April 24

Question 1

Arrogate

Answer 1

To claim or seize without justification

To arrogate is to take over. When the teacher steps out of the classroom and some bossy student marches up to the chalkboard and begins scolding the other kids? The student is trying to arrogate the teacher’s authority.

Question 2

Orotund

Bombastic

Turgid

Tumid

Tumescent

Answer 2

Swollen in speech.

Orotund - full and rich in voice

Question 3

Solecism

Malapropism

Answer 3

Minor blunder in speech or etiquette.

Ever snore at the opera? Burp at the dinner table? Forget your mom’s birthday? Probably all three, right? Well, don’t worry. Instead of just screwing up, what you did was commit a solecism. Sounds kinda neat that way, huh?

Question 4

Ponderous

Answer 4

Weighed down

When you call Frankenstein ponderous, it’s not because he likes to ponder the great questions of life. It’s because he moves like a Mack truck, only slower and less gracefully.

Question 5

Dithyramb

Panegyric

Encomium

Answer 5

Lofty praise.

Question 6

Lachrymose

Answer 6

Weepy, Melancholic

A good place to see a display of lachrymose sorrow is at a funeral — people sobbing openly or sniffling quietly into their hankies. To be lachrymose, in other words, is to be tearful.

Question 7

Prolixity

Voluble

Garrulous

Loquacious

Answer 7

wordy, verbose

If someone likes to talk but they’re really boring, they’ve got prolixity. It’s not something to be proud of.

Question 8

Stratagem

Answer 8

Military manoeuvre to deceive. Crafty scheme

A stratagem is a scheme or a clever plot. You can have a stratagem for winning a chess game, getting the girl (or boy), and avoiding a punishment. However, your opponents, crushes, and parents may have a trick or two of their own.

Question 9

Fomenter

Incendiary

Demagogue

Answer 9

Setting on fire, arousing strife

A demagogue is someone who becomes a leader largely because of skills as a speaker or who appeals to emotions and prejudices.

Question 10

Apophthegm

Dictum

Answer 10

Proverb

Formal or authoritative pronouncement.

Question 11

Tractable

Biddable

Answer 11

Easily controlled, docile.

Question 12

Sinecure

Answer 12

A job or position that pays well while requiring little work.

Question 13

Equivocate

Palter

Mendacious

Prevaricate

Answer 13

Unclear language to deceive.

To palter is to beat around the bush by speaking or writing in an unclear way. People palter to confuse others.

Question 14

Lassitude

Languid

Torpor

Flag

Lackadaisical

Indolent

Answer 14

Drooping from exhaustion, lacking in spirit.

Question 15

Credulous

Answer 15

Naive

People who believe things easily without having to be convinced are credulous. Sales people are always hoping that someone credulous picks up the phone during a sales call.

Credulous comes from the 16th-century Latin credulus, or “easily believes.” A synonym for credulous is gullible, and both terms describe a person who accepts something willingly without a lot of supporting facts. Calling someone credulous can imply that the person is naive and simple. An individual isn’t necessarily insulted by being called credulous, though, because some objects of belief, like religions and unicorns, come with a willing leap of faith for believing in what is unseen.

Question 16

Polemic

Eristic

Answer 16

A polemic is something that stirs up controversy by having a negative opinion, usually aimed at a particular group. A piece of writing can be a polemic, as long as it gets someone’s goat.

If you love to argue, you’re eristic. Being eristic is a fairly common quality for a debater to have.

.

Question 17

Parry

Answer 17

Deflect or avoid

Question 18

Cupidity

Avarice

Rapacity

Answer 18

Excessive greed.

Remember the saying “Greed is good”? It could just as easily be “Cupidity is good,” though admittedly it doesn’t roll off the tongue quite the same way. Cupidity means a burning desire to have more wealth than you need.

Question 19

Dilatory

Answer 19

Tardy, procrastination

Something dilatory creates a delay. If you are a high school student, once in a while you might have used dilatory tactics if you forgot to do your homework.

Question 20

Dudgeon

Umbrage

Answer 20

To take offence or annoyance

When someone takes umbrage at something, they find it offensive, and it probably makes them angry.

Question 21

Bowdlerize

Expurgate

Red-pencil

Answer 21

Censure. Remove objectionable or offensive parts.

To expurgate is to censor. Usually, people talk about expurgating bad words from something written or on TV.

Question 22

Irreverant

Impious

Answer 22

Lacking respect or reverence

To be impious is to be disrespectful of god or duty. When someone is being impious they are doing things that their church, synagogue, temple, mosque, school principal, government or parents would find unacceptable.

Question 23

Contemporaries

Answer 23

a person or thing living or existing at the same time as another.

Question 24

Recondite

Answer 24

Little known, abstruse.

It’s rather difficult to penetrate the meaning of recondite. Fitting, because it’s an adjective that basically means hard for the average mind to understand.

Question 25

Several

Answer 25

some, not many.

Question 26

Excising

Answer 26

charge excise on

An excise tax is a special tax levied on specific products sold within a country. To excise something can also mean to get rid of it. Say, wouldn’t it be nice if they would excise the excise taxes?

Question 27

Fecklessness

Answer 27

If a newspaper editorial describes a politician as feckless, you might wonder, “What is feck, and why doesn’t he have any?” In fact, the columnist is accusing the politician of being irresponsible and incompetent.

irresponsible, lacking initiative or strength

Question 28

Indictment

Answer 28

A formal charge or accusation of a serious crime

Question 29

impecunious

Answer 29

Having little or no money

If you are hard up, broke, penniless, or strapped for cash, you could describe yourself as impecunious. Then maybe you could make some money teaching vocabulary words.

Question 30

Hortatory

Answer 30

trying to strongly encourage or persuade someone to do something

Hortatory is a word used to describe a behavior or action that is encouraging. In the face of great economic crisis, the president’s speech takes on a hortatory or encouraging tone, at a time when people most need the reassurance.

Question 31

Extant

Answer 31

Still in existence, surviving

Use the adjective extant to describe old things that are still around, like your extant diary from third grade or the only extant piece of pottery from certain craftspeople who lived hundreds of years ago.

Question 32

Trifling

Answer 32

Trivial

If something is trifling it’s really unimportant, of no consequence — “a trifling detail.”

Question 33

Promulgated

Answer 33

To promote or make widely known

Promulgated means “published,” or “formally and publicly declared.” Newspaper opinion pieces contain promulgated ideas and viewpoints.

Question 34

Insipid

Answer 34

Lacking flavour, weak or tasteless. Bland.

Something insipid is lacking in flavor or interest. You’ll probably find the generic poems inside of greeting cards insipid.

Question 35

Heterodox

Answer 35

Not confirming to accepted orthodox.

Question 36

Ameliorate

Answer 36

Make something better

Question 37

Outmoded

Answer 37

Old-fashioned

Question 38

Tillage

Answer 38

Preparation of land for growing crops

Question 39

Harbinger

Answer 39

A person or thing that announces the arrival of another

Question 40

Panacea

Answer 40

A solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases

Question 41

Adroit

Answer 41

Clever or skillful

Question 42

Bucolic

Answer 42

Pastoral

Question 43

Spurious

Answer 43

False or Fake. Related to Specious (misleading in appearance)

Question 44

Hidebound

Answer 44

Hidebound things — or people — are stuck in the past, unable to change. Your boss’s hidebound attitudes about gender make him reluctant to hire women for most jobs.

Unwilling or unable to change because of convention

Question 45

Circumlocution

Answer 45

Circumlocution is a long, complicated word which means a long, complicated way of expressing something. To cut to the chase, circumlocution means to beat around the bush.

Question 46

Expropriate

Answer 46

Use the verb expropriate to describe the act of taking people’s property, usually by a government. If you really like your neighbor’s house, you may wish you could expropriate the property.

Question 47

Dissemble

Answer 47

To dissemble is to hide under a false appearance, to deceive. “When confronted about their human rights record, the Chinese government typically dissembles.”