Day 9 Flashcards
bulwark
earthwork or other strong defense; person who defends. The navy is our principal bulwark
against invasion.
bumptious
self-assertive. His classmates called him a show-off because of his bumptious airs
bungle
/mismanage; blunder. Don’t botch this assignment, Bumstead; if you bungle the job, you’re
fired!
burgeon
grow forth; send out buds. In the spring, the plants that burgeon are a promise of the
beauty that is to come.
burly
/husky; muscular. The burly mover lifted the packing crate with ease.
burnish
make shiny by rubbing; polish. The maid burnished the brass fixtures until they reflected the
lamplight.
buttress
/support; prop up. The attorney came up with several far-fetched arguments in a vain attempt
to buttress his weak case. also N
cabal
/small group of persons secretly united to promote their own interests. The cabal was defeated
when their scheme was discovered.
cache
/hiding place. The detectives followed the suspect until he led them to the cache where he
had stored his loot. He had cached the cash in a bag for trash: it was a hefty sum.
cadence
/rhythmic rise and fall (of words or sounds); beat. Marching down the road, the troops
sang out, following the cadence set by the sergeant.
caliber
/ability; quality. Einstein’s cleaning the blackboards again? Albert, quit it! A man of your
caliber shouldn’t have to do such menial tasks.
callous
hardened; unfeeling. He had worked in the hospital for so many years that he
was callous to the suffering in the wards. callus, N.
callow
/youthful; immature; inexperienced. As a freshman, Jack was sure he was a
man of the world; as a sophomore, he made fun of freshmen as callow youths. In both cases, his
judgment showed just how callow he was.
calorific
heat-producing. Coal is much more calorific than green wood.
calumny
/malicious misrepresentation; slander. He could endure his financial failure, but he could
not bear the calumny that his foes heaped upon him.
cameo
/shell or jewel carved in relief; star’s special appearance in a minor role
in a film. Don’t bother buying cameos from the street peddlers in Rome: the carvings they sell are
clumsy jobs. Did you enjoy Bill Murray’s cameo in Little Shop of Horrors? He was onscreen for only a
minute, but he cracked me up.
cant
/insincere expressions of piety; jargon of thieves. Shocked by news of the minister’s
extramarital love affairs, the worshippers dismissed his talk about the sacredness of marriage as
mere cant. Cant is a form of hypocrisy: those who can, pray; those who cant, pretend.
cantankerous
/ill humored; irritable. Constantly complaining about his treatment and
refusing to cooperate with the hospital staff, he was a cantankerous patient.
cantata
story set to music, to be sung by a chorus. The choral society sang the new cantata
composed by its leader.
canter
slow gallop. Because the racehorse had outdistanced its competition so easily, the reporter
wrote that the race was won in a canter. alsoV.
