All Vocab :D

Vocabulary Study Guide

Key Terms with Definitions

• polemic

  • noun: a powerful argument, often made to attack or refute a controversial issue.

• obdurate

  • adjective: stubborn and insensitive.

• discreet

  • adjective: marked by, exercising, or showing prudence and wise self-restraint in speech and behavior; free from ostentation or pretension; modest.

• ardent

  • adjective: passionate; enthusiastic.

• hermetic

  • adjective: impervious to external influences.

• acquiesce

  • verb: to comply passively; to accept; to assent.

• extol

  • verb: to praise highly; to laud.

• ineffable

  • adjective: incapable of being expressed or described.

• rudimentary

  • adjective: basic; crude; unformed.

• obtuse

  • adjective: lacking quickness of perception or intellect; characterized by a lack of intelligence or sensitivity; slow to understand.

• reiterate

  • verb: to say again; to repeat.

• circumlocution

  • noun: the use of many words where fewer would do, especially in a deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive.

• proletariat

  • noun: the industrial working class.

• distend

  • verb: to swell; to extend a great deal.

• perquisite

  • noun: a privilege that goes along with a job; a "perk."

• precipitous

  • adjective: steep.

• furtive

  • adjective: secretive; sly.

• dictum

  • noun: an authoritative saying; an adage; a maxim.

• consummate

  • adjective: perfect; complete; supremely skillful; verb: to make perfect, to make complete.

• recalcitrant

  • adjective: stubbornly defiant of authority; disobedient.

• rapacious

  • adjective: greedy; plundering; avaricious.

• stricture

  • noun: a restriction; a limitation.

• urbane

  • adjective: poised; sophisticated; refined.

• recant

  • verb: to publicly take back and deny.

• egalitarian

  • adjective: believing in the social and economic equality of all people.

• misanthropic

  • adjective: hating mankind.

• itinerant

  • adjective: moving from place to place.

• officious

  • adjective: annoyingly eager to help or advise.

• enervate

  • verb: to reduce the strength or energy of, especially to do so gradually.

• rogue

  • noun: a criminal and dishonest person.

• audacity

  • noun: boldness; reckless daring.

• erudite

  • adjective: scholarly; deeply learned.

• sacrosanct

  • adjective: sacred; held to be inviolable.

• tenacious

  • adjective: persistent; stubborn.

• petulant

  • adjective: rude; cranky; ill-tempered.

• whimsical

  • adjective: capricious; erratic; oddly out of the ordinary; subject to sudden change.

• contrite

  • adjective: admitting guilt; especially feeling remorseful.

• moribund

  • adjective: approaching death; about to die; on the verge of becoming obsolete.

• callow

  • adjective: immature.

• metamorphosis

  • noun: a magical change in form; a striking or sudden change.

• odious

  • adjective: arousing hatred or repugnance.

• chimera

  • noun: an illusion; a foolish fancy.

• decadent

  • adjective: decaying or decayed, especially in terms of morals.

• egregious

  • adjective: extremely bad or offensive.

• verbose

  • adjective: using too many words.

• deduce

  • verb: to conclude from evidence; to infer.

• exalt

  • verb: to raise high; to glorify.

• disdain

  • verb or noun: to reject with contempt or scorn; noun: feeling or expression of contempt or scorn.

• sloth

  • noun: laziness; sluggishness.

• peremptory

  • adjective: final; categorical; dictatorial.

• circuitous

  • adjective: round-about; not following a direct path.

• gesticulate

  • verb: to make gestures, especially when speaking or in place of speaking.

• ebullient

  • adjective: boiling; bubbling with excitement.

• conjecture

  • verb: to guess; to deduce or infer on slight evidence; noun: a guess, a deduction.

• parsimonious

  • adjective: stingy.

• placid

  • adjective: calm; serene.

• anomaly

  • noun: deviation or departure from the normal.

• sedition

  • noun: treason.

• salient

  • adjective: sticking out; conspicuous; important and prominent.

• docile

  • adjective: easily taught; obedient; easy to handle.

• mitigate

  • verb: to moderate the effect of something.

• approbation

  • noun: approval; praise.

• hyperbole

  • noun: an exaggeration used as a figure of speech.

• surreptitious

  • adjective: sneaky; secret.

• doggerel

  • noun: comic, trivial, often satirical poetry; words badly written or expressed.

• intractable

  • adjective: uncontrollable; stubborn.

• penchant

  • noun: strong taste or liking for something; a predilection.

• prodigal

  • adjective: wastefully extravagant.

• vacillate

  • verb: to be indecisive; to waver.

• promulgate

  • verb: to proclaim; to publicly or formally declare something.

• supplant

  • verb: to displace, to substitute for another.

• circumscribe

  • verb: to draw a line around; to set the limits; to define.

• vapid

  • adjective: without liveliness; dull; spiritless.

• inert

  • adjective: inactive; sluggish; not reacting chemically.

• insidious

  • adjective: treacherous; sneaky and crafty.

• reparation

  • noun: paying back; making amends.

• turpitude

  • noun: shameful wickedness.

• fulsome

  • adjective: offensively flattering or insincere.

• hone

  • verb: to sharpen; to make perfect.

• inveterate

  • adjective: habitual; firm in habit; deeply rooted.

• sanctimonious

  • adjective: pretending to be devout.

• saccharine

  • adjective: sweet; excessively or disgustingly sweet.

• vicissitude

  • noun: one of the sudden or unexpected changes or shifts often encountered in one's life, activities, or surroundings.

• abject

  • adjective: hopeless; extremely sad and servile; defeated.

• strife

  • noun: a bitter conflict; discord.

• homage

  • noun: special respect or honor.

• mollify

  • verb: to soothe; to pacify.

• precipitate

  • verb: to cause to happen abruptly.

• magnate

  • noun: a rich, powerful, or very successful business person.

• diffident

  • adjective: timid; lacking in self-confidence.

• edify

  • verb: to enlighten; to instruct.

• malfeasance

  • noun: an illegal act, especially by a public official.

• exonerate

  • verb: to free completely from blame.

• vilify

  • verb: to say vile things about; to defame.

• derogatory

  • adjective: disapproving; degrading.

• gregarious

  • adjective: sociable; enjoying the company of others.

• facetious

  • adjective: humorous; not serious.

• despondent

  • adjective: extremely depressed; full of despair.

• choleric

  • adjective: hot-tempered; quick to anger.

• loquacious

  • adjective: talkative.

• deride

  • verb: to laugh at contemptuously; to ridicule.

• indolent

  • adjective: lazy.

• rhetoric

  • noun: the art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.

• impugn

  • verb: to attack, especially the truth or integrity of something.

• nefarious

  • adjective: evil; flagrantly wicked.

• equanimity

  • noun: composure; calm.

• labyrinth

  • noun: a maze; something like a maze.

• conciliatory

  • adjective: making peace; attempting to resolve a dispute through good will.

• intransigent

  • adjective: uncompromising; stubborn.

• recondite

  • adjective: hard to understand; over one's head.

• surfeit

  • noun: overindulgence in food or drink; an excessive amount; verb: to feed or supply in excess.

• immutable

  • adjective: unchanging over time or unable to be changed.

• laconic

  • adjective: using few words; terse or concise.

• impede

  • verb: to obstruct or delay the progress.

• hegemony

  • noun: the predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others.

• pristine

  • adjective: original; unspoiled; pure.

• levity

  • noun: lightness; unseriousness.

• panacea

  • noun: something that cures everything.

• insurgent

  • noun: someone who revolts against the government.

• duplicity

  • noun: the act of being two-faced; double-dealing.

• husbandry

  • noun: thrifty management of resources; frugal.

• precept

  • noun: a rule to live by.

• subversive

  • adjective: intended or serving to subvert, especially intended to overthrow or undermine an established government.

• reprisal

  • noun: military action undertaken in revenge for another.

• exigency

  • noun: an emergency; an urgency.

• remonstrate

  • verb: to argue against; to protest; to raise objections.

• solicitous

  • adjective: eager and attentive; anxiously caring or attentive.

• propriety

  • noun: properness; good manners.

• irrevocable

  • adjective: irreversible.

• impervious

  • adjective: not allowing anything to pass through; impenetrable.

• provincial

  • adjective: limited in outlook to one's own small corner of the world; narrow.

• obsequious

  • adjective: fawning; subservient; sucking up to--excessively flattering.

• paucity

  • noun: scarcity.

• imminent

  • adjective: just about to happen.

• abnegate

  • verb: to deny oneself things; to reject; to renounce.

• sycophant

  • noun: one who sucks up to others; a flatterer.

• protract

  • verb: to prolong.

• extricate

  • verb: to free from difficulty.

• staunch

  • adjective: firmly committed.

• nebulous

  • adjective: vague; hazy; indistinct.

• castigate

  • verb: to criticize severely; to chastise.

• grandiloquent

  • adjective: pompous; using a lot of big, fancy words in an attempt to sound impressive.

• gratuitous

  • adjective: given freely; unjustified; unprovoked.

• mercurial

  • adjective: emotionally unpredictable; rapidly changing in mood.

• pedantic

  • adjective: placing unnecessary stress on minor or trivial points of learning, displaying a scholarship lacking in judgment or sense of proportion.

• preclude

  • verb: to prevent something from ever happening.

• stymie

  • verb: to thwart; to get in the way of.

• tantamount

  • adjective: equivalent to.

• prosaic

  • adjective: dull; unimaginative.

• stratum

  • noun: a layer or a level.

• oblique

  • adjective: indirect; at an angle.

• incipient

  • adjective: beginning; emerging.

• philistine

  • noun: a smugly ignorant person with no appreciation of intellectual matters.

• ruminate

  • verb: to contemplate; to ponder.

• hackneyed

  • adjective: trite; overused.

• fatuous

  • adjective: silly and pointless; unreal and illusory.

• glut

  • noun: an overabundance; a surplus.

• meticulous

  • adjective: very careful; precise.

• astute

  • adjective: shrewd; keen in judgment.

• incandescent

  • adjective: brilliant; giving off heat or light.

• peccadillo

  • noun: a minor offense.

• harbinger

  • noun: one that indicates or foreshadows what is to come; forerunner.

• vitiate

  • verb: to make impure; to pollute.

• subjugate

  • verb: to subdue and dominate.

• clemency

  • noun: mercy; forgiveness; mildness.

• discriminate

  • verb: to notice or point out the difference between two or more things; make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people.

• incongruous

  • adjective: not harmonious; not consistent; not appropriate.

• myopia

  • noun: nearsightedness; lack of foresight.

• repudiate

  • verb: to reject; to renounce; to disown.

• mendicant

  • noun: a beggar.

• insolent

  • adjective: boldly rude or disrespectful; arrogantly insulting.

• expedite

  • verb: to speed up or ease the progress of.

• perfunctory

  • adjective: unenthusiastic; careless; performed merely as a routine duty; hasty and superficial.

• perfidy

  • noun: deliberate breach of faith; calculated violation of trust; treachery.

• equivocal

  • adjective: ambiguous; intentionally confusing.

• delineate

  • verb: to describe accurately; to draw an outline.

• nominal

  • adjective: in name only; insignificant.

• acerbic

  • adjective: bitter; sour; severe.

• dialectical

  • adjective: relating to discussions; relating to the rules and methods of reasoning.

• fastidious

  • adjective: meticulous; demanding; very attentive to and concerned about accuracy and detail.

• trepidation

  • noun: fear; apprehension.

• fecund

  • adjective: fertile; productive.

• adroit

  • adjective: skillful; dexterous; clever; shrewd; socially at ease.

• complicity

  • noun: participation in wrong-doing; the act of being an accomplice.

• cogent

  • adjective: powerfully convincing.

• imperial

  • adjective: like an emperor or an empire.

• espouse

  • verb: to support; to advocate.

• enigma

  • noun: a mystery.

• exacerbate

  • verb: to make worse.

• taciturn

  • adjective: untalkative by nature; reserved; uncommunicative.

• palpable

  • adjective: capable of being touched; obvious; tangible.

• capricious

  • adjective: unpredictable; likely to change at any moment.

• irascible

  • adjective: easily angered or provoked.

• deluge

  • noun: a flood; an inundation.

• debacle

  • noun: violent breakdown; sudden overthrow; overwhelming defeat.

• mellifluous

  • adjective: sweetly flowing.

• tautological

  • adjective: needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy.

• hapless

  • adjective: unlucky.

• insatiable

  • adjective: hard or impossible to satisfy; greedy.

• proliferate

  • verb: to spread or grow rapidly.

• malinger

  • verb: to pretend to be sick; to avoid doing work.

• catharsis

  • noun: purification that brings emotional relief or renewal.

• incessant

  • adjective: unceasing.

• extrapolate

  • verb: to project or deduce from something known; to infer.

• invective

  • noun: insulting or abusive speech.

• grandiose

  • adjective: absurdly exaggerated.

• predilection

  • noun: a natural preference for something.

• dissipate

  • verb: to thin out, drift away, or dissolve.

• lament

  • verb: to mourn.

• usurp

  • verb: to seize wrongfully.

• pragmatic

  • adjective: practical; down-to-earth.

• languish

  • verb: to become weak, listless, or depressed.

• inundate

  • verb: to flood; to cover completely with water; to overwhelm.

• fetter

  • noun: a chain or shackle for the ankles or feet; something that serves to restrict; a restraint; verb: to restrict the freedom of.

• effusion

  • noun: a pouring forth of liquid or matter.

• denizen

  • noun: inhabitant; a resident; one who inhabits a place.

• contentious

  • adjective: argumentative; quarrelsome.

• covert

  • adjective: secret; hidden.

• antipathy

  • noun: firm dislike.

• wistful

  • adjective: yearning; sadly longing.

• propitious

  • adjective: marked by favorable signs or conditions.

• iconoclast

  • noun: one who attacks popular beliefs or institutions.

• vitriolic

  • adjective: caustic; full of bitterness.

• vehement

  • adjective: characterized by forcefulness of expression or intensity of emotion or conviction.

• deleterious

  • adjective: harmful.

• onerous

  • adjective: burdensome or oppressive.

• sanguine

  • adjective: cheerful; optimistic; hopeful.

• decorous

  • adjective: proper; in good taste; orderly.

• vaunted

  • adjective: to make a vain display of one's worth; arrogance.

• abstemious

  • adjective: consuming food or drink in moderation.