April 25th

Question 1

Turpitude

Profligate

Libertinism

Spendthrift

Licentiousness

Prodigal

Answer 1

Shamelessly immoral or extremely wasteful

Profligate, as a noun or as an adjective, implies recklessly wasting your money on extravagant luxury. Profligate behavior is a lot of fun, but you’ll regret it later — when you get your charge card bill.

Question 2

Vestigial

Oddment

Answer 2

Remnant

eg
a piece of cloth that is left over after the rest has been used or sold

Question 3

Cosset

Answer 3

To treat as a pet, pamper.

To cosset is to pamper or spoil. Your mom might cosset her beloved lap dog, feeding him homemade meals and singing him to sleep.

Question 4

Vicissitude

Answer 4

Changes or variations over time.
When you talk of the vicissitudes of life, you’re referring to the difficult times that we all go through: sickness, job loss, and other unwelcome episodes. No one can escape the vicissitudes of life.

Question 5

Gossamer

Diaphanous

Pellucid

Answer 5

Clear, sheer.

Question 6

Solicitous

Answer 6

concerned or anxious

When you hear the word solicitous, think of your mom — attentive, caring, and concerned. It’s nice when your waiter gives you good service, but if he or she is solicitous, the hovering might annoy you.

Question 7

Deferment

Abeyance

Quiescence

Answer 7

A state of temporary inactivity

A deferment delays something until a future time. If you want to wait a few years before paying off a loan, you need to ask for a deferment.

Question 8

Immure

Inter

Inhume

Answer 8

To imprison

When you immure someone or something, you put it behind a wall, as in a jail or some other kind of confining space.

Question 9

Tendentious

Answer 9

Strongly Biased.

If you are writing a report on climate change and you ignore evidence that the earth is warming, the paper might be called tendentious. Tendentious means promoting a specific, and controversial, point of view.

Question 10

Inexorable

Answer 10

Unyielding

When a person is inexorable, they’re stubborn. When a thing or process is inexorable, it can’t be stopped.

Question 11

Ennoble

Aggrandize

Augment

Answer 11

Exaggerate, make bigger.

Question 12

Cadger

Mendicant

Answer 12

someone who mooches or cadges (tries to get something free)

People who live off begging can be called mendicants. However, you probably wouldn’t call your kids mendicants, even though they beg you for stuff, because the word mendicant also implies extreme poverty.

Question 13

Yoke

Thrall

Answer 13

Burden, or something that oppresses

Ever seen a picture of a farm girl carrying two buckets of water hanging from ropes attached to a stick she’s balancing across her shoulders? That stick on her shoulders is a yoke.

Question 14

Desultory

Answer 14

Lacking consistency or order

If you lack a definite plan or purpose and flit from one thing to another, your actions are desultory. Some people call such desultory wanderings spontaneous. Others call it “being lost.”

Question 15

Canard

Answer 15

Rumour, baseless story.

During a political campaign, you will often hear on TV commercials some canard about the opponent. This is a false, deluding statement designed to confuse the voters, as it presents the other candidate in a bad light by spreading an untruth.

Question 16

Toady

Myrmidon

Obsequious

Truckle

Answer 16

Subservient. Fawning

A myrmidon is someone who will do whatever you say. A schoolyard bully often has a myrmidon for a best friend — someone who is sure to never point out that it’s wrong to hassle other kids.

Question 17

Rend

Rive

Answer 17

Tear violently

Question 18

Fatuous

Answer 18

Inanely foolish

Question 19

Abash

Discomfit

Answer 19

To put into a state of perplexity and embarrassment

Although abash sounds like a big party or what firefighters do to get through a locked door, abash is, in fact, a verb that means you have caused another person to feel awkward, bashful, embarrassed, or ashamed.

Question 20

Proscribe

Interdict

Answer 20

Forbid

Interdict means to forbid, to nix, to veto. If your parents find out you’re planning a party for a time when they’re away , they will interdict it.

Question 21

Ersatz

Apocryphal

Spurious

Answer 21

Questionable authenticity. False.

Question 22

Flagrant

Egregious

Answer 22

Noticeably offensive

Something that is egregious stands out, but not in a good way — it means “really bad or offensive.” If you make an egregious error during a championship soccer match, your coach might bench you for the rest of the game.

Question 23

Rarefy

Emaciate

Attenuate

Answer 23

Weaken. To thin out.

Someone who is dangerously skinny and skeletal-looking can be described as emaciated. It’s probably how you’d start to look after a few weeks in the wilderness with only berries and bugs for dinner.

Question 24

Abscission

Ablation

Answer 24

The process of cutting off.

An ablation is removing a body part, organ, or tissue surgically. If a doctor takes out one of your kidneys, that’s an ablation.

Abscission means the cutting off or removal of something, like an unsightly mole on the chin.

Question 25

Acerbic

Acidulous

Acrid

Asperity

Answer 25

Sharp, Caustic.

Asperity is the harsh tone or behavior people exhibit when they’re angry, impatient, or just miserable. When your supervisor’s “Late again!” greeting causes your entire future to pass before your eyes, he is speaking with asperity.