vocab test 1

Question 1

adjunct

Answer 1

something added to another thing but not essential to it

Question 2

bellwether

Answer 2

someone who assumes leadership of a movement or activity

Question 3

caterwaul

Answer 3

make a shrill and unpleasant screeching sound

Question 4

chimerical

Answer 4

• like a grotesque product of the imagination
• produced by a wildly fanciful imagination

Question 5

effete

Answer 5

excessively self-indulgent, affected, or decadent

Question 6

fait accompli

Answer 6

an irreversible accomplishment

Question 7

hidebound

Answer 7

stubbornly inflexible and narrow-minded

Question 8

hierarchy

Answer 8

a series of ordered groupings within a system

Question 9

laisses faire

Answer 9

a doctrine that government should not interfere in commerce

Question 10

liturgy

Answer 10

a rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship

Question 11

morass

Answer 11

• a soft wet area of low-lying land that sinks underfoot
• a situation from which extrication is difficult especially an unpleasant or trying one

Question 12

noisome

Answer 12

causing or able to cause nausea

Question 13

oblivious

Answer 13

lacking conscious awareness of

Question 14

poltroon

Answer 14

an abject coward

Question 15

proselyte

Answer 15

a new convert, especially to a religion

Question 16

quasi

Answer 16

having some resemblance

Question 17

raillery

Answer 17

light teasing

Question 18

ribald

Answer 18

humorously vulgar

Question 19

supine

Answer 19

lying face upward

Question 20

vignette

Answer 20

• a brief literary description
• a short evocative scene, as in a film or play