Advanced English Vocabulary: Definitions and Usage

Bombast

Noun: pretentious, inflated speech or writing.

Lascivious

Adjective: filled with or showing sexual desire; lewd, lustful.

Obsequious

Adjective: marked by fawning attentiveness; excessively flattering or submissive.

Visage

Noun: the face, countenance, or appearance of a person or sometimes an animal; aspect or appearance.

Iniquity

Noun: gross injustice or wickedness; a wicked act or sin.

Promulgate

Verb: to make an idea or belief known to many people by open declaration; proclaim.

Beguile

Verb: to deceive by false appearance; to engage someone's interest through guile; to lead by deception.

Engender

Verb: to cause to exist or develop; produce. Also: beget or procreate.

Paragon

Noun: a model of excellence or perfection. Verb: to compare with or parallel; to put in rivalry or match; (obsolete) surpass.

Choler

Noun: a ready disposition to irritation; irascibility or anger. Archaic: yellow bile.

Egregious

Adjective: conspicuous, especially conspicuously bad; flagrant.

Knavery

Noun: rascality; a roguish or mischievous act.

Perdition

Noun: eternal damnation or hell. Archaic: utter destruction; obsolete: loss.

Conceit

Noun: an excessive favorable opinion of one's own worth or virtue; a result of thought or individual opinion; a fanciful idea; an elaborate or strained metaphor.

Filch

Verb: to steal secretly or casually.

Languish

Verb: to become weak or feeble; live in depression or decreasing vitality; become dispirited; suffer neglect; assume an expression of grief appealing for sympathy.

Dilatory

Adjective: tending or intended to cause delay; characterized by procrastination; tardy.

Mince

Verb: to utter or pronounce with affectation; archaic: to minimize or restrain words within decorum; to walk with short, prim, affected steps.

Cudgel

Noun: a short, heavy club. Verb: to beat with or as if with a cudgel.

Boon

Noun: a timely benefit or blessing; benefit or favor. Adjective: convivial; archaic: favorable.