Lesson 20 Flashcards
nebulous (adjective)
Syn: unclear; vague
- Because the contract offer was a nebulous one, the union leaders balked at it.
reviled (adjective)
Syn: scolded; blame
- Ezra Pound, the expatriate poet, was reviled for his pro-Fascist remarks.
indict (verb)
Syn: accuse; charge
- When the grand jury refused to indict him, the mobster was exonerated.
pesky (adjective)
Syn: annoying; boring; teasing
- Every time his accountant called with pesky pecuniary problems, Ben was very blunt with him.
derogatory (adjective)
Syn: belittling; disparaging
- The columnist was ordered to recant her derogatory statements.
left holding the bag (idiom)
Syn: to be left to suffer the blame
- The profligate businessman left his distraught partner holding the bag.
repose (noun)
Syn: state of rest; relaxation
- While the palace guards were in repose, the rebels’ coup began in earnest.
abstemious (adjective)
Syn: moderate in eating or drinking; frugal
- Coach Fischer issued a fiat that required that his players be abstemious.
redolent (adjective)
Syn: fragrant; balmy; perfumed
- The redolent scent that came from the bakery created in Eloise a sense of nostalgia for her grandmother’s bread.
omnivorous (adjective)
Syn: eating any kind of food
- Omnivorous eaters find the dietary laws in some hotels to be too restrictive.
disparate (adjective)
Syn: different; diverse; numerous
- Regardless of how disparate their crimes were, all the prisoners were freed by the general amnesty.
a lick and a promise (idiom)
Syn: to do something in a hasty and superficial manner
- The meticulous housewife was in so much of a hurry that she could only give the apartment a lick and a promise.
extant (adjective)
Syn: still existing; lasting
- Hundreds of extant copies of Shakespeare’s signature came from the same prolific forger.
vicissitudes (noun)
Syn: difficulties; trouble; hardship
- The vicissitudes of life in the Medical Corps are not for the squeamish.
edifice (noun)
Syn: a building; castle
- We originally planned on a skyscraper but had to settle for a truncated edifice.
sultry (adjective)
Syn: extremely hot and moist; torrid; humid
- When he learned that the movie was to be replete with sultry scenes, the cautious banker refused to underwrite its cost.
trenchant (adjective) -
Syn: keen; incisive; clear; sharp
General Fox submitted a trenchant report on the enemy’s latent strength.
tongue in cheek (idiom)
Syn: insincerely
- Speaking with his tongue in his cheek, the parsimonious employer promised to double everyone’s wages.
lugubrious (adjective)
Syn: very sad; depressed; mournful
- She advocated lugubrious music as appropriate background for the funeral scene.
puissant (adjective)
Syn: powerful; dominant; forceful
- Although the debater’s rebuttal was puissant, it was totally irrelevant.
unabated (adjective)
Syn: without subsiding; ceaseless; endless
- The plague continued unabated, and the hapless Friar John was unable to deliver the note to Romeo.
maudlin (adjective)
Syn: sentimental; emotional
- A good barometer of the reunion’s success was the number of maudlin songs that the alumni sang.
levity (noun)
Syn: lightness of disposition; silliness
- Dean Flanigan admonished us for our levity at the graduation exercises.
to take the wind out of one’s sails (idiom)
Syn: to remove someone’s advantage
- Although Edna was bristling with anger when she stormed in, I took the wind out of her sails by voicing my own displeasure at the way she had been treated.
