1984 vocab

Vocabulary Terms and Definitions

Key Terms

  • Truncheon: A baton carried as a symbol of rank or authority; a police officer's club.

  • Wantonness: Recklessness; showing no thought or care for the rights, feelings, or safety of others.

  • Amalgam: A combination or mixture of different things.

  • Avaricious: Greedy.

  • Bade: Urged, compelled.

  • Benevolent: Kind.

  • Capitulated: Surrendered.

  • Copiously: Abundant in supply or quantity.

  • Debauchery: Corruption.

  • Demeanor: The way a person behaves toward other people (behavioral attributes).

  • Didactically: Intending to teach a moral lesson.

  • Empirical: Based on observation or experiment.

  • Euphemism: An indirect, less offensive way of saying something that is considered unpleasant.

  • Euphony: A succession of pleasant, harmonious sounds used in poetry or prose; the opposite of cacophony.

  • Extricate: To free from entanglements or difficulties; to remove with effort.

  • Flagrant: Glaringly bad; outrageous.

  • Formidable: Menacing; threatening.

  • Frivolity: Lack of seriousness.

  • Heretics: A person who holds controversial opinions.

  • Impassively: Not feeling or showing emotion.

  • Impregnable: Not likely to be weakened or changed; strong enough to resist attack.

  • Indefatigably: Incapable of being tired out; not yielding to fatigue; untiring.

  • Inexorable: Not able to be stopped or changed.

  • Infallible: Free from error; absolutely dependable.

  • Inimical: Hostile; unfriendly.

  • Inviolate: Free or safe from injury or violation.

  • Livid: Enraged; furious.

  • Multifarious: Having great variety; numerous and diverse.

  • Prosaically: In a matter-of-fact or straightforward manner.

  • Pugnaciously: Combative in nature; belligerent.

  • Racketeering: Making money via organized illegal activities.

  • Remonstrances: The act of expressing earnest opposition or protest.

  • Repositories: A place where things are stored.

  • Reverie: Daydream.

  • Sanguine: Ruddy; cheerfully optimistic.

  • Sinecure: A well-paying job or office that requires little or no work.

  • Sordid: Characterized by filth, grime, or squalor; foul.

  • Superfluous: Additional to what is necessary; extra.

  • Torpid: Inactive, sluggish, dull.

  • Truism: A statement the truth of which is obvious or well known.