Top 10 Words

Question 1

prosaic

Answer 1

lacking in poetic language; straightforward; dull; lacking imagination.

Unlike the talented artists in his workshop, Paul had no such bent for the visual medium, so when it was time for him to make a stained glass painting he ended up with a prosaic mosaic.

Question 2

alacrity

Answer 2

eager willingness to do something.

The first three weeks at his new job, Mark worked with such alacrity that upper management knew they would be giving him a promotion.

Question 3

paucity

Answer 3

lack of something; smallness.

There is a paucity of jobs hiring today that require menial skills, since most jobs have either been automated or outsourced.

Question 4

veracity

Answer 4

accuracy; truthfulness.

After years of political scandals, the congressman was hardly known for his veracity; yet despite this distrust, he was voted into yet another term.

Question 5

maintain

Answer 5

to assert.

The scientist maintained that the extinction of dinosaurs was most likely brought about a drastic change in climate.

Question 6

contrite

Answer 6

remorseful; full of guilt.

Though he stole his little sister’s licorice stick with malevolent glee, Chuck soon became contrite when his sister wouldn’t stop crying.

Question 7

laconic

Answer 7

using very few words.

While Martha always swooned over the hunky, laconic types in romantic comedies, her boyfriends inevitably were very talkative - and not very hunky.

Question 8

pugnacious

Answer 8

prone to argument; quarrelsome.

The comedian told one flat joke after another, and when the audience started booing, he pugnaciously spat back at them.

Question 9

disparate

Answer 9

fundamentally different.

Religion and biology are disparate subjects.

Question 10

egregious

Answer 10

outstandingly bad.

The dictator’s abuse of human rights was so egregious that many world leaders asked that he be tried in an international court of genocide.