Advanced Vocabulary 1 (2013-07) Flashcards
disquisition
n. A lengthy, formal discourse that analyses or explains some topic; a dissertation or treatise.
“No article on matters educational is complete without a disquisition on standards.”
correlativity
n. A reciprocal relation between two or more things
“So long as we assume an exclusive association between terrorism as a tactic and Muslims as a faith community, we create for ourselves a false impression of causality, rather than correlativity.”
ilk
n. Kind; class; sort; type; – sometimes used to indicate disapproval when applied to people.
“The problem with Bill Kristol and his ilk is their reverence of this very limited option as the ‘go to option.’”
raison d’être
n. Reason or excuse for being; rational cause or ground for existence.
“This is the raison d’être of Tantrism, that mystical system of union with the gods through sexual techniques.”
collude
v. To act together secretly to achieve a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose; conspire.
“In fact, the most dangerous pitfall you face when playing poker online is running into a table full of players that collude against you.”
plaudits
n. Enthusiastic approval
“The authors, both pollsters, will either win plaudits in future years or be forgotten like many hyperbolic, wrong-headed forecasters through the eons.”
technocrat
n. A technical specialist exercising governmental or managerial authority.
“The word technocrat can also refer to an advocate of a form of government in which experts preside.”
garrulous
adj. Given to excessive and often trivial or rambling talk; tiresomely talkative.
“Of course we haven’t encouraged your talking much up to this time, and you don’t strike me as a very rapid fire speaker, not exactly what is called garrulous, you know.”
saboteur
n. One who commits sabotage.
“If an American spy or saboteur is captured, he clearly gets worse treatment (and perhaps executed), although beatings are still not permitted.”
histrionics
n. Exaggerated, overemotional behaviour, especially when calculated to elicit a response; melodramatics.
“Her histrionics were a little bag of tricks to get her through, but underneath, she was lonely and terrified.”
prevarication
n. A statement that deviates from or perverts the truth
“You see, friends, this is the kind of prevarication I fear from an Obama administration.”
reticence
n. The trait of being uncommunicative; not volunteering anything more than necessary
“The main reason for my reticence is that the legal and tax reviews of the entire transaction required by the basic agreement have not yet been completed.”
recumbent
adj. Lying down, especially in a position of comfort or rest; reclining.
“A sphinx is a mythological creature that is depicted as a recumbent feline with a human head.”
quotidian
adj. Occurring or returning daily.
n. Anything returning daily; especially (Med.), an intermittent fever or ague which returns every day.
“Life in Afghanistan had been so bleak that quotidian things like girls attending school, women leaving their homes, people dancing, and children flying kites were hailed as extraordinary events.”
prow
n. The fore part of a ship; the bow; the beak.
“Standing on the prow was a tall man, of a dark complexion, who saw with dilating eyes that they were approaching a dark mass of land in the shape of a cone, which rose from the midst of the waves like the hat of a Catalan.”
beguile
v. To take away from by or as if by guile; cheat: a disease that has beguiled me of strength.
v. To distract the attention of; divert: “to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming” ( Abraham Lincoln).
“So simple that a child can love it, yet sophisticated enough to beguile adults, this is a masterpiece whose beauty cannot be fully appreciated in photographs or in a thousand words of praise.”
transhistorical
n. Outside the bounds of history; universal; permanent.
“Literature, as we all know, is the human pageant distilled; but it’s equally the transhistorical record of a sad and furious primate, a mirror held up to our species ‘ugliness.”
incipient
adj. Beginning to exist or appear: detecting incipient tumors; an incipient personnel problem.
“And it is essential to discover the existence of the disease at its beginning, what is called the incipient stage, in order to have the best chance of recovery.”
ruefully
adv. Causing, feeling, or expressing regret or sorrow.
“Better to hide out in the bathroom, she recalled ruefully, than risk the public humiliation of eating solo.”
putative
adj. Commonly thought or deemed; supposed; reputed.
“I think the major problem with Europe today is a lack of democracy, even in putative democratic countries.”
excision
n. The deletion of some text during editing.
n. surgery The removal of a tumor, etc., by cutting.
n. genetics The removal of a gene from a section of genetic material.
n. topology The fact that, under certain hypotheses, the homology of a space relative to a subspace is unchanged by the identification of a subspace of the latter to a point.
“That’s one nasty infection you have there buddy, complete excision is going to be needed.”
scourge
n. A source of widespread dreadful affliction and devastation such as that caused by pestilence or war.
n. A means of inflicting severe suffering, vengeance, or punishment.
n. A whip used to inflict punishment.
v. To afflict with severe or widespread suffering and devastation; ravage.
v. To chastise severely; excoriate.
v. To flog.
“Are you, then, really in earnest about this admiration and fulsome praise of a man whom you abhorred formerly – to whom at Frankfort you vowed everlasting hatred – whom, in your wrath, you called the scourge that was torturing us, that we might be aroused from our stupor?”
suppuration
n. medicine Decay in tissue producing pus, or the pus itself.
“The analogy between this phenomenon and what happens when a man has a splinter that causes inflammation and suppuration is extraordinary.”
suppuration
n. medicine Decay in tissue producing pus, or the pus itself.
“The analogy between this phenomenon and what happens when a man has a splinter that causes inflammation and suppuration is extraordinary.”
