Unit2

Question 1

kleptomania

Answer 1

A mental illness in which a person has a strong desire to steal things.

eg. Kleptomania leads its sufferers to steal items of little value that they don’t need anyway.

Question 2

dipsomaniac

Answer 2

A person with an extreme and uncontrollable desire for alcohol

eg. She didn’t like the word alcoholic being applied to her, and liked dipsomaniac even less.

Question 3

megalomaniac

Answer 3

A mental disorder marked by feelings of great personal power and importance.

eg. When the governor started calling for arming his National Guard with nuclear weapons, the voters finally realized they had elected a megalomaniac.

Question 4

egomaniac

Answer 4

Someone who is extremely self-centered and ignores the problems and concerns of others.

eg. He’s a completely unimpressive person, but that doesn’t keep him from being an egomaniac.

Question 5

psyche

Answer 5

Soul, personality, mind.

eg. Analysts are constantly trying to understand the nation’s psyche and why the U.S. often behaves so differently from other countries.

Question 6

psychedelic

Answer 6

(1) Of or relating to a drug (such as LSD) that produces abnormal and often extreme mental effects such as hallucinations. (2) Imitating the effects of psychedelic drugs.

eg. In her only psychedelic experience, back in 1970, she had watched with horror as the walls began crawling with bizarrely colored creatures.

Question 7

psychosomatic

Answer 7

Caused by mental or emotional problems rather than by physical illness.

eg. Her doctor assumed her stomach problems were psychosomatic but gave her some harmless medication anyway.

Question 8

psychotherapist

Answer 8

One who treats mental or emotional disorder or related bodily ills by psychological means.

eg. He’s getting medication from a psychiatrist, but it’s his sessions with the psychotherapist that he really values.

Question 9

reception

Answer 9

(1) The act of receiving. (2) A social gathering where guests are formally welcomed.

eg. Although the reception of her plan by the board of directors was enthusiastic, it was months before anything was done about it.

Question 10

intercept

Answer 10

To stop, seize, or interrupt (something or someone) before arrival.

eg. The explosives had been intercepted by police just before being loaded onto the jet.

Question 11

perceptible

Answer 11

Noticeable or able to be felt by the senses.

eg. Her change in attitude toward him was barely perceptible, and he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just imagining it.

Question 12

susceptible

Answer 12

(1) Open to some influence; responsive. (2) Able to be submitted to an action or process.

eg. She impressed everyone immediately with her intelligence, so they’re now highly susceptible to her influence and usually go along with anything she proposes.

Question 13

confine

Answer 13

(1) To keep (someone or something) within limits. (2) To hold (someone) in a location.

eg. He had heard the bad news from the CEO, but when he spoke to his employees he confined his remarks to a few hints that sales had slipped.

Question 14

definitive

Answer 14

(1) Authoritative and final. (2) Specifying perfectly or precisely.

eg. The team’s brilliant research provided a definitive description of the virus and its strange mutation patterns.

Question 15

finite

Answer 15

Having definite limits.

eg. Her ambitions were infinite, but her wealth was finite.

Question 16

infinitesimal

Answer 16

Extremely or immeasurably small.

eg. Looking more closely at the research data, he now saw an odd pattern of changes so infinitesimal that they hadn’t been noticed before.

Question 17

interject

Answer 17

To interrupt a conversation with a comment or remark.

eg. His anger was growing as he listened to the conversation, and every so often he would interject a crude comment.

Question 18

conjecture

Answer 18

To guess

eg. He was last heard of in Bogotá, and they conjectured that he had met his end in the Andes at the hands of the guerrillas.

Question 19

projection

Answer 19

An estimate of what might happen in the future based on what is happening now.

eg. The president has been hearing different deficit projections all week from the members of his economic team.

Question 20

trajectory

Answer 20

The curved path that an object makes in space, or that a thrown object follows as it rises and falls to earth.

eg. Considering the likely range, trajectory, and accuracy of a bullet fired from a cheap handgun at 100 yards, the murder seemed incredible.

Question 21

traction

Answer 21

The friction that allows a moving thing to move over a surface without slipping.

eg. The spinning wheels were getting no traction on the ice, and we began to slip backward down the hill.

Question 22

retract

Answer 22

(1) To pull back (something) into something larger. (2) To take back (something said or written).

eg. She was forced to retract her comment about her opponent after it was condemned in the press.

Question 23

protracted

Answer 23

Drawn out, continued, or extended.

eg. No one was looking forward to a protracted struggle for custody of the baby.

Question 24

intractable

Answer 24

Not easily handled, led, taught, or controlled.

eg. Corruption in the army was the country’s intractable problem, and for many years all foreign aid had ended up in the colonels’ pockets

Question 25

conducive

Answer 25

Tending to promote, encourage, or assist; helpful.

eg. She found the atmosphere in the quiet café conducive to study and even to creative thinking.

Question 26

deduction

Answer 26

(1) Subtraction. (2) The reaching of a conclusion by reasoning.

eg. Foretelling the future by deduction based on a political or economic theory has proved to be extremely difficult.

Question 27

induce

Answer 27

(1) Persuade, influence. (2) Bring about.

eg. To induce him to make the call we had to promise we wouldn’t do it again.

Question 28

seduction

Answer 28

(1) Temptation to sin, especially temptation to sexual intercourse. (2) Attraction or charm.

eg. The company began its campaign of seduction of the smaller firm by inviting its top management to a series of weekends at expensive resorts.

Question 29

sequential

Answer 29

(1) Arranged in order or in a series. (2) Following in a series.

eg. In writing the history of the revolution, his challenge was to put all the events of those fateful days in proper sequential order.

Question 30

subsequent

Answer 30

Following in time, order, or place; later.

eg. Through all her subsequent love affairs, she never stopped thinking about the man who got away.

Question 31

consequential

Answer 31

(1) Resulting. (2) Important.

eg. None of our discussions thus far has been very consequential; next week’s meeting will be the important one.

Question 32

non sequitur

Answer 32

A statement that does not follow logically from anything previously said.

eg. Rattled by the question, his mind went blank, and he blurted out a non sequitur that fetched a few laughs from members of the audience.

Question 33

Apollonian

Answer 33

Harmonious, ordered, rational, calm.

eg. After a century of Romantic emotion, some composers adopted a more Apollonian style, producing clearly patterned pieces that avoided extremes of all kinds.

Question 34

bacchanalian

Answer 34

Frenzied, orgiastic.

eg. The bacchanalian partying on graduation night resulted in three wrecked cars, two lawsuits by unamused parents, and more new experiences than most of the participants could remember the next day.

Question 35

delphic

Answer 35

Unclear, ambiguous, or confusing

eg. All she could get from the strange old woman were a few delphic comments that left her more confused than ever about the missing documents.

Question 36

Dionysian

Answer 36

Frenzied, delirious.

eg. Only in the tropics did such festivals become truly Dionysian, he said, which was why he was booking his flight to Rio.

Question 37

jovial

Answer 37

Jolly, good-natured

eg. Their grandfather was as jovial and sociable as their grandmother was quiet and withdrawn.

Question 38

mercurial

Answer 38

Having rapid and unpredictable changes of mood.

eg. His mother’s always mercurial temper became even more unpredictable, to the point where the slightest thing would trigger a violent fit.

Question 39

Olympian

Answer 39

Lofty, superior, and detached.

eg. Now 77, he moved slowly and spoke to the younger lawyers in Olympian tones, but his college friends could remember when he was a brash, crazy risk-taker.

Question 40

venereal

Answer 40

Having to do with sexual intercourse or diseases transmitted by it.

eg. In the 19th century syphilis especially was often fatal, and venereal diseases killed some of the greatest figures of the time.