List 1

Question 1

Abate

Answer 1

subside or moderate. Rather than leaving immediately, they waited for the storm to abate

Question 2

Aberrant

Answer 2

abnormal or deviant. Given the aberrant nature of the data, we came to doubt the validity of the entire experiment.

Question 3

abeyance

Answer 3

suspended action. Hostilities between the two rival ethnic groups have been in abeyance since the arrival of the United Nations peacekeeping force last month

Question 4

abscond

Answer 4

depart secretly and hide. The teller who absonded with the bonds went uncaptured until someone recognized him from his photograph on America’s most wanted.

Question 5

abstemious

Answer 5

adj. sparing in eating and drinking; temperate. Concerned whether her vegetarian son’s abstemious diet provided him with sufficient protein, the worried mother pressed food on him.

Question 6

admonish

Answer 6

warn; reprove. When her courtiers wquestioned her religious beliefs, mary stuart admonished them, declaring that she would worship as she pleased.

Question 7

adulterate

Answer 7

make impure by adding inferior or tained substances. It is a crime to adulterate foods without informing the buyer; when consumers learned that Beechnut had adulterated its apple juice by mixing the juice with water, they protested vigorously.

Question 8

aesthetic

Answer 8

adj. artistic; dealing with or capable of appreciating the beautiful. The beauty of Tiffany’s stained glass appealed to Alice’s aesthetic sense.

Question 9

alacrity

Answer 9

N. cheerful promptness; eagerness. Phil and Dave were raring to get off to the mountains; they packed up their ski gear and climbed into the van with alacrity.

Question 10

ambivalence

Answer 10

N. the state of having contradictory or conflicting emotional attitudes. Torn between loving her parents one minute and hating them the next, she was confused by the ambivalence of her own emotions.

Question 11

ameliorate

Answer 11

V. improve. Many social workers have attempted to ameliorate the conditions of people living in the slums.

Question 12

antipathy

Answer 12

aversion; dislike. Tom’s extreme antipathy for disputes keeps him from getting into arguments with his temperamental wife. Noise in any form is antipathetic to him. Among his other antipathies are honking cars, boom boxes, and heavy metal rock.

Question 13

apprise

Answer 13

v. Inform. When NASA was apprised of the dangerous weather conditions, the head of the space agency decided to postpone the shuttle launch.

Question 14

approbation

Answer 14

N. Approval. Wanting her parents; regard, she looked for some sign of their approbation. Benjamin Franklin, that shrewd observer of mankind, once wrote, “we must not in the course of public life expect immediate approbation and immediate grateful acknowledgment of our services.”

Question 15

artless

Answer 15

adj. without guile; open and honest. Red Riding Hoods artless comment, “Grandma, what big eyes you have!” indicates the child’s innocent surprise.

Question 16

ascetic

Answer 16

adj. practicing self-denial; austere. The wealthy, self indulgent young man felt oddly drawn to the strict, ascetic life led by members of some monastic tribes.

Question 17

assiduous

Answer 17

adj. diligent. it took rembrandt weeks of assiduous labor before he was satisfied with his portrait of his son.

Question 18

assuage

Answer 18

v. ease or lessen (pain); satisfy (hunger); soothe (anger); Jilted by jane, dick tried to assuage his hearthache by indulging in ice cream.

Question 19

attenuate

Answer 19

v. make thinner; weaken or lessen. The long dry spell attenuated the creek to the merest trickle.

Question 20

austere

Answer 20

adj. forbiddingly stern; severely simple and unornamented. The headmaster’s austere demeanor tended to scare off the more timid students, who never visited his study willingly.

Question 21

Aver

Answer 21

v. assert confidently or declare; as used in law, state formally as a fact. the self proclaimed psychic averred that, because he had extrasensory perception on which to base his predictions, he didnt need technologic tools.

Question 22

banal

Answer 22

adj. hackneyed; commonplace; trite; lacking originality. the

Question 23

belie

Answer 23

contradict; give a false impression. His coarse, hard bitten exterior belied his innate sensitivity.

Question 24

burgeoning

Answer 24

adj. flourishing; growing quickly; putting out buds.

Question 25

burnish

Answer 25

v. make shiny by rubbing; polish.

Question 26

buttress

Answer 26

v. support; prop up.