SAT Vocab 1000

Question 1

abeyance

Answer 1

(n) a temporary postponement (The judge held the court proceedings in abeyance until such time the defendant recovers from illness.)

Question 2

abject

Answer 2

(adj) miserable; wretched; contemptible (…abject poverty; …abject conditions; … abject humor)

Question 3

abjure

Answer 3

(v) to reject, renounce (To prove his honesty, the president abjured the evil policies of his wicked predecessor)

Question 4

ablution

Answer 4

(n) a washing, cleaning

Question 5

abnegate

Answer 5

(v) to deny; to reject

Question 6

abrade

Answer 6

(v) to wear away

Question 7

abridge

Answer 7

(v or adj) to shorten; curtail (A pocket dictionary is an abridged form of the complete version)

Question 8

abrogate

Answer 8

(v) to abolish, usually by authority (The Bill of Rights assures that the government cannot abrogate our right to free press)

Question 9

abscond

Answer 9

(v) to leave secretly; to flee

Question 10

absolve

Answer 10

(v) to free from responsibility (The court absolved the mother from guilt in her children’s death)

Question 11

abstemious

Answer 11

(adj) moderate or sparing in eating or drinking ~proper use implies abstinence (Practicing Catholics are overtly abstemious throughout lent)

Question 12

abstruse

Answer 12

(adj.} hard to understand ~proper use needs to imply complexity, intellectually demanding (Ms. Heitkamp began to connect with her students when she started to illustrate abstruse concepts on a diagram.)

Question 13

accede

Answer 13

(v.} to agree to ~customary use implies agreements of an official nature (The Japanese Emperor acceded to the demands of surrender given by Gen. MacArthur.)

Question 14

acclivity

Answer 14

(n.) upward slope of ground (The Parthenon sits atop a prominent acclivity in the middle of Athens.)

Question 15

accost

Answer 15

(v.} to approach and speak to ~proper use implies intrusion with an unexpected demand or request (Philanthropists regularly get accosted by people asking for hand-outs.)

Question 16

accoutrement

Answer 16

(n.) equipment; outfit

Question 17

accretion

Answer 17

(n.) an increase by natural growth or gradual external addition (…accretion of matter onto black holes)

Question 18

accrue

Answer 18

(v.) to gather as a result of external addition (…accrued interest)

Question 19

acerbic

Answer 19

(adj.} biting, bitter in tone or taste (Nothing compares to the acerbic ruminations of a jilted bride.)

Question 20

acquiesce

Answer 20

(v.} to agree, consent, submit, or comply silently ~~verb is used without an object “‘used with preposition “in” or “to;” do not use with the preposition “…with.”

Question 21

acrid

Answer 21

adj.) bitter to the taste or smell

Question 22

acrimony

Answer 22

(n.) bitterness, discord (Though they vowed that no girl would ever come between them, Adam and Steve could not keep acrimony from overwhelming their friendship after they both fell in love with the lovely Eve.)

Question 23

acrophobia

Answer 23

(n.) fear of heights

Question 24

acumen

Answer 24

(n.) keen insight (Because of his mathematical acumen, Kyle was able to figure out in minutes problems that took other students hours.)

Question 25

adamant

Answer 25

(adj.) stubborn; unyielding

Question 26

addendum

Answer 26

(n.) something added as a supplement

Question 27

addled

Answer 27

(v.) confused (used with or without object); (adj.)confused or rotten (…addled eggs)

Question 28

adduce

Answer 28

(v.) to give an example in proving something

Question 29

adipose

Answer 29

(adj.) fatty

Question 30

adjunct

Answer 30

(n.) a subordinate; an assistant

Question 31

adroit

Answer 31

(adj.) skillful; clever ~customary use implies dexterity in the use of the hands or of logic in debate

Question 32

adumbrate

Answer 32

(v.) to sketch out in a vague way (The leaders of the democratic party adumbrated a game plan after losing the midterm elections, but none of the rank-and-file knew precisely what to do.)

Question 33

adventitious

Answer 33

(adj.) accidental; nonessential

Question 34

aesthetic

Answer 34

(adj.) pertaining to the sense of the beautiful (Gracefulness and precision are the aesthetic qualities of the movement of a performing Prima ballerina.)

Question 35

affable

Answer 35

(adj.) friendly; good natured ~proper use implies that the person is easy to talk to

Question 36

affectation

Answer 36

(n.) a deliberate pretense or exaggerated display {Billy Bob’s French accent is an affectation.)

Question 37

agoraphobia

Answer 37

(n.) fear of open places

Question 38

agrarian

Answer 38

{adj.) pertaining to farmers or agriculture

Question 39

ague

Answer 39

(n.) a fever; a plague; a fit of shivering

Question 40

alacrity

Answer 40

(n.) eagerness, speed {Children, during playtime, are allowed to make the world into anything they wish, and they do so with alacrity.)

Question 41

alimentary

Answer 41

(adj.) pertaining to nourishment or food

Question 42

alluvial

Answer 42

(adj.) pertaining to a deposit of sand formed by flowing water

Question 43

altruism

Answer 43

{n.) unselfish regard for the welfare of others “‘proper use implies no requited act expected from the recipient (Donating blood is an act of pure altruism on the part of the donor.)

Question 44

amalgamate

Answer 44

(v.) to combine; to unite; to blend ~proper use implies a purpose to create an organization or structure

Question 45

ambient

Answer 45

(adj.) pertaining to the surrounding area or environment (…ambient temperature; …ambient noises)

Question 46

ambivalence

Answer 46

(n.) uncertainty or conflicting feelings toward something or someone {The runaway bride felt a moment of ambivalence when she heard the church organ play the bride march.}

Question 47

ambrosial

Answer 47

(adj.) pleasing to the taste or smell

Question 48

ambuscade

Answer 48

(n.) hidden or secret attack; (verb used without an object) to lie in ambush; (verb used with an object) to attack from a concealed position

Question 49

ameliorate

Answer 49

(v.) to make better “‘proper use implies harm has already taken effect (Good early childhood programs in the inner city can ameliorate the effects of harmful social and psychological environments.)

Question 50

amnesty

Answer 50

(n.} official pardon for an offense

Question 51

amorphous

Answer 51

(adj.} shapeless

Question 52

anachronism

Answer 52

(n.} something or someone that is not in its correct historical time (The Christmas school play featured an obvious anachronism - Scrooge’s cell phone rang playing the disco hit, “We are family, I got all my sisters with me”)

Question 53

anathema

Answer 53

(n.) a cursed, detested person (When you are morbidly obese and become a contestant on “The Biggest Loser,” the person you are is anathema to the person you would like to be.)

Question 54

anhydrous

Answer 54

(adj.} without water (…the anhydrous lands of the Atacama desert in Chile)

Question 55

anneal

Answer 55

(v.) to heat and then cool; to toughen

Question 56

antediluvian

Answer 56

(n. or adj.) old fashioned; primitive; belonging to the period before Noah’s flood

Question 57

antipathy

Answer 57

(n.} a strong dislike, repugnance (The key to understanding her antipathy for car salesmen is found in the knowledge that every single one of her five ex-husbands worked as a car salesman.}

Question 58

antithesis

Answer 58

(n.) exact opposite

Question 59

aperture

Answer 59

(n.} an opening; a gap

Question 60

aphasia

Answer 60

(n.} loss of ability to speak

Question 61

aphorism

Answer 61

(n.) brief saying expressing a general truth (As expected, Mrs. Glass’ favorite aphorism is “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”)

Question 62

apiary

Answer 62

(n.} a place where bees are kept

Question 63

aplomb

Answer 63

(n.) self-confidence; poise

Question 64

apogee

Answer 64

(n.) farthest point away from the earth

Question 65

apoplexy

Answer 65

(n.) sudden loss of consciousness; paralysis (With one more word to win the game, Oscar warned Erin that he would suffer an attack of apoplexy if Erin screwed up the final scrabble word.)

Question 66

apothegm

Answer 66

(n.) a brief instructive saying”‘the difference between this and an aphorism is that apothegms seem to give instruction {“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock”)

Question 67

apotheosis

Answer 67

(n.) glorification of a person to the rank of God; quintessence {Bowlegged and gaunt, the cowboy stands as the apotheosis of manly perfection.)

Question 68

appellation

Answer 68

(n.) a name (“Flower Belle! What a euphonious appellation! Easy on the ears and a banquet for the eyes!” - Mae West)

Question 69

append

Answer 69

(v.) to attach; to add ~proper use is when the matter being appended is added as a supplement (… append a note to a letter; … append one’s signature to a will)

Question 70

apprise

Answer 70

{v.) to inform; to give notice {…to be apprised of the death of an old friend)

Question 71

approbation

Answer 71

(n.) praise; approval {The City of Green Bay welcomed their football team with approbation.)

Question 72

appurtenance

Answer 72

(n.) something added to another more important thing {The seller of the house left her sewing box as one of the more bizarre appurtenances to the sale of the house.)

Question 73

apropos

Answer 73

(n.) relevant: appropriate; fitting

Question 74

arable

Answer 74

{adj.) good for farming

Question 75

arbor

Answer 75

(n.) a shaded area

Question 76

arcane

Answer 76

(adj.) mysterious; known by only a few (After graduating from college with a major in Sanskrit and a minor in Mesopotamian slang, Jimmy got a job at the Museum as the resident expert on all things arcane.)

Question 77

ardent

Answer 77

(adj.) intensely enthusiastic; intensely devoted (Jimmy, an ardent student of arcane languages.)

Question 78

armistice

Answer 78

(n.) a truce; a suspension of hostilities ~proper use implies the two groups involved are countries at war

Question 79

arrogate

Answer 79

(v.) to take without justification {The king arrogated the right to order executions to himself exclusively.)

Question 80

artifice

Answer 80

{n.) trick; deception

Question 81

ascendant

Answer 81

{n.) position of dominance and controlling influence; (v.) rising

Question 82

ascetic

Answer 82

(adj.) practicing restraint as a means of self-discipline, usually religious {The monk lives an ascetic life devoid of television, savory foods, and other pleasures.)

Question 83

asinine

Answer 83

(adj.) stupid; silly

Question 84

askance

Answer 84

{adv.) (preceded by to look) with suspicion, mistrust; sidewise

Question 85

asperity

Answer 85

(n.) harshness, roughness of tone, temper, or manner

Question 86

aspersion

Answer 86

(n.) a curse, expression of ill-will (The rival politicians repeatedly cast aspersions on each others’ integrity.)

Question 87

assiduous

Answer 87

{adj.) hard-working, diligent {The construction workers erected the skyscraper during two years of assiduous labor.)

Question 88

assuage

Answer 88

{v.) to calm; make less severe ““proper use implies previous harm or damage has been done (Grief counseling cannot assuage the unbearable pain felt by a young mother who loses a child to drunk driving.)

Question 89

attenuated

Answer 89

(v.) decreased; weakened (The moment the homeless man realized he had won the lottery was the moment when the burden of being alive, for him, was attenuated to its smallest possible dimension.)

Question 90

audacity

Answer 90

{n.) boldness; daring ““proper use needs to imply an arrogant disregard for personal safety or other considerations (Audacity in its purest form is telling Adolf Hitler his mustache is a cheap version of Chaplin’s.)

Question 91

augur

Answer 91

(v.) to predict

Question 92

auspicious

Answer 92

(adj.) favorable; promising success { … auspicious beginnings; … an auspicious occasion}

Question 93

autumnal

Answer 93

{adj.} mature; declining

Question 94

avoirdupois

Answer 94

{n.) heaviness; weight

Question 95

avuncular

Answer 95

{adj.} like an uncle

Question 96

bacchanalian

Answer 96

(n. or adj.) wild with drunkenness

Question 97

badinage

Answer 97

{n.) playful and pleasing talk

Question 98

baleful

Answer 98

(adj.) harmful; menacing; pernicious

Question 99

banal

Answer 99

(adj.) common; ordinary; trite

Question 100

bard

Answer 100

(n.) a poet (William Shakespeare is fondly called the “bard of Avon” around, not surprisingly, the city of Avon.)

Question 101

baroque

Answer 101

(n. or adj.) excessively ornate, showy

Question 102

bibulous

Answer 102

{adj.) absorbent; fond of alcoholic beverages

Question 103

biennial

Answer 103

{n. or adj.) happening every or lasting for two years (… biennial games; … biennial life cycle)

Question 104

bilious

Answer 104

{adj.) bad-tempered; cross

Question 105

boon

Answer 105

(n.) a gift or blessing (The good weather has been a boon for many businesses located near the beach.)

Question 106

boor

Answer 106

(n.) a rude or impolite person

Question 107

bourgeoisie

Answer 107

(n.) middle class

Question 108

bowdlerize

Answer 108

(v.) to censor; to remove offensive passages of a play, novel {A recent edition book bowdlerized Mark Twain’s classic Huckleberry Finn, removing the term ‘nigger’ in favor of “homey.”)

Question 109

brigand

Answer 109

(n.) a robber (The recent Ben Affleck movie, “The Town,” featured a band of brigands from Boston.)

Question 110

browbeat

Answer 110

(v.) to intimidate by overbearing looks or words; bully (Jim Bob’s mother never elevated her voice in raising her ten children; she admonished by way of the dreaded browbeat.)

Question 111

brusque

Answer 111

(adj.) short, abrupt, dismissive {The captain’s brusque manner offended the passengers.)

Question 112

bucolic

Answer 112

(adj.) pertaining to the countryside; rural

Question 113

buffet

Answer 113

(v. ) to strike with force {The strong winds buffeted the ships, threatening to capsize them.)
(n. ) an arrangement of food set out on a table {Rather than sitting around a table, the guests took food from our buffet and ate standing up.)

Question 114

bumptious

Answer 114

(adj.) conceited; arrogant

Question 115

burnish

Answer 115

(v.) to polish, shine (His mother asked him to burnish the silverware before setting the table.)

Question 116

buttress

Answer 116

(v.) to support, hold up (The column buttresses the roof above the statue.)

{n.) something that offers support {The buttress supports the roof above the statues.)

Question 117

cabal

Answer 117

(n.) a small, secret group “‘proper use implies the existence of a plot against a government or person in authority (A cabal of generals, aristocrats and businessmen plotted to oust Harold Wilson and seize power.)

Question 118

cacophony

Answer 118

(n.) tremendous noise, disharmonious sound (The elementary school orchestra created such a cacophony at the recital that many invited guests threatened to sue the music director.)

Question 119

cajole

Answer 119

(v.) to coax; to persuade “‘proper use implies using flattery or insincerity (The desperate bachelor was able to cajole a girl at the bar to sit with him by introducing himself as Mark Zuckerberg’s younger brother.)

Question 120

callow

Answer 120

(adj.) young and inexperienced

Question 121

calumny

Answer 121

(n.) false accusation; slander “‘proper use implies an intent to hurt someone’s reputation (Despite their best efforts to live life in the straight and narrow, long-term·politicians very rarely escape calumny.)

Question 122

canard

Answer 122

(n.) a false story, report, or rumor

Question 123

cantankerous

Answer 123

(adj.) bad-tempered; quarrelsome (The collective attitude of the team instantly turned cantankerous when they discovered a spy sent by their next opponent filming their practice.)

Question 124

capacious

Answer 124

(n.) spacious; roomy {His bedroom not only looks capacious; it “sounds” capacious. You hear a four second echo whenever you talk inside.)

Question 125

capitulate

Answer 125

(v.) to surrender (After a 20 month siege, the lack of food and water for everyone left the King no other choice but capitulate to the surrounding invaders.)

Question 126

capricious

Answer 126

{adj.) subject to whim, fickle (A church missionary to Africa will have little of anything, the least of which is any tendency to be capricious.)

Question 127

captious

Answer 127

(adj.) hard to please; faultfinding (Just because a person is a career film and theatre critic doesn’t necessarily mean that they are captious in their own personal lives.)

Question 128

carte blanche

Answer 128

(n.) full authority; freedom to use one’s own judgment

Question 129

cathartic

Answer 129

(adj.) purging; cleansing ~~common use in psychiatry: the alleviation of fear, problems, and complexes by bringing them to consciousness or giving them expression (Weekly sessions with my shrink are cathartic indeed.)

Question 130

caustic

Answer 130

(adj.) sarcastic; severely critical; corrosive

Question 131

caveat

Answer 131

(n.) a warning

Question 132

cavil

Answer 132

(v.) to quibble; to argue

Question 133

cavort

Answer 133

(v.) to leap about; to frolic

Question 134

celerity

Answer 134

(n.) speed; swiftness

Question 135

celibate

Answer 135

(n.) unmarried; sexually abstaining

Question 136

chafe

Answer 136

(v.) to irritate

Question 137

chaff

Answer 137

(n.) worthless matter (“As for man, his days are like chaff, he flourishes like the flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.” Psalm 103: 5)

Question 138

charnel

Answer 138

(n.) cemetery; tomb

Question 139

chary

Answer 139

{of) {adj.) not taking chances; cautious { …chary of offending others)

Question 140

chattel

Answer 140

{n.) a movable item of property; a slave

Question 141

chicanery

Answer 141

{n.) deception; trickery

Question 142

chimerical

Answer 142

{adj.) imaginary; fantastic; unreal {Martin and Max play Black Ops - a gaming software that is profoundly chimerical in every aspect, except for the headphone conversations they engage in when playing on the same team.)

Question 143

choleric

Answer 143

{adj.) easily angered {can be used without a subject)

Question 144

chronic

Answer 144

(adj.) long-lasting {Chronic acute pain can last for months or years.)

Question 145

churlish

Answer 145

{adj.) rude; ill-bred {“Disrespecting the Chevy Volt because it doesn’t have a clutch seems churlish and off­ point, like disrespecting dogs because they don’t have gills.” - Washington Post)

Question 146

cipher

Answer 146

{n.) person or thing of no value. {Something told Yaakov that his relationship with Chelsea Hightower wasn’t going to go very far when she started calling him “Cipher.”)

Question 147

clandestine

Answer 147

{adj.) secretive; private ~proper usage implies a purpose of deception or subversion {The clandestine meetings went undiscovered for years until the ouster of the ruler.)

Question 148

clangor

Answer 148

{n.) harsh, ringing sound

Question 149

clemency

Answer 149

{n.) mercy {After he forgot their anniversary, Mike could only beg Martha for clemency.)

Question 150

cloven

Answer 150

{adj.) divided; split

Question 151

coadjutor

Answer 151

{n.) assistant; helper

Question 152

coalesce

Answer 152

{v.) to blend; to merge-; to fuse ‘‘“When properly used, the sentence will precisely say that the result was one body, unit, or mass (Two bubbles coalesced into one larger bubble.)

Question 153

coddle

Answer 153

(v.) to treat tenderly

Question 154

cogent

Answer 154

(adj.) intellectually convincing {Irene’s arguments in favor of abstinence were so cogent that I could not resist them.)

Question 155

cognomen

Answer 155

(n.) family name

Question 156

colloquial

Answer 156

{adj.) informal (“His style is eminently colloquial,..lt is not literary or classical; it has not the music of poetry, nor the pomp of philosophy, but the rhythms and cadences of conversations endlessly repeated - Thoreau”)

Question 157

colloquy

Answer 157

(n.) conversation

Question 158

comely

Answer 158

{adj.) pleasing in appearance; proper ( … a comely face; …comely behavior)

Question 159

commodious

Answer 159

{adj.) roomy; spacious

Question 160

compendium

Answer 160

{n.) brief summary; concise treatise; a full list or inventory ~~in the primary meaning, it should be a summary of an extensive subject { … a compendium of medicine)

Question 161

complicity

Answer 161

(n.) partnership in a wrongful act ~~proper use needs to imply a minor role in the offense ~~less involved than conspire

Question 162

compunction

Answer 162

(n.) uneasiness; remorse

Question 163

concomitant

Answer 163

(adj.) accompanying in a subordinate fashion {His dislike of hard work carried with it a concomitant lack of spending money.)

Question 164

condign

Answer 164

{adj.) deserved; suitable

Question 165

conflagration

Answer 165

(n.) great fire (The cities of Chicago and San Francisco both burned to the ground, suffering from the two largest conflagrations in American history.)

Question 166

confluent

Answer 166

(adj.) flowing or running together (The Colorado River is a product of the confluence of hundreds of brooks and streams from western Nebraska.)

Question 167

conjugal

Answer 167

(adj.) pertaining to marriage (When one considers Imelda Marcos’ strong influence over the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, one would be accurate in describing the form of government during the Marcos era as a conjugal dictatorship.)

Question 168

connubial

Answer 168

(adj.) pertaining to matrimony ~~no substantial difference between it and conjugal ~~proper use needs to imply a more personal aspect of matrimony ( … connubial love; … connubial routines of wedding anniversaries)

Question 169

contemn

Answer 169

(v.) to regard with scorn or contempt

Question 170

contiguous

Answer 170

(adj.) nearby, neighboring ( …the 48 contiguous states of the continental United States.)

Question 171

contretemps

Answer 171

(n.) an embarrassing occurrence

Question 172

contrite

Answer 172

(adj.) penitent, eager to be forgiven (Blake’s contrite behavior made it impossible to stay angry at him.)

Question 173

contumacious

Answer 173

(adj.) disobedient; obstinate

Question 174

contumely

Answer 174

(n.) insulting display of contempt in words or actions (To say that man is made in the image of the ape is insulting to nature, contumely to God.)

Question 175

conundrum

Answer 175

(n.) puzzle, problem {Interpreting Jane’s bipolar behavior was a constant conundrum to untrained school counselors.)

Question 176

convoke

Answer 176

(v. used with object) to call together {The governor of Texas moved to convoke a constitutional convention in order to discuss Obamacare.)

Question 177

copious

Answer 177

(adj.) plentiful; abundant ( … copious notes)

Question 178

cornucopia

Answer 178

(n.) horn of plenty; abundance

Question 179

corpulent

Answer 179

{adj.) fat; fleshy {Puck from Glee has a weird attraction for the 350 lb. corpulent Lauren. Ugh.)

Question 180

cortege

Answer 180

(n.} funeral procession; group of followers

Question 181

coterie

Answer 181

(n.} close circle of friends

Question 182

covert

Answer 182

{n. or adj.} concealed, secretive (Nearly all the operations of the CIA in Afghanistan are covert.)

Question 183

cower

Answer 183

(v.) to crouch and tremble in fear

Question 184

credulity

Answer 184

(n.} readiness to believe (His credulity made him an easy target for con men.}

Question 185

crucible

Answer 185

(n.) a severe test or trial (Jesus’ proved his love for mankind by undergoing the crucible of the Cross.)

Question 186

cupidity

Answer 186

(n.) greed, strong desire {Neglecting the dangers of entering an abandoned gold mine without safety gear is due more to stupidity than to cupidity.)

Question 187

cursory

Answer 187

{adj.) brief to the point of being superficial {Late for the meeting, she cast a cursory glance at the agenda.)

Question 188

daunt

Answer 188

{v.) to discourage; to overcome with fear ~~commonly used in this form { …Don’t be daunted by..)

Question 189

de facto

Answer 189

{adj.) in fact; in reality { … a de facto leader of the band)

Question 190

dearth

Answer 190

{n.) a scarcity or lack ~proper use implies costliness resulting from supply/demand {With so many first-time congressmen, the State department lamented the dearth of foreign policy experience among our lawmakers.}

Question 191

deciduous

Answer 191

(adj.) not permanent; passing (When you look at things from the perspective of a geologist, every forest on earth is a deciduous forest.)

Question 192

declivity

Answer 192

(n.) downward slope

Question 193

decrepit

Answer 193

(adj.) broken down by age, disease, or disuse (Mr. Jones didn’t care that he was buying a decrepit house. He figured it would take less money to take it down.)

Question 194

decry

Answer 194

(v.} to criticize openly {The kind video rental clerk decried the policy of charging customers late fees.)

Question 195

defalcate

Answer 195

(v.) to misuse funds; to embezzle

Question 196

defile

Answer 196

{v.) to make unclean, impure {She defiled the serenity of the religious building by playing her banjo.)

Question 197

defunct

Answer 197

{adj.) no longer in existence; extinct (Austin paid dearly for an official baseball jersey of the defunct Colt 45s.)

Question 198

deleterious

Answer 198

{adj.) harmful (She experienced the deleterious effects of running a marathon without stretching her muscles enough beforehand.)

Question 199

demagogue

Answer 199

(n.) a popular leader who appeals to the emotions (Adolf Hitler fits the classic description of a demagogue in that his rise to power was in lock-step with emotional appeals to reject the hated Social Democrats.}

Question 200

demur

Answer 200

(v.) to object ~proper use implies taking exception on the grounds of personal or corporate scruples (Wall Street has consistently demurred on listing porn-related companies onto the stock exchange.)

Question 201

demure

Answer 201

(adj.} quiet, modest, reserved (Though everyone else at the party was dancing wildly and going crazy, she remained seated, smiling, and demure.)

Question 202

denizen

Answer 202

(n.) occupant; resident; resident (… whales are denizens of the deep; … vamps are denizens of the dark)

Question 203

deprecate

Answer 203

(v.) to belittle, depreciate (Masters of self-deprecation, veteran comedians have no problems humiliating themselves in front of their audiences.)

Question 204

derogatory

Answer 204

(adj.) belittling (Jimbo had no chance of being accepted at a Christian university because of derogatory statements about his character in the official school transcript.)

Question 205

deride

Answer 205

(v.) to laugh at mockingly, scorn (The bullies derided the foreign student’s accent.)

Question 206

desecrate

Answer 206

(v.) to violate the sacredness of a thing or place {They feared that the construction of a golf course would desecrate the preserved wilderness.)

Question 207

desiccated

Answer 207

(adj.) dried up, dehydrated (The skin of the desiccated mummy looked like old paper.)

Question 208

despot

Answer 208

(n.) a dictator

Question 209

destitute

Answer 209

{adj.) poor; lacking (Homeless and destitute, the Vietnam veteran sat outside the church walls asking for alms.)

Question 210

desultory

Answer 210

{adj.) wandering from subject to subject; rambling (“At first I couldn’t recognize him, then he couldn’t recognize me. He would talk as one who was president, then he would speak as ten who were in the meeting; starting in English, always ending in some form of gibberish. Such was the desultory life of the stricken…” on Reagan)

Question 211

detente

Answer 211

(n.) a lessening of tension or hostility ~~proper use: between nations, as by negotiations and agreements

Question 212

dialectic

Answer 212

{n.) logical discussion to resolve differences between two views ~~proper use is when no effort is made to establish one of them as true {“The great dialectic in our time is not… between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state.” - John Galbraith)

Question 213

diaphanous

Answer 213

(adj.) light, airy, transparent (Sunlight poured in through the diaphanous curtains, brightening the room.)

Question 214

diatribe

Answer 214

(n.) bitter criticism

Question 215

didactic

Answer 215

(adj.) intended for instruction {The secret recipe to parenting is to casually relate to your child without a single one of your utterances being discovered as didactic in purpose.)

Question 216

diffident

Answer 216

{adj.) shy, quiet, modest {While eating dinner with the adults, the diffident youth did not speak for fear of seeming presumptuous.)

Question 217

dilatory

Answer 217

{adj.) slow or late in doing things

Question 218

dilettante

Answer 218

(n.) a dabbler in fine arts; one who is not an expert (“Without work, without painstaking work, any writer or artist definitely remains a dilettante..” -Ivan Turgenev)

Question 219

dipsomaniac

Answer 219

{n.) a drunkard

Question 220

discreet

Answer 220

{adj.) showing good judgment ~~~check “eet”

Question 221

discrete

Answer 221

(adj.) separate; not attached

Question 222

discursive

Answer 222

(adj.) rambling, lacking order (The professor’s discursive lectures seemed to be about every subject
except the one initially described.)

Question 223

disputatious

Answer 223

{adj.) fond of arguing (A disputatious man, Jefferson Davis sometimes seemed to prefer winning an argument to winning the war; Lincoln was happy to lose an argument if it would help him win the war.)

Question 224

dissemble

Answer 224

{v.) to conceal, fake {Not wanting to appear heartlessly greedy, she dissembled and hid her intention to sell her ailing father’s stamp collection.)

Question 225

distend

Answer 225

(v.) to expand; to swell; to stretch out ( … habitual overeating had distended his stomach)

Question 226

dither

Answer 226

{v.) to be indecisive (Not wanting to offend either friend, he dithered about which of the two birthday parties he should attend.); also, (n.) (preceded by in a ) nervously excited or confused (… in a dither about…)

Question 227

diurnal

Answer 227

(adj.) daily

Question 228

docile

Answer 228

(adj.) obedient; easily managed (There were several cracks of laughter from the crowd when the undefeated prize rodeo bull was introduced to the Houston Rodeo crowd. His name? “DocileI”

Question 229

doddering

Answer 229

{adj.} shaky; senile

Question 230

doff

Answer 230

(v.} to throw off or away

Question 231

donnybrook

Answer 231

(n.} rough and rowdy fight

Question 232

dotage

Answer 232

(n.} feeblemindedness of old age

Question 233

doyen

Answer 233

{n.} senior or oldest member

Question 234

Draconian

Answer 234

{adj.} severe; cruel {“Both have two-year bans for a first offense and lifetime bans for a second, standards labeled “draconian” by the NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue at a hearing last week.”}

Question 235

dregs

Answer 235

{n.} leftovers; waste matter {Pre-school kids must not be defiled by the utterances of gangsta rappers, drug purveyors, and all other assorted dregs of society found at the bottom of the FM radio barrel.}

Question 236

drivel

Answer 236

{n.} childish nonsense; stupid talk {“Seriously, if this drivel is the best rhetoric that Mubarak can come up with, then I best be packing to live in a bomb shelter until the revolution is over.”}

Question 237

dross

Answer 237

{n.} waste matter dudgeon

{n.} anger; resentment

Question 238

dulcet

Answer 238

{adj.} pleasing to the ear

Question 239

duplicity

Answer 239

{n.} deliberate deceptiveness in behavior and speech {“In some circles that type of duplicity is called, hypocrisy I I” - John McCain on Big O}

Question 240

duress

Answer 240

{n.} constraint by threat; coercion {Information obtained under duress is not always the most reliable.}

Question 241

dyspepsia

Answer 241

{n.} poor digestion

Question 242

dysphasia

Answer 242

{n.} difficulty in speaking

Question 243

ebullient

Answer 243

{adj.} extremely lively, enthusiastic {She became ebullient upon receiving an acceptance letter from her first-choice college.)

Question 244

eclat

Answer 244

{n.} brilliance; fame

Question 245

eclectic

Answer 245

{adj.} selecting; choosing from various elements {Johnnie Meier is an example of artist who produces eclectic art in that he refuses to draw inspiration from any single established art style or genre.}

Question 246

educe

Answer 246

{v.) to draw or bring out

Question 247

efficacy

Answer 247

{n.} power to produce an effect ( … torture’s efficacy is not unexpected; The rise in efficacy of terrorism is due in large part to the availability of inexpensive but highly effective weapons and equipment.}

Question 248

effrontery

Answer 248

(n.) impudence, nerve, insolence (When I told my aunt that she was boring, my mother scolded me for my effrontery.)

Question 249

effulgent

Answer 249

{adj.) radiant, splendorous {The drabbiest dregs in heaven would be effulgent compared to the clearest and brightest diamonds on earth.)

Question 250

egregious

Answer 250

(adj.) extremely bad (The student who threw sloppy joes across the cafeteria floor was punished for his egregious behavior.)

Question 251

egress

Answer 251

(n. and v.) exit

Question 252

elegy

Answer 252

(n.) a sad and mournful poem {“It’s one long, lovely elegy, reason for sadness unknown.” -Washington Post)

Question 253

elysian

Answer 253

(adj.) blissful; heavenly

Question 254

emaciated

Answer 254

(adj.) abnormally thin “‘proper use: describing a person so thin that bones noticeably protrude under the skin {The Haiti earthquake survivor was found 9 days later emaciated and severely dehydrated, but alive.)

Question 255

emendation

Answer 255

(n.) correction

Question 256

emetic

Answer 256

{n.) causing vomiting (The King was taken inside and an emetic administered, when he vomited up a quantity of the poison.)

Question 257

emollient

Answer 257

(n.) something that soothes or softens

Question 258

emolument

Answer 258

{n.) profit or gain from employment (The newly elected governor, a multibillionaire, said in his acceptance speech, “I will accept no reward, no office, no emolument, no title - nothing”)

Question 259

emulous

Answer 259

(adj.) jealous; envious

Question 260

encomium

Answer 260

(n.) an expression of high praise

Question 261

encumbrance

Answer 261

(n.) hindrance; obstruction

Question 262

endemic

Answer 262

{adj.) confined to a particular country or area ( … certain diseases are endemic to particular geographical areas.)

Question 263

enervate

Answer 263

{v.) to weaken, exhaust (Physically enervated after barely finishing his first marathon, Mr. Tolentino toddled straight to the ambulance.)

Question 264

enigma

Answer 264

{n.) a puzzling situation; dilemma (Quite the enigma is Billy Bob, who is not smart, not handsome, not athletic, not sociable, and not even at the dance. How in the world did he ever get voted “Prom King?”)

Question 265

enmity

Answer 265

(n.) hostility; hatred (A casual reader of Shakespeare will find it difficult to explain how the relationship between the Capulet and Montague families escalated into enmity.)

Question 266

enrapture

Answer 266

{v.) to delight beyond measure {The elderly King was instantly enraptured by the birth of a healthful son.)

Question 267

ensconce

Answer 267

{v.) to hide; to conceal; to settle comfortably (In order to finish his novel before the deadline, the writer wisely decided to ensconce himself in a rented cottage away from common distractions.)

Question 268

envisage

Answer 268

(v.) to form a mental picture

Question 269

ephemeral

Answer 269

(adj.} short-lived, fleeting (She promised she’d love me forever, but her “forever’’ was only ephemeral: she left me after one week.)

Question 270

epicure

Answer 270

(n.) one who finds pleasure in fine foods

Question 271

epitaph

Answer 271

{n.) an inscription on a tomb

Question 272

epithet

Answer 272

(n.) a descriptive word or phrase ~~common usage is negative, adversarial

Question 273

equivocate

Answer 273

(v.) to confuse by speaking in ambiguous terms (The United States cannot equivocate with the Israelis, the Palestinians or the Arab states as to what is required to forge a lasting peace.)

Question 274

ersatz

Answer 274

(n.) artificial; inferior substitute

Question 275

erudite

Answer 275

(n. or adj.) a learned person; scholarly (“Whenever we want an erudite character on a TV show or in a movie, we slap on a British accent.” - P. Andreu)

Question 276

eschew

Answer 276

(v.) to shun, avoid (George hates the color green so much that he eschews all green food.)

Question 277

esoteric

Answer 277

(adj.) intended to be understood by a select few (Early Christian theology, otherwise known as the knowledge of the unknowable, was an esoteric collection of epiphanies by the most learned scholars of the day.)

Question 278

ethereal

Answer 278

(adj.) spiritual; highly refined (“Ideas remain ethereal until acted upon.”- Arnold Kling)

Question 279

eugenics

Answer 279

(n.) the science of improving the human race

Question 280

euphemism

Answer 280

(n.) substitution of a pleasant term for one considered harsh or offensive ( …“vertically challenged” is a euphemism for being short; …“he’s in a better place” is a euphemism for “he’s dead”)

Question 281

euphonious

Answer 281

(adj.) having a pleasant sound; harmonious (My favorite euphonious Law Firm name is “Dilly, Dally, Dolittle, and Stahl.”)

Question 282

evanescent

Answer 282

(adj.) fleeting, momentary (Anyone who has experienced what it’s like when the eye of a hurricane passes knows about the evanescent stillness and bright glow of the sky at the precise moment it passes.)

Question 283

evince

Answer 283

(v.) to show, reveal (Even at the funeral of her husband, Jackie Kennedy still managed to evince uncommon elegance and style.)

Question 284

excoriate

Answer 284

(v.) (two meanings) to scrape the skin off; to criticize sharply (As expected, the Boston media excoriated Logan Airport security for their inability to stop the terrorists from boarding three of the four planes involved in 9-11.)

Question 285

exculpate

Answer 285

(v.) to free from guilt or blame, exonerate (The discovery of the ring behind the dresser exculpated the maid from the charge of having stolen it.)

Question 286

execrable

Answer 286

(adj.) loathsome, detestable (The funeral director exhibited an execrable taste in music when he played the disco song, “Disco Duck,” at the funeral wake.)

Question 287

exigent

Answer 287

(adj.) urgent, critical (The patient has an exigent need for medication, or else he will lose his sight.)

Question 288

exiguous

Answer 288

(adj.) extremely scanty; meager (Newly appointed, the American general was hopeful in saying that the authority of the American military becomes exiguous in the Taliban district of northeastern Afghanistan.)

Question 289

expiate

Answer 289

(v.) to make amends for, atone (To expiate my selfishness, I gave all my profits to charity.)

Question 290

expunge

Answer 290

(v.) to obliterate, eradicate (After his acquittal of murder charges, 0. J. Simpson sought to have the court expunge all records related to his case.)

Question 291

expurgate

Answer 291

(v.) to remove offensive passages; to cleanse (Recently, a Twain scholar, Alan Gribben, published Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer with the words “nigger” and “injun” expurgated from their pages.)

Question 292

extant

Answer 292

(adj.) existing, not destroyed or lost (My mother’s extant love letters to my father are in the attic trunk.)

Question 293

extirpate

Answer 293

(v.) to remove completely; to destroy ~proper use implies “pulling up by the roots”

Question 294

extol

Answer 294

(v.) to praise, revere (Violet extolled the virtues of a vegetarian diet to her meat-loving brother.)

Question 295

extrinsic

Answer 295

(adj.) external; coming from outside {One school of psychology has it that there “is no heroism” because you don’t really do anything you don’t want to; in other words, there is no such thing as “extrinsic motivation.”)

Question 296

facetious

Answer 296

(adj.) playfully jocular; humorous (The hunting guide was being facetious when he asked all the millionaires in the room to assign him as sole beneficiary of their life insurance policies and requested that each one of them wear camo gear and line up towards each other in the duck hunt.)

Question 297

facile

Answer 297

{adj.) easy; effortless { … the facile movements of a veteran ballerina)

Question 298

factious

Answer 298

{adj.} causing disagreement (Salary arbitrations in major league baseball inevitably end up in factious confrontations between owners and players regarding the “worth” of the players.)

Question 299

factitious

Answer 299

(adj.) artificial

Question 300

fallacious

Answer 300

{adj.) incorrect, misleading (Emily offered me cigarettes on the fallacious assumption that I smoked.}

Question 301

fastidious

Answer 301

(adj.) meticulous, demanding, having high and often unattainable standards (Mark is so fastidious that he is never able to finish a project because it always seems imperfect to him.)

Question 302

fatuous

Answer 302

(adj.} silly, foolish (He considers himself a serious poet, but in truth, he only writes fatuous limericks.)

Question 303

fealty

Answer 303

(n.) fidelity; loyalty; devotion

Question 304

fecund

Answer 304

(adj.) fruitful, fertile ( … a fecund tropical forest during the rainy season.)

Question 305

feral

Answer 305

(adj.) wild, savage {NFL players have a switch that they turn on during game day that transforms them into focused, fearless, and feral beasts until the final whistle.)

Question 306

fetid

Answer 306

(adj.} having a foul odor (I can tell from the fetid smell in your refrigerator that your milk has spoiled.)

Question 307

fiat

Answer 307

(n.) an official order

Question 308

flaccid

Answer 308

(adj.) flabby (Most of the contestants in “The Big Loser” transform from being morbidly obese at the beginning of the show to being moderately flaccid at the end.)

Question 309

florid

Answer 309

(adj.) flowery, ornate (The writer’s florid prose belongs on a sentimental Hallmark card.)

Question 310

fluvial

Answer 310

(adj.) pertaining to a river (Floodplains and fluvial terraces dot the landscape of the Ojai Valley.)

Question 311

foibles

Answer 311

(n.) a weakness; a minor fault {In a manner of speaking, the foibles of former president Clinton were seminal in creating the fracas that turned into the Lewinsky Inquiry.)

Question 312

folderol

Answer 312

(n.) nonsense

Question 313

foment

Answer 313

(v.) to stir up (“When a national ruler sends the military into the streets to foment class warfare and dissension things are not usually going very well.” - Matthew Yglesias, on Hugo Chavez)

Question 314

fortuitous

Answer 314

{adj.) lucky; by chance (An avid parachute instructor, Mr. Jones never understated how fortuitous the mistake of his supplier was in shipping a parachute to his penthouse office in the Twin Towers minutes before the attacks on 9-11.)

Question 315

fractious

Answer 315

(adj.) troublesome or irritable (Although the child insisted he wasn’t tired, his fractious behavior­ especially his decision to crush his cheese and crackers all over the floor-convinced everyone present that it was time to put him to bed.)

Question 316

fugacious

Answer 316

(adj.) pertaining to the passing of time

Question 317

fulminate

Answer 317

(v.) to explode; to denounce ( … fulminating over Obamacare)

Question 318

furtive

Answer 318

(adj.) stealthy; secretive (Secret Service agents are professionally trained to detect subtle furtive glances and movements from would-be assassins.)

Question 319

gainsay

Answer 319

(v.) to deny; to contradict

Question 320

gambit

Answer 320

(n.) strategy; an opening one uses to advantage {Because the role was for a vampire with flaming-red hair, Suzie thought it would be a worthwhile gambit to come to the auditions with flaming-red hair and three inch fangs.)

Question 321

gambol

Answer 321

(v.) to frolic; to romp about

Question 322

garish

Answer 322

(adj.) tastelessly gaudy (The house never sold perhaps due to its extremely bright, almost garish color schemes, the listing agent said.)

Question 323

garrulous

Answer 323

(adj.) talkative, wordy (Some talk-show hosts are so garrulous that their guests can’t get a word in edgewise.)

Question 324

gauche

Answer 324

(adj.) lacking social polish; tactless (“Who’s the friggin’ “gauche” one, you placenta-burying, nipple scalding freak?” - Belly Achin)

Question 325

gelid

Answer 325

(adj.) very cold; frozen

Question 326

gentry

Answer 326

(n.) upper class people

Question 327

genuflect

Answer 327

{v.) to kneel; to bend a knee

Question 328

germane

Answer 328

{n and adj.) pertinent; fitting {Affable people never give their opinion and never stray from the issues that are germane to the discussion.)

Question 329

gloaming

Answer 329

{n.) twilight; dusk

Question 330

glutinous

Answer 330

(adj.) gluey; sticky

Question 331

gossamer

Answer 331

{adj.) light; flimsy; fine

Question 332

gourmand

Answer 332

(n.) a glutton; a person who eats excessively

Question 333

grandiloquence

Answer 333

(n.) lofty, pompous language (The student thought her grandiloquence would make her sound smart, but neither the class nor the teacher bought it.)

Question 334

gregarious

Answer 334

(adj.) drawn to the company of others, sociable (Well, if you’re not gregarious, I don’t know why you would want to go to a singles party!)

Question 335

gumption

Answer 335

(n.) courage and initiative

Question 336

gustatory

Answer 336

{adj.) pertaining to the sense of taste

Question 337

hackneyed

Answer 337

(adj.} unoriginal, trite (A girl can only hear “I love you” so many times before it begins to sound hackneyed and meaningless.)

Question 338

halcyon

Answer 338

{adj.) calm

Question 339

hapless

Answer 339

(adj.) unlucky {My poor, hapless family never seems to pick a sunny week to go on vacation.)

Question 340

harangue

Answer 340

(n. ) a ranting speech {Everyone had heard the teacher’s harangue about gum chewing in class before.)
(v. ) to give such a speech (But this time the teacher harangued the class about the importance of brushing your teeth after chewing gum.)

Question 341

harbinger

Answer 341

{n.) an omen or sign

Question 342

harry

Answer 342

(v.) to worry; to torment

Question 343

headlong

Answer 343

{adj.) recklessly; impulsively

Question 344

headstrong

Answer 344

(adj.) stubborn; willful

Question 345

hegemony

Answer 345

{n.) domination over others {Britain’s hegemony over its colonies was threatened once nationalist sentiment began to spread around the world.)

Question 346

hermetic

Answer 346

{adj.) airtight; tightly sealed ~~common use ( … hermetically sealed}

Question 347

heterodox

Answer 347

{adj.) departing from acceptable beliefs

Question 348

histrionic

Answer 348

(adj.) theatrical; overly dramatic

Question 349

hovel

Answer 349

(n.) a dirty, wretched living place {When I saw the place where we were going to stay, instantly I realized that the travel agent’s itinerary didn’t have a typo; we were in fact going to stay in a “hovel”, not a hotel!}

Question 350

hubris

Answer 350

(n.) excessive pride or self-confidence (Dripping hubris from every inch of his short frame, David loaded his sling with a pebble, faced toward Goliath, and started spinning his sling.)

Question 351

husbandry

Answer 351

(n.) the science of raising crops; careful management

Question 352

hydrophobia

Answer 352

(n.) fear of water; rabies

Question 353

hypochondriac

Answer 353

(n.) a person with imaginary ailments

Question 354

iconoclast

Answer 354

{n.) one who attacks common beliefs or institutions (“Justice Scalia, especially, is an iconoclast who relishes standing alone in defiance of logic and compromise.” -Jack Krebs)

Question 355

idyllic

Answer 355

(adj.) charmingly simple or poetic

Question 356

ignoble

Answer 356

{adj.) dishonorable

Question 357

ignominious

Answer 357

(adj.) humiliating, disgracing (“The young people huddled with their sodden, gritty towels and ignominious goosebumps inside the gray-shingled bathhouse.” - John Updike)

Question 358

imbroglio

Answer 358

(n.} a difficult and confusing situation

Question 359

immolate

Answer 359

(v.) to kill someone as a sacrificial victim, usually by fire

Question 360

impassive

Answer 360

{adj.) stoic, not subject to suffering (Stop being so impassive; it’s healthy to cry every now and then.)

Question 361

impecunious

Answer 361

(adj.) without money; penniless (Too embarrassed to tell people he was destitute and penniless, George, when asked how he was doing, would say, “I’m impecunious at the moment.”)

Question 362

imperious

Answer 362

(adj.) commanding, domineering (“During his time in Iraq, General Petraeus earned the nickname King David, for the imperious manner in which he ruled the city of Mosul.” - Michael Hastings)

Question 363

imperturbable

Answer 363

(adj.) steady; calm (His gentle, imperturbable manner served him well during the often interminable, frequently confrontational meetings with the foreign officials.

Question 364

Impertinent

Answer 364

{adj.) rude, insolent (Most of your comments are so impertinent that I don’t wish to dignify them with an answer.)

Question 365

Impervious

Answer 365

(adj.) impenetrable, incapable of being affected (Because of their thick layer of fur, many seals are almost impervious to the cold.}

Question 366

impetuous

Answer 366

(adj.} acting without thought; impulsive (The most impetuous people, unfortunately, cannot help themselves; they act with sudden and forceful emotion, and come back in heaving waves of violent force; they could be young, they could be old; they are the autistic among us.)

Question 367

impinge

Answer 367

(v. ) to impact, affect, make an impression (Sound waves impinge on the eardrums.)
(v. ) to encroach, infringe ( …parents sometimes impinge on their children’s privacy.)

Question 368

implacable

Answer 368

(adj.) incapable of being appeased or mitigated {For the average Afghan citizen, caught between two implacable and deadly forces, one luxury is waking in the morning and finding everyone still alive.}

Question 369

imprecation

Answer 369

(n.) a curse; the act of invoking evil (The judgmental Mrs. Fartwinkle consigned all the evildoers to hell with one muttered imprecation.}

Question 370

impudent

Answer 370

{adj.) casually rude, offensively bold {Bowing from his great height, which towered head, shoulders and chest over the next guy in line to enter the club, the bouncer said with placid impudence: “Hello shrimpI” )

Question 371

impugn

Answer 371

{v.) to attack as false or questionable; to challenge a person in regards to motives(… impugned a political opponent’s record as soon as he announced his candidacy)

Question 372

inane

Answer 372

(adj.) silly; meaningless

Question 373

incarnadine

Answer 373

(adj.) blood-red; fleshy pink-colored

Question 374

inchoate

Answer 374

{adj.) unformed or formless, in a beginning stage (That country’s government is still inchoate and, because it has no great tradition, quite unstable.)

Question 375

incipient

Answer 375

(adj.) beginning to exist or appear (The assassination of the nonviolent Martin Luther King Jr. ushered in an era of incipient black militancy in the South.)

Question 376

incontrovertible

Answer 376

(adj.) indisputable; certain (Only stubborn Tina would attempt to disprove the incontrovertible laws of physics.)

Question 377

incorrigible

Answer 377

(adj.) bad beyond correction or reform { … an incorrigible criminal)

Question 378

indefatigable

Answer 378

(adj.) incapable of defeat, failure, decay (“Children occupy a limitless present. Walks are dizzying adventures; the days tingle with unknowns, waiting to be made into wonders. Living so utterly in the present, they are indefatigable and have an infinite power to transform.” -Alastair Reid, Scottish Poet, 1926)

Question 379

ineffable

Answer 379

(adj.) unspeakable, incapable of being expressed through words (Every noun, adjective and verb of all the known languages of the earth will be exhausted before mankind will even begin to explain the ineffable qualities of God’s smallest toenail.)

Question 380

inexorable

Answer 380

{adj.) incapable of being persuaded or placated (“Destiny is an absolutely definite and inexorable ruler. Physical ability and moral determination count for nothing is impossible to perform the simplest act when the gods say “no.” -Aleister Crowley on destiny)

Question 381

infer

Answer 381

{v.) to conclude; to derive by reasoning

Question 382

infernal

Answer 382

(adj.) hellish; fiendish; diabolical

Question 383

ingenious

Answer 383

(adj.) clever ~~Nnot to be mistaken with ingenuous (below)

Question 384

ingenuous

Answer 384

{adj.) not devious; innocent and candid (He must have writers, but his speeches seem so ingenuous it’s hard to believe he’s not speaking from his own heart.)

Question 385

inimical

Answer 385

{adj.) hostile {Nothing compares to how inimical the verbal exchanges are between two soon-to-be exes in a divorce proceeding.

Question 386

iniquity

Answer 386

(n.) wickedness or sin {“Your iniquity,” said the priest to the practical jokester, “will be forgiven.”)

Question 387

insidious

Answer 387

{adj.) appealing but imperceptibly harmful, seductive (“Every first-time mother underestimates this insidious phase of child development around the age of two, where children could be cute as buttons and yet dastardly as Dick…” - Susan Ferraro)

Question 388

insipid

Answer 388

(adj.) tasteless; dull ( …the bland aftertaste of an insipid blind date.)
insouciant

(adj.) carefree; happy-go-lucky (Hippies typically have insouciant attitudes towards life in general.)

Question 389

insular

Answer 389

{adj.) pertaining to an island; detached; isolated ( … insular properties of a wealthy world-traveler)

Question 390

insuperable

Answer 390

(adj.) unconquerable; incapable of being passed over ( “Conceit is an insuperable obstacle to all progress.” - Ellen Terry)

Question 391

interlocutor

Answer 391

(n.) one who takes part in a conversation (Official interpreters of Heads of State are not allowed to function as interlocutors; their role is to precisely translate ideas between two Heads of State, not insert their ideas in the conversation.)

Question 392

interminable

Answer 392

(adj.) endless (Born with tranquil patience and raised by long-winded parents, Patrick was well suited to endure interminable daily meetings at head office.)

Question 393

interregnum

Answer 393

(n.) pause; interval; any period during which a nation is without a ruler

Question 394

intolerant

Answer 394

(n. and adj.) bigoted; narrow-minded ~”“common use has intolerance as synonymous with prejudice ( …intolerant of other customs; …religious intolerance)

Question 395

intractable

Answer 395

(adj.) hard to manage (Chaos in its purest form happens when you try to control a group of intractable 3 yr. olds at the end of an Easter egg hunt.)

Question 396

intransigent

Answer 396

(adj.) refusing to compromise, often on an extreme opinion (The intransigent child said he would have 12 scoops of ice cream or he would bang his head against the wall until his mother fainted from fear.)

Question 397

intrepid

Answer 397

(adj.) resolutely fearless; courageous ( … an intrepid explorer)

Question 398

intrinsic

Answer 398

(adj.) essential; belonging to a thing by its very nature ( … the intrinsic value of a gold ring)

Question 399

inure

Answer 399

{v.) to cause someone or something to become accustomed to a situation (Twenty years in the salt mines inured the man to the discomforts of dirt and grime.)

Question 400

invective

Answer 400

{n.) an angry verbal attack (“The art of the invective resembles boxing… The best punches, like the best pieces of invective in this style, are short-arm jabs, or one-two blows… Both are effective, but they can be administered only by the real artist, with a real wish to knock his enemy out.” - Gilbert Highet on invectives)

Question 401

inveigh

Answer 401

(v.) (against) to make bitter verbal attack

Question 402

inveigle

Answer 402

(v.) trick; lure; attack ( … to inveigle a person into playing poker)

Question 403

inveterate

Answer 403

{adj.) stubbornly established by habit (I’m the first to admit that I’m an inveterate coffee drinker-I drink four cups a day.)

Question 404

invidious

Answer 404

{adj.) causing resentment {At the turn of the century slaves and women essentially carried out the same back-breaking tasks; the rich called them slaves, the poor called them wives. This invidious distinction, not disenfranchisement, led to the struggle for suffrage.)

Question 405

irascible

Answer 405

{adj.) easily angered

Question 406

itinerant

Answer 406

{adj.) traveling from place to place (The largest mansions in heaven are reserved for those itinerant preachers preaching the gospel to every town and village around the world.)

Question 407

jubilant

Answer 407

(adj.) extremely joyful, happy (The crowd was jubilant when the firefighter carried the woman from the flaming building.)

Question 408

judicious

Answer 408

(adj.) wise; showing wise judgment ( … a judicious use of one’s money)

Question 409

junta

Answer 409

(n.) a small group ruling a country

Question 410

juxtaposition

Answer 410

(n.) the act of placing two things next to each other for implicit comparison (The interior designer admired my juxtaposition of the yellow couch and green table.)

Question 411

kismet

Answer 411

(n.) destiny; fate

Question 412

knave

Answer 412

(n.) a tricky; deceitful person

Question 413

laconic

Answer 413

(adj.) terse in speech or writing (The author’s laconic style has won him many followers who dislike wordiness.)

Question 414

languid

Answer 414

(adj.) sluggish from fatigue or weakness (In the summer months, the great heat makes people languid and lazy.)

Question 415

lapidary

Answer 415

(n.) a dealer in precious stones

Question 416

largess

Answer 416

(n.) the generous giving of lavish gifts (My boss demonstrated great largess by giving me a new car for my birthday.)

Question 417

lascivious

Answer 417

(adj.) lustful or lewd; inciting sexual desire

Question 418

latent

Answer 418

(adj.) hidden, but capable of being exposed (Sigmund’s dream represented his latent paranoid obsession with other people’s shoes.)

Question 419

legerdemain

Answer 419

(n.) deception, sleight-of-hand (Smuggling the French plants through customs by claiming that they were fake was a remarkable bit of legerdemain.)

Question 420

licentious

Answer 420

(adj.) displaying a lack of moral or legal restraints (Marilee has always been fascinated by the licentious private lives of politicians.)

Question 421

limpid

Answer 421

(adj.) clear, transparent (Mr. Johnson’s limpid writing style greatly pleased readers who disliked complicated novels.)

Question 422

lissome

Answer 422

(adj.) moving gracefully; agile or active (At the Nutcracker auditions, the nervous ballerina transformed from listless to lissome in a nanosecond when she was told that she got the part.)

Question 423

loquacious

Answer 423

(adj.) talkative ( … a loquacious dinner guest)

Question 424

lucent

Answer 424

{adj.) giving off light (The cover-girl model walked to a studio that had no flashbulbs nor aluminum umbrellas; the walls, the floor and ceiling were all lucent.)

Question 425

lugubrious

Answer 425

{adj.) sad; mournful ( … a lugubrious display of affection at the funeral…)

Question 426

lurid

Answer 426

(adj.) shocking, glowing; sensational (Lady GaGa’s collection of lurid outfits remains irresistible to the paparazzi and the fashion police.)

Question 427

Machiavellian

Answer 427

(adj.) deceitful; tricky “”"”primary meaning is in the realm of politics where political expediency is placed above morals (A book entitled “How to get rich without really trying,” is bristling with Machiavellian advice.)

Question 428

maelstrom

Answer 428

(n.) a destructive whirlpool which rapidly sucks in objects {Little did the explorers know that as they turned the next bend of the calm river a vicious maelstrom would catch their boat.)

Question 429

magnanimous

Answer 429

(adj.) generous in forgiving an insult or injury; noble, generous (“Honest towards ourselves and towards anyone else who is our friend; brave towards the enemy; magnanimous toward the defeated; polite - always: this is how the four cardinal virtues want us to act.” - Friedrich Nietzche)

Question 430

maladroit

Answer 430

(adj.) clumsy; unskilled; awkward

Question 431

malapropism

Answer 431

(n.) word humorously misused (“Sure, if I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs.” - Richard Sheridan on speechmaking)

Question 432

malediction

Answer 432

(n.) a curse (“The art of cursing seems to have lost its tang since the old days when a good malediction took four breaths to deliver and sent the outfielders scurrying toward the fence to field.” - Robert Benchley)

Question 433

malevolent

Answer 433

{adj.) wanting harm to befall others {The malevolent old man sat in the park all day, tripping unsuspecting passersby with his cane.)

Question 434

malingerer

Answer 434

(n.) one who pretends to be sick to avoid work

Question 435

mandarin

Answer 435

(n.) an influential person

Question 436

manifold

Answer 436

(adj.) diverse, varied (The popularity of Dante’s Inferno is partly due to the fact that the work allows for manifold interpretations.) (“…Join with all nature in manifold witness, to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love…”)

Question 437

martinet

Answer 437

(n.) a strict disciplinarian

Question 438

maudlin

Answer 438

(adj.) weakly sentimental (Although many people enjoy romantic comedies, I usually find them maudlin and shallow.)

Question 439

mawkish

Answer 439

(adj.) characterized by sick sentimentality (Although some nineteenth- century critics viewed Dickens’s writing as mawkish, contemporary readers have found great emotional depth in his works.}

Question 440

megalomania

Answer 440

{n.) false impression of one’s own greatness; tendency to exaggerate {“Writing is a lonely, sedentary occupation and a touch of megalomania can be comforting around five on a November afternoon when you haven’t seen anybody all day.” Angela Carter on writing)

Question 441

melancholy

Answer 441

{adj.) sad; depressed (“I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician’s, which is fantastical; nor the courtier’s, which is proud; nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer’s, which is politic; nor the lady’s, which is nice; nor the lover’s, which is all these.” - William Shakespeare)

Question 442

mellifluous

Answer 442

(adj.) smooth flowing; sweet sounding

Question 443

menage

Answer 443

{n.) household; domestic establishment

Question 444

menagerie

Answer 444

(n.) collection of wild and strange animals

Question 445

mendacious

Answer 445

(adj.) having a lying, false character (Bored housewives find it hard to resist the mendacious content of today’s tabloid magazines.)

Question 446

mendicant

Answer 446

{n. or adj.) a beggar ~~proper use implies willfulness and choice in becoming one (example: mendicant friar)

Question 447

meretricious

Answer 447

{adj.) gaudy; showy; attractive in a cheap, flashy way (The meretricious display of church going by a group of hookers at First Baptist Church in Dallas was intended to attract Super Bowl fans to their nearby club.)

Question 448

mien

Answer 448

(n.) manner; bearing ( … a man of noble mien)

Question 449

militant

Answer 449

{v. or n.) ready and willing to fight {Conservative supporters of the National Rifle Association are militantly against any judicial reform of their 2nd amendment rights.)

Question 450

misanthrope

Answer 450

(n.) hater of mankind {“I dare take the side of humanity against this sublime misanthrope.” - Voltaire)

Question 451

miscegenation

Answer 451

{n.) mixture of races, especially through marriage

Question 452

miscreant

Answer 452

(n.) a vicious person, a villain

Question 453

misogamy

Answer 453

(n.) hatred of marriage

Question 454

misogynist

Answer 454

(n.) hater of women

Question 455

mnemonic

Answer 455

{adj. or n.) pertaining to memory; memory aid {Mnemonic techniques can be applied to any form of discrete item learning such as names, places, etc..)

Question 456

modicum

Answer 456

(n.) a small amount of something (Refusing to display even a modicum of sensitivity, Henrietta announced her boss’s affair in front of the entire office.)

Question 457

mollify

Answer 457

(v.) to pacify; to calm; to appease {After Noel forgot their anniversary, roses were not enough to mollify Angelica, who was clear that nothing less than diamonds would get him back in her good graces.)

Question 458

morass

Answer 458

{n.) a wet swampy bog; figuratively, something that traps and confuses (When Theresa lost her job, she could not get out of her financial morass.)

Question 459

mordant

Answer 459

(adj.) sarcastic; biting ( … the mordant editorials on Saturday Night Live)

Question 460

moribund

Answer 460

(adj.) dying; not progressing or advancing (A century after Emperor Constantine, the eastern part of Europe became a neglected corner of an increasingly moribund Roman empire.)

Question 461

morose

Answer 461

{adj.) gloomy; ill-humored {“The morose one refuses to smile even when he has just had his teeth cleaned.” - Mason Cooley on sadness)

Question 462

motley

Answer 462

{adj.) diverse; assorted; having different colors

Question 463

mountebank

Answer 463

(n.) a phone; a fraud; a charlatan ~~proper use describes a quack doctor

Question 464

mulct

Answer 464

(v.) to punish with a fine; to obtain money by extortion { … to bleed and mulct honest storekeepers of gain and calling it “protection money.”)

Question 465

multifarious

Answer 465

(adj.) having great diversity or variety (This Swiss Army knife has multifarious functions and capabilities. Among other things, it can act as a knife, a saw, a toothpick, and a slingshot.)

Question 466

munificence

Answer 466

(n.) generosity in giving (The royal family’s munificence made everyone else in their country rich.)

Question 467

myopic

Answer 467

(adj.) near-sighted; having a limited point of view {Obama’s stimulus package is a myopic economic policy that does not take into consideration the consequential increase in taxes placed on the next generation.)

Question 468

myriad

Answer 468

(adj.) consisting of a very great number (It was difficult to decide what to do Friday night because the city presented us with myriad possibilities for entertainment.)

Question 469

nabob

Answer 469

(n.} a very wealthy and powerful person ~~famous line from Vice President Spiro Agnew: “..nattering nabobs of negativism..,” referring to the liberal media of his day.

Question 470

nadir

Answer 470

(n.} the lowest point of something (My day was boring, but the nadir came when I accidentally spilled a bowl of spaghetti on my head.}

Question 471

nascent

Answer 471

(adj.}’in the process of being born or coming into existence (Unfortunately, my brilliant paper was only in its nascent form on the morning that it was due.)

Question 472

nebulous

Answer 472

{adj.) hazy; vague; uncertain ( … a ne ulous distinction between pride and conceit)

Question 473

nefarious

Answer 473

(adj.) extremely and heinously villainous (Although Dr. Meanman’s nefarious plot to melt the polar icecaps was terrifying, it was so impractical that nobody really worried about it.)

Question 474

neophyte

Answer 474

(n.) someone who is young or inexperienced {As a neophyte in the literary world, Mahmoud Bumfartsi had trouble finding a publisher for his first novel.)

Question 475

nettle

Answer 475

{v.) to irritate; to annoy

Question 476

nexus

Answer 476

{n.) connection, tie, or link among the units in a group

Question 477

niggardly

Answer 477

(adj.) stingy; miserly

Question 478

niggle

Answer 478

{v.) to spend excessive time on unimportant things

Question 479

nihilism

Answer 479

{n.) total rejection of established laws {“The modern mind is in complete disarray. Knowledge has stretched itself to the point where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold. It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism.” -Albert Camus on modern times)

Question 480

nomenclature

Answer 480

(n.) a set of names or terms (The names Dick and Jane, because of the classic preschool books, have become rudimentary nomenclature in America for a typical school-age boy and girl.)

Question 481

nonpareil

Answer 481

(adj. or n.) having no equal; peerless

Question 482

nubile

Answer 482

(adj.) of women, suitable for marriage, in regard to age and physical development

Question 483

nugatory

Answer 483

(adj.) worthless, invalid ( … the nugatory expenditures of government during recessionary times)

Question 484

numismatist

Answer 484

(n.) coin collector

Question 485

obdurate

Answer 485

{adj.) unyielding to persuasion or moral influences

Question 486

obfuscate

Answer 486

(v.) to render incomprehensible (The detective did not want to answer the newspaperman’s questions, so he obfuscated the truth.)

Question 487

oblique

Answer 487

(adj.) diverging from a straight line or course, not straightforward (The jeweled stripes on the window ran straight down when the rain stopped and got more and more oblique as it speeded up.)

Question 488

obloquy

Answer 488

(n.) strong disapproval; bad reputation resulting from public criticism (Because of the nature of our contentious and polarizing two-party system, it’s nearly impossible to serve multiple terms without obloquy.)

Question 489

obsequious

Answer 489

(adj.) excessively compliant or submissive (Mark acted like Janet’s servant, obeying her every request in an obsequious manner.)

Question 490

obstinate

Answer 490

(adj.) stubborn ( … obstinate as an ox)

Question 491

obstreperous

Answer 491

(adj.) noisy, unruly (Billy’s obstreperous behavior prompted the librarian to ask him to leave the reading room.)

Question 492

obtrude

Answer 492

(v.) to push something toward or upon a person ( … to obtrude one’s opinion on others)

Question 493

obtuse

Answer 493

(adj.) lacking quickness of sensibility or intellect {Political opponents warned that the prime minister’s obtuse approach to foreign policy would embroil the nation in mindless war.)

Question 494

obviate

Answer 494

(v.) to prevent

Question 495

odious

Answer 495

(adj.) instilling hatred or intense displeasure (Mark was assigned the odious task of cleaning the cat’s litter box.)

Question 496

officious

Answer 496

(adj.) offering one’s services when they are neither wanted nor needed (It was rather officious of Jim’s mother-in-law to insist on having a tea party for Jim and his friends on Super Bowl Sunday.)

Question 497

omnifarious

Answer 497

(adj.) of all kinds ( … the omnifarious football knowledge of a veteran coach)

Question 498

opprobrious

Answer 498

(adj.) shameful; disgraceful

Question 499

opulent

Answer 499

(adj.) characterized by rich abundance verging on ostentation (The opulent furnishings of the dictator’s private compound contrasted harshly with the meager accommodations of her subjects.)

Question 500

ostensible

Answer 500

(adj.) outwardly appearing (While ostensibly the ocean had disappeared from the shore, in reality, it was gathering to come back as a giant tsunami.)

Question 501

overt

Answer 501

(adj.) open; aboveboard; not hidden (One remarkable thing about genuinely honest people is their consistently overt behavior - what you see is what you get.)

Question 502

palatable

Answer 502

(adj.) pleasant to the taste (“Good lies need a leavening of truth to make them palatable.” - William Mcllvaney on lying)

Question 503

palliate

Answer 503

(v.) to reduce the severity of (The doctor trusted that the new medication would palliate her patient’s discomfort.)

Question 504

pallid

Answer 504

(adj.) lacking color (Dr. Van Helsing feared that Lucy’s pallid complexion was due to an unexplained loss of blood.)

Question 505

panacea

Answer 505

(n.) a remedy for all ills or difficulties (Doctors wish there was a single panacea for every disease, but sadly there is not.)

Question 506

panache

Answer 506

(adj.) self-confidence; a showy manner (“Panache upon panache, his tails deploy Upward and outward, in green-vented forms, his tip a drop of water full of storms.” - Wallace Steven, poet, on parakeets)

Question 507

panegyric

Answer 507

(n.) an expression of praise (“The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can enjoy, is the praise of servants you employ.” - Samuel Johnson on servants)

Question 508

panoply

Answer 508

(n.) suit of armor; any protective covering (“ ‘Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete.” - Herman Melville, poet, on death and courage)

Question 509

paragon

Answer 509

(n.) a model of excellence or perfection (The mythical Helen of Troy, the embodiment of physical perfection, was considered a paragon of female beauty.)

Question 510

pariah

Answer 510

(n.) an outcast (Following the discovery of his plagiarism, Professor Hurley was made a pariah in all academic circles.)

Question 511

parochial

Answer 511

(adj.) local; narrow; limited (In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event.)

Question 512

parody

Answer 512

(n.) a work which imitates another in a ridiculous manner ( The actors and producers of Saturday Night Live are lucky that in America, humor is protected speech. The parodies they present on present day government leaders would land them in jail in most countries.)

Question 513

parsimony

Answer 513

(n.) frugality, stinginess {“Mere parsimony is not economy… Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.” - Edmund Burke)

Question 514

pastoral

Answer 514

{adj.) pertaining to the country; rural (Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh and other impressionist painters specialized in depicting pastoral views of their environment.)

Question 515

pathos

Answer 515

(n.) an emotion of sympathy (The TV producer’s report on victims of the earthquake was of such tender pathos that viewers were compelled to offer a hand in aid.)

Question 516

patrician

Answer 516

{adj.) aristocratic (“Each had an upper-class education, found a life of public service more attractive than money-grabbing, and each had a respect for the decencies. At heart, too, each had a kind of patrician reticence, an impervious private dignity.” - William Leuchtenberg on FDR and JFK)

Question 517

paucity

Answer 517

(n.) small in quantity (A law graduate who barely passes the bar exam would never qualify for the position of Supreme Court Justice due to paucity of knowledge and experience.)

Question 518

peccadillo

Answer 518

(n.) a minor offense

Question 519

peculate

Answer 519

{v.) to steal; to embezzle

Question 520

pecuniary

Answer 520

(adj.) pertaining to money (“No genuine freedom.. can exist on any foundation save that of pecuniary independence. As a right over a man’s subsistence is a power over his moral being, so a right over a woman’s subsistence enslaves her will, degrades her pride and vitiates her whole moral nature.” - Susan B. Anthony on money)

Question 521

pedantic

Answer 521

{adj.) tending to show off one’s learning (The village idiot, whose mental age is below three years, is incapable of being pedantic.)

Question 522

pejorative

Answer 522

(adj.) derogatory, uncomplimentary (The evening’s headline news covered an international scandal caused by a pejorative statement the famous senator had made in reference to a foreign leader.)

Question 523

pellucid

Answer 523

(adj.) easily intelligible, clear (“The Gettysburg address is at once the shortest and most famous oration in American history. Put beside it, all the whooping of the Websters, Sumners and Everetts seem gaudy and silly. It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost gem-like perfection - the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases.” - H. L. Mencken on Abe Lincoln)

Question 524

pensive

Answer 524

(adj.) dreamily or wistfully thoughtful ~~proper use implies some sadness, never levity { … a pensive mood)

Question 525

penurious

Answer 525

{adj.) miserly, stingy (Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, Stella complained that her husband’s penurious ways made it impossible to live the lifestyle she was accustomed .)

Question 526

perdition

Answer 526

(n.) damnation; ruin; hell ( … the perdition of ungodly men)

Question 527

peregrinate

Answer 527

(v.) to travel from place to place

Question 528

peremptory

Answer 528

(adj.) decisive; final; leaving no opportunity for denial or refusal (The Supreme Court, in announcing their decision on whether George Bush or Al Gore would become the next president, ruled in peremptory confidence that their edict would settle the debate once and for all.)

Question 529

perfidious

Answer 529

{adj.) disloyal, unfaithful (After the official was caught selling government secrets to enemy agents, he was executed for his perfidious ways.)

Question 530

perfunctory

Answer 530

(adj.) showing little interest or enthusiasm (The radio broadcaster announced the news of the massacre in a surprisingly perfunctory manner.)

Question 531

periphrastic

Answer 531

{adj.) said in a roundabout way ~~~samples of periphrastic phrases: “she is the daughter of my mother’s sister,” instead of “she is my cousin”; “the appellation given me by my parents is Jim Bob,” instead of “my name is Jim Bob.”

Question 532

pernicious

Answer 532

(adj.) extremely destructive or harmful (The new government feared that the Communist sympathizers would have a pernicious influence on the nation’s stability.)

Question 533

perspicacity

Answer 533

(n.) shrewdness, perceptiveness (The detective was too humble to acknowledge that his perspicacity was the reason for his professional success.)

Question 534

perspicuity

Answer 534

(n.) clearness, as of a statement (“Stop!, “the police officer said, and in undeniable perspicuity, barked, “put down your weapon or I’ll blow your head off.”)

Question 535

pertinacious

Answer 535

(adj.) stubbornly persistent (Harry’s parents were frustrated with his pertinacious insistence that a monster lived in his closet. Then they opened the closet door and were instantly eaten.)

Question 536

peruse

Answer 536

(v.) to read carefully

Question 537

perverse

Answer 537

(adj.) contrary; cranky (What’s even more perverse is the implication that just because someone is Hispanic and speaks with a thick Spanish accent they are somehow undocumented.)

Question 538

petrify

Answer 538

(v.) to turn to rock (Legend has it that those who looked directly at Medusa were literally and precisely petrified.)

Question 539

petulance

Answer 539

(n.) rudeness, irritability (The nanny resigned after she could no longer tolerate the child’s petulance.)

Question 540

phalanx

Answer 540

{n.) closely massed body of persons

Question 541

philanthropy

Answer 541

(n.) desire to help mankind

Question 542

philippic

Answer 542

{n.) a bitter verbal attack

Question 543

phlegmatic

Answer 543

(adj.) unemotional; cool; not easily excited {The ever-phlegmatic Mr. Pibb, when told that he had just won the lottery, said, “really?,” and barely cracked a smile on the left side of his face.

Question 544

pillory

Answer 544

{v.) to expose to public ridicule or abuse (“Really no need to publicly pillory the controller and his boss who were on hand with their hands on the controls during the brief incident.” - CNN on child directing air traffic in NYC)

Question 545

piquant

Answer 545

{adj.) stimulating to the taste; exciting interest

Question 546

pithy

Answer 546

(adj.) concisely meaningful {My father’s long-winded explanation was a stark contrast to his usually pithy statements.)

Question 547

placate

Answer 547

{v.) to soothe ~~proper use implies the presence of anger or enmity at the beginning {Reforms announced by Egypt’s Mubarak were not enough to placate protesters, who have consistently demanded that he resign immediately.)

Question 548

plaintive

Answer 548

{adj.) sorrowful; sad {“The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.” - Lydia M. Child on genius)

Question 549

platitude

Answer 549

(n.) an uninspired remark, cliche (After reading over her paper, Helene concluded that what she thought were profound insights were actually just platitudes.)

Question 550

plethora

Answer 550

{n.) an abundance, excess {“The tradition I cherish is the ideal this country was built upon, the concept of religious pluralism, of a plethora of opinions, of tolerance and not jihad.” - Anne Quindlen on intolerance)

Question 551

polemic

Answer 551

{n.) an aggressive argument against a specific opinion {“For both parties, the most disagreeable way of responding to a polemic is to be angry and keep silent: for the aggressor usually takes the silence as a sign of disdain.” - Friedrich Nietzsche on silence)

Question 552

poltroon

Answer 552

{n.} a coward

Question 553

polyglot

Answer 553

{n.} speaking or writing several languages

Question 554

portent

Answer 554

{n.) an omen {“Self-parody is the first portent of age” - Larry McMurtry on ageing.)

Question 555

precocious

Answer 555

{adj.} advanced, developing ahead of time “”"”proper use implies mental advancement {Derek was so academically precocious that by the time he was 10 years old, he was already in the ninth grade.}

Question 556

predilection

Answer 556

(n.} a liking; a preference; inclination (“My father had declared a predilection for heirs general, that is, males and females indiscriminately l, on the other hand, had a zealous partiality for heirs male, however remote.” - James Boswell, 18th century biographer)

Question 557

preen

Answer 557

(v.) to dress oneself carefully or smartly (“Young men preen; old men scheme.” - Mason Cooley)

Question 558

preponderance

Answer 558

(n.) superiority in quantity or power; dominance {The preponderance of votes is against the proposal.)

Question 559

presage

Answer 559

(v.) to indicate or warn in advance {“If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, my dreams presage some joyful news at hand.” - William Shakespeare on dreams)

Question 560

prescient

Answer 560

(adj.) to have foreknowledge of events {Questioning the fortune cookie’s prediction, Ray went in search of the old hermit who was rumored to be prescient.}

Question 561

prevaricate

Answer 561

(v.) to speak or act falsely with the intent to deceive ““~word is a formal version of ‘lie’; both words involve an intent to deceive, while prevaricating may involve “speaking evasively” or “being economical with truth”)

Question 562

primeval

Answer 562

{adj.} original, ancient {The first primates to walk on two legs, called Australopithecus, were the primeval descendants of modern man.)

Question 563

privation

Answer 563

(n.} loss or lack of usual comforts or necessities of life {“When a man’s life is destroyed or damaged by some privation of soul and body, which is due to other men’s actions or negligence, it is not only his sensibility that suffers but also his aspiration toward the good. Therefore there has been sacrilege towards that which is sacred in him.” - Simone Weil, philosopher)

Question 564

probity

Answer 564

(n.} virtue, integrity (Because he was never viewed as a man of great probity, no one was surprised by Mr. Samson’s immoral behavior.}

Question 565

proclivity

Answer 565

(n.) a strong inclination toward something (In a sick twist of fate, Harold’s childhood proclivity for torturing small animals grew into a desire to become a surgeon.)

Question 566

procrustean

Answer 566

(adj.) tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means {A procrustean method is one that relentlessly tries to shape a person, an argument, or an idea to a predetermined pattern.)

Question 567

prodigious

Answer 567

(adj.) enormous; vast; extraordinary ( prodigious is the word that best describes Winston Churchill.)

Question 568

profligate

Answer 568

(adj.) shamelessly immoral; extremely wasteful (A certain tuition subsidy to foreign students costs taxpayers an estimated $120 million per year - a substantial sum even in profligate California.)

Question 569

profuse

Answer 569

(adj.) plentiful; copious ~~primary use: object is given freely and abundantly ( … profuse hospitality; they were profuse in their compliments)

Question 570

prolix

Answer 570

{adj.} tediously long and wordy ( a prolix manuscript that needs to proofread in 2 days}

Question 571

promulgate

Answer 571

{v.) to proclaim, make known “"”proper use implies an official public declaration or decree is made (The SEC is expected to write and promulgate new rules so that we do not repeat the banking crisis.)

Question 572

propensity

Answer 572

{n.) an inclination, preference {Dermit has a propensity for dangerous activities such as bungee jumping.)

Question 573

propitious

Answer 573

(adj.) favorable (“It is when fortune is most propitious that she is least to be trusted.” -Titus Livius) prosaic (adj.) plain, lacking liveliness (Heather’s prosaic recital of the poem bored the audience.)

Question 574

proscribe

Answer 574

{v.) to condemn, outlaw (True to their Amish traditions, the council voted to proscribe the sale of alcohol in all the contiguous Amish townships.)

Question 575

protean

Answer 575

(adj.) able to change shape; displaying great variety {Among Nigel’s protean talents was his ability to touch the tip of his nose with his tongue.}

Question 576

prurient

Answer 576

(adj.) eliciting or possessing an extraordinary interest in sex (David’s mother was shocked by the discovery of prurient reading material hidden beneath her son’s mattress.}

Question 577

puerile

Answer 577

(adj.} juvenile, immature (“The truth is that the average schoolmaster, on all the lower levels, is and always must be essentially and next door to an idiot, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation.” - H. L. Mencken, on teachers}

Question 578

pugnacious

Answer 578

(adj.} quarrelsome, combative (Tyson’s pugnacious nature led him to start several barroom brawls each month.)

Question 579

puissant

Answer 579

(adj.) powerful; strong ( … a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks…” - John Milton, on nations)

Question 580

pulchritude

Answer 580

(n.} physical beauty “’“‘proper use: to describe the beauty of a ‘category,’ not an individual (Several of Shakespeare’s sonnets explore the pulchritude of handsome men.}

Question 581

punctilious

Answer 581

(adj.) eager to follow rules or conventions; exacting; very precise (Punctilious Bobby, hall monitor extraordinaire, insisted that his peers follow the rules.)

Question 582

quaff

Answer 582

(v.} to gulp; to drink in large quantities “’“‘proper use implies alcoholic beverages (The members of Hotze’s rugby team celebrated their championship win quaffing lots and lots of ale at the pub.)

Question 583

quagmire

Answer 583

(n.} a difficult situation ~~proper use implies involvement in a situation from which ‘extrication’ would be difficult (We’d all like to avoid the kind of military quagmire characterized by the Vietnam War.}

Question 584

quandary

Answer 584

(n.) a puzzling situation; a dilemma “’“‘proper use implies uncertainty as to what to do next { The Green Bay coach was in a quandary at the worst possible time: his pro-bowl center and both backups were simultaneously injured two days before the Super Bowl.}

Question 585

quasi

Answer 585

{adj.} resembling; seeming (Jake took out his knock-off Titleist Pro-V golf ball and his knock-off Taylor Made white R-11 driver and began to walk to the first tee, whereby he took a quasi-athletic swing to catapult his ball 13 ft.}

Question 586

quell

Answer 586

(v.) to subdue; to suppress; to calm down (The government troops quelled the rebellion quickly.)

Question 587

querulous

Answer 587

(adj.) whiny, complaining (If deprived of his pacifier, young Brendan turns instantly querulous.)

Question 588

quibble

Answer 588

(n.) petty objection or argument ( … twin girls quibbling about the ownership of clothes)

Question 589

quiddity

Answer 589

(n.) essential quality; what makes something what it is (Mr. Katya wasn’t referring to the quiddity of holiday icons when he said to his teenage son Busted, who was arriving home smelling like a beer, “I know where you’ve been. You can’t snow a snowman.”

Question 590

quiescent

Answer 590

(adj.) at rest; motionless (Between the human growth spurts of infancy and puberty is a relatively quiescent growth period in which most of the body takes a rest from growing while the brain continues to mature.)

Question 591

quietus

Answer 591

(n.) a finishing stroke; anything that ends an activity (Mr. Quinn fully intended his unexpected resignation to be a quick and quarrelsome quietus of sorts from the company.)

Question 592

quixotic

Answer 592

(adj.) idealistic, impractical (Modern man’s capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.” - George Will, on the environment)

Question 593

quotidian

Answer 593

(n.) daily; customary (It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits deviations from the quotidian.” - John Updike, on adultery)

Question 594

raconteur

Answer 594

(n.) storyteller

Question 595

raillery

Answer 595

(n.) good-humored ridicule

Question 596

raiment

Answer 596

(n.) clothing; garment ( … red velvet raiment of Catholic cardinals)

Question 597

rakish

Answer 597

(adj.) carefree; lively

Question 598

rambunctious

Answer 598

(adj.) hard to control (Four-year-olds, who have been cooped up indoors throughout the winter, instantly turn rambunctious when they hear that recess will be played in an adjacent outdoor playground.)

Question 599

ramshackle

Answer 599

(adj.) loosely made or held together; rickety; shaky ( … a ramshackle house)

Question 600

rancor

Answer 600

(n.) deep, bitter resentment “’“‘proper use implies a long-lasting resentment (The partisan rancor in Congress is due in large part to years of rejection or tepid support of motions tabled by Congressmen; a congressman never forgets who votes against his motions and proposals in Congress.)

Question 601

rapacious

Answer 601

(adj.) taking by force; greedy “’“‘proper use implies extortion or plunder for subsistence or the satisfaction of greed (The ruins of the resort are now covered in rapacious island vegetation creeping in from the jungle.)

Question 602

rarefy

Answer 602

(v.)(with or without an object) to make less dense; to refine (Heat rarefies moisture inside a test tube.)

Question 603

ratiocinate

Answer 603

(v.) to reason

Question 604

rebuke

Answer 604

{v or n.) to express sharp, stern disapproval of; reprimand (The Elders of the church publicly rebuked the church worker for stealing money from the collection plate.)

Question 605

recalcitrant

Answer 605

{adj.) defiant, unapologetic {Even when scolded, the recalcitrant young girl simply stomped her foot and refused to finish her lima beans.)

Question 606

recapitulate

Answer 606

{v.) to summarize; to repeat briefly ‘’”’"”note: unrelated to capitulate which means ‘to surrender’

Question 607

recidivist

Answer 607

(n.) a person who goes back to crime (The Corrections officer was stating the obvious when he opined that people who are released from jail become either reformed or recidivist in a matter of months.)

Question 608

recondite

Answer 608

{adj.) difficult to understand; profound ~~proper use: modifies objects, not persons { … recondite treatise; … recondite principles)

Question 609

reconnoiter

Answer 609

(v.) to survey; to check out in advance

Question 610

recreant

Answer 610

recreant

Question 611

rectitude

Answer 611

(n.) uprightness, extreme morality (The nomination sheet for “Church Pastor of the Year’’ was unequivocal about the qualities of a candidate having to possess an unimpeachable moral rectitude.)

Question 612

recumbent

Answer 612

{adj.) lying down; reclining (Recumbent and sedated, the Bengal tiger was now ready for the 3 hour dental operation.)

Question 613

redolent

Answer 613

(adj.) having a pleasant odor; suggestive (of) (“My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring.” - Thomas Gray, poet, on healing)

Question 614

redoubtable

Answer 614

{adj.) formidable; commanding respect

Question 615

redress

Answer 615

{n.) to set right; to remedy {The First Amendment allows for the people to receive redress from the government when it fails them.)

Question 616

refulgent

Answer 616

{adj.) shinirJg; glowing (Have you ever noticed how every single reported sighting of UFOs involve some kind of refulgent beam of light instead of any kind of commonplace, brownish blot in the sky?)

Question 617

regal

Answer 617

{adj.) pertaining to a king; splendid

Question 618

regale

Answer 618

(v.} to entertain

Question 619

regicide

Answer 619

{n.) the killing of a king {The most recent regicide in history was the assassination of King Birendra of Nepal in 2001 in the hands of his own son, Dipendra, the Crown Prince, who disagreed with the King’s choice of his bride.)

Question 620

remonstrate

Answer 620

{v.) to protest; to complain {Henry wished to dissuade me; but, seeing me bent on this plan, he ceased to remonstrate.}

Question 621

repartee

Answer 621

(n.) a quick, witty reply (“I enjoy engaging in repartee with people who are stupider than I am” -Ann Coulter, affable but acerbic Republican strategist)

Question 622

replete

Answer 622

(adj.} full, abundant (The Watergate investigators obtained a copy of the White House tapes, replete with deleted words and phrases from President Nixon.)

Question 623

reprobate

Answer 623

{adj.) evil, unprincipled (“You could live your life never violating a law of your nation and still be a moral reprobate just like Kim Jung Ill.” - Telic Thoughts)

Question 624

reprove

Answer 624

{v.} to scold, rebuke {“He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears.” - Isaiah 11:3)

Question 625

repudiate

Answer 625

(v.) to reject the validity or authority of (A clip of the telecast of the baseball game that showed Johnny successfully catching a foul ball repudiated the accusation from the police that he was at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder.)

Question 626

requiem

Answer 626

(n.) funeral hymn; mass for the dead (After the banking crisis, Alan Greenspan, whose economic theories schooled many of the members of Congress, delivered in Congress what some called a requiem for decades’ worth of economic teaching; he never anticipated the crisis. )

Question 627

requite

Answer 627

(v.) to make a return or repayment (For a teenager, unrequited love is, like, totally sucks.)

Question 628

rescind

Answer 628

(v.) to take back, repeal (The company rescinded its offer of employment after discovering that Jane’s resume was full of buffalo chips.)

Question 629

resplendent

Answer 629

(adj.) shining brightly; dazzling (Darth Vader is the ultimate heavy breathing villain resplendent in black.)

Question 630

restive

Answer 630

(adj.) resistant, stubborn, impatient ( … growing restive about the tax burden)

Question 631

reticent

Answer 631

(adj.) silent or reserved ~~proper use implies that it describes the persons ‘style’ or how he/she carries himself ( … the calm, collected and confident reticence of a 10 th Dan Red Belt walking a dark New York alley)

Question 632

retinue

Answer 632

(n.) body of attendants or followers

Question 633

ribald

Answer 633

(adj.) coarsely, crudely humorous (While some giggled at the ribald joke involving a parson’s daughter, most sighed and rolled their eyes in awkward embarrassment.)

Question 634

rife

Answer 634

(adj.) abundant ~~proper use implies negative tone; prevalence and frequency (North-east Afghanistan is rife with anti-American sentiment.)

Question 635

risible

Answer 635

(adj.) laughable; funny (The risible but charismatic Sarah Palin found a pulpit of visibility for her family in her new show, “Alaska.”)

Question 636

ruffian

Answer 636

(n.) hoodlum; lawless person (Having to scratch out a living bullying elderly men and stealing purses from old ladies as a teenager, Mike Tyson made his way from young street ruffian to world boxing champion.)

Question 637

ruse

Answer 637

(n.) a trick ~~proper use implies need to escape, or subterfuge (Oliver concocted an elaborate ruse for sneaking out of the house to meet his girlfriend while simultaneously giving his mother the impression that he was asleep in bed.)

Question 638

sacrosanct

Answer 638

{adj.) holy, something that should not be criticized (In the United States, the Constitution is often thought of as a sacrosanct document.)

Question 639

sagacity

Answer 639

(n.) shrewdness, soundness of perspective (With remarkable and unexpected sagacity, the wise old man predicted and thwarted his children’s plan to ship him off to a nursing home.)

Question 640

salacious

Answer 640

(adj.) obscene; lusty

Question 641

salient

Answer 641

(adj.) significant, conspicuous (Because he was lazy and did the interview by cell phone, the sports reporter completely missed the most salient feature of the basketball team’s latest foreign recruit: he had 14 fingers .)

Question 642

sallow

Answer 642

(adj.) sickly pale

Question 643

salubrious

Answer 643

(adj.) healthful

Question 644

salutary

Answer 644

(adj.) healthful; wholesome (not to be mistaken for: salutatory: a welcome address at graduations)

Question 645

sanctimonious

Answer 645

(adj.) giving a hypocritical appearance of piety(“ He … a solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious iceberg that looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.” - Mark Twain)

Question 646

sangfroid

Answer 646

(n.) calmness, composure; imperturbability under strain {In modern day sports, the range of emotions take you from the feral wildness of football on one end to the relative sangfroid of archery on the other.)

Question 647

sanguine

Answer 647

(adj.) optimistic, cheery (Polly reacted to any bad news with a sanguine smile and the chirpy cry, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonadel”)

Question 648

sapient

Answer 648

(adj.) wise ~~common modern usage: in irony or contempt

Question 649

sartorial

Answer 649

(adj.) pertaining to clothes or tailoring ( … the sartorial elegance of Jackie 0.)

Question 650

savoir faire

Answer 650

(n.) tact; the faculty of knowing just what to do and how to do it. (“Rahm Emmanuel’s savoir-faire is like expecting flowers from the frat guy that told you he had a girlfriend before he date-raped you.” -John Ennis)

Question 651

schism

Answer 651

(n.) a split or break ~~proper use implies a major theological difference between two factions of a church body (not a local church)

Question 652

scurrilous

Answer 652

(adj.) vulgar, coarse; abusive(“ ‘Scurrilous’ has nothing to do with the image of a squirrel, rather, of a venom-breathing dragon attacking, abusing, destroying.” - Languageone)

Question 653

sebaceous

Answer 653

(adj.) fatty (Describing a morbidly obese man a·s sebaceous is like describing a giant snowman as “snow­ flakey.”)

Question 654

sedentary

Answer 654

(adj.) sitting most of the time (Jurgen Johansson, hyperactive and athletic, didn’t much like his new job at IKEA as a ‘sedentary engineer’; his job was to sit on every lazy-boy chair that came out of the assembly line.)

Question 655

sedulous

Answer 655

(adj.) hard-working; industrious; diligent

Question 656

sententious

Answer 656

(adj.) concise; including proverbs and brief remarks (“Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious…” -William Shakespeare on conversation}

Question 657

sentient

Answer 657

(adj.) conscious; capable of feeling(“ The living knew themselves as just sentient puppets on God’s stage.” - T.E Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia}

Question 658

serendipity

Answer 658

{n.) luck, finding good things without looking for them (“My reaction: what people call serendipity, we call links at Facebook.” - Mark Zuckerman, on serendipity.)

Question 659

servile

Answer 659

(adj.) subservient (The servile porter crept around the hotel lobby, bowing and quaking before the guests.)

Question 660

shibboleth

Answer 660

(n.) a slogan; a password

Question 661

shrew

Answer 661

{n.) a nagging, bad-tempered woman

Question 662

simony

Answer 662

(n.) the buying and selling of church benefits (Simony and the selling of religious relics were two major reasons why Martin Luther felt the urge to launch the Reformation movement.}

Question 663

simulacrum

Answer 663

(n.) an image; a likeness

Question 664

sinecure

Answer 664

(n.) a job with little or no responsibility, but draws a salary {In Washington DC, an ambassadorship is a minor sinecure.)

Question 665

skinflint

Answer 665

(n.) stingy person; miser (“A skinflint may go to Heaven, but what awaits him are a rusty old halo, a skinny old cloud, a robe so worn it scratches.” - Michael Bates, on Rev. Gene Scott)

Question 666

skullduggery

Answer 666

(n. ) trickery; deception skulk

(v. ) to sneak around; to lie in hiding

Question 667

slake

Answer 667

(v.) to lessen (thirst, desire, anger, etc.) by satisfying; to quench {Water has the power to slake thirst, quench fire and nourish - or destroy- life.)

Question 668

slattern

Answer 668

(n.) an untidy, dirty woman {Overheard at a Starbucks: “So I’ve got this new job and I’m supposed to be getting up, showering, ironing some clothes for work so that my boss doesn’t call me a slattern.”)

Question 669

slovenly

Answer 669

(adj.) untidy; dirty; careless

Question 670

smite

Answer 670

{v.) to strike forcefully (“The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night…” - Psalm 121:5-6)

Question 671

sobriquet

Answer 671

{n.) an affectionate or humorous nickname; assumed name {“Maybe that’s being unfair to Jerry Brown, whose previous (California) administrations in the 1970s, earned him the sobriquet Governor Moonbeam.” - Richard Smith, on California Gov. Jerry Brown)

Question 672

sobriquet

Answer 672

{n.) an affectionate or humorous nickname; assumed name {“Maybe that’s being unfair to Jerry Brown, whose previous (California) administrations in the 1970s, earned him the sobriquet Governor Moonbeam.” - Richard Smith, on California Gov. Jerry Brown)

Question 673

solicitous

Answer 673

{adj.) concerned, attentive (Jim, laid up in bed with a nasty virus, enjoyed the solicitous attentions of his mother, who brought him soup and extra blankets.)

Question 674

soliloquy

Answer 674

{n.) act of talking to oneself (“To be or not to be, that is the question…,” - the first line of English Literature’s most famous soliloquy by Prince Hamlet in the beloved Shakespearean play, Hamlet.)

Question 675

solipsistic

Answer 675

{adj.) believing that oneself is all that exists, that the self is the only reality {Colette’s solipsistic attitude explains why she habitually ignores the plight of homeless people on the street.)

Question 676

somnambulate

Answer 676

{v.) walk in one’s sleep

Question 677

somnolent

Answer 677

{adj.) sleepy, drowsy {Sleeping Indian specializes in top-end hunting gear, and is named after a mountain in Wyoming rather than a somnolent aborigine.)

Question 678

sophistry

Answer 678

{n.) a deceptive, tricky argument “’“‘note: an example of sophistry is when a person is being accused of something (say, teenage drinking), the accused looks around the room for someone who is guilty of the same offense and says, “Let’s not talk about me for a minute. Let’s talk about Kevin. Now, Kevin is a teenager, and he drinks, and he is younger than I. Why were you only accusing me? Shouldn’t you be accusing him first?”

Question 679

sophomoric

Answer 679

(adj.) immature, pretentious

Question 680

soporific

Answer 680

{adj.) causing sleep; inducing drowsiness (Some Republicans agree that Obama’s State of the Union address was literally sophomoric, few agree that it was solipsistic, but ALL agree that it was soporific.)

Question 681

specious

Answer 681

(adj.) not genuine; having the ring of truth but fallacious; pleasing to the eye but deceptive ( … a specious argument; … specious reasoning)

Question 682

spurious

Answer 682

(adj.) false but designed to seem plausible (Using a spurious argument, John convinced the others that he had won the board game on a technicality.)

Question 683

squalid

Answer 683

(adj.) filthy; dirty “’“‘proper use implies condition a result of poverty or lack of care ( … the squalid living conditions of the dregs of inner-city tenement housing)

Question 684

staid

Answer 684

(adj.) sedate, serious, self-restrained (The butler, classically schooled in the staid British style, never displayed any kind of emotion or form of discomfort throughout the five hour gala.)

Question 685

stolid

Answer 685

(adj.) expressing little sensibility, unemotional ( … the incredibly massive and stolid bureaucracy of the Soviet System)

Question 686

stricture

Answer 686

(n.) a restraint, limit, or restriction; a censure (It’s extremely difficult for runaway teens, younger than 18 years old, to venture out on their own because of all the strictures related to consent, informed consent, and guardianship.)

Question 687

stupefy

Answer 687

(v.) to astonish, make insensible (Too much pride can stupefy the brain as readily as alcohol.)

Question 688

sub rosa

Answer 688

(adj.) secretly, confidentially (During the Cuban Missile crisis, President Kennedy held a ‘possible missile launch’ meeting sub rosa.)

Question 689

sublimate

Answer 689

(v.) to modify the natural expression of (a primitive, instinctual impulse) in a socially acceptable manner (“I used to sublimate my desire to kick puppies by kicking publishers, but I quit doing that because they are unteachable, and it does no good.” - Roger Sutton)

Question 690

sublime

Answer 690

(adj.) of high spiritual, moral, or intellectual worth (I was watching the news one weekday afternoon when a news report of a local clown convention was immediately followed by a military burial of a former high school quarterback who died in Iraq. I guess that’s what they mean by ‘from the ridiculous to the sublime.’)

Question 691

subservient

Answer 691

(adj.) submissive; helpful, in an inferior capacity

Question 692

subterfuge

Answer 692

(n.) trickery; deceit ~~proper use implies artifice employed to escape censure or to force an argument (If Obama, Reid, and Pelosi use what can only be called subterfuge to pass the healthcare bill, what can they be emboldened to do next?)

Question 693

succor

Answer 693

(n.) assistance in time of distress; help (“We provide succor, and sustenance, and a memory of better times gone by - and better times to come.” - Janis Ian, ‘We don’t sell records, we sell dreams’)

Question 694

supercilious

Answer 694

(n or adj.) proud, haughty

Question 695

supernal

Answer 695

(adj.) heavenly (It is supernal and infinitely powerful: it “shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” John 1:4)

Question 696

supine

Answer 696

(adj.) lying on the back (Sedated and supine, the patient was ready for surgery.)

Question 697

suppliant

Answer 697

(adj.) asking humbly and earnestly {With suppliant arms stretched upward and outward towards the Heavens, the people asked God to hear their cry and heal their land.)

Question 698

supplicate

Answer 698

(v.) to pray humbly; to beg

Question 699

surfeit

Answer 699

(n.) an overabundant supply or indulgence (“God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger.” - Heraclitus, on God)

Question 700

surmise

Answer 700

(v.) to infer with little evidence (After speaking to only one of the students, the teacher was able to surmise what had caused the fight.)

Question 701

surreptitious

Answer 701

{adj.) stealthy {“Defriending is a surreptitious, and I believe cowardly, way of terminating relationships.” - Wall Street Journal)

Question 702

sycophant

Answer 702

{n.) one who flatters others for self-gain {When a leader of a country has a psychological need to be affirmed by people around him, you can bet your mother his cabinet is composed of sycophants.)

Question 703

tacit

Answer 703

{adj.) expressed without words {I interpreted my parents’ refusal to talk as a tacit acceptance of my request.)

Question 704

taciturn

Answer 704

{adj.) not inclined to talk {Jane never seems to stop talking; her taciturn brother, on the other hand, is quite the opposite.)

Question 705

tactile

Answer 705

{adj.) pertaining to sense of touch; perceptible {A phenomenon called ‘tactile defensiveness,’ common among those stricken by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, is a behavior in which people can’t stand anything touching them.)

Question 706

talisman

Answer 706

{n.) a good luck charm; an object believed to confer supernatural powers or protection

Question 707

tantamount

Answer 707

{adj.) equivalent in value or significance {When it comes to sports, fearing your opponent is tantamount to losing.)

Question 708

taurine

Answer 708

{adj.) like a bull

Question 709

tawdry

Answer 709

{adj.) cheap; showy; flashy {“The word ‘tawdry’ appeared 21 times in the New York Times in 2010, and 13 times in articles describing women who claimed to be Tiger Woods’ ex-lovers.” - NYT)

Question 710

temerity

Answer 710

{n.) audacity, recklessness ~~proper use {vs.audacity) implies a difficult task or adventure involved {“With youthful temerity and hopeful ignorance Tom and Huck entered McDougal’s cave…” - Mark Twain.)

Question 711

tendentious

Answer 711

(adj.) biased; favoring a cause; partisan ~~proper use implies controversy {You can always count on political pundits imploring tendentious interpretations of election results the day after election day.)

Question 712

tenuous

Answer 712

{adj.) having little substance or strength {The Muslim Brotherhood’s announcement that it was supporting the Egyptian opposition leader El Baradei renewed concerns over Mubarak’s tenuous hold on power.)

Question 713

thanatology

Answer 713

(n.) the study of death and dying

Question 714

timorous

Answer 714

{adj.) timid, cowardly {“Conservatism, ever more timorous and narrow, disgusts the children, and drives the for a mouthful of fresh air into radicalism.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson, on Conservatives.)

Question 715

torpid

Answer 715

{adj.) lethargic, dormant, lacking motion {“Let the torpid monk seek heaven comfortless and alone-GOD speed him! For my own part, … let me be wise and religious - but let me be a MAN. I want to at least see my shadow lengthen as the sun goes down.” - Laurence Sterne, 18th century clergyman and novelist.)

Question 716

tractable

Answer 716

{adj.) easily controlled; easily controllable “’“‘common use modifies inanimate object{s) {If you asked auto industry executives what two wishes they would like to make, more than likely they would be: tractable sales figures and tractable labor unions.)

Question 717

traduce

Answer 717

(v.) to speak badly of; to slander (An element of Father O’Sullivan’s priestly vows was to never traduce long -standing Catholic tradition concerning the Virgin Mary.)

Question 718

transient

Answer 718

(adj.) passing through briefly; passing into and out of existence {“Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immovable.” - Charles Baudelaire, poet)

Question 719

transmute

Answer 719

{v.) to change or alter in form {…Alchemists trying to transmute lead into gold; …crooked bankers transmuting insolvencies into fake assets creating fictional accounting income)

Question 720

trenchant

Answer 720

(adj.) effective, articulate, clear-cut (Sometimes, armed thieves can be trenchant when they make specific requests like, “Give me your wallet and your watch … or I’ll blow your head off.”)

Question 721

trite

Answer 721

{adj.) worn out; stale; commonplace ( … a trite remark)

Question 722

truckle (to)

Answer 722

{v.) to submit; to yield

Question 723

truculent

Answer 723

(adj.) ready to fight, savage, cruel (This club doesn’t really attract the dangerous types, so why was that bouncer being so truculent?)

Question 724

truncate

Answer 724

(v.) to shorten; to cut off (Cell phone users, young and old, will occasionally truncate a word or two in order to make the 140 word character limit on twitter.)

Question 725

turbid

Answer 725

{adj.) muddy; unclear

Question 726

turgid

Answer 726

(adj.) swollen, excessively embellished in style or language ‘’“‘the difference between florid and turgid is the difference between a multicolored flower arrangement (florid) and a multi-acre flower garden (turgid)

Question 727

turpitude

Answer 727

(n.) depravity, moral corruption (Sir Marcus’s reputation for chivalry often contrasted with displays of turpitude he exhibits with the ladies at the tavern.)

Question 728

ubiquitous

Answer 728

(adj.) existing everywhere, widespread (“Coca-Cola’s presence worldwide was termed ‘ubiquitous’ by Melinda Gates recently, who went on to praise the company’s model efforts to get products to hard-to-reach places.” - Huffington Post)

Question 729

umbrage

Answer 729

(n.) resentment, offense ( … to feel umbrage at a social snub; … to take umbrage at someone’s rudeness)

Question 730

unassailable

Answer 730

{adj.} not open to attack by military force or argument; not subject to denial or dispute (…unassailable fortifications; …unassailable logic) (Shakespeare’s genius gives his works an unassailable position in world literature.)

Question 731

unctuous

Answer 731

(adj.) smooth or greasy in texture, appearance, manner (The valet person at the hotel was unusually unctuous the night of the Cotillion, as if he was only being extra helpful because he thought we might give him a big, fat tip.)

Question 732

undulate

Answer 732

(v.} to move in waves (“Your feet undulate like two jellyfish tentacles, moving freely in the ocean that is you big mouth.” - Gerry Canavan)

Question 733

untenable

Answer 733

(adj.) not able to be held, as an opinion or position (In Detroit, auto industry executives are caught in a chronic dilemma of yielding to untenable wage demands of the Teamsters union or having their companies flirt with bankruptcy all over again.)

Question 734

upbraid

Answer 734

(v.} to criticize or scold severely (“I have never worked for fame or praise, and shall not feel their loss as I otherwise would. I have never for a moment lost sight of the humble life I was born to, its small environments, and the consequently little right I had to expect much of myself, and shall have less to censure, or upbraid myself with for the failures I see myself make.” - Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross}

Question 735

urbane

Answer 735

(adj.} refined; suave; elegant in manner (“Many Chicagoans would tell you that the differences basically boil down to urbane vs. hick.” - Wall Street Journal on the 2011 NFC Championship between Chicago and Green Bay}

Question 736

usurp

Answer 736

(v.} to seize by force, take possession of without right (The rogue army general tried to usurp control of the government, but he failed because most of the army backed the legally elected president.}

Question 737

uxorious

Answer 737

(adj.} excessively submissive or devoted to one’s wife. (In the prenuptial agreement between Bubba and Claire, Bubba promises to be uxorious to Claire every day except days when you have Monday Night Football, Tuesday night NBA home games, Wednesday Night Hockey, Thursday Night NFL Game of the Week, Friday Night ESPN Game Night, College Football Saturdays, and, of course, Sundays during Football and Baseball seasons.}

Question 738

vacillate

Answer 738

(v.} to fluctuate, hesitate (I prefer a definite answer, but my boss keeps vacillating between the distinct options available to us.}

Question 739

vacuous

Answer 739

(adj.) lack of content or ideas, stupid (“Television was not invented to make human beings vacuous, but is an emanation of their vacuity.” - Malcolm Muggeridge, English satirist, on TV}

Question 740

vagary

Answer 740

(n} an odd notion or action; a wandering of the thoughts; a whim (“Women, can’t live with them, can’t live without them.” -these are some of the vagaries of early adulthood of a 16 th century Renaissance man, Erasmus.}

Question 741

vagrant

Answer 741

(n.} a homeless person (adj.} without a home; wandering (“There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities.” - Mark Twain, on loneliness}

Question 742

vapid

Answer 742

(adj.} lacking liveliness, dull (Martha made the wrong move throwing a birthday party the same time and day as the Homecoming game. The party turned vapid very quickly after a couple of gregarious types left to catch the half­ time festivities.}

Question 743

variegated

Answer 743

(adj.} diversified, distinctly marked

Question 744

vaunt

Answer 744

(v.} to brag or boast

Question 745

venal

Answer 745

(adj.} corrupt; able to be bribed (To describe some third-world officials as ‘venal’ would be similar to describing humpback whales as ‘big;’ some of them even have handwritten signs on their desks telling people who need their signatures to put the grease money inside a certain drawer.}

Question 746

venerate

Answer 746

(v.} to regard with respect or to honor (The Obama team in the Middle East is delusional if they truly think that ‘good faith negotiations’ are possible with a group of people who venerate Osama Bin Laden.}

Question 747

veracity

Answer 747

{n.) truthfulness, accuracy {The world is upheld by the veracity of good men. They make the earth wholesome. They who lived with them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such a society.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Question 748

verbose

Answer 748

{adj.) wordy

Question 749

verdant

Answer 749

{adj.) green in tint or color {The verdant leaves on the trees made the valley look emerald.)

Question 750

verisimilitude

Answer 750

{n.) the appearance of truth {The casino magic show industry owes its success to the verisimilitude of its magic acts, and, of course, to the smoke, mirrors, and alluring magician assistants.)

Question 751

vernal

Answer 751

{adj.) pertaining to spring { … vernal migrations of fowl; … vernal routines of mating animals)

Question 752

vertiginous

Answer 752

{adj.) whirling; dizzy; unstable

Question 753

vestige

Answer 753

{n.) a visible trace, evidence, or sign of something that once existed but exists no more {Museum displays of dinosaur skeletons are vestigial of a period in Earth’s history called the Jurassic period.}

Question 754

vex

Answer 754

{v.) to confuse or annoy {My little brother vexes me by poking me in the ribs for hours on end.)

Question 755

vicarious

Answer 755

{adj.) experiencing through another {Deathly scared or riding the dreaded roller coaster {any one of them), Mrs. Trimble would settle for reading about them in books in order to experience vicarious thrills.}

Question 756

vicissitude

Answer 756

{n.) event that occurs by chance (While the vicissitudes of his personal life already had him contemplating monastic life, President Roosevelt picking his draft number sealed the deal for him.)

Question 757

vilify

Answer 757

(v.) to lower in importance, defame (After the Watergate scandal, almost any story written about President Nixon sought to vilify him and criticize his behavior.)

Question 758

virago

Answer 758

(n.) a loud, bad-tempered woman

Question 759

visceral

Answer 759

(adj.) pertaining to instinctive instead of intellectual motivation (Pure racism - that is, a visceral dislike of another person because of his skin color - existed in many parts of Mississippi in the 1930s.)

Question 760

viscous

Answer 760

{adj.) not free flowing, syrupy (The viscous syrup took three minutes to pour out of the bottle.)

Question 761

vitiate

Answer 761

{v.) to weaken; to impair; to invalidate {“If, on reflection, I conclude that I am humble, then I can hardly help being proud of the fact, in which case I vitiate whatever measure of humility I might have had.” - Michael Liccione)

Question 762

vitriolic

Answer 762

{adj.) Bitterly scathing {Some disagreements on the congressional floor start with a topic and denigrate into sniping, innuendo and ends in vitriolic namecalling.)

Question 763

vituperate

Answer 763

{v.) to berate or criticize harshly or abusively (For being found guilty of abusing his position in Congress to financially enrich himself, Congressman Rangel (NY) was publicly vituperated by Republicans and consequently removed from the headship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.)

Question 764

wangle

Answer 764

{v.) to manipulate; to obtain by scheming or by underhanded methods {Ten-year-old Penelope Tweety wangled her way to a special backstage pass at the Justin Bieber concert.)

Question 765

wanton

Answer 765

(adj.) undisciplined, lewd, lustful ( … wanton behavior of the reprobate; … the terrorists were engaged in wanton violence and slaughter; … the nonconformist had a wanton disregard for the routines and traditions of…)

Question 766

austere

Answer 766

{adj.) severe; stern; self-disciplined

Question 767

wheedle

Answer 767

(v.) to coax or to persuade (Using her Southern charm she was able to wheedle out information from the attacking Union troops to help the Confederate cause

Question 768

winsome

Answer 768

(adj.) charming, pleasing {After such a long, frustrating day, I was grateful for Chris’s winsome attitude and childish naivete.)

Question 769

wistful

Answer 769

(adj.) full of yearning; musingly sad {Nothing quite compares to the wistful countenance of an 8 yr. old girl saying goodbye to her soldier-father as he separates from her and joins the rest of the deployment for Iraq.)

Question 770

wizened

Answer 770

(adj.) dry, shrunken, wrinkled (Agatha’s grandmother, Stephanie, had the most wizened countenance, full of leathery wrinkles from decades of tending the land.)

Question 771

Zenith

Answer 771

(n.) the highest point, culminating point (I was too nice to tell Nelly that she had reached the absolute zenith of her career with that one hit of hers.)

Question 772

Zephyr

Answer 772

(n.) a gentle breeze (If not for the zephyrs that were blowing and cooling us, our room would’ve been unbearably hot.)

Question 773

ancillary

Answer 773

(adj.) helping, subordinate; auxiliary (…ancillary ground forces that follow the day after an invasion}