you are serious about something. Your parents might not want you to drop out of school to follow some fly-by-night dream, but if you're earnest about wanting a career in show biz, they'll support you.

Candid

Straightforward and truthful talk might be described with the adjective candid. If you're always candid, your parents will know that they can trust you.

Sententious

If you speak in sententious phrases, your listeners are probably falling asleep, as your speech is pompous and pretentious, and full of moralistic babble.

Cynical

A cynical person has a bleak outlook about others, always imagining that people are ruled by their worst instincts.

Indecorous

Indecorous behavior isn't proper or socially acceptable. It would be indecorous to publish your sister's diary in the newspaper or to tell your extended family an offensive joke at Thanksgiving dinner.

Surmise

If you see empty ice cream containers on the table, sprinkles littering the ground, and a can of whipped cream in the trash, you can surmise what happened: someone made sundaes. To surmise is to form an opinion or make a guess about something.

Profligate

Any time someone behaves in a reckless, amoral, or wasteful way, they are engaging in profligate behavior. It usually refers to financial behavior but can cross over to social activity as well. A person who is a slave to their cravings and whose behavior is unrestrained and selfish can be called a profligate. Extravagantly profligate behavior is often wildly fun but usually comes with a heavy price to pay in the morning, both financially and morally.