Week 1 Flashcards
Inference, guesswork.
Conjecture (At this point, Kimaya’s hypothesis about single-cell biorhythms is still conjecture: She doesn’t have conclusive evidence.)
Completely honest, straightforward.
Candid (Candace’s candidness overwhelmed her business colleagues, who were not used to such honesty.)
Instructive
Didactic (The tapes were entertaining and didactic; they both amused and instructed children.)
Showing excessive emotion; overflowing.
Effusive (Accepting his Oscar for Best Supporting Sound Editor, Ben delivered the most effusive speech in Academy Awards history: he cried, he hugged people, he blew kisses to the audiences, and then he cried some more.
A mild, indirect, or vague term substituting for a harsh, blunt, or offensive term.
Euphemism (“To pass away” is a common euphemism for dying.)
To infer or estimate by extending or or projecting known information.
Extrapolate (Seeing the wrecked bike and his daughter’s skinned knees, Heath extrapolated that she had had a biking accident.
Lacking cohesion or connection.
Incoherent (Maury’s sentences were so incoherent that nobody understood a word.)
To introduce or communicate stealthily.
Insinuate (Sean insinuated that Grace stole the arsenic, but he never came out and said it.)
Very talkative.
Loquacious (I’m not eloquent, so I’ll just come out and say it: Bobby is loquacious and will talk, and talk, and talk.)
Easily understood, clear.
Our teacher provides lucid explanations of even the most difficult concepts so that we can all understand them.)
The art of using language effectively and persuasively.
Rhetoric (Since they are expected to make speeches, most politicians and lawyers are well-versed in that art of rhetoric.)
Quickness, accuracy, and keenness of judgement or insight.
Acumen (Judge Ackerman’s legal acumen was so well regarded that he was nicknamed the “Solomon of the South.”)
Dexterous; deft.
Adroit (An android balloon–animal artist, Adriana became popular at children’s parties.)
To find out, as through investigation or experimentation.
Ascertain (the private investigator had long suspected my dog; before long, he ascertained that Toto was indeed the murder.)
Shrewd; clever.
Astute (Stewart is financially astute; he invests wisely and never falls for scams.)
Careful; prudent; discreet.
Circumspect (Ned’s circumspect manner makes him a wise appointment to the diplomatic corps.)
To scatter widely, as in sowing seed.
Disseminate (the news about Dave’s embarrassing moment at the party disseminated quickly through the school; by the end of the day, everyone knew what had happened.)
Deep, extensive learning.
Erudition (Prof. Rudy’s erudition was such that she could answer any question her students put to her.)
Excessively concerned with book learning and formal rules.
Pedantic (Pedro’s pedantic tendencies prompted him to remind us constantly of all the grammatical rules we were breaking.)
Shrewd; clear-sighted,
Perspicacious (Persephone’s perspicacious mom had solved so many cases but the popular private investigator was able to retire.).
Practical.
Pragmatic (never one for wild and unrealistic schemes, Matt told a pragmatic approach to research.)
Exhibiting unusually early intellectual aptitude or maturity.
precocious (Bobby Fisher’s precocious intellect made him one of the world best the chess players before he could even drive.)
Very productive; producing great quantities.
Prolific (Charles Harold St. John Hamilton was the world’s most prolific author; it is estimated he wrote the equivalent of 1000 novels.)
Formal proposal.
Prospectus (before writing my thesis, I had to submit a detailed prospectus to the department for approval.)
Basic; elementary; in the earliest stages of development.
Rudimentary (Josh’s rudimentary golf skills were easily overpowered by Tiger Woods’ amazing performance on the green.)
Difficult to understand.
Abstruse (Abby found her professor’s lecture on non-Euclidean geometry abstruse; she doubted anyone else in class understood it either.)
Emotionally hardened; unfeeling.
Callous (Cally’s callous remark about her friends cluttered room really hurt his feelings.)
Intricate; complex.
Convoluted (the directions were so convoluted that we became hopelessly lost.)
Having lost faith or loyalty; discontent.
Disaffected (the disaffected cat trainer finally quit his job when he realized you just can’t train cats, no matter how much you yell at them.)
A puzzle, mystery, or riddle.
Enigma (the emu was an enigma; you could never tell what it was thinking.)
Difficult to fathom or understand, impenetrable.
Inscrutable (the ancient poet’s handwriting was so in inscrutable that even the most prominent Latin scholars could not read the manuscript.)
Inclined to keep silent; reserved.
Reticent (Roseanna’s reticent behavior caused the interviewer to think her incapable of conversing with other students.)
Unemotional; serious.
Staid (Mr. Estado was well known for his staid demeanor; he stayed calm even when everyone else celebrated the team’s amazing victory.)
Known or understood by only a few.
Arcane (the dusty archive includes an arcane treasure trove of nautical charts from the age of discovery.)
To absorb or become absorbed; to make or become similar.
Assimilate (Keisha assimilated so quickly to a new school that she was named head of the social committee a month after enrolling.)
Independence; self-determination.
Autonomy (Candace gained autonomy upon moving out of her parents house and into her own apartment.)
Worldly; widely sophisticated.
Cosmopolitan (Ingo was surprisingly cosmopolitan considering that she had never left her tiny hometown in Norway.)
Something that comes from another source.
Derivatives (noun) (Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent are derivatives of the original Law and Order drama series.)
Intended for or understood by only a small group.
Esoteric (Esme’s play is extremely esoteric; someone not raised in Estonia would find it difficult to follow.)
A clumsy social error; a faux pas.
Gaffe (Jeff committed the gaffe of telling his date that he had gone out with her sister the night before.)
Characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.
Idiosyncrasy (she had so many idiosyncrasies, one of which was washing her socks in the dishwasher.)
Isolated; narrow or provincial.
Insular (the family was so insular that no one else could get near them.)
Adhering to the traditional and established, especially in religion.
Orthodox (my father held an orthodox view of baseball; he believed that the field should be outside and made of real grass.)
One who has the power and position to rule over others; Monarch.
Potentate (an omnipotent potentate is a person to be reckoned with; great power in the hands of a great leader is a powerful combination.)
To scold, rebuke, or harshly criticize.
Castigate (Mr. Castile preferred not to castigate student misbehavior publicly; instead, he would quietly send the troublemaker to the principals office.)
To issue official blame.
Censure (in recent years the FCC has censured networks for the provocative antics of Super Bowl halftime acts; what goes on during the game, however, usually escapes the organization’s notice.)
To condemn openly.
Denounce (in many powerful speeches throughout his lifetime, Martin Luther King Jr. denounced racism as immoral.)
Seeking or preferring seclusion or isolation.
Reclusive (our neighbors were quite reclusive, hardly ever emerging from behind the closed doors of their home.)
To retire from; give up or abandon.
Relinquish (Ricky relinquished his career in order to search for the source of the world’s best relish.)
To give up (a title, for example), especially by formal announcement.
Renounced (Nancy renounced her given name and began selling records under the moniker “Boedicia.”)
Marked by harshly abusive condemnation.
Vituperative (the vituperative speech was so cruel that the members left feeling completely abused.)
To draw a circle around; to restrict.
Circumscribe (the archaeologist circumscribed the excavation area on the map.)
Sharing an edge or boundary; touching.
Contiguous (the continental United States consists of 48 contiguous states.)
