General Vocabulary 13 Flashcards
Skittish (adj)
Nervous or excitable; easily scared.
My skittish and immature mother.
Boondoggle (n)
An unnecessary, wasteful, or fraudulent project.
He characterized the defense program as an unworkable boondoggle.
Dirigisme (n)
[Dirigism]
State control of economic and social matters.
Buffeted (v)
Strike repeatedly and violently, battered.
Rough seas buffeted the coast.
Volksgeist (n)
The spirit of an individual people, its “national spirit” or “national character”.
Redact (v)
Prepare for publication by correcting revising or adapting.
Redact a book on lexical semantics.
Rustler (n)
An cattle thief.
Broadside (n)
A Fierce verbal attack.
He launched a broadside against the economic reforms.
Syncretic (adj)
Describing the amalgamation of different cultures, religions or schools of thought.
Indignant (adj)
Showing anger at what is felt to be unfair treatment.
Refied (adj)
To give definite content and form to (a concept or idea)
Legatee (n)
A beneficiary who inherits a legacy or will.
Pederasty (n)
Sexual activity between a man and a boy.
Overweening (adj)
Showing excessive confidence or pride.
Overweening ambition led to his downfall.
Undergirded (v)
Secure or fasten from the underside OR provide firm support for.
That’s a philosophy that needs to undergird retailers’ business plans this year
Verities (n)
True principles or beliefs.
The eternal verities of life.
Panjandrum (n)
A person who claims to have a great deal of author influence.
The greatest scientific panjandrum of the 19th century
Rodomontade (n)
Boastful or inflated talk.
He soon finds out there’s nothing to be gained by rodomontading.
Omnibus (n)
A volume of books previously published separately.
An omnibus of her first trilogy.
Sacerdotal (adj)
[Sasedotal]
Denoting a doctrine which ascribes sacrificial functions and spiritual or supernatural powers to ordained priests.
Etiolation (adj)
Place and drawn out due to lack of light.
Benighted (adj)
In a state of pitiful or contemptible moral or intellectual ignorance.
They saw themselves as bringers of culture to poor benighted peoples.
Incubus (n)
A male demon having sexual intercourse with sleeping women OR a cause of difficulty or anxiety.
Debt is a big incubus in developing countries
Brinkmanship (n)
The art of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limit of endurance especially in politics.
In any game of brinkmanship, it is possible that one side will collapse suddenly.
Casus belli (n) [Kesis bella]
An act or situation that provokes a war.
Tendentious (adj)
Tending to promote a particular thought or view, especially controversial.
A tendentious reading of history.
Skittish (adj)
Nervous, excitable, easily scared.
A skittish chestnut mare.
Boondoggle (n)
An unnecessary wasteful project.
He characterized the defense program as an unworkable boondoggle.
Dirigisme (n)
State control of economic and social matters.
Irremediably (adj)
Impossible to correct or set right.
Coltan (n)
A dull metallic mineral.
Pro-rata (adj)
Proportional.
As the pound has fallen costs have risen on a pro-rata basis.
Defenestrated (v)
Remove from a position of power or authority.
The overwhelming view is that he should be defenestrated before the next election.
Withering (adj)
Intense scorching.
A protective cover to escape withering heat.
Sensorium (n)
The sensory apparatus considered as a whole.
The magic of cinema comes pouring into our sensorium.
Animus (n)
Intense feeling of dislike or hostility.
the author’s animus towards her.
Cobble (v)
Assemble or produce something from available parts or elements.
The film was imperfectly cobbled together from two separate stories.
Chattel (n)
In Law: An item of property other than freehold land.
Infructuous (adj)
Pointless or unnecessarily.
All previous guarantees extended by the company are infructuous.
Prospective (adj)
Likely to happen at a future date.
Threats of prospective punishment deter kids from misbehaving.
Bloviate(v)
To speak verbosely in a pompous manner.
He bloviated in his speech to the convention.
Apotheosis (n)
The glorification of something to the level making it divine.
Hospice (n)
A place of palliative care for the terminally ill.
Cornice (n)
A horizontal decorative mounding that crowns a building or furniture.
Iniquities (n)
Grossly unfair behavior.
A den of iniquity.
Recrudescene (n)
The recurrence of an undesirable condition.
Recrudescence of the disease is a real possibility.
Cupidity (n)
Greed for money or possessions.
New wealth, however tainted by cupidity and egoism, tends to be favorable for the arts.
Trope (n)
A figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression.
Both clothes and illness became tropes for new attitudes toward the self.
Scourged (v)
Cause great suffering to.
Political methods used to scourge and oppress workers.
Swoon (v)
Be overcome with admiration, adoration, or other strong emotion.
You can have them swooning over you with a few well-placed words.
Straitened (adj)
Characterized by poverty.
They lived in straitened circumstances.
Swingeing (adj)
Severe or extreme in size, amount, or effect.
Swingeing cuts in public expenditure.
Lancet (n)
A small, broad two-edged surgical knife or blade with a sharp point.
Prissy (adj)
Fussily and excessively respectable.
A middle-class family with two prissy children.
Harness (v)
Control and make use of (natural resources), especially to produce energy.
Attempts to harness solar energy.
Levees (n)
A formal reception of visitors or guests.
The great stop on the Washington social circuit was the diplomat’s levee.
Suborn (v)
Bribe or otherwise induce (someone) to commit an unlawful act such as perjury.
He was accused of conspiring to suborn witnesses.
Arcadia (n)
An idyllic vision of unspoiled wilderness.
Squirearchy (n)
[Square rarchy]
Landowners collectively, especially when considered as a class having political or social influence.
Firman (n)
An oriental sovereign’s edict or permit.
Reified (v)
Make (something abstract) more concrete or real.
These instincts are, in man, reified as verbal constructs”.
Indigenes (n)
An indigenous people.
Sot (n)
A habitual drunkard.
Paternalist (adj)
Relating to or characterized by the restriction of the freedom and responsibilities of subordinates or dependents in their supposed interest.
The paternalistic attitude of colonial Victorians.
Furlough (n)
Leave of absence, especially that granted to a member of the services or a missionary.
A civil servant home on furlough.
Luxuriated (v)
Enjoy (something) as a luxury; take self-indulgent delight in.
She was luxuriating in a long bath.
Redoubts (n)
A temporary or supplementary fortification, typically square or polygonal and without flanking defenses.
The British stormed the rebel redoubt.
Fripperies (n)
Showy or unnecessary ornament in architecture, dress, or language.
A strictly business building with not a hint of frippery.
Querulous (adj)
Complaining in a rather petulant or whining manner.
She became querulous and demanding.
Sweetmeats (n)
An item of confectionery or sweet food.
He hurried back to his room like a schoolboy who has stolen a sweetmeat.
Prospector (n)
A person who searches for mineral deposits, especially by drilling and excavation.
For modern-day prospectors, panning for gold is a chance to experience the thrill of finding buried treasure.
Reeled (v )
Feel shocked, bewildered, or giddy.
The Prime Minister was reeling from a savaging inflicted in the Commons.
Prefigure (v)
Be an early indication or version of (something).
The Hussite movement prefigured the Reformation.
Anapests (n)
A metrical foot consisting of two short or unstressed syllables followed by one long or stressed syllable.
Habeas Corpus (n)
A writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, especially to secure the person’s release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention.
His application for habeas corpus.
Trifecta (n)
A run of three wins or grand events.
He will attempt a trifecta of the long jump, triple jump, and 110-meter high hurdles”.
Mofussil (n)
Parts of a country outside an urban center.
Perversity (n)
A deliberate desire to behave in an unreasonable or unacceptable way; contrariness.
They responded with typical perversity.
Jurisprudence (n)
The science or philosophy of law.
Metonym (n)
A word, name, or expression used as a substitute for something else with which it is closely associated.
Washington is a metonym for the US government.
Stevedores (n)
[Steve-e-dore]
A person employed at a dock to load and unload ships.
Redound (v)
Contribute greatly to (a person’s credit or honor).
His latest diplomatic effort will redound to his credit.
Sundering (v)
Split apart.
A universe sundered ages ago in a divine war.
Barefaced (adj)
Shameless and undisguised.
A barefaced lie.
Derisory (n)
Expressing contempt or ridicule.
He gave a harsh, derisive laugh.
Divide et Impera
Divide and Rule.
Triumvirate (n)
A triumvirate (Latin: triumvirātus) is a political regime ruled or dominated by three powerful individuals known as triumvirs.
Bookended (v)
Be positioned at the end or on either side of (something).
The narrative is bookended by a pair of incisive essays”.
Assailed (v)
Criticize strongly.
He assailed a group of editors for their alleged excesses.
Tryst (n)
A private romantic rendezvous between lovers.
A moonlight tryst.
Otiose (adj
Serving no practical purpose or result.
There were occasions when I felt my efforts were rather otiose.
Fealty (n)
A feudal tenant’s or vassal’s sworn loyalty to a lord.
They owed fealty to the Earl rather than the King.
Inculpate (v)
Accuse or blame.
He blamed himself, but also inculpated his fiancée.
Countenance (v)
Admit as acceptable or possible.
He was reluctant to countenance the use of force.
Interpose (v)
Intervene between parties.
The legislature interposed to suppress these amusements.
Bumptious (adj)
Irritatingly self-assertive.
An impossibly bumptious and opinionated ass.
Immiseration
Economic impoverishment.
Rapid modernization had an impact on the level of urban immiseration.
Gibbets (n)
The four ringleaders were sentenced to the gibbet.
Blunderbuss (n)
An action or way of doing something regarded as lacking in subtlety and precision.
Economists resort too quickly to the blunderbuss of regulation.
Strafing (v)
Attack repeatedly with bombs or machine-gun fire from low-flying aircraft.
Military aircraft strafed the village.
