#52 insidious ~ intransigent Flashcards
insidious
/ɪnˈsɪdiəs/
adj. treacherous; sneaky
- Winter was insidious; it crept in under the doors and through cracks in the windows.
- Cancer, which can spread rapidly from a small cluster of cells, is an insidious disease.
insinuate
/ɪnˈsɪnyuˌeɪt/
v. to hint; to creep in
- When I told her that I hadn’t hone any laundry in a month, Valerie insinuated that I was a slob.
- He didn’t ask us outright to leave; he merely insinuated, through his tone and his gestures, that it was time for us to go.
- Jessica insinuated her way into the conversation by moving her chair closer and closer to where we were sitting.
To insinuate is to make an insinuation.
insipid
/ɪnˈsɪpɪd/
adj. dull; bland; banal
- Barny’s jokes were so insipid that no one in the room managed to force out so much as a chuckle.
- We were bored to death at the party; it was full of insipid people making insipid conversation.
- The thin soup was so insipid that all the spices in the world could not have made it interesting.
insolent
/ˈɪnsələnt/
adj. arrogant; insulting
- The ill-mannered four-year old was so insolent that his parents had a hard time finding a babysitter.
- The insolent sales clerk clearly didn’t like answering customers’ questions.
instigate
/ˈɪnstɪˌgeɪt/
v. to provoke; to stir up
- The strike was instigated by the ambitious union president, who wanted to get his name into the news.
- The CIA tried unsuccessfully to instigate rebellion in the tiny country by distributing pamphlets that, as it turned out, were printed in the wrong language.
insular
/ˈɪnsələr, ˈɪnsyə-/
adj. like an island; isolated
The Latin word for island is insula. From it we get the words peninsula (“almost an island”), insulate (insulation makes a house an island of heat), and insular, among others.
- The insular little community had very little contact with the world around it.
Sth. that is insular has insularity.
- The insularity of the little community was so complete that it was impossible to buy a big-city newspaper there.
insurgent
/ɪnˈsɜrdʒənt/
n. a rebel; someone who revolts against a government
- The heavily armed insurgents rushed into the presidential palace, but they paused to taste the fresh blueberry pie on the dinner table and were captured by the president’s bodyguards.
This word can also be an adjective. A rebellion is an insurgent activity.
Insurgency is another word for rebellion; so is insurrection.
integral
/ˈɪntɪgrəl, ɪnˈtɛgrəl/
adj. essential
- A solid offense was an integral part of our football team; so was a strong defense.
- Dave was integral to the organization; it could never have gotten along without him.
integrate
/ˈɪntɪˌgreɪt/
v. to combine two or more things into a whole
- Marisol’s school offered an integrated history and language curriculum so that students learned Roman history and Latin in the same classroom.
intractable
/ɪnˈtræktəbəl/
adj. uncontrollable; stubborn; disobedient
- The intractable child was a torment to his nursery school teacher.
- Lavanya was intractable in her opposition to pay increases for the library employees; she swore she would never vote to give them a raise.
- The disease was intractable. None of the dozens of medicines the doctor tried had the slightest effect on it.
The opposite of intractable is tractable.
intransigent
/ɪnˈtrænsɪdʒənt/
adj. uncompromising; stubborn
- Vijay was an intransigent hard-liner, and he didn’t care how many people he offended with his views.
- The jury was unanimous except for one intransigent member, who didn’t believe that anyone should ever be forced to go to jail.
The noun is intransigence.
