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Question 1

abate

Answer 1

v. to decrease; reduceNasa announced that it would delay the launch of the manned spacecraft until the radiation from the solar flares abated.

Question 2

abdicate

Answer 2

v. to give up a position, right, or powerRomulus Augustus, the last Western Roman emperor, was forced to abdicate the throne in 476 A.D. and the Germanic chieftain Odovacar became the de facto rule of Italy.The appeals judge has abdicated his responsibility to review the findings of the high court.

Question 3

aberrant

Answer 3

adj. deviating from what is normal.When a person’s behavior becomes aberrant, his or her peers may become concerned that the individual is becoming a deviant.Abberation is a noun meaning something different from the usual or normal.For centuries, solar eclipses were regarded as serious aberrations in the natural order.

Question 4

abeyance

Answer 4

n. temporary suppression or suspensionA good judge must hold his or her judgment in abeyance until all the facts in a case have been presented.

Question 5

abject

Answer 5

adj. miserable; pitifulJohn Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath portrays the abject poverty of many people during the Great Depression.

Question 6

abjure

Answer 6

v. to reject; abandon formallyMost members of the Religious Society of Friends abjure the use of violence to settle disputes between nations.For a foreigner to become a U.S. citizen, he or she must take an oath abjuring allegiance to any other country and pledging to take up arms to defend the U.S.

Question 7

abscission

Answer 7

n. the act of cutting; the natural separation of a leaf or other part of a plantTwo scientists, Williams and Whitham, have hypothesized that premature leaf abscission is an adaptive plant response to herbivorous attack.The verb abscise means to cut off or away.The surgeon abscised a small growth on the patient’s hand.

Question 8

abscond

Answer 8

v. to depart secretlyA warrant is out for the arrest of a person believed to have absconded with three million dollars.

Question 9

abstemious

Answer 9

adj. moderate in appetiteSome research suggests that people with an abstemious lifestyle tend to live longer than people who indulge their appetites.

Question 10

abstinence

Answer 10

n. the giving up of certain pleasuresThe monk’s vow of abstinence include all intoxicating substances.

Question 11

abysmal

Answer 11

adj. very badThe abysmal failure of the free market system in Russia has led some people to argue that the planned economy of the Soviet Union, while not perfect, was better sited to Russia’s history and culture than Western-style capitalism.

Question 12

accretion

Answer 12

n. growth in size or increase in amountIn the 1960s, the American geophysicist Harry Hess conceived the idea of sea-floor spreading, a process in which the new crust in the ocean is continually generated by igneous processes at the crests of the mid-oceanic ridges, causing a steady accretion of the crust.

Question 13

accrue

Answer 13

v. to accumulate; grow by additionsRegulating the growth of large companies when they begin to become monopolistic is a difficult task for government in a capitalist country; if it limits monopolies too much, the nation’s firms could become less competitive than foreign companies that enjoy the advantages accruing from greater monopolies.

Question 14

adamant

Answer 14

adj. uncompromising; unyieldingDespite widespread opposition to his plan, the political party’s leader is adamant that the party must move to the center to appeal to moderate voters.

Question 15

adjunct

Answer 15

n. something added, attached, or joinedSpeed walking, cross-country running, and marathons are normally regarded as adjuncts of track and filed athletics since races in these sports are not normally held on a track.

Question 16

admonish

Answer 16

v. to caution or reprimandThe judge admonished the jury to discount testimony that had been ruled inadmissible.

Question 17

adulterate

Answer 17

v. to corrupt or make impureThe unscrupulous company sells an adulterated version of the drug, and doesn’t inform consumers that they are getting a less efficacious drug than they think they are getting.

Question 18

aesthetic

Answer 18

adj. relating to beauty or artMembers of the English aesthetic movement, such as Oscar Wilde, were proponents of the doctrine of art for art’s sake, which is the belie that art cannot and should not be useful for any purpose other than that of creating beauty.

Question 19

affected

Answer 19

adj. pretentious

Question 20

affinity

Answer 20

n. fondness; liking; similarityThe female students in the class felt an affinity for the ancient Greek playwright Euripides because he sympathized with women, slaves, and other despised members of his society.

Question 21

verbose

Answer 21

adj. wordy

Question 22

vertigo

Answer 22

n. dizziness

Question 23

vexation

Answer 23

n. irritation; annoyance; confusion; puzzlement

Question 24

viable

Answer 24

adj. practicable; capable of developingThe noun is viability

Question 25

vindictive

Answer 25

adj. spiteful; unforgiving

Question 26

virtuoso

Answer 26

n. someone with masterly skills; expert musician

Question 27

visage

Answer 27

n. countenance; appearance; aspect

Question 28

viscous

Answer 28

adj. thick, syrupy, and sticky

Question 29

vitiate

Answer 29

v. to impair the quality of; corrupt morally, make inoperative

Question 30

vituperative

Answer 30

adj. using or containing harsh, abusive censure

Question 31

vivisection

Answer 31

n. dissection, surgery, or painful experiments performed on a living animal for the purpose of scientific researchThe book Animal Rights by the philosopher Tom Regan contains a long discussion of vivisection.

Question 32

vogue

Answer 32

n. prevailing fashion or practiceAlthough protectionist policies are not in vogue today, great capitalist democracies, such as Great Britain and the U.S., flourished for long periods of their histories under protectionist trade policies that were nearly mercantilist- policies that imposed high tariffs on many foreign goods to promote domestic production.

Question 33

volatile

Answer 33

adj. tending to vary frequently; fickle; vortex

Question 34

vortex

Answer 34

n. whirlpool; whirlwind; center of turbulenceInexorably, the country was drawn into the vortex of war.

Question 35

warranted

Answer 35

adj. justified

Question 36

wary

Answer 36

adj. careful; cautious

Question 37

welter

Answer 37

v. to wallow or roll; toss about; be in turmoilAccording to psychologists, human beings are naturally wary of strangers.

Question 38

whimsical

Answer 38

adj. fanciful unpredictableMany children appreciate Dr. Seuss’ whimsical stories.The noun whimsy means a playful or fanciful idea.Depite its rigorous and systematic methodology, there is still considerable room in science for imagination and even whimsy.

Question 39

wistful

Answer 39

adj. vaguely longing; sadly thoughtful

Question 40

zealot

Answer 40

n. one who is fanatically devoted a causeThe Crusades of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries were conceived of by Christian zealots as a way to derive the Islamic interlopers from the Holy Land.Zealotry is a noun meaning fanaticism.

Question 41

aggrandize

Answer 41

v. to make larger or greaterOne of the concerns of the framers of the U.S. Constitution was that one branch of government would try to aggrandize itself at the expense of the others.

Question 42

aggregate

Answer 42

adj. amounting to a whole; totalThe aggregate wealth of a country includes private as well as public resources and possessions.Aggregate is also a verb meaning to collect into a mass.Portals are Web sites designed to aggregate information and are used as a starting point on the Web.Aggregate is also a noun meaning collective mass or sum.

Question 43

alacrity

Answer 43

n. cheerful willingness; eagerness; speedThe football coach was pleased to see the team get to work on the tasks of improving its tackling skills with alacrity.

Question 44

alchemy

Answer 44

n. medieval chemical philosophy based on changing metal into gold; a seemingly magical power or process of transmutation.Alchemy was the forerunner of the modern science of chemistry.

Question 45

allay

Answer 45

v. to lessen; ease; sootheImprovements in antivirus software have allayed many people’s fears of having their computers “infected” with malicious software.

Question 46

alleviate

Answer 46

v. to relieve; improve partiallyAccording to some commentators, one of the weaknesses of capitalism is that, although it is very efficient at increasing absolute wealth, it is not as successful at alleviating relative poverty; thus, a person living in a slum in America may be reasonably well of by historical standards, but he might perceive himself to be poor compared to members of the bourgeoisie, whom he sees regularly buying luxury goods that he is not able to afford.

Question 47

alloy

Answer 47

n. a combination; a mixture of two or more metalsScientists formulate alloys to create properties that are not possessed by natural metals or other substances.

Question 48

allure

Answer 48

n. the power to entice by charmPolitical groups in the U.S. often lobby Congress to use the allure of America’s vast market as an incentive for countries to pursue policies in accordance with American policies.

Question 49

amalgamate

Answer 49

v. to combine into a unified wholeIn early 1999, six municipalities were amalgamated into an enlarged city of Toronto, Canada.

Question 50

ambiguous

Answer 50

adj. unclear or doubtful in meaningThe gender of the Mahayana Buddhist deity Avalokitesuara, the god of infinite mercy, is ambiguous in both China and Japan, where the god is sometimes called a gooddess.