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Question 1

disabuse

Answer 1

disabuse v. to free from a misconception
The chairman of the Federal Reserve used his testimony before
Congress to disabuse his audience of the idea that the business
cycle had been eliminated by the unprecedented period of prosperity.

Question 2

discordant

Answer 2

discordant adj. not in tune
In a pluralistic society there exists a cacophony of discordant
voices, each shouting to be heard.

Question 3

discrepancy

Answer 3

discrepancy n. difference between
The book studies the discrepancy in values and outlook between
men who fought in the war, whether voluntarily or not, and those
who remained civilians.

Question 4

discrete

Answer 4

discrete adj. constituting a separate thing; distinct
Like the physicist, the abstract artist strives to identify the
discrete elements of reality and to understand how they interact.

Question 5

disinjenuous

Answer 5

disingenuous adj. not candid; crafty
When a person starts a sentence, “I don’t mean to appear
disingenuous,” one might be tempted to suspect that the person
is being just that.

Question 6

disinterested

Answer 6

disinterested adj. unprejudiced; objective
The newspaper reporter looked for disinterested witnesses to
the events so that she could get an objective account of what had
happened.

Question 7

dismiss

Answer 7

dismiss v. put away from consideration; reject
Investigators dismissed the man’s account of a visit to another
planet aboard an alien spacecraft as the product of an overactive
imagination.

Question 8

disparage

Answer 8

disparage v. to belittle
Though sometimes disparaged as merely an intellectual game,
philosophy provides us with a method for inquiring systematically into
problems that arise in areas such as medicine, science, and technology.

Question 9

disparate

Answer 9

disparate adj. dissimilar
Many technological projects are interdisciplinary, requiring a knowledge of fields as disparate as physics and biology.
Disparity is a noun meaning the condition of being unequal or unlike.
The huge income disparity in the world is clearly illustrated by
the fact that the assets of the world’s two hundred richest people
exceed the combined income of 41 percent of the world’s population.

Question 10

dissemble

Answer 10

dissemble v. to pretend; disguise one’s motives
“Miss,” the prosecutor said, “I believe you are dissembling. I want
you to tell me the whole truth about what happened that night.”

Question 11

disseminate

Answer 11

disseminate v. to spread; scatter; disperse
While belief in reincarnation appeared as doctrine first in India
and was disseminated throughout Asia by Buddhism, it is interesting that it was accepted by the most influential philosophy of the
West, Platonism, and by some important early Christian thinkers,
such as the theologian Origen.

Question 12

dissolution

Answer 12

dissolution n. disintegration; debauchery
Some philosophers maintain that the dissolution of the body does
not mean the destruction of the mind.

Question 13

dissonance

Answer 13

dissonance n. discord; lack of harmony
In psychology, the term “cognitive dissonance” refers to a conflict
resulting from inconsistency between one’s beliefs and one’s actions.
For example, a soldier who believes that all killing is immoral but is
forced to kill by his superiors might experience cognitive dissonance.

Question 14

doctrinaire

Answer 14

doctrinaire adj. relating to a person who cannot compromise about
points of a theory or doctrine; dogmatic; unyielding
The doctrinaire Marxists say that capitalism is merely a temporary
phenomenon on the road to socialism.

Question 15

dogmatic

Answer 15

dogmatic adj. stating opinions without proof
Since every case is unique, jurists must not be dogmatic in
applying precedents to make their decision, but instead must base
their decision on a combination of such precedents and the facts of
the case at hand.
Dogma is a noun meaning a belief asserted on authority without
evidence.
Religions whose dogma specifies a time of the creation of the
world have found difficulty in reconciling their view of creation with
that of modern science.

Question 16

ebullient

Answer 16

ebullient adj. exhilarated; enthusiastic
The ebullient candidate for president appeared before his
supporters to announce that he had won in a landslide.

Question 17

eclectic

Answer 17

eclectic adj. selecting from various sources
Neo-Platonism—an eclectic third-century synthesis of Platonic,
Pythagorean, Aristotelian, Stoic, and Jewish philosophy—was an
essentially mystical belief that a person can achieve spiritual emancipation through union of the soul with the ultimate source of existence.

Question 18

effete

Answer 18

effete adj. depleted of vitality; overrefined; decadent
In 1969, U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew denounced people
protesting against the Vietnam War: “A spirit of national masochism
prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who
characterize themselves as intellectuals.”

Question 19

efficacy

Answer 19

efficacy n. efficiency; effectiveness
A cardinal rule of medicine is that the efficacy of a treatment
should be measured against the seriousness of its side effects.
The adjective is efficacious.
In a situation where some subjects are benefiting while others are
not, a researcher is likely to have ambivalent feelings, since he or she
is in a “no-win” situation. In such a situation, the experimenter must
choose between, on the one hand, getting more conclusive results by
continuing the experiment and, on the other hand, stopping it and
administering the drug that has proven efficacious to those who
have not received it.

Question 20

effrontery

Answer 20

effrontery n. shameless boldness; presumptuousness
In her essay the student had the effrontery to argue that school is
largely a waste of time.

Question 21

elegy

Answer 21

elegy n. poem or song expressing lamentation
Adonais is a pastoral elegy written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in the
spring of 1821 after he learned of the death of his friend and fellow
poet John Keats.

Question 22

elicit

Answer 22

elicit v. to provoke; draw out
The Socratic method is designed to elicit responses that guide the
student toward understanding.

Question 23

embellish

Answer 23

embellish v. to adorn; decorate; enhance; make more attractive by
adding details
The story he had been told was so powerful that the writer felt no
need to embellish it.

Question 24

empirical

Answer 24

empirical adj. derived from observation or experiment
Some people erroneously cite the theory of relativity as support for
ethical relativism, whereas in reality the former is a scientific theory,
while the latter is a moral issue, and thus by its nature is not subject
to empirical verification.
Empiricism is a noun meaning the view that experience is the only
source of knowledge. It can also mean the employment of empirical
methods, as in science.

Question 25

emulate

Answer 25

emulate v. to imitate; copy
Bionics uses technology to emulate nature, but sometimes a similar process occurs in reverse, in which scientists use technology as a
heuristic tool to better understand natural processes.

Question 26

endemic

Answer 26

endemic adj. inherent; belonging to an area
Malaria, once endemic to the area, has now been largely
eradicated.

Question 27

enervate

Answer 27

enervate v. to weaken
During World War II Russian commanders counted on the bitter
cold to enervate German soldiers invading their country.

Question 28

ephemeral

Answer 28

ephemeral adj. short-lived; fleeting
Impressionist painters such as Claude Monet share with the
Romantics an affinity for nature, but the Impressionists took a more
scientific interest in it, attempting to accurately depict ephemeral
phenomena such as the play of light on water.

Question 29

equanimity

Answer 29

equanimity n. composure; calmness
Emergency room doctors and nurses are trained to maintain their
equanimity when treating patients.

Question 30

equivocate

Answer 30

equivocate v. to intentionally use vague language
The businessperson has earned a reputation as someone who never
equivocates and can be trusted to do exactly what he promises.
The noun is equivocation.
The saying “It’s a matter of semantics” is often used to indicate
that the real meaning of something is being lost in verbiage, often
with the implication that there is obfuscation or equivocation.

Question 31

erudite

Answer 31

erudite adj. learned; scholarly
Frederick Copleston, author of the nine-volume History of
Philosophy, was undoubtedly one of the most erudite people who
ever lived.
The noun is erudition.
Great erudition does not necessarily mean that a person is
sagacious.

Question 32

esoteric

Answer 32

esoteric adj. hard to understand; known only to a few
Epidemiologists, using esoteric statistical analyses, field investigations, and complex laboratory techniques, investigate the cause of a
disease, its distribution (geographic, ecological, and ethnic), method of
spread, and measures for preventing or controlling it.