Part I Flashcards
total forgetfulness; the state of being forgotten
- A few of the young actors would find fame, but most were headed for _____.*
- After tossing and turning with anxiety for most of the night, Marisol finally found the _____ of sleep.*
oblivion (n)
əˈblɪviə / uh BLIV ee un
to be forgetful or unaware
- Old age had made the retired professor _____ of all his old theories.*
- The workmen stomped in and out of the room, but the happy child, playing on the floor, was _____ of all distraction.*
- On the flight back to Atlanta, Dr. Pierre Rollin snoozed in Seat 26C in his usual imperturbable way, arms folded, head bobbing, _____ to loudspeaker announcements and the periodic passing of the galley cart.*
oblivious (adj)
əˈblɪviəs
to make ashamed; to embarrass
- Meredith felt _____ by her inability to remember her lines in the school chorus of “Old McDonald Had a Farm.”
abash (v)
ə-ˈbash/ uh BASH
NAmE
to do something without shame or embarrassment
- Karl handed in a term paper that he had _____ copied from Wikipedia.
to do something unabashedly (adv)
to step down from a position of power or responsibility
- When King Edward VIII of England decided he would rather be married to Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcée, than be king of England, he turned his crown and _____.*
- Even people who aren’t monarchs can _____ their duties and responsibilities: - Abby _____ her responsibilities as a vice president by dumping in the garbage the reports she was supposed to present to the board of directors and flying to the Bahamas.*
abdicate (v)
æbdɪkeɪt/ AB duh kayt
to shorten; to condense;
- The thoughtful editor _____ the massive book by removing the boring parts. (v)*
- An _____ dictionary is one that has been shortened to keep it from crushing desks and people’s laps. (adj)*
- An _____is a shortened or condensed work. (n)*
abridge (v) ; abridgment (n)
əˈbrɪdʒ/ uh BRIJ
extremely hopeless or wretched; bottomless;
- An _____ is a bottomless pit, or something so deep that it seems bottomless. (n)*
- _____ despair is despair so deep that no hope seems possible. (adj)*
- The nation’s debt crisis was _____; there seemed to be no possible solution.*
abysmal (adj) ; abyss (n)
əˈbɪzməl / uh BIZ mul ; əˈbɪs / uh BIS
Abysmal is often used somewhat sloppily to mean very bad. You might hear a losing baseball team’s performance referred to as abysmal. This isn’t strictly correct, but many people do it.
to comply passively; to accept; to assent; to agree;
- The pirates asked Pete to walk the plank; he took one look at their swords and then _____.
acquiesce (v)
ækwiˈes/ ak wee ES
> To acquiesce is to do something without objection – to do it quietly. As the similarity of their spellings indicates, the word acquiesce and quiet are closely related. They are both based on Latin words meaning rest or be quiet.
> Acquiesce is sometimes used sloppily as a simple synonym for agree in situations in which it isn’t really appropriate. For example, it isn’t really possible to acquiesce noisily, enthusiastically, or eagerly. Don’t forget the quiet in the middle.
> To acquiesce is to exhibit acquiescence.
sharp; shrewd;
- If your eyesight is _____, you can see things that other people can’t. You have visual _____.*
- An _____ mind is a quick, intelligent one. You have mental _____.*
- An _____ pain is a sharp pain.*
acute (adj) ; acuity (n)
əˈkjuːt / uh KYOOT ; əˈkjuːəti / uh KYOO uh tee
> Acute means sharp only in a figurative sense. A knife, which is sharp enough to cut, is never said to be acute.
> Acute is a word doctors throw around quite a bit. An acute disease is one that reaches its greatest intensity very quickly and then goes away.
to speak to; to direct one’s attention to;
- To _____ a convention is to give a speech to the convention.*
- To _____ a problem is to face it and set about solving it.*
- Ernie _____ the problem of _____ the convention by sitting down and writing his speech.*
address (v)
əˈdres / uh DRES
to contaminate; to make impure;
- We discovered that the town’s drinking water had radioactive waste in it; we discovered, in other words, that it had been _____.*
- Vegetarians do not like their foods _____ with animal fats.*
- _____ joy is joy untainted by sadness.*
adulterate (v)
əˈdʌltəreɪt / uh DUL tuh rayt
> unadulterated means pure
rich; prosperous;
- A person can be _____; all it takes is money.*
- A country can be ____, too, if it’s full of _____ people.*
affluent (adj)
æfluənt / AF loo unt
Affluence means the same thing as wealth or prosperity.
unpleasantly or offensively noisy; glaring;
- David was _____ critical of our efforts; that is, he was noisy and obnoxious in making his criticisms.
blatant (adj)
ˈbleɪtnt / BLAYT unt
Blatant is often confused with flagrant, since both words mean glaring. Blatant indicates that something was not concealed very well, whereas flagrant indicates that something was intentional. A blatant act is usually also a flagrant one, but a flagrant act isn’t necessarily blatant. You might want to refer to the listing for flagrant.
middle class, usually in a pejorative sense; boringly conventional;
- Golf is often referred to as a _____ sport.*
- A person whose dream is to have a swimming pool in his backyard might be called _____ by someone who thinks there are more important things in life.*
bourgeois (adj)
ˌbʊəˈʒwɑː / boor ZHWAH
> The original bourgeoisie (boor zhwaw ZEE) were simply people who lived in cities, an innovation at the time. They weren’t farmers and they weren’t nobles. They were members of a new class – the middle class.
> Now the word is used mostly in making fun of or sneering at people who seem to think about nothing but their possessions and other comforts and about conforming with other people who share those concerns.
to open up a subject for discussion, often a delicate subject
- Henriette was proud of her new dress, so no one knew how to _____ the subject with her of how silly grandmothers look in leather.
broach (v)
brəʊtʃ / brohch
irreverence; an insult to something held sacred; profanity;
blasphemy (n)
ˈblæsfəmi / BLAS fuh mee
> In the strictest sense, to commit blasphemy is to say nasty, insulting, things about God. The word is used more broadly, though, to cover a wide range of nasty, insulting comments.
> To blaspheme (blas FEEM) is to use swear words or say deeply irreverent things.
> A person who says such things is blasphemous.
to harass; to surround;
- The bereaved widow was _____ by grief.*
- Problems _____ the expedition almost from the beginning, and the mountain climbers soon returned to their base camp.*
- The little town was _____ by robberies, but the police could do nothing.*
beset (v)
bɪˈset / bih SET
deprived or left desolate, especially through death
- The new widow was still _____ when we saw her. Every time anyone mentioned her dead husband’s name, she burst into tears. - The children were _____ by the death of their pet. Then they got a new pet.
bereaved (adj)
bɪˈriːvd / buh REEVD
gentle; not harmful; kind; mild;
- Karla has a _____ personality; she is not at all unpleasant to be with.*
- The threat of revolution turned out to be _____; nothing much came of it.*
- Charlie was worried that he had cancer, but the lamp*
benign (adj)
bɪˈnaɪn / nih NYNE
> The difference between a benign person and a benevolent one is that the benevolent one is actively kind and generous while the benign one is more passive. Benevolence is usually active generosity or kindness, while benignancy tends to mean simply not causing harm.
> The opposite of a benign tumor is a malignant one. This is a tumor that can kill you. A malignant personality is one you wish a surgeon would remove. Malignant means nasty, evil, full of ill will. The word malignant also conveys a sense that evil is spreading, as with a cancer. An adjective that means the same thing is malign.
generous; kind; doing good deeds;
- Giving money to the poor is a _____ act.*
- To be _____ is to bestow benefits.*
- The United Way, like any charity, is a _____ organization.*
benevolent (adj)
bəˈnevələnt / beh NEV uh lunt
> Malevolent (muh LEV uh lunt) means evil, or wishing to do harm.
unoriginal; ordinary;
- The dinner conversation was so _____ that Amanda fell asleep in her dessert dish.*
- What made Yu fall asleep was the _____ of the dinner conversation.*
banal (adj)
bəˈnɑːl / buh NAL
> A banal statement is a boring, trite, and uncreative statement. It is a banality.
to surrender; to give up; to give in;
- On the twentieth day of the strike, the workers _____ and went back to work without a new contract.
capitulate (v)
kəˈpɪtʃuleɪt / kuh PICH uh layt
> So few students paid attention to Mr. Hernandez that he had to recapitulate his major points at the end of the class.
> To recapitulate is not to capitulate again. To recapitulate is to summarize.
an economic system in which businesses are owned by private citizens (not by the government) and in which the resulting products and services are sold with relatively little government control
capitalism (n)
ˈkæpɪtəlɪzəm / KAP uh tuh liz um
> The American economy is capitalist. If you wanted to start a company to sell signed photographs of yourself, you could. You, and not the government, would decide how much you would charge for the pictures. Your success of failure would depend on how many people decided to buy your pictures.
immature
- The patient was alarmed by the _____ of the medical staff. The doctors looked too young to have graduated from high school, much less from medical school.
callow (adj) ; callowness (n)
ˈkæləʊ / KAL oh
> To be callow is to be youthfully naive, inexperienced, and unsophisticated.
unpredictable; likely to change at any moment;
- Arjun was _____. One minute he said his favorite car was a Volkswagen; the next minute he said it was a Toyota.*
- The weather is often said to be _____. One minute it’s snowing; the next minute it’s 120 degrees in the shade.*
- Kendra attempted a quadruple somersault off the ten-meter diving board as a _____. It was a painful _____.*
capricious (adj)
kəˈprɪʃəs / kuh PRISH us
> A caprice (kuh PREES) is a whim.
