SAT vocabulary

buffet 1. (v.) to strike with force (The strong winds buffeted the ships, threatening to capsize them.) 2. (n.) an arrangement of food set out on a table (Rather than sitting around a table, the guests took food from our buffet and ate standing up.) buttress 1. (v.) to support, hold up (The column buttresses the roof above the statue.) 2. (n.) something that offers support (The buttress supports the roof above the statues.) chary (of) (adj.) not taking chances; cautious ( …chary of offending others) harangue 1. (n.) a ranting speech (Everyone had heard the teacher's harangue about gum chewing in class before.) 2. (v.) to give such a speech (But this time the teacher harangued the class about the importance of brushing your teeth after chewing gum.) impinge 1. (v.) to impact, affect, make an impression (Sound waves impinge on the eardrums.) 2. (v.) to encroach, infringe ( …parents sometimes impinge on their children's privacy.) truckle (to) (v.) to submit; to yield ascendant (n.) position of dominance and controlling influence; (v.) rising inveigh (against) (v.) to make bitter verbal attack askance (adv.) (preceded by to look) with suspicion, mistrust; sidewise addled (v.) confused (used with or without object); (adj.)confused or rotten (…addled eggs) ambuscade (n.) hidden or secret attack; (verb used without an object) to lie in ambush; (verb used with an object) to attack from a concealed position chaff (n.) worthless matter ("As for man, his days are like chaff, he flourishes like the flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more." Psalm 103:15 dither (v.) to be indecisive (Not wanting to offend either friend, he dithered about which of the two birthday parties he should attend.); also, (v.) (preceded by in a ) nervously excited or confused (… in a dither about…) docile (adj.) obedient; easily managed (There were several cracks of laughter from the crowd when the undefeated prize rodeo bull was introduced to the Houston Rodeo crowd. His name?…. "Docile!" excoriate (v.) (two meanings) to scrape the skin off; to criticize sharply (As expected, the Boston media excoriated Logan Airport security for their inability to stop the terrorists from boarding three of the four planes involved in 9-11.) imperturbable (adj.) steady; calm (His gentle, imperturbable manner served him well during the often interminable, frequently confrontational meetings with the foreign officials. manifold (adj.) diverse, varied (The popularity of Dante's Inferno is partly due to the fact that the work allows for manifold interpretations.) ("…Join with all nature in manifold witness, to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love…") phlegmatic (adj.) unemotional; cool; not easily excited (The ever-phlegmatic Mr. Pibb, when told that he had just won the lottery, said, "really?," and barely cracked a smile on the left side of his face. quiddity (n.) essential quality; what makes something what it is (Mr. Kotya wasn't referring to the quiddity of holiday icons when he said to his teenage son Busted, who was arriving home smelling like a beer, "I know where you've been. You can't snow a snowman." rarefy (v.)(with or without an object) to make less dense; to refine (Heat rarefies moisture inside a test tube.) redolent (adj.) having a pleasant odor; suggestive (of) ("My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring." - Thomas Gray, poet, on healing) slake (v.) to lessen (thirst, desire, anger, etc.) by satisfying; to quench (Water has the power to slake thirst, quench fire and nourish - or destroy - life.) sobriquet (n.) an affectionate or humorous nickname; assumed name ("Maybe that's being unfair to Jerry Brown, whose previous (California) administrations in the 1970s, earned him the sobriquet Governor Moonbeam." - Richard Smith, on California Gov. Jerry Brown) sublimate (v.) to modify the natural expression of (a primitive, instinctual impulse) in a socially acceptable manner ("I used to sublimate my desire to kick puppies by kicking publishers, but I quit doing that because they are unteachable, and it does no good." - Roger Sutton) temerity (n.) audacity, recklessness ~~proper use ( vs. audacity) implies a difficult task or adventure involved ("With youthful temerity and hopeful ignorance Tom and Huck entered McDougal's cave…" - Mark Twain.) tractable (adj.) easily controlled; easily controllable ~~common use modifies inanimate object(s) (If you asked auto industry executives what two wishes they would like to make, more than likely they would be: tractable sales figures and tractable labor unions.) turgid (adj.) swollen, excessively embellished in style or language ~~the difference between florid and turgid is the difference between a multicolored flower arrangement (florid) and a multi-acre flower garden (turgid) unassailable (adj.) not open to attack by military force or argument; not subject to denial or dispute (…unassailable fortifications; …unassailable logic) (Shakespeare's genius gives his works an unassailable position in world literature.) vagrant (n.) a homeless person (adj.) without a home; wandering ("There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities." - Mark Twain, on loneliness) vicarious (adj.) experiencing through another (Deathly scared or riding the dreaded roller coaster (any one of them), Mrs. Trimble would settle for reading about them in books in order to experience vicarious thrills.) vituperate (v.) to berate or criticize harshly or abusively (For being found guilty of abusing his position in Congress to financially enrich himself, Congressman Rangel (NY) was publicly vituperated by Republicans and consequently removed from the headship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.) wheedle (v.) to coax or to persuade (Using her Southern charm she was able to wheedle out information from the attacking Union troops to help the Confederate cause) abeyance (n.) a temporary postponement (The Judge held the court proceedings in abeyance until such time the defendant recovers from illness.) abject (n.) miserable; wretched; contemptible ( … abject poverty; … abject conditions; … abject humor) abjure (v.) to reject, renounce (To prove his honesty, the president abjured the evil policies of his wicked predecessor.) ablution (n.) a washing; cleansing abnegate (v.) to deny; to reject abrade (v.) to wear away abridge (v. or adj.) to shorten; curtail (A pocket dictionary is an abridged form of the complete version.) abrogate (v.) to abolish, usually by authority (The Bill of Rights assures that the government cannot abrogate our right to a free press.) abscond (v.) to leave secretly; to flee absolve (v.) to free from responsibility (The court absolved the mother from guilt in her children's death.) abstemious (adj.) moderate or sparing in eating or drinking ~proper use implies abstinence (Practicing Catholics are overtly abstemious throughout lent.) abstruse (adj.) hard to understand ~proper use needs to imply complexity, intellectually demanding (Ms. Heitkamp began to connect with her students when she started to illustrate abstruse concepts on a diagram.) accede (v.) to agree to ~customary use implies agreements of an official nature (The Japanese Emperor acceded to the demands of surrender given by Gen. MacArthur.) acclivity (n.) upward slope of ground (The Parthenon sits atop a prominent acclivity in the middle of Athens.) accost (v.) to approach and speak to ~proper use implies intrusion with an unexpected demand or request (Philanthropists regularly get accosted by people asking for hand-outs.) accoutrement (n.) equipment; outfit accretion (n.) an increase by natural growth or gradual external addition (…accretion of matter onto black holes) accrue (v.) to gather as a result of external addition (…accrued interest) acerbic (adj.) biting, bitter in tone or taste (Nothing compares to the acerbic ruminations of a jilted bride.) acquiesce (v.) to agree, consent, submit, or comply silently ~~verb is used without an object ~used with preposition "in" or "to;" do not use with the preposition "…with." acrid (adj.) bitter to the taste or smell acrimony (n.) bitterness, discord (Though they vowed that no girl would ever come between them, Adam and Steve could not keep acrimony from overwhelming their friendship after they both fell in love with the lovely Eve.) acrophobia (n.) fear of heights acumen (n.) keen insight (Because of his mathematical acumen, Kyle was able to figure out in minutes problems that took other students hours.) adamant (n.) stubborn; unyielding addendum (n.) something added as a supplement adduce (v.) to give an example in proving something adipose (adj.) fatty adjunct (n.) a subordinate; an assistant adroit (adj.) skillful; clever ~customary use implies dexterity in the use of the hands or of logic in debate adumbrate (v.) to sketch out in a vague way (The leaders of the democratic party adumbrated a game plan after losing the midterm elections, but none of the rank-and-file knew precisely what to do.) adventitious (adj.) accidental; nonessential aesthetic (adj.) pertaining to the sense of the beautiful (Gracefulness and precision are the aesthetic qualities of the movement of a performing Prima ballerina.) affable (adj.) friendly; good natured ~proper use implies that the person is easy to talk to affectation (n.) a deliberate pretense or exaggerated display (Billy Bob's French accent is an affectation.) agoraphobia (n.) fear of open places agrarian (adj.) pertaining to farmers or agriculture ague (n.) a fever; a plague ; a fit of shivering alacrity (n.) eagerness, speed (Children, during playtime, are allowed to make the world into anything they wish, and they do so with alacrity.) alimentary (adj.) pertaining to nourishment or food alluvial (adj.) pertaining to a deposit of sand formed by flowing water altruism (n.) unselfish regard for the welfare of others ~proper use implies no requited act expected from the recipient (Donating blood is an act of pure altruism on the part of the donor.) amalgamate (v.) to combine; to unite; to blend ~proper use implies a purpose to create an organization or structure ambient (adj.) pertaining to the surrounding area or environment (…ambient temperature; …ambient noises) ambivalence (n.) uncertainty or conflicting feelings toward something or someone (The runaway bride felt a moment of ambivalence when she heard the church organ play the bride march.) ambrosial (adj.) pleasing to the taste or smell ameliorate (v.) to make better ~proper use implies harm has already taken effect (Good early childhood programs in the inner city can ameliorate the effects of harmful social and psychological environments.) amnesty (n.) official pardon for an offense amorphous (adj.) shapeless anachronism (n.) something or someone that is not in its correct historical time (The Christmas school play featured an obvious anachronism - Scrooge's cell phone rang playing the disco hit, "We are family, I got all my sisters with me") anathema (n.) a cursed, detested person (When you are morbidly obese and become a contestant on "The biggest Loser," the person you are is anathema to the person you would like to be.) ancillary (adj.) helping, subordinate; auxiliary (…ancillary ground forces that follow the day after an invasion) anhydrous (adj.) without water (…the anhydrous lands of the Atacama desert in Chile) anneal (v.) to heat and then cool; to toughen antediluvian (n. or adj.) old fashioned; primitive; belonging to the period before Noah's flood antipathy (n.) a strong dislike, repugnance (The key to understanding her antipathy for car salesmen is found in the knowledge that every single one of her five ex-husbands worked as a car salesman.) antithesis (n.) exact opposite aperture (n.) an opening; a gap aphasia (n.) loss of ability to speak aphorism (n.) brief saying expressing a general truth (As expected, Mrs. Glass' favorite aphorism is "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.") apiary (n.) a place where bees are kept aplomb (n.) self-confidence; poise apogee (n.) farthest point away from the earth apoplexy (n.) sudden loss of consciousness; paralysis (With one more word to win the game, Oscar warned Erin that he would suffer an attack of apoplexy if Erin screwed up the final scrabble word.) apothegm (n.) a brief instructive saying ~the difference between this and an aphorism is that apothegms seem to give instruction ("In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock") apotheosis (n.) glorification of a person to the rank of God; quintessence (Bowlegged and gaunt, the cowboy stands as the apotheosis of manly perfection.) appellation (n.) a name ("Flower Belle! What a euphonious appellation! Easy on the ears and a banquet for the eyes!" - Mae West) append (v.) to attach; to add ~proper use is when the matter being appended is added as a supplement (… append a note to a letter; … append one's signature to a will) apprise (v.) to inform; to give notice (…to be apprised of the death of an old friend) approbation (n.) praise; approval (The City of Green Bay welcomed their football team with approbation.) appurtenance (n.) something added to another more important thing (The seller of the house left her sewing box as one of the more bizarre appurtenances to the sale of the house.) apropos (n.) relevant: appropriate; fitting arable (adj.) good for farming arbor (n.) a shaded area arcane (adj.) mysterious; known by only a few (After graduating from college with a major in Sanskrit and a minor in Mesopotamian slang, Jimmy got a job at the Museum as the resident expert on all things arcane.) ardent (adj.) intensely enthusiastic; intensely devoted (Jimmy, an ardent student of arcane languages.) armistice (n.) a truce; a suspension of hostilities ~proper use implies the two groups involved are countries at war arrogate (v.) to take without justification (The king arrogated the right to order executions to himself exclusively.) artifice (n.) trick; deception ascetic (adj.) practicing restraint as a means of self-discipline, usually religious (The monk lives an ascetic life devoid of television, savory foods, and other pleasures.) asinine (adj.) stupid; silly asperity (n.) harshness, roughness of tone, temper, or manner aspersion (n.) a curse, expression of ill-will (The rival politicians repeatedly cast aspersions on each others' integrity.) assiduous (adj.) hard-working, diligent (The construction workers erected the skyscraper during two years of assiduous labor.) assuage (v.) to calm; make less severe ~proper use implies previous harm or damage has been done (Grief counseling cannot assuage the unbearable pain felt by a young mother who loses a child to drunk driving.) attenuated (v.) decreased; weakened (The moment the homeless man realized he had won the lottery was the moment when the burden of being alive, for him, was attenuated to its smallest possible dimension.) audacity (n.) boldness; daring ~proper use needs to imply an arrogant disregard for personal safety or other considerations (Audacity in its purest form is telling Adolf Hitler his mustache is a cheap version of Chaplin's.) augur (v.) to predict auspicious (adj.) favorable; promising success ( … auspicious beginnings; … an auspicious occasion) austere (adj.) severe; stern; self-disciplined autumnal (adj.) mature; declining avoirdupois (n.) heaviness; weight avuncular (adj.) like an uncle bacchanalian (n. or adj.) wild with drunkenness badinage (n.) playful and pleasing talk baleful (adj.) harmful; menacing; pernicious banal (adj.) common; ordinary; trite bard (n.) a poet (William Shakespeare is fondly called the "bard of Avon" around, not surprisingly, the city of Avon.) baroque (n. or adj.) excessively ornate, showy bibulous (adj.) absorbent; fond of alcoholic beverages biennial (n. or adj.) happening every or lasting for two years (… biennial games; … biennial life cycle) bilious (adj.) bad-tempered; cross boon (n.) a gift or blessing (The good weather has been a boon for many businesses located near the beach.) boor (n.) a rude or impolite person bourgeoisie (n.) middle class bowdlerize (v.) to censor; to remove offensive passages of a play, novel (A recent edition book bowdlerized Mark Twain's classic Huckleberry Finn, removing the term '' in favor of "homey.") brigand (n.) a robber (The recent Ben Affleck movie, "The Town," featured a band of brigands from Boston.) browbeat (v.) to intimidate by overbearing looks or words; bully (Jim Bob's mother never elevated her voice in raising her ten children; she admonished by way of the dreaded browbeat.) brusque (adj.) short, abrupt, dismissive (The captain's brusque manner offended the passengers.) bucolic (adj.) pertaining to the countryside; rural bumptious (adj.) conceited; arrogant burnish (v.) to polish, shine (His mother asked him to burnish the silverware before setting the table.) cabal (n.) a small, secret group ~proper use implies the existence of a plot against a government or person in authority (A cabal of generals, aristocrats and businessmen plotted to oust Harold Wilson and seize power.) cacophony (n.) tremendous noise, disharmonious sound (The elementary school orchestra created such a cacophony at the recital that many invited guests threatened to sue the music director.) cajole (v.) to coax; to persuade ~proper use implies using flattery or insincerity (The desperate bachelor was able to cajole a girl at the bar to sit with him by introducing himself as Mark Zuckerberg's younger brother.) callow (n.) young and inexperienced calumny (n.) false accusation; slander ~proper use implies an intent to hurt someone's reputation (Despite their best efforts to live life in the straight and narrow, long-term politicians very rarely escape calumny.) canard (n.) a false story, report, or rumor cantankerous (adj.) bad-tempered; quarrelsome (The collective attitude of the team instantly turned cantankerous when they discovered a spy sent by their next opponent filming their practice.) capacious (n.) spacious; roomy (His bedroom not only looks capacious; it "sounds" capacious. You hear a four second echo whenever you talk inside.) capitulate (v.) to surrender (After a 20 month siege, the lack of food and water for everyone left the King no other choice but capitulate to the surrounding invaders.) capricious (adj.) subject to whim, fickle (A church missionary to Africa will have little of anything, the least of which is any tendency to be capricious.) captious (adj.) hard to please; faultfinding (Just because a person is a career film and theatre critic doesn't necessarily mean that they are captious in their own personal lives.) carteblanche (n.) full authority; freedom to use one's own judgment cathartic (adj.) purging; cleansing ~~common use in psychiatry: the alleviation of fear, problems, and complexes by bringing them to consciousness or giving them expression (Weekly sessions with my shrink are cathartic indeed.) caustic (adj.) sarcastic; severely critical; corrosive caveat (n.) a warning cavil (v.) to quibble; to argue cavort (v.) to leap about; to frolic celerity (n.) speed; swiftness celibate (n.) unmarried; sexually abstaining chafe (v.) to irritate charnel (n.) cemetery; tomb chattel (n.) a movable item of property; a slave chicanery (n.) deception; trickery chimerical (adj.) imaginary; fantastic; unreal (Martin and Max play Black Ops - a gaming software that is profoundly chimerical in every aspect, except for the headphone conversations they engage in when playing on the same team.) choleric (adj.) easily angered (can be used without a subject) chronic (adj.) long-lasting (Chronic acute pain can last for months or years.) churlish (adj.) rude; ill-bred ("Disrespecting the Chevy Volt because it doesn't have a clutch seems churlish and off-point, like disrespecting dogs because they don't have gills." - Washington Post) cipher (n.) person or thing of no value. (Something told Yaakov that his relationship with Chelsea Hightower wasn't going to go very far when she started calling him "Cipher.") clandestine (adj.) secretive; private ~proper usage implies a purpose of deception or subversion (The clandestine meetings went undiscovered for years until the ouster of the ruler.) clangor (n.) harsh, ringing sound clemency (n.) mercy (After he forgot their anniversary, Mike could only beg Martha for clemency.) cloven (n.) divided; split coadjutor (n.) assistant; helper coalesce (v.) to blend; to merge; to fuse ~when properly used, the sentence will precisely say that the result was one body, unit, or mass (Two bubbles coalesced into one larger bubble.) coddle (v.) to treat tenderly cogent (adj.) intellectually convincing (Irene's arguments in favor of abstinence were so cogent that I could not resist them.) cognomen (n.) family name colloquial (adj.) informal ("His style is eminently colloquial,..It is not literary or classical; it has not the music of poetry, nor the pomp of philosophy, but the rhythms and cadences of conversations endlessly repeated - Thoreau") colloquy (n.) conversation comely (adj.) pleasing in appearance; proper ( … a comely face; …comely behavior) commodious (adj.) roomy; spacious compendium (n.) brief summary; concise treatise; a full list or inventory ~~in the primary meaning, it should be a summary of an extensive subject ( … a compendium of medicine) complicity (n.) partnership in a wrongful act ~~proper use needs to imply a minor role in the offense ~~less involved than conspire compunction (n.) uneasiness; remorse concomitant (adj.) accompanying in a subordinate fashion (His dislike of hard work carried with it a concomitant lack of spending money.) condign (adj.) deserved; suitable conflagration (n.) great fire (The cities of Chicago and San Francisco both burned to the ground, suffering from the two largest conflagrations in American history.) confluent (adj.) flowing or running together (The Colorado river is a product of the confluence of hundreds of brooks and streams from western Nebraska.) conjugal (adj.) pertaining to marriage (When one considers Imelda Marcos' strong influence over the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, one would be accurate in describing the form of government during the Marcos era as a conjugal dictatorship.) connubial (adj.) pertaining to matrimony ~~no substantial difference between it and conjugal ~~proper use needs to imply a more personal aspect of matrimony ( … connubial love; … connubial routines of wedding anniversaries) contemn (v.) to regard with scorn or contempt contiguous (adj.) nearby, neighboring ( …the 48 contiguous states of the continental United States.) contretemps (n.) an embarrassing occurrence contrite (adj.) penitent, eager to be forgiven (Blake's contrite behavior made it impossible to stay angry at him.) contumacious (adj.) disobedient; obstinate contumely (n.) insulting display of contempt in words or actions (To say that man is made in the image of the ape is insulting to nature, contumely to God.) conundrum (n.) puzzle, problem (Interpreting Jane's bipolar behavior was a constant conundrum to untrained school counselors.) convoke (v. used with object) to call together (The governor of Texas moved to convoke a constitutional convention in order to discuss Obamacare.) copious (adj.) plentiful; abundant ( … copious notes) cornucopia (adj.) horn of plenty; abundance corpulent (adj.) fat; fleshy (Puck from Glee has a weird attraction for the 350 lb. corpulent Lauren. Ugh.) cortege (n.) funeral procession; group of followers coterie (n.) close circle of friends covert (n. or adj.) concealed, secretive (Nearly all the operations of the CIA in Afghanistan are covert.) cower (v.) to crouch and tremble in fear credulity (n.) readiness to believe (His credulity made him an easy target for con men.) crucible (n.) a severe test or trial (Jesus' proved his love for mankind by undergoing the crucible of the Cross.) cupidity (n.) greed, strong desire (Neglecting the dangers of entering an abandoned gold mine without safety gear is due more to stupidity than to cupidity.) cursory (adj.) brief to the point of being superficial (Late for the meeting, she cast a cursory glance at the agenda.) daunt (v.) to discourage; to overcome with fear ~~commonly used in this form ( …Don't be daunted by..) defacto (n.) in fact; in reality ( … a de facto leader of the band) dearth (n.) a scarcity or lack ~proper use implies costliness resulting from supply/demand (With so many first-time congressmen, the State department lamented the dearth of foreign policy experience among our lawmakers.) deciduous (adj.) not permanent; passing (When you look at things from the perspective of a geologist, every forest on earth is a deciduous forest.) declivity (n.) downward slope decrepit (adj.) broken down by age, disease, or disuse (Mr. Jones didn't care that he was buying a decrepit house. He figured it would take less money to take it down.) decry (v.) to criticize openly (The kind video rental clerk decried the policy of charging customers late fees.) defalcate (v.) to misuse funds; to embezzle defile (v.) to make unclean, impure (She defiled the serenity of the religious building by playing her banjo.) defunct (adj.) no longer in existence; extinct (Austin paid dearly for an official baseball jersey of the defunct Colt 45s.) deleterious (adj.) harmful (She experienced the deleterious effects of running a marathon without stretching her muscles enough beforehand.) demagogue (n.) a popular leader who appeals to the emotions (Adolf Hitler fits the classic description of a demagogue in that his rise to power was in lock-step with emotional appeals to reject the hated Social Democrats.) demur (v.) to object ~proper use implies taking exception on the grounds of personal or corporate scruples (Wall Street has consistently demurred on listing porn-related companies onto the stock exchange.) demure (adj.) quiet, modest, reserved (Though everyone else at the party was dancing wildly and going crazy, she remained seated, smiling, and demure.) denizen (n.) occupant; resident; resident (… whales are denizens of the deep; … vamps are denizens of the dark) deprecate (v.) to belittle, depreciate (Masters of self-deprecation, veteran comedians have no problems humiliating themselves in front of their audiences.) derogatory (adj.) belittling (Jimbo had no chance of being accepted at a Christian University because of derogatory statements about his character in the official school transcript.) deride (v.) to laugh at mockingly, scorn (The bullies derided the foreign student's accent.) desecrate (v.) to violate the sacredness of a thing or place (They feared that the construction of a golf course would desecrate the preserved wilderness.) desiccated (adj.) dried up, dehydrated (The skin of the desiccated mummy looked like old paper.) despot (n.) a dictator destitute (n.) poor; lacking (Homeless and destitute, the Vietnam veteran sat outside the church walls asking for alms.) desultory (adj.) wandering from subject to subject; rambling ("At first I couldn't recognize him, then he couldn't recognize me. He would talk as one who was president, then he would speak as ten who were in the meeting; starting in english, always ending in some form of gibberish. Such was the desultory life of the stricken…" on Reagan) détente (n.) a lessening of tension or hostility ~~proper use: between nations, as by negotiations and agreements dialectic (n.) logical discussion to resolve differences between two views ~~proper use is when no effort is made to establish one of them as true ("The great dialectic in our time is not… between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state." - John Galbraith) diaphanous (adj.) light, airy, transparent (Sunlight poured in through the diaphanous curtains, brightening the room.) diatribe (n.) bitter criticism didactic (adj.) intended for instruction (The secret recipe to parenting is to casually relate to your child without a single one of your utterances being discovered as didactic in purpose.) diffident (adj.) shy, quiet, modest (While eating dinner with the adults, the diffident youth did not speak for fear of seeming presumptuous.) dilatory (adj.) slow or late in doing things dilettante (n.) a dabbler in fine arts; one who is not an expert ("Without work, without painstaking work, any writer or artist definitely remains a dilettante.." -Ivan Turgenev) dipsomaniac (n.) a drunkard discreet (adj.) showing good judgment ~~~check "eet" discrete (adj.) separate; not attached discursive (adj.) rambling, lacking order (The professor's discursive lectures seemed to be about every subject except the one initially described.) disputatious (adj.) fond of arguing (A disputatious man, Jefferson Davis sometimes seemed to prefer winning an argument to winning the war; Lincoln was happy to lose an argument if it would help him win the war.) dissemble (v.) to conceal, fake (Not wanting to appear heartlessly greedy, she dissembled and hid her intention to sell her ailing father's stamp collection.) distend (v.) to expand; to swell; to stretch out ( … habitual overeating had distended his stomach) diurnal (n.) daily doddering (adj.) shaky; senile doff (v.) to throw off or away donnybrook (n.) rough and rowdy fight dotage (n.) feeblemindedness of old age doyen (n.) senior or oldest member Draconian (adj.) severe; cruel ("Both have two-year bans for a first offense and lifetime bans for a second, standards labeled "draconian" by the NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue at a hearing last week.") dregs (n.) leftovers; waste matter (Pre-school kids must not be defiled by the utterances of gangsta rappers, drug purveyors, and all other assorted dregs of society found at the bottom of the FM radio barrel.) drivel (n.) childish nonsense; stupid talk ("Seriously, if this drivel is the best rhetoric that Mubarak can come up with, then I best be packing to live in a bomb shelter until the revolution is over.") dross (n.) waste matter dudgeon (n.) anger; resentment dulcet (adj.) pleasing to the ear duplicity (n.) deliberate deceptiveness in behavior and speech ("In some circles that type of duplicity is called, hypocrisy!!" - John McCain on Big O) duress (n.) constraint by threat; coercion (Information obtained under duress is not always the most reliable.) dyspepsia (n.) poor digestion dysphasia (n.) difficulty in speaking ebullient (adj.) extremely lively, enthusiastic (She became ebullient upon receiving an acceptance letter from her first-choice college.) éclat (n.) brilliance; fame eclectic (adj.) selecting; choosing from various elements (Johnnie Meier is an example of artist who produces eclectic art in that he refuses to draw inspiration from any single established art style or genre.) educe (v.) to draw or bring out efficacy (n.) power to produce an effect ( … torture's efficacy is not unexpected; The rise in efficacy of terrorism is due in large part to the availability of inexpensive but highly effective weapons and equipment.) effrontery (n.) impudence, nerve, insolence (When I told my aunt that she was boring, my mother scolded me for my effrontery.) effulgent (adj.) radiant, splendorous (The drabbiest dregs in heaven would be effulgent compared to the clearest and brightest diamonds on earth.) egregious (adj.) extremely bad (The student who threw sloppy joes across the cafeteria floor was punished for his egregious behavior.) egress (n. and v.) exit elegy (n.) a sad and mournful poem ("It's one long, lovely elegy, reason for sadness unknown." - Washington Post) elysian (adj.) blissful; heavenly emaciated (n.) abnormally thin ~proper use: describing a person so thin that bones noticeably protrude under the skin (The Haiti earthquake survivor was found 9 days later emaciated and severely dehydrated, but alive.) emendation (n.) correction emetic (n.) causing vomiting (The King was taken inside and an emetic administered, when he vomited up a quantity of the poison.) emollient (n.) something that soothes or softens emolument (n.) profit or gain from employment (The newly elected governor, a multibillionaire, said in his acceptance speech, "I will accept no reward, no office, no emolument, no title - nothing!") emulous (adj.) jealous; envious encomium (n.) an expression of high praise encumbrance (n.) hindrance; obstruction endemic (adj.) confined to a particular country or area ( … certain diseases are endemic to particular geographical areas.) enervate (v.) to weaken, exhaust (Physically enervated after barely finishing his first marathon, Mr. Tolentino toddled straight to the ambulance.) enigma (n.) a puzzling situation; dilemma (Quite the enigma is Billy Bob, who is not smart, not handsome, not athletic, not sociable, and not even at the dance. How in the world did he ever get voted "Prom King?") enmity (n.) hostility; hatred (A casual reader of Shakespeare will find it difficult to explain how the relationship between the Capulet and Montague families escalated into enmity.) enrapture (v.) to delight beyond measure (The elderly King was instantly enraptured by the birth of a healthful son.) ensconce (v.) to hide; to conceal; to settle comfortably (In order to finish his novel before the deadline, the writer wisely decided to ensconce himself in a rented cottage away from common distractions.) envisage (v.) to form a mental picture ephemeral (adj.) short-lived, fleeting (She promised she'd love me forever, but her "forever" was only ephemeral: she left me after one week.) epicure (n.) one who finds pleasure in fine foods epitaph (n.) an inscription on a tomb epithet (n.) a descriptive word or phrase ~~common usage is negative, adversarial equivocate (v.) to confuse by speaking in ambiguous terms (The United States cannot equivocate with the Israelis, the Palestinians or the Arab states as to what is required to forge a lasting peace.) ersatz (n.) artificial; inferior substitute erudite (n. or v.) a learned person; scholarly ("Whenever we want an erudite character on a TV show or in a movie, we slap on a British accent." - P. Andreu) eschew (v.) to shun, avoid (George hates the color green so much that he eschews all green food.) esoteric (adj.) intended to be understood by a select few (Early Christian theology, otherwise known as the knowledge of the unknowable, was an esoteric collection of epiphanies by the most learned scholars of the day.) ethereal (adj.) spiritual; highly refined ("Ideas remain ethereal until acted upon."- Arnold Kling) eugenics (n.) the science of improving the human race euphemism (n.) substitution of a pleasant term for one considered harsh or offensive ( …"vertically challenged" is a euphemism for being short; …"he's in a better place" is a euphemism for "he's dead") euphonious (adj.) having a pleasant sound; harmonious (My favorite euphonious Law Firm name is "Dilly, Dally, DoLittle, and Stahl.") evanescent (adj.) fleeting, momentary (Anyone who has experienced what it's like when the eye of a hurricane passes knows about the evanescent stillness and bright glow of the sky at the precise moment it passes.) evince (v.) to show, reveal (Even at the funeral of her husband, Jackie Kennedy still managed to evince uncommon elegance and style.) exculpate (v.) to free from guilt or blame, exonerate (The discovery of the ring behind the dresser exculpated the maid from the charge of having stolen it.) execrable (adj.) loathsome, detestable (The funeral director exhibited an execrable taste in music when he played the disco song, "Disco Duck," at the funeral wake.) exigent (adj.) urgent, critical (The patient has an exigent need for medication, or else he will lose his sight.) exiguous (adj.) extremely scanty; meager (Newly appointed, the American general was hopeful in saying that the authority of the American military becomes exiguous in the Taliban district of northeastern Afghanistan.) expiate (v.) to make amends for, atone (To expiate my selfishness, I gave all my profits to charity.) expunge (v.) to obliterate, eradicate (After his acquittal of murder charges, O. J. Simpson sought to have the court expunge all records related to his case.) expurgate (v.) to remove offensive passages; to cleanse (Recently, a Twain scholar, Alan Gribben, published Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer with the words "" and "injun" expurgated from their pages.) extant (adj.) existing, not destroyed or lost (My mother's extant love letters to my father are in the attic trunk.) extirpate (v.) to remove completely; to destroy ~proper use implies "pulling up by the roots" extol (v.) to praise, revere (Violet extolled the virtues of a vegetarian diet to her meat-loving brother.) extrinsic (adj.) external; coming from outside (One school of psychology has it that there "is no heroism" because you don't really do anything you don't want to; in other words, there is no such thing as "extrinsic motivation.") facetious (adj.) playfully jocular; humorous (The hunting guide was being facetious when he asked all the millionaires in the room to assign him as sole beneficiary of their life insurance policies and requested that each one of them wear camo gear and line up towards each other in the duck hunt.) facile (adj.) easy; effortless ( … the facile movements of a veteran ballerina) factious (adj.) causing disagreement (Salary arbitrations in major league baseball inevitably end up in factious confrontations between owners and players regarding the "worth" of the players.) factitious (adj.) artificial fallacious (adj.) incorrect, misleading (Emily offered me cigarettes on the fallacious assumption that I smoked.) fastidious (adj.) meticulous, demanding, having high and often unattainable standards (Mark is so fastidious that he is never able to finish a project because it always seems imperfect to him.) fatuous (adj.) silly, foolish (He considers himself a serious poet, but in truth, he only writes fatuous limericks.) fealty (n.) fidelity; loyalty; devotion fecund (adj.) fruitful, fertile ( … a fecund tropical forest during the rainy season.) feral (adj.) wild, savage (NFL players have a switch that they turn on during game day that transforms them into focused, fearless and feral beasts until the final whistle.) fetid (adj.) having a foul odor (I can tell from the fetid smell in your refrigerator that your milk has spoiled.) fiat (n.) an official order flaccid (adj.) flabby (Most of the contestants in "The Big Loser" transform from being morbidly obese at the beginning of the show to being moderately flaccid at the end.) florid (adj.) flowery, ornate (The writer's florid prose belongs on a sentimental Hallmark card.) fluvial (adj.) pertaining to a river (Floodplains and fluvial terraces dot the landscape of the Ojai Valley.) foibles (n.) a weakness; a minor fault (In a manner of speaking, the foibles of former president Clinton were seminal in creating the fracas that turned into the Lewinsky Inquiry.) folderol (n.) nonsense foment (v.) to stir up ("When a national ruler sends the military into the streets to foment class warfare and dissension things are not usually going very well." - Matthew Yglesias, on Hugo Chavez) fortuitous (adj.) lucky; by chance (An avid parachute instructor, Mr. Jones never understated how fortuitous the mistake of his supplier was in shipping a parachute to his penthouse office in the Twin Towers minutes before the attacks on 9-11.) fractious (adj.) troublesome or irritable (Although the child insisted he wasn't tired, his fractious behavior—especially his decision to crush his cheese and crackers all over the floor—convinced everyone present that it was time to put him to bed.) fugacious (adj.) pertaining to the passing of time fulminate (v.) to explode; to denounce ( … fulminating over Obamacare) furtive (adj.) stealthy; secretive (Secret Service agents are professionally trained to detect subtle furtive glances and movements from would-be assassins.) gainsay (v.) to deny; to contradict gambit (n.) strategy; an opening one uses to advantage (Because the role was for a vampire with flaming-red hair, Suzie thought it would be a worthwhile gambit to come to the auditions with flaming-red hair and three inch fangs.) gambol (v.) to frolic; to romp about garish (adj.) tastelessly gaudy (The house never sold perhaps due to its extremely bright, almost garish color schemes, the listing agent said.) garrulous (adj.) talkative, wordy (Some talk-show hosts are so garrulous that their guests can't get a word in edgewise.) gauche (adj.) lacking social polish; tactless ("Who's the friggin' "gauche" one, you placenta-burying, nipple scalding freak?" - Belly Achin) gelid (adj.) very cold; frozen gentry (n.) upper class people genuflect (v.) to kneel; to bend a knee germane (n and v.) pertinent; fitting (Affable people never give their opinion and never stray from the issues that are germane to the discussion.) gloaming (n.) twilight; dusk glutinous (adj.) gluey; sticky gossamer (adj.) light; flimsy; fine gourmand (n.) a glutton; a person who eats excessively grandiloquence (n.) lofty, pompous language (The student thought her grandiloquence would make her sound smart, but neither the class nor the teacher bought it.) gregarious (adj.) drawn to the company of others, sociable (Well, if you're not gregarious, I don't know why you would want to go to a singles party!) gumption (n.) courage and initiative gustatory (adj.) pertaining to the sense of taste hackneyed (adj.) unoriginal, trite (A girl can only hear "I love you" so many times before it begins to sound hackneyed and meaningless.) halcyon (n.) calm hapless (adj.) unlucky (My poor, hapless family never seems to pick a sunny week to go on vacation.) harbinger (n.) an omen or sign harry (v.) to worry; to torment headlong (adj.) recklessly; impulsively headstrong (adj.) stubborn; willful hegemony (n.) domination over others (Britain's hegemony over its colonies was threatened once nationalist sentiment began to spread around the world.) hermetic (adj.) airtight; tightly sealed ~~common use ( … hermetically sealed) heterodox (adj.) departing from acceptable beliefs histrionic (adj.) theatrical; overly dramatic hovel (n.) a dirty, wretched living place (When I saw the place where we were going to stay, instantly I realized that the travel agent's itinerary didn't have a typo; we were in fact going to stay in a "hovel" not a hotel!) hubris (n.) excessive pride or self-confidence (Dripping hubris from every inch of his short frame, David loaded his sling with a pebble, faced toward Goliath, and started spinning his sling.) husbandry (n.) the science of raising crops; careful management hydrophobia (n.) fear of water; rabies hypochondriac (n.) a person with imaginary ailments iconoclast (n.) one who attacks common beliefs or institutions ("Justice Scalia, especially, is an iconoclast who relishes standing alone in defiance of logic and compromise." - Jack Krebs) idyllic (adj.) charmingly simple or poetic ignoble (adj.) dishonorable ignominious (adj.) humiliating, disgracing ("The young people huddled with their sodden gritty towels and ignominious goosebumps inside the gray-shingled bathhouse." - John Updike) imbroglio (n.) a difficult and confusing situation immolate (v.) to kill someone as a sacrificial victim, usually by fire impassive (adj.) stoic, not subject to suffering (Stop being so impassive; it's healthy to cry every now and then.) impecunious (adj.) without money; penniless (Too embarrassed to tell people he was destitute and penniless, George, when asked how he was doing, would say, "I'm impecunious at the moment.") imperious (adj.) commanding, domineering ("During his time in Iraq, General Petraeus earned the nickname King David, for the imperious manner in which he ruled the city of Mosul." - Michael Hastings) Impertinent (adj.) rude, insolent (Most of your comments are so impertinent that I don't wish to dignify them with an answer.) Impervious (adj.) impenetrable, incapable of being affected (Because of their thick layer of fur, many seals are almost impervious to the cold.) impetuous (adj.) acting without thought; impulsive (The most impetuous people, unfortunately, cannot help themselves; they act with sudden and forceful emotion, and come back in heaving waves of violent force; they could be young, they could be old; they are the autistic among us.) implacable (adj.) incapable of being appeased or mitigated (For the average Afghan citizen, caught between two implacable and deadly forces, one luxury is waking in the morning and finding everyone still alive.) imprecation (n.) a curse; the act of invoking evil (The judgmental Mrs. Fartwinkle consigned all the evildoers to hell with one muttered imprecation.) impudent (adj.) casually rude, offensively bold (Bowing from his great height, which towered head, shoulders and chest over the next guy in line to enter the club, the bouncer said with placid impudence: "Hello shrimp!" ) impugn (v.) to attack as false or questionable; to challenge a person in regards to motives (… impugned a political opponent's record as soon as he announced his candidacy) inane (adj.) silly; meaningless incarnadine (adj.) blood-red; fleshy pink-colored inchoate (adj.) unformed or formless, in a beginning stage (That country's government is still inchoate and, because it has no great tradition, quite unstable.) incipient (adj.) beginning to exist or appear (The assassination of the nonviolent Martin Luther King ushered in an era of incipient black militancy in the South.) incontrovertible (adj.) indisputable; certain (Only stubborn Tina would attempt to disprove the incontrovertible laws of physics.) incorrigible (adj.) bad beyond correction or reform ( … an incorrigible criminal) indefatigable (adj.) incapable of defeat, failure, decay ("Children occupy a limitless present. Walks are dizzying adventures; the days tingle with unknowns, waiting to be made into wonders. Living so utterly in the present, they are indefatigable and have an infinite power to transform." - Alastair Reid, Scottish Poet, 1926) ineffable (adj.) unspeakable, incapable of being expressed through words (Every noun, adjective and verb of all the known languages of the earth will be exhausted before mankind will even begin to explain the ineffable qualities of God's smallest toenail.) inexorable (adj.) incapable of being persuaded or placated ("Destiny is an absolutely definite and inexorable ruler. Physical ability and moral determination count for nothing. It is impossible to perform the simplest act when the gods say "no." - Aleister Crowley on destiny) infer (v.) to conclude; to derive by reasoning infernal (adj.) hellish; fiendish; diabolical ingenious (adj.) clever ~~~not to be mistaken with ingenuous ingenuous (adj.) not devious; innocent and candid (He must have writers, but his speeches seem so ingenuous it's hard to believe he's not speaking from his own heart.) inimical (adj.) hostile (Nothing compares to how inimical the verbal exchanges are between two soon-to-be exes in a divorce proceeding.) iniquity (n.) wickedness or sin ("Your iniquity," said the priest to the practical jokester, "will be forgiven.") insidious (adj.) appealing but imperceptibly harmful, seductive ("Every first-time mother underestimates this insidious phase of child development around the age of two, where children could be cute as buttons and yet dastardly as Dick…" - Susan Ferraro) insipid (adj.) tasteless; dull ( …the bland aftertaste of an insipid blind date.) insouciant (adj.) carefree; happy-go-lucky (Hippies typically have insouciant attitudes towards life in general.) insular (adj.) pertaining to an island; detached; isolated ( … insular properties of a wealthy world-traveler) insuperable (adj.) unconquerable; incapable of being passed over ( "Conceit is an insuperable obstacle to all progress." - Ellen Terry) interlocutor (n.) one who takes part in a conversation (Official interpreters of Heads of State are not allowed to function as interlocutors; their role is to precisely translate ideas between two Heads of State, not insert their ideas in the conversation.) interminable (adj.) endless (Born with tranquil patience and raised by long-winded parents, Patrick was well suited to endure interminable daily meetings at head office.) interregnum (n.) pause; interval; any period during which a nation is without a ruler intolerant (n. and adj.) bigoted; narrow-minded ~~common use has intolerance as synonymous with prejudice ( …intolerant of other customs; …religious intolerance) intractable (adj.) hard to manage (Chaos in its purest form happens when you try to control a group of intractable 3 yr. olds at the end of an Easter egg hunt.) intransigent (adj.) refusing to compromise, often on an extreme opinion (The intransigent child said he would have 12 scoops of ice cream or he would bang his head against the wall until his mother fainted from fear.) intrepid (adj.) resolutely fearless; courageous ( … an intrepid explorer) intrinsic (adj.) essential; belonging to a thing by its very nature ( … the intrinsic value of a gold ring) inure (v.) to cause someone or something to become accustomed to a situation (Twenty years in the salt mines inured the man to the discomforts of dirt and grime.) invective (n.) an angry verbal attack ("The art of the invective resembles boxing… The best punches, like the best pieces of invective in this style, are short-arm jabs, or one-two blows… Both are effective, but they can be administered only by the real artist, with a real wish to knock his enemy out." - Gilbert Highet on invectives) inveigle (n.) trick; lure; attack ( … to inveigle a person into playing poker) inveterate (adj.) stubbornly established by habit (I'm the first to admit that I'm an inveterate coffee drinker—I drink four cups a day.) invidious (adj.) causing resentment (At the turn of the century slaves and women essentially carried out the same back-breaking tasks; the rich called them slaves, the poor called them wives. This invidious distinction, not disenfranchisement, led to the struggle for suffrage.) irascible (adj.) easily angered itinerant (adj.) traveling from place to place (The largest mansions in heaven are reserved for those itinerant preachers preaching the gospel to every town and village around the world.) jubilant (adj.) extremely joyful, happy (The crowd was jubilant when the firefighter carried the woman from the flaming building.) judicious (adj.) wise; showing wise judgment ( … a judicious use of one's money) junta (n.) a small group ruling a country juxtaposition (n.) the act of placing two things next to each other for implicit comparison (The interior designer admired my juxtaposition of the yellow couch and green table.) kismet (n.) destiny; fate knave (n.) a tricky; deceitful person laconic (adj.) terse in speech or writing (The author's laconic style has won him many followers who dislike wordiness.) languid (adj.) sluggish from fatigue or weakness (In the summer months, the great heat makes people languid and lazy.) lapidary (n.) a dealer in precious stones largess (n.) the generous giving of lavish gifts (My boss demonstrated great largess by giving me a new car for my birthday.) lascivious (adj.) lustful or lewd; inciting sexual desire latent (adj.) hidden, but capable of being exposed (Sigmund's dream represented his latent paranoid obsession with other people's shoes.) legerdemain (n.) deception, slight-of-hand (Smuggling the French plants through customs by claiming that they were fake was a remarkable bit of legerdemain.) licentious (adj.) displaying a lack of moral or legal restraints (Marilee has always been fascinated by the licentious private lives of politicians.) limpid (adj.) clear, transparent (Mr. Johnson's limpid writing style greatly pleased readers who disliked complicated novels.) lissome (adj.) moving gracefully; agile or active (At the Nutcracker auditions, the nervous ballerina transformed from listless to lissome in a nanosecond when she was told that she got the part.) loquacious (adj.) talkative ( … a loquacious dinner guest) lucent (adj.) giving off light (The cover-girl model walked into a studio that had no flashbulbs nor aluminum umbrellas; the walls, the floor and ceiling were all lucent.) lugubrious (adj.) sad; mournful ( … a lugubrious display of affection at the funeral…) lurid (adj.) shocking, glowing; sensational (Lady GaGa's collection of lurid outfits remains irresistible to the paparazzi and the fashion police.) Machiavellian (adj.) deceitful; tricky ~~primary meaning is in the realm of politics where political expediency is placed above morals (A book entitled "How to get rich without really trying," is bristling with Machiavellian advice.) maelstrom (n.) a destructive whirlpool which rapidly sucks in objects (Little did the explorers know that as they turned the next bend of the calm river a vicious maelstrom would catch their boat.) magnanimous (adj.) generous in forgiving an insult or injury; noble, generous ("Honest towards ourselves and towards anyone else who is our friend; brave towards the enemy; magnanimous toward the defeated; polite - always: this is how the four cardinal virtues want us to act." - Friedrich Nietzche) maladroit (adj.) clumsy; unskilled; awkward malapropism (n.) word humorously misused ("Sure, if I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs." - Richard Sheridan on speechmaking) malediction (n.) a curse ("The art of cursing seems to have lost its tang since the old days when a good malediction took four breaths to deliver and sent the outfielders scurrying toward the fence to field." - Robert Benchley) malevolent (adj.) wanting harm to befall others (The malevolent old man sat in the park all day, tripping unsuspecting passersby with his cane.) malingerer (n.) one who pretends to be sick to avoid work mandarin (n.) an influential person martinet (n.) a strict disciplinarian maudlin (adj.) weakly sentimental (Although many people enjoy romantic comedies, I usually find them maudlin and shallow.) mawkish (adj.) characterized by sick sentimentality (Although some nineteenth- century critics viewed Dickens's writing as mawkish, contemporary readers have found great emotional depth in his works.) megalomania (n.) false impression of one's own greatness; tendency to exaggerate ("Writing is a lonely, sedentary occupation and a touch of megalomania can be comforting around five on a November afternoon when you haven't seen anybody all day." Angela Carter on writing) melancholy (adj.) sad; depressed ("I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these." - William Shakespeare) mellifluous (adj.) smooth flowing; sweet sounding ménage (n.) household; domestic establishment menagerie (n.) collection of wild and strange animals mendacious (adj.) having a lying, false character (Bored housewives find it hard to resist the mendacious content of today's tabloid magazines.) mendicant (n. or adj.) a beggar ~~proper use implies willfulness and choice in becoming one (example: mendicant friar) meretricious (adj.) gaudy; showy; attractive in a cheap, flashy way (The meretricious display of church going by a group of hookers at First Baptist Church in Dallas was intended to attract Super Bowl fans to their nearby club.) mien (n.) manner; bearing ( … a man of noble mien) militant (v. or n.) ready and willing to fight (Conservative supporters of the National Rifle Association are militantly against any judicial reform of their 2nd amendment rights.) misanthrope (n.) hater of mankind ("I dare take the side of humanity against this sublime misanthrope." - Voltaire) miscegenation (n.) mixture of races, especially through marriage miscreant (n.) a vicious person, a villain misogamy (n.) hatred of marriage misogynist (n.) hater of women mnemonic (adj. or n.) pertaining to memory; memory aid (Mnemonic techniques can be applied to any form of discrete item learning such as names, places, etc..) modicum (n.) a small amount of something (Refusing to display even a modicum of sensitivity, Henrietta announced her boss's affair in front of the entire office.) mollify (v.) to pacify; to calm; to appease (After Noel forgot their anniversary, roses were not enough to mollify Angelica, who was clear that nothing less than diamonds would get him back in her good graces.) morass (n.) a wet swampy bog; figuratively, something that traps and confuses (When Theresa lost her job, she could not get out of her financial morass.) mordant (adj.) sarcastic; biting ( … the mordant editorials on Saturday Night Live) moribund (adj.) dying; not progressing or advancing (A century after Emperor Constantine, the eastern part of Europe became a neglected corner of an increasingly moribund Roman empire.) morose (adj.) gloomy; ill-humored ("The morose one refuses to smile even when he has just had his teeth cleaned." - Mason Cooley on sadness) motley (adj.) diverse; assorted; having different colors mountebank (n.) a phone; a fraud; a charlatan ~~proper use describes a quack doctor mulct (v.) to punish with a fine; to obtain money by extortion ( … to bleed and mulct honest storekeepers of gain and calling it "protection money.") multifarious (adj.) having great diversity or variety (This Swiss Army knife has multifarious functions and capabilities. Among other things, it can act as a knife, a saw, a toothpick, and a slingshot.) munificence (n.) generosity in giving (The royal family's munificence made everyone else in their country rich.) myopic (adj.) near-sighted; having a limited point of view (Obama's stimulus package is a myopic economic policy that does not take into consideration the consequential increase in taxes placed on the next generation.) myriad (adj.) consisting of a very great number (It was difficult to decide what to do Friday night because the city presented us with myriad possibilities for entertainment.) nabob (n.) a very wealthy and powerful person ~~famous line from Vice President Spiro Agnew: "..nattering nabobs of negativism..," referring to the liberal media of his day. nadir (n.) the lowest point of something (My day was boring, but the nadir came when I accidentally spilled a bowl of spaghetti on my head.) nascent (adj.) in the process of being born or coming into existence (Unfortunately, my brilliant paper was only in its nascent form on the morning that it was due.) nebulous (adj.) hazy; vague; uncertain ( … a nebulous distinction between pride and conceit) nefarious (adj.) extremely and heinously villainous (Although Dr. Meanman's nefarious plot to melt the polar icecaps was terrifying, it was so impractical that nobody really worried about it.) neophyte (n.) someone who is young or inexperienced (As a neophyte in the literary world, Mahmoud Bumfartsi had trouble finding a publisher for his first novel.) nettle (v.) to irritate; to annoy nexus (n.) connection, tie, or link among the units in a group niggardly (adj.) stingy; miserly niggle (v.) to spend excessive time on unimportant things nihilism (n.) total rejection of established laws ("The modern mind is in complete disarray. Knowledge has stretched itself to the point where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold. It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism." - Albert Camus on modern times) nomenclature (n.) a set of names or terms (The names Dick and Jane, because of the classic preschool books, have become rudimentary nomenclature in America for a typical school-age boy and girl.) nonpareil (adj. or n.) having no equal; peerless nubile (adj.) of women, suitable for marriage, in regard to age and physical development nugatory (adj.) worthless, invalid ( … the nugatory expenditures of government during recessionary times) numismatist (n.) coin collector obdurate (adj.) unyielding to persuasion or moral influences obfuscate (v.) to render incomprehensible (The detective did not want to answer the newspaperman's questions, so he obfuscated the truth.) oblique (adj.) diverging from a straight line or course, not straightforward (The jeweled stripes on the window ran straight down when the rain stopped and got more and more oblique as it speeded up.) obloquy (n.) strong disapproval; bad reputation resulting from public criticism (Because of the nature of our contentious and polarizing two-party system, it's nearly impossible to serve multiple terms without obloquy.) obsequious (adj.) excessively compliant or submissive (Mark acted like Janet's servant, obeying her every request in an obsequious manner.) obstinate (adj.) stubborn ( … obstinate as an ox) obstreperous (adj.) noisy, unruly (Billy's obstreperous behavior prompted the librarian to ask him to leave the reading room.) obtrude (v.) to push something toward or upon a person ( … to obtrude one's opinion on others) obtuse (adj.) lacking quickness of sensibility or intellect (Political opponents warned that the prime minister's obtuse approach to foreign policy would embroil the nation in mindless war.) obviate (v.) to prevent odious (adj.) instilling hatred or intense displeasure (Mark was assigned the odious task of cleaning the cat's litter box.) officious (adj.) offering one's services when they are neither wanted nor needed (It was rather officious of Jim's mother-in-law to insist on having a tea party for Jim and his friends on Super Bowl Sunday.) omnifarious (adj.) of all kinds ( … the omnifarious football knowledge of a veteran coach) opprobrious (adj.) shameful; disgraceful opulent (adj.) characterized by rich abundance verging on ostentation (The opulent furnishings of the dictator's private compound contrasted harshly with the meager accommodations of her subjects.) ostensible (adj.) outwardly appearing (While ostensibly the ocean had disappeared from the shore, in reality, it was gathering to come back as a giant tsunami.) overt (adj.) open; aboveboard; not hidden (One remarkable thing about genuinely honest people is their consistently overt behavior - what you see is what you get.) palatable (adj.) pleasant to the taste ("Good lies need a leavening of truth to make them palatable." - William McIlvaney on lying) palliate (v.) to reduce the severity of (The doctor trusted that the new medication would palliate her patient's discomfort.) pallid (adj.) lacking color (Dr. Van Helsing feared that Lucy's pallid complexion was due to an unexplained loss of blood.) panacea (n.) a remedy for all ills or difficulties (Doctors wish there was a single panacea for every disease, but sadly there is not.) panache (adj.) self-confidence; a showy manner ("Panache upon panache, his tails deploy Upward and outward, in green-vented forms, his tip a drop of water full of storms." - Wallace Steven, poet, on parakeets) panegyric (n.) an expression of praise ("The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can enjoy, is the praise of servants you employ." - Samuel Johnson on servants) panoply (n.) suit of armor; any protective covering (" 'Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete." - Herman Melville, poet, on death and courage) paragon (n.) a model of excellence or perfection (The mythical Helen of Troy, the embodiment of physical perfection, was considered a paragon of female beauty.) pariah (n.) an outcast (Following the discovery of his plagiarism, Professor Hurley was made a pariah in all academic circles.) parochial (adj.) local; narrow; limited (In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event.) parody (n.) a work which imitates another in a ridiculous manner ( The actors and producers of Saturday Night Live are lucky that in America, humor is protected speech. The parodies they present on present day government leaders would land them in jail in most countries.) parsimony (n.) frugality, stinginess ("Mere parsimony is not economy… Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy." - Edmund Burke) pastoral (adj.) pertaining to the country; rural (Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh and other impressionist painters specialized in depicting pastoral views of their environment.) pathos (n.) an emotion of sympathy (The TV producer's report on victims of the earthquake was of such tender pathos that viewers were compelled to offer a hand in aid.) patrician (adj.) aristocratic ("Each had an upper-class education, found a life of public service more attractive than money-grabbing, and each had a respect for the decencies. At heart, too, each had a kind of patrician reticence, an impervious private dignity." - William Leuchtenberg on FDR and JFK) paucity (adj.) small in quantity (A law graduate who barely passes the bar exam would never qualify for the position of Supreme Court Justice due to paucity of knowledge and experience.) peccadillo (n.) a minor offense peculate (v.) to steal; to embezzle pecuniary (adj.) pertaining to money ("No genuine freedom.. can exist on any foundation save that of pecuniary independence. As a right over a man's subsistence is a power over his moral being, so a right over a woman's subsistence enslaves her will, degrades her pride and vitiates her whole moral nature." - Susan B. Anthony on money) pedantic (adj.) tending to show off one's learning (The village idiot, whose mental age is below three years, is incapable of being pedantic.) pejorative (adj.) derogatory, uncomplimentary (The evening's headline news covered an international scandal caused by a pejorative statement the famous senator had made in reference to a foreign leader.) pellucid (adj.) easily intelligible, clear ("The Gettysburg address is at once the shortest and most famous oration in American history. Put beside it, all the whooping of the Websters, Sumners and Everetts seem gaudy and silly. It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost gem-like perfection - the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases." - H. L. Mencken on Abe Lincoln) pensive (adj.) dreamily or wistfully thoughtful ~~proper use implies some sadness, never levity ( … a pensive mood) penurious (adj.) miserly, stingy (Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, Stella complained that her husband's penurious ways made it impossible to live the lifestyle she was accustomed .) perdition (n.) damnation; ruin; hell ( … the perdition of ungodly men) peregrinate (v.) to travel from place to place peremptory (adj.) decisive; final; leaving no opportunity for denial or refusal (The Supreme Court, in announcing their decision on whether George Bush or Al Gore would become the next president, ruled in peremptory confidence that their edict would settle the debate once and for all.) perfidious (adj.) disloyal, unfaithful (After the official was caught selling government secrets to enemy agents, he was executed for his perfidious ways.) perfunctory (adj.) showing little interest or enthusiasm (The radio broadcaster announced the news of the massacre in a surprisingly perfunctory manner.) periphrastic (adj.) said in a roundabout way ~~~samples of periphrastic phrases: "she is the daughter of my mother's sister," instead of "she is my cousin"; "the appellation given me by my parents is Jim Bob," instead of "my name is Jim Bob." pernicious (adj.) extremely destructive or harmful (The new government feared that the Communist sympathizers would have a pernicious influence on the nation's stability.) perspicacity (adj.) shrewdness, perceptiveness (The detective was too humble to acknowledge that his perspicacity was the reason for his professional success.) perspicuity (adj.) clearness, as of a statement ("Stop!, " the police officer said, and in undeniable perspicuity, barked, "put down your weapon or I'll blow your head off.") pertinacious (adj.) stubbornly persistent (Harry's parents were frustrated with his pertinacious insistence that a monster lived in his closet. Then they opened the closet door and were instantly eaten.) peruse (v.) to read carefully perverse (adj.) contrary; cranky (What's even more perverse is the implication that just because someone is Hispanic and speaks with a thick Spanish accent they are somehow undocumented.) petrify (v.) to turn to rock (Legend has it that those who looked directly at Medusa were literally and precisely petrified.) petulance (n.) rudeness, irritability (The nanny resigned after she could no longer tolerate the child's petulance.) phalanx (n.) closely massed body of persons philanthropy (n.) desire to help mankind philippic (n.) a bitter verbal attack pillory (v.) to expose to public ridicule or abuse ("Really no need to publicly pillory the controller and his boss who were on hand with their hands on the controls during the brief incident." - CNN on child directing air traffic in NYC) piquant (adj.) stimulating to the taste; exciting interest pithy (adj.) concisely meaningful (My father's long-winded explanation was a stark contrast to his usually pithy statements.) placate (v.) to soothe ~~proper use implies the presence of anger or enmity at the beginning (Reforms announced by Egypt's Mubarak were not enough to placate protesters, who have consistently demanded that he resign immediately.) plaintive (adj.) sorrowful; sad ("The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos." - Lydia M. Child on genius) platitude (n.) an uninspired remark, cliché (After reading over her paper, Helene concluded that what she thought were profound insights were actually just platitudes.) plethora (n.) an abundance, excess ("The tradition I cherish is the ideal this country was built upon, the concept of religious pluralism, of a plethora of opinions, of tolerance and not jihad." - Anne Quindlen on intolerance) polemic (n.) an aggressive argument against a specific opinion ("For both parties, the most disagreeable way of responding to a polemic is to be angry and keep silent: for the aggressor usually takes the silence as a sign of disdain." - Friedrich Nietzche on silence) poltroon (n.) a coward polyglot (n.) speaking or writing several languages portent (n.) an omen ("Self-parody is the first portent of age" - Larry McMurtry on ageing.) precocious (adj.) advanced, developing ahead of time ~~proper use implies mental advancement (Derek was so academically precocious that by the time he was 10 years old, he was already in the ninth grade.) predilection (n.) a liking ; a preference; inclination ("My father had declared a predilection for heirs general, that is, males and females indiscriminately….I, on the other hand, had a zealous partiality for heirs male, however remote." - James Boswell, 18th century biographer) preen (v.) to dress oneself carefully or smartly ("Young men preen; old men scheme." - Mason Cooley) preponderance (n.) superiority in quantity or power; dominance (The preponderance of votes is against the proposal.) presage (v.) to indicate or warn in advance ("If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand." - William Shakespeare on dreams) prescient (adj.) to have foreknowledge of events (Questioning the fortune cookie's prediction, Ray went in search of the old hermit who was rumored to be prescient.) prevaricate (v.) to speak or act falsely with the intent to deceive ~~word is a formal version of 'lie'; both words involve an intent to deceive, while prevaricating may involve "speaking evasively" or "being economical with truth" primeval (adj.) original, ancient (The first primates to walk on two legs, called Australopithecus, were the primeval descendants of modern man.) privation (n.) loss or lack of usual comforts or necessities of life ("When a man's life is destroyed or damaged by some privation of soul and body, which is due to other men's actions or negligence, it is not only his sensibility that suffers but also his aspiration toward the good. Therefore there has been sacrilege towards that which is sacred in him." - Simone Weil, philosopher) probity (n.) virtue, integrity (Because he was never viewed as a man of great probity, no one was surprised by Mr. Samson's immoral behavior.) proclivity (n.) a strong inclination toward something (In a sick twist of fate, Harold's childhood proclivity for torturing small animals grew into a desire to become a surgeon.) procrustean (adj.) tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means (A procrustean method is one that relentlessly tries to shape a person, an argument, or an idea to a predetermined pattern.) prodigious (adj.) enormous; vast; extraordinary (… prodigious is the word that best describes Winston Churchill.) profligate (adj.) shamelessly immoral; extremely wasteful (A certain tuition subsidy to foreign students costs taxpayers an estimated $120 million per year - a substantial sum even in profligate California.) profuse (adj.) plentiful; copious ~~primary use: object is given freely and abundantly ( … profuse hospitality; …they were profuse in their compliments) prolix (adj.) tediously long and wordy ( … a prolix manuscript that needs to proofread in 2 days) promulgate (v.) to proclaim, make known ~~proper use implies an official public declaration or decree is made (The SEC is expected to write and promulgate new rules so that we do not repeat the banking crisis.) propensity (n.) an inclination, preference (Dermit has a propensity for dangerous activities such as bungee jumping.) propitious (adj.) favorable ("It is when fortune is most propitious that she is least to be trusted." - Titus Livius) prosaic (adj.) plain, lacking liveliness (Heather's prosaic recital of the poem bored the audience.) proscribe (v.) to condemn, outlaw (True to their Amish traditions, the council voted to proscribe the sale of alcohol in all the contiguous Amish townships.) protean (adj.) able to change shape; displaying great variety (Among Nigel's protean talents was his ability to touch the tip of his nose with his tongue.) prurient (adj.) eliciting or possessing an extraordinary interest in sex (David's mother was shocked by the discovery of prurient reading material hidden beneath her son's mattress.) puerile (adj.) juvenile, immature ("The truth is that the average schoolmaster, on all the lower levels, is and always must be essentially and next door to an idiot, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation." - H. L. Mencken, on teachers) pugnacious (adj.) quarrelsome, combative (Tyson's pugnacious nature led him to start several barroom brawls each month.) puissant (adj.) powerful; strong ( … a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks…" - John Milton, on nations) pulchritude (n.) physical beauty ~~proper use: to describe the beauty of a 'category,' not an individual (Several of Shakespeare's sonnets explore the pulchritude of handsome men.) punctilious (adj.) eager to follow rules or conventions; exacting; very precise (Punctilious Bobby, hall monitor extraordinaire, insisted that his peers follow the rules.) quaff (v.) to gulp; to drink in large quantities ~~proper use implies alcoholic beverages (The members of Hotze's rugby team celebrated their championship win quaffing lots and lots of ale at the pub.) quagmire (n.) a difficult situation ~~proper use implies involvement in a situation from which 'extrication' would be difficult (We'd all like to avoid the kind of military quagmire characterized by the Vietnam War.) quandary (n.) a puzzling situation; a dilemma ~~proper use implies uncertainty as to what to do next ( The Green Bay coach was in a quandary at the worst possible time: his pro-bowl center and both backups were simultaneously injured two days before the Super Bowl.) quasi (adj.) resembling; seeming (Jake took out his knock-off Titleist Pro-V golf ball and his knock-off Taylor Made white R-11 driver and began to walk to the first tee, whereby he took a quasi-athletic swing to catapult his ball 13 ft.) quell (v.) to subdue; to suppress; to calm down (The government troops quelled the rebellion quickly.) querulous (adj.) whiny, complaining (If deprived of his pacifier, young Brendan turns instantly querulous.) quibble (n.) petty objection or argument ( … twin girls quibbling about the ownership of clothes) quiescent (adj.) at rest; motionless (Between the human growth spurts of infancy and puberty is a relatively quiescent growth period in which most of the body takes a rest from growing while the brain continues to mature.) quietus (n.) a finishing stroke; anything that ends an activity (Mr. Quinn fully intended his unexpected resignation to be a quick and quarrelsome quietus of sorts from the company.) quixotic (adj.) idealistic, impractical (Modern man's capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity's capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction." - George Will, on the environment) quotidian (n.) daily; customary (It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits deviations from the quotidian." - John Updike, on adultery) raconteur (n.) storyteller raillery (n.) good-humored ridicule raiment (n.) clothing; garment ( … red velvet raiment of Catholic cardinals) rakish (adj.) carefree; lively rambunctious (adj.) hard to control (Four-year-olds, who have been cooped up indoors throughout the winter, instantly turn rambunctious when they hear that recess will be played in an adjacent outdoor playground.) ramshackle (adj.) loosely made or held together; rickety; shaky ( … a ramshackle house) rancor (n.) deep, bitter resentment ~~proper use implies a long-lasting resentment (The partisan rancor in Congress is due in large part to years of rejection or tepid support of motions tabled by Congressmen; a congressman never forgets who votes against his motions and proposals in Congress.) rapacious (adj.) taking by force; greedy ~~proper use implies extortion or plunder for subsistence or the satisfaction of greed (The ruins of the resort are now covered in rapacious island vegetation creeping in from the jungle.) ratiocinate (v.) to reason rebuke (v or n.) to express sharp, stern disapproval of; reprimand (The Elders of the church publicly rebuked the church worker for stealing money from the collection plate.) recalcitrant (adj.) defiant, unapologetic (Even when scolded, the recalcitrant young girl simply stomped her foot and refused to finish her lima beans.) recapitulate (v.) to summarize; to repeat briefly ~~~note: unrelated to capitulate which means 'to surrender' recidivist (n.) a person who goes back to crime (The Corrections officer was stating the obvious when he opined that people who are released from jail become either reformed or recidivist in a matter of months.) recondite (adj.) difficult to understand; profound ~~proper use: modifies objects, not persons ( … recondite treatise; … recondite principles) reconnoiter (v.) to survey; to check out in advance recreant: (n.) coward, traitor rectitude (n.) uprightness, extreme morality (The nomination sheet for "Church Pastor of the Year" was unequivocal about the qualities of a candidate having to possess an unimpeachable moral rectitude.) recumbent (adj.) lying down; reclining (Recumbent and sedated, the Bengal tiger was now ready for the 3 hour dental operation.) redoubtable (adj.) formidable; commanding respect redress (v.) to set right; to remedy (The First Amendment allows for the people to receive redress from the government when it fails them.) refulgent (adj.) shining; glowing (Have you ever noticed how every single reported sighting of UFOs involve some kind of refulgent beam of light instead of any kind of commonplace, brownish blot in the sky?) regal (adj.) pertaining to a king; splendid regale (v.) to entertain regicide (n.) the killing of a king (The most recent regicide in history was the assassination of King Birendra of Nepal in 2001 in the hands of his own son, Dipendra, the Crown Prince, who disagreed with the King's choice of his bride.) remonstrate (v.) to protest; to complain (Henry wished to dissuade me; but, seeing me bent on this plan, he ceased to remonstrate.) repartee (n.) a quick, witty reply ("I enjoy engaging in repartee with people who are stupider than I am" - Ann Coulter, affable but acerbic Republican strategist) replete (adj.) full, abundant (The Watergate investigators obtained a copy of the White House tapes, replete with deleted words and phrases from President Nixon.) reprobate (adj.) evil, unprincipled ("You could live your life never violating a law of your nation and still be a moral reprobate just like Kim Jung Ill." - Telic Thoughts) reprove (v.) to scold, rebuke ("He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears." - Isaiah 11:3) repudiate (v.) to reject the validity or authority of (A clip of the telecast of the Baseball game that showed Johnny successfully catching a foul ball repudiated the accusation from the police that he was at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder.) requiem (n.) funeral hymn; mass for the dead (After the Banking crisis, Alan Greenspan, whose economic theories schooled many of the members of Congress, delivered in Congress what some called a requiem for decades' worth of economic teaching; he never anticipated the crisis. ) requite (v.) to make a return or repayment (For a teenager, unrequited love is, like, totally sucks.) rescind (v.) to take back, repeal (The company rescinded its offer of employment after discovering that Jane's resume was full of buffalo chips.) resplendent (v.) shining brightly; dazzling (Darth Vader is the ultimate heavy breathing villain resplendent in black.) restive (adj.) resistant, stubborn, impatient ( … growing restive about the tax burden) reticent (adj.) silent or reserved ~~proper use implies that it describes the persons 'style' or how he/she carries himself ( … the calm, collected and confident reticence of a 10th Dan Red Belt walking a dark New York alley) retinue (n.) body of attendants or followers ribald (adj.) coarsely, crudely humorous (While some giggled at the ribald joke involving a parson's daughter, most sighed and rolled their eyes in awkward embarrassment.) rife (adj.) abundant ~~proper use implies negative tone; prevalence and frequency (North-east Afghanistan is rife with anti-American sentiment.) risible (adj.) laughable; funny (The risible but charismatic Sarah Palin found a pulpit of visibility for her family in her new show, "Alaska.") ruffian (n.) hoodlum; lawless person (Having to scratch out a living bullying elderly men and stealing purses from old ladies as a teenager, Mike Tyson made his way from young street ruffian to world boxing champion.) ruse (n.) a trick ~~proper use implies need to escape, or subterfuge (Oliver concocted an elaborate ruse for sneaking out of the house to meet his girlfriend while simultaneously giving his mother the impression that he was asleep in bed.) sacrosanct (adj.) holy, something that should not be criticized (In the United States, the Constitution is often thought of as a sacrosanct document.) sagacity (n.) shrewdness, soundness of perspective (With remarkable an unexpected sagacity, the wise old man predicted and thwarted his children's plan to ship him off to a nursing home.) salacious (adj.) obscene; lusty salient (adj.) significant, conspicuous (Because he was lazy and did the interview by cell phone, the sports reporter completely missed the most salient feature of the Basketball team's latest foreign recruit: he had 14 fingers .) sallow (adj.) sickly pale salubrious (adj.) healthful salutary (adj.) healthful; wholesome (not to be mistaken for: salutatory: a welcome address at graduations) sanctimonious (adj.) giving a hypocritical appearance of piety (" He … a solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious iceberg that looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity." - Mark Twain) sangfroid (n.) calmness, composure; imperturbability under strain (In modern day sports, the range of emotions take you from the feral wildness of football on one end to the relative sangfroid of archery on the other.) sanguine (adj.) optimistic, cheery (Polly reacted to any bad news with a sanguine smile and the chirpy cry, "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!") sapient (adj.) wise ~~common modern usage: in irony or contempt sartorial (adj.) pertaining to clothes or tailoring ( … the sartorial elegance of Jackie O.) savoirfaire (n.) tact; the faculty of knowing just what to do and how to do it. ("Rahm Emmanuel's savoir-faire is like expecting flowers from the frat guy that told you he had a girlfriend before he date-raped you." - John Ennis) schism (n.) a split or break ~~proper use implies a major theological difference between two factions of a church body (not a local church) scurrilous (adj.) vulgar, coarse; abusive (" 'Scurrilous' has nothing to do with the image of a squirrel, rather, of a venom-breathing dragon attacking, abusing, destroying." - Languageone) sebaceous (adj.) fatty (Describing a morbidly obese man as sebaceous is like describing a giant snowman as 'snow-flakey.") sedentary (adj.) sitting most of the time (Jurgen Johansson, hyperactive and athletic, didn't much like his new job at IKEA as a 'sedentary engineer'; his job was to sit on every lazy-boy chair that came out of the assembly line.) sedulous (adj.) hard-working; industrious; diligent sententious (adj.) concise; including proverbs and brief remarks ("Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious…" - William Shakespeare on conversation) sentient (adj.) conscious; capable of feeling (" The living knew themselves as just sentient puppets on God's stage." - T.E Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia) serendipity (n.) luck, finding good things without looking for them ("My reaction: what people call serendipity, we call links at Facebook." - Mark Zuckerman, on serendipity.) servile (adj.) subservient (The servile porter crept around the hotel lobby, bowing and quaking before the guests.) shibboleth (n.) a slogan; a password shrew (n.) a nagging, bad-tempered woman simony (n.) the buying and selling of church benefits (Simony and the selling of religious relics were two major reasons why Martin Luther felt the urge to launch the Reformation movement.) simulacrum (n.) an image; a likeness sinecure (n.) a job with little or no responsibility, but draws a salary (In Washington DC, an ambassadorship is a minor sinecure.) skinflint (n.) stingy person; miser ("A skinflint may go to Heaven, but what awaits him are a rusty old halo, a skinny old cloud, a robe so worn it scratches." - Michael Bates, on Rev. Gene Scott) skullduggery (n.) trickery; deception skulk (v.) to sneak around; to lie in hiding slattern (n.) an untidy, dirty woman (Overheard at a Starbucks: "So I've got this new job and I'm supposed to be getting up, showering, ironing some clothes for work so that my boss doesn't call me a slattern.") slovenly (adj.) untidy; dirty; careless smite (v.) to strike forcefully ("The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night…" - Psalm 121:5-6) solicitous (adj.) concerned, attentive (Jim, laid up in bed with a nasty virus, enjoyed the solicitous attentions of his mother, who brought him soup and extra blankets.) soliloquy (n.) act of talking to oneself ("To be or not to be, that is the question…," - the first line of English Literature's most famous soliloquy by Prince Hamlet in the beloved Shakespearean play, Hamlet.) solipsistic (adj.) believing that oneself is all that exists, that the self is the only reality (Colette's solipsistic attitude explains why she habitually ignores the plight of homeless people on the street.) somnambulate (n.) walk in one's sleep somnolent (adj.) sleepy, drowsy (Sleeping Indian specializes in top-end hunting gear, and is named after a mountain in Wyoming rather than a somnolent aborigine.) sophistry (n.) a deceptive, tricky argument ~~note: an example of sophistry is when a person is being accused of something (say, teenage drinking) sophomoric (adj.) immature, pretentious soporific (adj.) causing sleep; inducing drowsiness (Some republicans agree that Obama's State of the Union address was literally sophomoric, few agree that it was solipsistic, but ALL agree that it was soporific.) specious (adj.) not genuine; having the ring of truth but fallacious; pleasing to the eye but deceptive ( … a specious argument; … specious reasoning) spurious (adj.) false but designed to seem plausible (Using a spurious argument, John convinced the others that he had won the board game on a technicality.) squalid (adj.) filthy; dirty ~~proper use implies condition a result of poverty or lack of care ( … the squalid living conditions of the dregs of inner-city tenement housing) staid (adj.) sedate, serious, self-restrained (The butler, classically schooled in the staid British style, never displayed any kind of emotion or form of discomfort throughout the five hour gala.) stolid (adj.) expressing little sensibility, unemotional ( … the incredibly massive and stolid bureaucracy of the Soviet System) stricture (n.) a restraint, limit, or restriction; a censure (It's extremely difficult for runaway teens, younger than 18 years old, to venture out on their own because of all the strictures related to consent, informed consent, and guardianship.) stupefy (v.) to astonish, make insensible (Too much pride can stupefy the brain as readily as alcohol. ) subrosa (adj.) secretly, confidentially (During the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy held a 'possible missile launch' meeting sub rosa.) sublime (adj.) of high spiritual, moral, or intellectual worth (I was watching the news one weekday afternoon when a news report of a local clown convention was immediately followed by a military burial of a former high school quarterback who died in Iraq. I guess that's what they mean by 'from the ridiculous to the sublime.') subservient (adj.) submissive; helpful, in an inferior capacity subterfuge (n.) trickery; deceit ~~proper use implies artifice employed to escape censure or to force an argument (If Obama, Reid, and Pelosi use what can only be called subterfuge to pass the healthcare bill, what can they be emboldened to do next?) succor (n.) assistance in time of distress; help ("We provide succor, and sustenance, and a memory of better times gone by - and better times to come." - Janis Ian, 'We don't sell records, we sell dreams') supercilious (n.) proud, haughty supernal (adj.) heavenly (It is supernal and infinitely powerful: it "shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" John 1:4) supine (adj.) lying on the back (Sedated and supine, the patient was ready for surgery.) suppliant (adj.) asking humbly and earnestly (With suppliant arms stretched upward and outward towards the Heavens, the people asked God to hear their cry and heal their land.) supplicate (v.) to pray humbly; to beg surfeit (n.) an overabundant supply or indulgence ("God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger." - Heraclitus, on God) surmise (v.) to infer with little evidence (After speaking to only one of the students, the teacher was able to surmise what had caused the fight.) surreptitious (adj.) stealthy ("Defriending is a surreptitious, and I believe cowardly, way of terminating relationships." - Wall Street Journal) sycophant (n.) one who flatters others for self-gain (When a leader of a country has a psychological need to be affirmed by people around him, you can bet your mother his cabinet is composed of sycophants.) tacit (adj.) expressed without words (I interpreted my parents' refusal to talk as a tacit acceptance of my request.) taciturn (adj.) not inclined to talk (Jane never seems to stop talking; her taciturn brother, on the other hand, is quite the opposite.) tactile (adj.) pertaining to sense of touch; perceptible (A phenomenon called 'tactile defensiveness,' common among those stricken by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, is a behavior in which people can't stand anything touching them.) talisman (n.) a good luck charm; an object believed to confer supernatural powers or protection tantamount (adj.) equivalent in value or significance (When it comes to sports, fearing your opponent is tantamount to losing.) taurine (adj.) like a bull tawdry (adj.) cheap; showy; flashy ("The word 'tawdry' appeared 21 times in the New York Times in 2010, and 13 times in articles describing women who claimed to be Tiger Woods' ex-lovers." - NYT) tendentious (adj.) biased; favoring a cause; partisan ~~proper use implies controversy (You can always count on political pundits imploring tendentious interpretations of election results the day after election day.) tenuous (adj.) having little substance or strength (The Muslim Brotherhood's announcement that it was supporting the Egyptian opposition leader El Baradei renewed concerns over Mubarak's tenuous hold on power.) thanatology (n.) the study of death and dying timorous (adj.) timid, cowardly ("Conservatism, ever more timorous and narrow, disgusts the children, and drives the for a mouthful of fresh air into radicalism." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, on conservatives.) torpid (adj.) lethargic, dormant, lacking motion ("Let the torpid monk seek heaven comfortless and alone - GOD speed him! For my own part, … let me be wise and religious - but let me be a MAN. I want to at least see my shadow lengthen as the sun goes down." - Laurence Sterne, 18th century clergyman and novelist.) traduce (v.) to speak badly of; to slander (An element of Father O'Sullivan's priestly vows was to never traduce long -standing catholic tradition concerning the Virgin Mary.) transient (adj.) passing through briefly; passing into and out of existence ("Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immovable." - Charles Baudelaire, poet) transmute (v.) to change or alter in form (…Alchemists trying to transmute lead into gold; …crooked bankers transmuting insolvencies into fake assets creating fictional accounting income) trenchant (adj.) effective, articulate, clear-cut (Sometimes, armed thieves can be trenchant when they make specific requests like, "Give me your wallet and your watch … or I'll blow your head off.") trite (adj.) worn out; stale; commonplace ( … a trite remark) truculent (adj.) ready to fight, savage, cruel (This club doesn't really attract the dangerous types, so why was that bouncer being so truculent?) truncate (v.) to shorten; to cut off (Cell phone users, young and old, will occasionally truncate a word or two in order to make the 140 word character limit on twitter.) turbid (adj.) muddy; unclear turpitude (n.) depravity, moral corruption (Sir Marcus's reputation for chivalry often contrasted with displays of turpitude he exhibits with the ladies at the tavern.) ubiquitous (adj.) existing everywhere, widespread ("Coca-Cola's presence worldwide was termed 'ubiquitous' by Melinda Gates recently, who went on to praise the company's model efforts to get products to hard-to-reach places." - Huffington Post) umbrage (n.) resentment, offense ( … to feel umbrage at a social snub; … to take umbrage at someone's rudeness) unctuous (adj.) smooth or greasy in texture, appearance, manner (The valet person at the hotel was unusually unctuous the night of the Cotillion, as if he was only being extra helpful because he thought we might give him a big, fat tip.) undulate (v.) to move in waves ("Your feet undulate like two jellyfish tentacles, moving freely in the ocean that is you big mouth." - Gerry Canavan) untenable (adj.) not able to be held, as an opinion or position (In Detroit, auto industry executives are caught in a chronic dilemma of yielding to untenable wage demands of the Teamsters union or having their companies flirt with bankruptcy all over again.) upbraid (v.) to criticize or scold severely ("I have never worked for fame or praise, and shall not feel their loss as I otherwise would. I have never for a moment lost sight of the humble life I was born to, its small environments, and the consequently little right I had to expect much of myself, and shall have less to censure, or upbraid myself with for the failures I see myself make." - Clara Burton, founder of the American Red Cross) urbane (adj.) refined; suave; elegant in manner ("Many Chicagoans would tell you that the differences basically boil down to urbane vs. hick." - Wall Street Journal on the 2011 NFC Championship between Chicago vs. Green Bay) usurp (v.) to seize by force, take possession of without right (The rogue army general tried to usurp control of the government, but he failed because most of the army backed the legally elected president.) uxorious (adj.) excessively submissive or devoted to one's wife. (In the prenuptial agreement between Bubba and Claire, Bubba promises to be uxorious to Claire every day except days when you have Monday Night Football, Tuesday night NBA home games, Wednesday Night Hockey, Thursday Night NFL Game of the Week, Friday Night ESPN Game Night, College Football Saturdays, and, of course, Sundays during Football and Baseball seasons.) vacillate (v.) to fluctuate, hesitate (I prefer a definite answer, but my boss keeps vacillating between the distinct options available to us.) vacuous (adj.) lack of content or ideas, stupid ("Television was not invented to make human beings vacuous, but is an emanation of their vacuity." - Malcolm Muggeridge, English satirist, on TV) vagary (n) an odd notion or action; a wandering of the thoughts; a whim ("Women, can't live with them, can't live without them." - these are some of the vagaries of early adulthood of a 16th century Renaissance man, Erasmus.) vapid (adj.) lacking liveliness, dull (Martha made the wrong move throwing a birthday party the same time and day as the Homecoming game. The party turned vapid very quickly after a couple of gregarious types left to catch the half-time festivities.) variegated (adj.) diversified, distinctly marked vaunt (v.) to brag or boast venal (adj.) corrupt; able to be bribed (To describe some third-world officials as 'venal' would be similar to describing humpback whales as 'big;' some of them even have handwritten signs on their desks telling people who need their signatures to put the grease money inside a certain drawer.) venerate (v.) to regard with respect or to honor (The Obama team in the middle east is delusional if they truly think that 'good faith negotiations' are possible with a group of people who venerate Osama Bin Laden.) veracity (n.) truthfulness, accuracy (The world is upheld by the veracity of good men. They make the earth wholesome. They who lived with them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such a society." - Ralph Waldo Emerson) verbose (adj.) wordy verdant (adj.) green in tint or color (The verdant leaves on the trees made the valley look emerald.) verisimilitude (n.) the appearance of truth (The casino magic show industry owes its success to the verisimilitude of its magic acts, and, of course, to the smoke, mirrors, and alluring magician assistants.) vernal (adj.) pertaining to spring ( … vernal migrations of fowl; … vernal routines of mating animals) vertiginous (adj.) whirling; dizzy; unstable vestige (n.) a visible trace, evidence, or sign of something that once existed but exists no more (Museum displays of dinosaur skeletons are vestigial of a period in earth's history called the Jurassic period.) vex (v.) to confuse or annoy (My little brother vexes me by poking me in the ribs for hours on end.) vicissitude (n.) event that occurs by chance (While the vicissitudes of his personal life already had him contemplating monastic life, President Roosevelt picking his draft number sealed the deal for him.) vilify (v.) to lower in importance, defame (After the Watergate scandal, almost any story written about President Nixon sought to vilify him and criticize his behavior.) virago (n.) a loud, bad-tempered woman visceral (adj.) pertaining to instinctive instead of intellectual motivation (Pure racism - that is, a visceral dislike of another person because of his skin color - existed in many parts of Mississippi in the 1930s.) viscous (adj.) not free flowing, syrupy (The viscous syrup took three minutes to pour out of the bottle.) vitiate (v.) to weaken; to impair; to invalidate ("If, on reflection, I conclude that I am humble, then I can hardly help being proud of the fact, in which case I vitiate whatever measure of humility I might have had." - Michael Liccione) vitriolic (adj.) Bitterly scathing (Some disagreements on the Congressional floor start with a topic and denigrate into sniping, innuendo and ends in vitriolic name calling.) wangle (v.) to manipulate; to obtain by scheming or by underhanded methods (Ten year old Penelope Tweety wangled her way to a special backstage pass at the Justin Beiber concert.) wanton (adj.) undisciplined, lewd, lustful ( … wanton behavior of the reprobate; … the terrorists were engaged in wanton violence and slaughter; … the nonconformist had a wanton disregard for the routines and traditions of ….) winsome (adj.) charming, pleasing (After such a long, frustrating day, I was grateful for Chris's winsome attitude and childish naivete.) wistful (adj.) full of yearning; musingly sad (Nothing quite compares to the wistful countenance of an 8 yr. old girl saying goodbye to her soldier-father as he separates from her and joins the rest of the deployment for Iraq.) wizened (adj.) dry, shrunken, wrinkled (Agatha's grandmother, Stephanie, had the most wizened countenance, full of leathery wrinkles from decades of tending the land.) Zenith (n.) the highest point, culminating point (I was too nice to tell Nelly that she had reached the absolute zenith of her career with that one hit of hers.) Zephyr (n.) a gentle breeze (If not for the zephyrs that were blowing and cooling us, our room would've been unbearably hot.)