General Vocabulary 17 Flashcards
Panoptic (adj)
Showing or seeing the whole at one view.
Panoptic aerial view of military bases.
Comport (v)
To conduct oneself or behave.
Articulate students who comported themselves well in the interview.
Petard (n)
To have one’s own plan to cause trouble for others blow up on oneself.
To be hoisted by ones own petard.
Putative (adj)
Generally considered to be.
The putative benefits of the medicine were all too obvious.
Precepts (n)
A general rule intended to regulate thought or behavior.
The rules of the constitution were regarded as general precepts for society.
Woe betide (n)
Great sorrow or depression.
Woe betide anyone who does not claim the constitution to be on their side.
Casuistic (adj)
To use clever but unsound reasoning in matters of morals.
Is the constitution made in the casuistic reasoning of lawyers?
Epigraph (n)
A short saying at the beginning of a chapter or book indicative of its theme OR
An inscription on a building / statue.
Ecumenism (n)
The principle aim of promoting unity amongst the different Christian churches.
Panglossian (adj)
Unreasonably or naively optimistic.
The Panglossian view of our relationship with our neighbors obscures our reality.
Sotto voce (adj)
In a quite voice as if unheard.
The speech is a sotto voce acknowledgement of threats that face us.
Presumptuous (adj)
Failing to observe the limits of what is permitted or appropriate.
The sense of presumptuousness in dealing with China has gone.
Instrumentalism (n)
A pragmatic approach which regards an activity as an instrument for some practical purpose.
There is rampant instrumentalism in the media.
Hoggishness (n)
Greed OR An excessive desire for food.
Rapier (n)
Sharp or incisive(of speech).
Rapier wit.
Refoulement (n)
The practice of returning refugees to a country from where they came and are likely to be persecuted.
The principle of non-refoulement was breached when refugees were sent back.
Founder (v)
To stumble upon and fall possibly by exhaustion.
The intellectual tradition foundered on two challenges
Bromide (n)
A trite statement used to soothe or placate.
Do not peddle confused bromides about consciousness replacing morality.
Essentialism (n)
The view that every entity has a set of attributes that are necessary to its identity and function.
Anthology (n)
A published collection of writings.
Theodicy (n)
A philosophical answer to how a good God could create so much evil in existence.
Pathologise (v)
To treat as psychologically abnormal.
The same pathologies that make nationalism suspect should apply to sub-nationalism.
Case law (n)
Past legal judgements as a collection used to guide the interpretation of the law.
Gravamen (n)
The most serious issue of a complaint or accusation.
The real gravamen of “judicial imperiousness” should be evaluated on empirical evidence.
Disjuncture (n)
A separation or divide.
There is a deep disjuncture between social categories and the actual flow of politics.
Rubicon (n)
The point of no return.
They crossed a Rubicon when insults flew thick and fast.
Oeuvre (n)
[Aver]
The body of work of an artist, author or composer.
Elena Ferrante’s literary oeuvre is fascinating.
Mordant (adj)
Having a sharp or critical quality.
The book was acclaimed for its mordant social observations.
Cul de sac (n)
A passage closed at one end.
It is a measure of our moral cul de sac that the principles we espouse are the ones that inhibit a fair outcome.
Abrogate (v)
Abolish or do away with a right or law.
Soteriology (n)
The study of religious doctrines of salvation.
He has every soteriological ambition that philosophers in the Indian tradition have had.
Littoral (adj)
Of or relating to the shore of a lake or sea.
The littoral states of the Indian Ocean.
Detente (n)
[De tawnt]
The easing or relaxation of strained relations with a country.
India must make an attempt at detente with China.
Involuted (adj)
Complicated or abstruse.
His prose grew increasingly involute.
Prefatory (adj)
Serving as an introduction.
The prefatory remarks on the essay were incisive.
Rictus (n)
A fixed grin
An occasional rictus was all that was left of his expressions.
Necrosis (adj)
Premature death of cells in a living tissue.
Quisling (n)
A traitor who collaborates with enemy forces within his country.
Grifter (n)
A person who engages in small thefts.
Dullards (n)
An idiot. A slow and stupid person.
Gormless (adj)
Lacking sense. Foolishness.
Hucksters (n)
Traders. People who sell small items from door to door.
Lickspittle (n)
A person who behaves obsequiously to people in power.
Kitsch (n)
Considered in poor taste but appreciated in a ironic way.
Palaces awash with potentate kitsch.
Metastasised (v)
Of cancer. Spread to other parts of the body by metastasis.
Fugacious (adj)
Fleeting, tending to disappear.
She was acutely aware of her fugacious youth.
Neanderthal (n) (adj)
An uncivilised, uncouth, unintelligent person.
This sort of neanderthal thinking will take us back in time.
Covetousness (n)
The desire to possess something that belongs to another.
Zephyr (n)
A light gentle breeze.
If not for the zephyrs blowing and cooling us our room would have been unbearably hot.
Wily (adj)
Crafty or sly
While they were not the strongest they were wily and full of dirty tricks.
Sybarite (n)
A person devoted to luxury and pleasure seeking.
The prince was known to be a self indulgent sybarite and not a statesmen or warrior.
Swarthy (adj)
Dark in colour or complexion.
When he drank his pale skin became unusually swarthy.
Solipsistic (adj)
Believing that oneself is all that exists.
Her solipsistic attitude lead her to completely ignore the plight of the homeless.
Sobriety (n)
Calm or sedate.
John’s sobriety in times of crises was the key to his success in life.
Seraphic (adj)
Sweet or angelic.
When children put on their angel costumes they look seraphic.
Ribald (adj)
Coarse or crude humour.
While some giggled at the ribald jokes others sighed and rolled their eyes off.
Reprobate (adj)
Evil or unprincipled.
The reprobate criminal sat unrepentant in the court of law.
Pellucid (adj)
Easily understood by common intellect.
He wrote the book hoping it would be pellucid to the common man’s understanding.
Lugubrious (adj)
Looking or sounding sad and gloomy.
After his wife left him he walked around in a lugubrious condition.
Ethos (n)
The set of ideas and beliefs of a set of people.
The company ethos is one of cooperation amongst all members of the firm.
Ersatz (adj)
Artificial or inferior imitation or substitution
Like everything else in the restaurant the whipped cream on the dessert was ersatz.
Dissemble (v)
Conceal or hide.
Not wanting to appear possessive she dissembled her intention of not wanting to sell off her antiques.
Cosset (v)
To pamper or treat with great care.
The mother would cosset to her child’s every demand from buying expensive toys to skipping homework.
Contumacious (adj)
Stubborn and disobedience to authority.
The contumacious player was kicked of the team for not following the coach’s orders.
Congruity (n)
Perfect harmony or agreement.
They mutually had perfect congruity of opinion.
Concord (n)
Harmonious agreement.
They began with a disagreement but ended up I a state of perfect concord.
Carouse (v)
To party or celebrate.
We caroused all night after getting married.
Bilk (v)
To cheat or defraud.
The lawyer discovered that his firm bilked several clients out of huge amounts of money.
Arboreal (adj)
Of or relating to trees.
Curmudgeon (n)
Cranky old person.
My neighbour is a curmudgeon who keeps the balls that come into his estate.
Badinage (n)
Banter. The playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks.
Unbridled (n)
Unrestrained or unconstrained.
Rumbustious (adj)
Boisterous and unruly.
Rumbustious football fans.
Iniquity (n)
Wickedness or sin.
“Your iniquity shall be pardoned”said the priest to the practical joker.
Semaphore (n)
A visual signal.
They communicated with a semaphore involving candles and window shades.
Salve (n)
Soothing balm.
Tony applied a salve and immediately felt better.
Solecism (n)
A socially awkward mistake or grammatically incorrect statement.
Prorogation (n)
The act of discontinuing a parliamentary session without dissolving it.
Gentrified (v)
The process of changing the character of a poor neighbourhood by the influx of wealthier more educated people.
Arboreal (adj)
Of or relating to trees
Leaves, roots, and bark are a few arboreal traits
Odoriferous (adj)
Having or giving of a smell especially a foul one
Clean up your odoriferous cavities.
Tautology (n)
Saying the same thing twice over in different words generally a fault of style.
The phrase “A beginner who has just started” is tautological.
Levity (n)
An inappropriate lack of seriousness; overly casual
As a student, I really liked Mrs. Walters because she was not too stern and always used levity in her lessons to make the class less formal
Lethologica (n)
Inability to remember a particular word or name.
He would frequently grope for words and apologise for his lethologica.
Cassandra (n)
A prophet of doom and disaster.
Seldom have the words of a Cassandra been more ignored than his speech on the US economy.
Turncoat (n)
A person who stops supporting one political party, religious group etc. to join another one with very different views
Pantheism (n)
The doctrine that identifies God with the universe or the universe is a manifestation of God.
Discussant (n)
A person who takes part in a discussion.
Homophily (n)
Tendency of people to seek out or be attracted to others like themselves.
Seigniorage (n)
The profit made by a sovereign by issuing currency, especially the difference between the face value of the coins and their manufacturing costs.
Bellicist (n)
One who advocates war as opposed to a pacifist.
Diorama (n)
A 3 dimensional model representing a scene either in miniature or full scale.
Japanese artist creates miniature dioramas every day.
Indubitable (adj)
Impossible to doubt.
The Yogi ‘s abilities were indubitable.
Nonplussed (adj)
Confused or surprised so as to not know how to react.
He was nonplussed at the suggestion.
Empyrean (adj)
Relating to the heavens.
Trammel (n)
Restrictions to the freedom of action.
We will forge our future free from the trammels of materialism.
Treacle (n)
A thick, dark, sticky liquid that is made from sugar.
Leaden (adj)
Slow or heavy.
She walked back home with leaden steps after the quarrel.
Tessellation (n)
An arrangement of shapes especially polygons in a repeated pattern without gaps.
The lines of political connection now run across and among these fragments, and are producing an intricate tessellation of identities.
Monograph (n)
A detailed written study of a single specialised subject.
A newly published anthropological monograph by an earnest American researcher drew much attention in literary circles.
