Advanced Words II Flashcards
Clamber
Climb awkwardly or with difficulty, scramble
Cloying
Disgustingly or distastefully sweet
Coagulate
Cause a liquid to become solid or semisolid
Coda
Final part of a musical composition; an ending, esp. one that sums up what has come before
Coffer
Chest for storing valuables; financial resources, a treasury
Collude
Conspire; cooperate for illegal or fraudulent purposes
Compendium
Concise but complete summary; a list or collection
Complaisant
Eager to please; cheerfully complying
Confound
Confuse, frustrate; mix up or make worse
Connote
Suggest or imply in addition to the precise, literal meaning
Contraries
Things that are opposing; either of two opposite things
Contrite
Remorseful; feeling sorry for one’s offenses or sins
Contumacious
Rebellious; stubbornly disobedient
Convoke
Call together, as to a meeting
Cosset
Treat as a pet, pamper
Coterie
Close or exclusive group, clique
Cupidity
Greed, great or excessive desire
Curmudgeon
Bad-tempered, difficult person; grouch
Declaim
Speak in an impassioned, pompous, or oratorical manner; five a formal speech
Declivity
Downward slope
Delimit
Fix, mark, or define the boundaries of
Demagogue
A leader who lies and gains power by arousing the passions and especially prejudices of the people
Demur
Show reluctance or object, esp. for moral reasons
Desultory
Lacking consistency or order, disconnected, sporadic; going off topic
Diaphanous
very sheer, fine, translucent
Dichotomy
Division into two parts or into two contradictory groups
Dictum
Formal or authoritative pronouncement; saying or proverb
Diffident
Lacking confidence, shy
Diffuse
Spread widely, disseminate; dispersed, widely spread out, or wordy and going off-topic
Dilate
To become wider or make wider, cause to expand; to speak or write at length, elaborate upon
Dilatory
Slow, late; procrastinating or stalling for time
Dilettante
Person who takes up an art or activity for amusement only or in a superficial way
Dirge
A funeral or mourning song or poem
Discomfiting
Disconcerting, confusing, frustrating
Discordant
Harsh or inharmonious in sound; disagreeing, incongruous
Discrete
Separate, distinct, detached, existing as individual parts
Disparage
Belittle, put down
Disparate
Distinct, different
Dissemble
Mislead, conceal the truth, put on a false appearance of
Dissolution
Dissolving, the state of having been dissolved; breaking bonds or breaking up of a group of people; death, disintegration; sinking into extreme hedonism, vice, and degradation
Distaff
Female, exp. relation to the maternal side of the family; women or women’s work; a staff that holds wool or flax for spinning
Distend
Swell, expand, stretch, bloat
Dither
Act indecisively; a state of fear or trembling excitement
Diurnal
Occurring every day; happening in the daytime (rather than at night)
Doctrinaire
Person who applies doctrine in an impractical or rigid an close-minded way; merely theoretical, impractical, or fanatical about other people accepting one’s ideas
Doff
Table off, put aside; remove one’s hat as a gesture
Dovetail
Join or fit together
Droll
Funny in an odd way
Dupe
Person who is easily fooled or used; to fool or exploit
Duplicity
Deceit, double-dealing, acting in two different ways for the purpose of deception
