Word Smart Flashcards

Question

Address

Answer 1

(Verb) To speak to; to direct one's attention to Ernie addressed the problem of addressing the convention by sitting down and writing his speech

Answer 2

(Noun) Follower; supporter; believer The Kings adherents threw a big party for him, just to show how much they liked him

Answer 3

(Verb) To scold gently; to warn The boys' father admonished them not to eat the pie he had just baked. When they did so anyway, he admonished them • in the first sentence admonish means warn; in the second it means scold gently

Answer 4

(Adjective) Skillful; dexterous; clever; shrewd; socially at ease Bob was an adroit salesperson: His highly skilled pitch, backed up by extensive product knowledge, nearly always resulted in a sale • Adroit comes from the French word for right and refers to an old superstition that right-handedness is superior. It is a synonym of dexterous (which comes from the Latin for right) and an antonym of gauche and maladroit

Answer 5

(Noun) Wild or excessive admiration; flattery The boss thrived on the adulation of his scheming secretary

Answer 6

(Verb) To contaminate; to make impure

Answer 7

(Adjective) Unfavorable; antagonistic * Airplanes often don't fly in adverse weather. An airplane that took off in bad weather and reached its destination safely would be said to have overcome adversity. Adversity means misfortune or unfavorable circumstances. To do something "in the face of adversity" is to undertake a task despite obstacles. Some people are at their best and adversity because they rise to the occasion. * A word often confused with adverse is averse. The two are related but they don't mean quite the same thing. A person who is averse to something is to be opposed to doing it - to have an aversion to doing it

Answer 8

(Adjective) Having to do with artistic beauty; artistic • Someone who admires beautiful things greatly can be called an aesthete. Aesthetics is the study of beauty or principles of beauty.

Answer 9

(Adjective) Easy to talk to; friendly Susan was an affable girl; she could strike up a pleasant conversation with almost anyone

Answer 10

(Noun) Unnatural or artificial behavior, usually intended to impress Becky's English accent is an affectation. She spent only a week in England, and that was several years ago. • A person with an affectation is said to be affected. To affect a characteristic or habit is to adopt it consciously, usually in the hope of impressing other people

Answer 11

(Noun) Sympathy; attraction; kinship; similarity Ducks have an affinity for water • affinity also means similarity or resemblance. There is an affinity between snow and sleet

Answer 12

(Adjective) Rich; prosperous

Answer 13

(Noun) Program; the things to be done A politician is often said to have an agenda. The politician's agenda consists of the things he wishes to accomplish

Answer 14

(Noun) Sum total; a collection of separate things mixed together Chili is an aggregate of meat and beans • Similar and related words include congregate, segregate, and integrate. To aggregate is to bring together; to congregate is to get together; to segregate is to keep apart; to integrate is to unite

Answer 15

(Noun) One who believes that the existence of a God can be neither proven nor disproven

Answer 16

(Adjective) Relating to land; relating to the management or farming of land

Answer 17

(Noun) Cheerful eagerness or readiness to respond David could hardly wait for his parents to leave; he carried their luggage out to the car with great alacrity

Answer 18

(Verb) To assert without proof • To allege something is to assert it without proving it. Such an assertion is called an allegation.

Answer 19

(Verb) To distribute; to assign; to allot

Answer 20

(Noun) A combination of two or more things, usually metals • Alloy is often used as a verb. To alloy two things is to mix them together. There's usually an implication that the mixture is less than the sum of the parts. There is often something undesirable about an alloy (as opposed to a pure substance).

Answer 21

(Noun) And indirect reference (often to a literary work); a hint • to allude to something is to refer to it indirectly

Answer 22

(Adjective) Uninvolved; standing off; keeping one's distance • cats are often said to be aloof because they usually mind their own business

Answer 23

(Noun) Selflessness; generosity; devotion to the interest of others

Answer 24

(Noun) Atmosphere; mood; feeling

Answer 25

(Adjective) Unclear in meaning; confusing; capable of being interpreted in different ways

Answer 26

(Adjective) Undecided; having opposed feelings simultaneously Susan felt ambivalent about Alex as a boyfriend. Her frequent desire to break up with him reflected this ambivalence.

Answer 27

(Verb) To make better or more tolerable

Answer 28

(Adjective) Obedient; willing to give in to the wishes of another; agreeable The plumber was amenable to my paying my bill with jellybeans, which was lucky, because I had more jellybeans than money

Answer 29

(Noun) Pleasantness; attractive or comfortable feature Those little bars of soap and bottles of shampoo found in hotel rooms are known in the hotel business as amenities.

Answer 30

(Adjective) Friendly; agreeable

Answer 31

(Noun) An official pardon for a group of people who have violated a law or policy • Amnesty comes from the same root as amnesia. An amnesty is an official forgetting. When a state government declares a tax amnesty, it is saying that if people pay the taxes they owe, the government will officially "forget" that they broke the law by not paying them in the first place

Answer 32

(Adjective) Lacking a sense of right and wrong; neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral; without moral feelings • A moral person does right; an immoral person does wrong; an amoral person simply does.

Answer 33

(Adjective) Feeling loving, especially in a sexual sense; in love; relating to love

Answer 34

(Adjective) Shapeless; without a regular or stable shape; bloblike

Answer 35

(Noun) Something out of place in time or history; an incongruity

Answer 36

(Noun) A comparison of one thing to another; similarity

Answer 37

(Noun) absence of government or control; lawlessness; disorder • The words anarchy and monarchy are closely related. Anarchy means no leader; monarchy, a government headed by a king, means 1 leader

Answer 38

(Noun) A short account of a humorous or revealing incident • to say that the evidence of life on other planets is anecdotal is to say that we haven't captured any aliens, but simply heard a lot of stories from people who claimed to have been kidnapped by flying saucers

Answer 39

(Noun) Agonizing physical or mental pain

Answer 40

(Noun) Resentment; hostility; ill will

Answer 41

(Noun) An aberration; an irregularity; a deviation

Answer 42

(Noun) Someone or something that went before; something that provides a model for something that came after it The horse-drawn wagon is an antecedent of the modern automobile • antecedent can also be used as an adjective. The oil lamp was antecedent to the light bulb

Answer 43

(Noun) Firm dislike; a dislike • antipathies are the things that one doesn't like

Answer 44

(Noun) The direct opposite

Answer 45

(Noun) The former policy of racial segregation and oppression in the Republic of South Africa

Answer 46

(Noun) Lack of interest; lack of feeling

Answer 47

(Noun) A brief, often witty saying; a proverb • Benjamin Franklin was fond of aphorisms

Answer 48

(Noun) A prophetic revelation, especially one concerning the end of the world

Answer 49

(Adjective) Of dubious authenticity; fictitious; spurious • The Apocrypha are a number of "extra" books of the Old Testament that Protestants and Jews don't include in their Bibles because they don't think they are authentic

Answer 50

(Noun) Elevation to divine status; the perfect example of something

Answer 51

(Verb) To sooth; to pacify by giving in to

Answer 52

(Verb) To increase in value • The opposite of appreciate is depreciate

Answer 53

(Adjective) Worried; anxious • A misapprehension is a misunderstanding

Answer 54

(Noun) Approval; praise • approbation is a fancy word for approval, to which it is closely related. Disapprobation is disapproval.

Answer 55

(Verb) To take without permission; to set aside for a particular use * when an elected official takes money that was supposed to be spent on submarines and spends it on a few mink coats, he is said to have misappropriated the money * when the government decides to build a highway through your backyard, it expropriated your property for this purpose. That is, it uses its official authority to take possession of your property.

Answer 56

(For now) Capacity for learning; natural ability

Answer 57

(Noun) One who decides; a judge

Answer 58

(Adjective) Random; capricious

Answer 59

(Adjective) Mysterious; known only to a select few The rites of the secret cult were arcane; no one outside the cult knew what they were

Answer 60

(Adjective) Extremely old; ancient; outdated

Answer 61

(Noun) An original model or pattern • An archetype is similar to a prototype. A prototype is a first, tentative model that is made but that will be improved in later versions. An archetype is usually something that precedes something else. Plato is the archetype of all philosophers

Answer 62

(Adjective) Passionate; enthusiastic • to be ardent is to have ardor The young lovers were oblivious to everything except their ardor for each other

Answer 63

(Adjective) Hard; difficult

Answer 64

(Adjective) Of noble birth; snobbish

Answer 65

(Adjective) Crafty; wiley; sly • someone who is artless, on the other hand, is simple and honest. Young children are charmingly artless.

Answer 66

(Noun) A clever trick; cunning The Trojan horse was an artifice designed to get the soldiers inside the walls • artifice and artificial are related words

Answer 67

(Noun) Supremacy; domination

Answer 68

(Adjective) Hermit-like; practicing self-denial • ascetic can also be a noun. A personal who leads an ascetic existence is in ascetic. An ascetic is someone who practices asceticism

Answer 69

(Adjective) Hard-working; busy; quite diligent

Answer 70

(Verb) To take in; to absorb; to learn thoroughly

Answer 71

(Verb) To soothe; to pacify; to ease the pain of; to relieve

Answer 72

(Adjective) Shrewd; keen in judgment

Answer 73

(Noun) one who does not believe in the existence of any God or divine being

Answer 74

(Noun) Gradual wearing away, weakening, or loss; a natural or expected decrease in numbers or size

Answer 75

(Noun) Boldness; reckless daring; impertinence

Answer 76

(Verb) To make bigger; to add to; to increase

Answer 77

(Adjective) Favorable; promising; pointing to a good result A clear sky in the morning is an auspicious sign on the day of a picnic

Answer 78

(Adjective) Unadorned; stern; forbidding; without excess The Smith's house was austere; there was no furniture in it, and there was nothing hanging on the walls • The noun austerity is generally used to mean roughly the same thing as poverty. To live in austerity is to live without comforts

Answer 79

(Adjective) Ruling with absolute authority; extremely bossy • an autocrat is an absolute ruler. Autocracy, a system of government headed by an autocrat, is not democratic-the people don't get a say

Answer 80

(Adjective) Acting independently

Answer 81

(Noun) Greed; excessive love of riches • avarice is the opposite of generosity or philanthropy

Answer 82

(Verb) To claim; to declare boldly; to admit * to avow something is to declare or admit something that most people are reluctant to declare or admit * to disavow is to deny or repudiate someone else's claim

Answer 83

(Adjective) Like an uncle, especially a nice uncle

Answer 84

(Adjective) Off course; twisted to one side

Answer 85

(Noun) A self-evident rule or truth; a widely accepted saying • An axiom in geometry is a rule that doesn't have to be proved because its truth is accepted as obvious

Answer 86

(Adjective) Unoriginal; ordinary

Answer 87

(Noun) Poisonous; torment; cause of harm * bane means poison (Wolfbane is a kind of poisonous plant), but the word is usually used figuratively. To say that someone is the bane of your existence is to say that the person poisons your enjoyment of life * Baneful means harmful

Answer 88

(Noun) Stronghold; fortress; fortified place mrs. Garnett's classroom is a bastion of banality; that is, it is a place where originality seldom, if ever, makes its way inside

Answer 89

(Verb) To give birth to; to create; to lead to; to cause Those who lie should be creative and have good memories, since one lie often begets another lie, which begets another.

Answer 90

(Verb) To go over repeatedly or to an absurd extent Mr. Irving spent the entire period belaboring the obvious; he made the saying dumb observation over and over again.

Answer 91

(Verb) To surround; to besiege; to harass No one could leave the beleaguered city; the attacking army had closed off all the exits.

Answer 92

(Verb) To give a false impression of; to contradict Melvin's smile belied the grief he was feeling; despite his happy expression he was terribly sad inside.

Answer 93

(Verb) To make to seem a little; to put someone down

Answer 94

(Adjective) Combative; quarrelsome; waging war Al was so belligerent that the party had the feel of a boxing match

Answer 95

(Adjective) Confused; bewildered The two stood bemused in the middle of the parking lot at Disneyland, trying to remember where they had parked their car • to muse is to think about or ponder things. To be bemused, then, is to have been thinking about things to the point of confusion.

Answer 96

(Noun) One who provides help, especially in the form of a gift or donation

Answer 97

(Adjective) Generous; kind; doing good deeds

Answer 98

(Adjective) Gentle; not harmful; kind; mild

Answer 99

(Noun) Something left to someone in a will • to leave something to someone in a will is to bequeath it. A bequest is something that has been bequeathed.

Answer 100

(Adjective) Deprived or left desolate, especially through death The new widow was still bereaved when we saw her. Every time anyone mentioned her husband's name, she burst into tears

Answer 101

(Verb) To harass; to surround The bereaved widow was beset by grief Problems with beset the expedition almost from the beginning, and the mountain climbers soon returned to their base camp.

Answer 102

(Noun) Irreverence; an insult to something held sacred; profanity • in the strictest sense, to commit blasphemy is to say nasty, insulting things about God. The word is used more broadly, though, to cover a wide range of nasty, insulting comments.

Answer 103

(Adjective) Unpleasantly or offensively noisy; glaring • blatant is often confused with flagrant, since both words mean glaring. Blatant indicates that something was not concealed very well, whereas flagrant indicates that something was intentional. A blatant act is usually also a flagrant one, but a flagrant act is not necessarily blatant.

Answer 104

(Noun) A disease in plants; anything that injures or destroys

Answer 105

(Adjective) Carefree; cheerful The children playing next to the hazardous-waste dump were blithely unaware that they were doing something dangerous. • to be blithely ignorant is to be happily unaware.

Answer 106

(Adjective) Middle-class, usually in a pejorative sense; boringly conventional • The original bourgeoisie were simply people who lived in cities, an innovation at the time. They weren't farmers and they weren't nobles. They were members of a new class-the middle class. Now, the word is used mostly in making fun of or sneering at people who seem to think about nothing but their possessions and other comforts and about conforming with other people who share those concerns.

Answer 107

(Adjective) Cow related; cowlike • there are a number of similar words based on other animals: ``` Canine = dogs Equine = horses Feline = cats Piscine = Fish Porcine = pigs Ursine = bears ```

Answer 108

(Noun) Briefness

Answer 109

(Verb) To open up a subject for discussion, often a delicate subject

Answer 110

(Adjective) Charmingly rural; rustic; countrylike

Answer 111

(Noun) A system of government administration consisting of numerous bureaus or offices, especially one run according to inflexible and inefficient rules; any large administrative system characterized by inefficiency, lots of rules, and red tape

Answer 112

(Verb) To expand; to flourish The burgeoning weeds in our yard soon overwhelmed the grass.

Answer 113

(Noun) A ludicrous, mocking, lewd imitation Vaudeville actors frequently performed burlesque works on the stage • burlesque, parody, lampoon, and caricature share similar meanings.

Answer 114

(Noun) Harsh-sounding mixture of words, voices, or sounds The parade's 2 marching bands played simultaneously; the resulting cacophony drove many spectators to tears. * A cacophony is not just a lot of noise. It is a lot of noise that doesn't sound good together. * euphony is the opposite of cacophony. Euphony is pleasing sound.

Answer 115

(Noun) Rhythm; the rise and fall of sounds We wished the tone of Bob's words would have a more pleasing cadence, but he spoke in a dull monotone.

Answer 116

(Verb) To persuade someone to do something he or she does not want to do I did not want to give the speech, but Peter cajoled me into doing it by telling me what a good speaker I am.

Answer 117

(Adjective) Immature The patient was alarmed by the callowness of the medical staff. The doctors looked too young to have graduated from high school, much less from medical school. • to be callow is to be youthfully naïve, inexperienced, and unsophisticated.

Answer 118

(Noun) Truthfulness; sincere honesty • to show candor is to be candid. To be candid is to speak frankly.

Answer 119

(Noun) An economic system in which businesses are owned by private citizens (not by the government) and in which the resulting products and services are sold with relatively little government control

Answer 120

(Verb) To surrender; to give up or give in On the 20th day of the strike, the workers capitulated and went back to work without a new contract. • to recapitulate is not to capitulate again. To recapitulate is to summarize.

Answer 121

(Adjective) Unpredictable; likely to change at any moment • A caprice is a whim.

Answer 122

(Noun) A portrait or description that is purposely distorted or exaggerated, often to prove some point about its subject • caricature can also be used as a verb

Answer 123

(Verb) To criticize severely; to chastise Joe's mother-in-law castigated him for forgetting to pick her up at the airport

Answer 124

(Noun) In chemistry, something that changes the rate of a chemical reaction without itself being changed; anyone or anything that makes something happen without being directly involved in it

Answer 125

(Adjective) Unconditional; absolute • A categorical denial is one without exceptions - it covers every category. Crooked politicians often make categorical denials of various charges against them. Then they go to jail.

Answer 126

(Noun) Purification that brings emotional relief or renewal • to someone with psychological problems, talking to a psychiatrist can lead to a catharsis.

Answer 127

(Adjective) Universal; embracing everything Leonardo da Vinci was a catholic genius who excelled at everything he did. * parochial means narrow-minded, so parochial and catholic are almost opposites. * catholic with a small c means universal. Catholic with a large C means Roman Catholic or pertaining to an ancient, undivided Christian church.

Answer 128

(Adjective) Like acid; corrosive • caustic can be used figuratively. A caustic comment is one that is so nasty or insulting that it seems to sting or burn the person to whom it is directed.

Answer 129

(Noun) Abstinence from sex

Answer 130

(Verb) to condemn severely for doing something bad * censure can also be a noun * A Senate that made a habit of censuring senators might be said to be censorious. To be censorious is to be highly critical - to do a lot of censuring.

Answer 131

(Adjective) Brainy; intellectually refined * your cerebrum is the biggest part of your brain. To be cerebral is to do and care about things that really smart people do and care about. * A cerebral discussion is one that is filled with big words and concerns abstruse matters that ordinary people can't understand.

Answer 132

(Noun) Humiliation; embarrassed disappointment Much to my chagrin, I began to giggle during the eulogy at the funeral. • The word chagrin is sometimes used incorrectly to mean surprise.

Answer 133

(Noun) A magical-seeming ability to attract followers or inspire loyalty

Answer 134

(Noun) Fraud; quack; con man

Answer 135

(Noun) A deep, gaping hole; a gorge

Answer 136

(Verb) To inflict punishment on; to discipline

Answer 137

(Noun) Trickery; deceitfulness; artifice, especially legal or political Political news would be dull were it not for the chicanery of our elected officials

Answer 138

(Noun) An illusion; a foolish fancy Joe's dream of becoming a movie star was just a chimera

Answer 139

(Adjective) Hot-tempered; quick to anger The choleric watchdog would sink his teeth into anyone who came within walking distance of his doghouse.

Answer 140

(Adjective) Constant; lasting a long time; inveterate • chronic is usually associated with something negative or undesirable: chronic illness, chronic failure, chronic depression. A chronic disease is one that lingers for a long time, doesn't go away, or keeps coming back. The opposite of a chronic disease is an acute disease. An acute disease is one that comes and goes very quickly. It may be severe, but it doesn't last forever.

Answer 141

(Noun) A record of events in order of time; a history • chronology and chronicle are nearly synonymous: both provide a chronological list of events. Chronological means in order of time.

Answer 142

(Adjective) Roundabout; not following a direct path The circuitous bus route between the two cities went here, there, and everywhere, and it took an extremely long time to get anywhere. • A circuitous argument is one that rambles around for quite a while before making its point. A circuitous argument is very similar to a circular argument, which is one that ends up where it begins or attempt to prove something without offering any new information. To say, "straight means not curved, and curved means not straight," is to give a circular, or tautological, definition of the word straight.

Answer 143

(Noun) An indirect expression; use of wordy or evasive language The lawyer's circumlocution left everyone in the court room wondering what had been said. • to use a lot of big, vague words and to speak in a dis-organized way is to be circumlocutory.

Answer 144

(Verb) to draw a line around; to set the limits; to define; to restrict The Constitution clearly circumscribes the restrictions that can be placed on our personal freedoms.

Answer 145

(Adjective) Cautious As a public speaker, Nick was extremely circumspect; he always took great care not to say the wrong thing or give offense. • The word circumspect comes from Greek roots meaning around and look (as do the words circle and inspect). To be circumspect is to look around carefully before doing something.

Answer 146

(Adjective) Polite; civilized; courteous • The word civil also has other meanings. Civil rights are rights established by law. Civil service is government service.

Answer 147

(Noun) Mercy; forgiveness; mildness The governor committed an act of clemency when he released all the convicts from the State penitentiary. • mild weather is called clement weather; bad weather is called inclement.

Answer 148

(Noun) An overused saying or idea • clichés are usually true. That's why they've been repeated often enough to become overused. But they are boring.

Answer 149

(Noun) An exclusive group bound together by some shared quality or interest The high school newspaper staff was a real clique; they all hung out together and wouldn't talk to anyone else. It was hard to have fun at that school if you were not a member of the right clique. The cheerleaders were cliquish as well.

Answer 150

(Verb) To come together as one; to fuse; to unite The people in our neighborhood coalesced into a powerful force for change in the community. The southern coalition in Congress is the group of representatives from Southern states who often vote the same way. • A coalition is a group of people that has come together for some purpose, often a political one.

Answer 151

(Verb) To force someone to do or not to do something • The noun is coercion

Answer 152

(Adjective) Powerfully convincing The lawyer's argument on his clients behalf was not cogent, so the jury convicted his client. The jury was persuaded by the cogency of the prosecuting attorney's argument.

Answer 153

(Adjective) Dealing with how we know the world around us through our senses; mental • Cognition is knowing.

Answer 154

(Adjective) Aware; conscious To be cognizant of your responsibilities is to know what your responsibilities are.

Answer 155

(Adjective) Holding together; making sense • A coherent wad of cotton balls is one that holds together. A coherent explanation is an explanation that makes sense; the explanation holds together. To hold together is to cohere.

Answer 156

(Adjective) Conversational; informal in language A writer with a colloquial style is a writer who uses ordinary words and whose writing seems as informal as common speech. • A colloquy (KAHL uh kwee) is a conversation or conference.

Answer 157

(Noun) Conspiracy; secret cooperation There was collusion among the owners of the baseball teams; they agreed secretly not to sign any expensive free agents. • To collude is to conspire.

Answer 158

(Adjective) Equal; proportionate Ryan's salary is commensurate with his ability; like his ability, his salary is small.

Answer 159

(Adjective) Forceful; causing to yield * To compel someone to do something is to force him to do it. * The noun is compulsion, which also means an irresistible impulse to do something irrational

Answer 160

(Noun) A summary; an abridgment A yearbook often contains a compendium of the offenses, achievements, and future plans of the senior class.

Answer 161

(Adjective) Self-satisfied; overly pleased with oneself; contented to a fault To fall into complacency is to become comfortably uncaring about the world around you.

Answer 162

(Verb) To complete or fill up; to be the perfect counterpart The flower arrangement complemented the table decorations. Complement can also be a noun.

Answer 163

(Noun) Participation in wrongdoing; the act of being an accomplice Complicity among the students made it impossible to find out which of them had pulled the fire alarm.

Answer 164

(Adjective) Covering or including everything The insurance policy was comprehensive; it covered all possible losses A comprehensive examination is one that covers everything in the course or in a particular field of knowledge.

Answer 165

(Verb) to consist of A football team comprises 11 players on offense and 11 players on defense. A company comprises employees. This word is often misused. Be careful. Players do not "comprise" a football team, and employees do not "comprise" a company. Nor can a football team be said to be "comprised of" players, or a company to be "comprised of" employees. These are common mistakes. Instead, you can say that players constitute or compose a team, and that employees constitute or compose a company.

Answer 166

(Adjective) Making peace; attempting to resolve a dispute through goodwill To be conciliatory is to kiss and make up. When peace has been made, we say that the warring parties have comes to a reconciliation. To reconcile is to bring two things into agreement. The accountant managed to reconcile the company books with the cash on hand only with great creativity

Answer 167

(Adjective) Brief and to the point; succinct To be concise is to say much with a few words. A concise speaker is one who speaks concisely or with concision.

Answer 168

(Noun) Harmony; agreement Nations that live in concord are nations that live together in peace. Discord is the opposite of concord. A faculty meeting where everyone yelled at one another would be a faculty meeting marked by discord. It would be a discordant meeting. An accord is a formal agreement, usually reached after a dispute.

Answer 169

(Adjective) Happening at the same time; parallel The criminal was sentenced to do concurrent 15-year sentences; the sentences will run at the same time, and he will be out of jail in 15 years. To concur means to agree The assistant wanted to keep his job, so she always concurred with her boss.

Answer 170

(Verb) To stoop to someone else's level, usually in an offensive way; to patronize I was surprised that the president of the company had condescended to talk with me, a mere temporary employee.

Answer 171

(Verb) To overlook; to permit to happen The principal condoned smoking in the bathroom; he simply ignored it

Answer 172

(Adjective) Promoting The foul weather was not conducive to our having a picnic.

Answer 173

(Noun) A flowing together, especially of rivers; the place where they begin to flow together The confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers is at St. Louis; that is the place where they join together. A confluence of many factors (no ice, bad food, terrible music) made it inevitable that the party would be terrible.

Answer 174

(Adjective) Agreeably suitable; pleasant When people get along together at a restaurant, they are being congenial. Genial and congenial share similar meanings. Genial means pleasing, kind, sympathetic, or helpful. You can be pleased by a genial manner or by a genial climate.

Answer 175

(Adjective) Describing a trait or condition acquired between conception and birth; innate A congenital birth defect is one that is present at birth but was not caused by one's genes.

Answer 176

(Verb) To come together Protesters were granted permission to congregate peacefully on the plaza. The noun firm is congregation and can refer to the membership of a house of worship. Aggregate also has to do with coming together.

Answer 177

(Verb) To guess; to deduce or infer on slight evidence If forced to conjecture, I would say the volcano will erupt in 24 hours. Conjecture can also be a noun

Answer 178

(Verb) To summon or bring into being as if by magic The wizard conjured an evil spirit by mumbling some magic words and throwing a little powdered eye of newt into the fire

Answer 179

(Noun) An expert, particularly in matters of art or taste The meal was exquisite enough to impress a connoisseur

Answer 180

(Verb) To make or declare sacred The priest consecrated the building by sprinkling holy water on it. The opposite of consecrate is desecrate, which means to treat irreverently. The Vandals desecrated the cemetery by knocking down all the tombstones.

Answer 181

(Noun) Unanimity or general agreement When there is a consensus, everybody feels the same way. Contrary to how the word is often used, consensus implies more than just a rough agreement or a majority opinion. Election results don't reflect a consensus unless everyone or nearly everyone votes for the same candidate.

Answer 182

(Adjective) Harmonious; in agreement Our desires were consonant with theirs; we all wanted the same thing. The opposite of consonant is dissonant, which means inharmonious. Dissonant voices are voices that don't sound good together

Answer 183

(verb) To interpret Bob construed his contract as giving him the right to do anything he wanted. The meaning of the poem, as I construed it, had to do with the love of a man for his dog. To misconstrue is to misinterpret.

Answer 184

(Adjective) Perfect; complete; supremely skillful A consummate pianist is an extremely good one. Nothing is lacking in the way he plays. Consummate (KAHN suh mayt) is also a verb. Notice the different pronunciation. To consummate something is to finish it or make it complete. Signing a contract would consummate an agreement.

Answer 185

(adjective) Argumentative; quarrelsome Beth figured that her contentious style would make her a perfect litigator; after law school, however, they would-be trial attorney discovered that passing the bar requires more than a will to argue.

Answer 186

(Adjective) Side-by-side; adjoining Two countries that share a border are contiguous; so are two events that happened one right after the other.

Answer 187

(Adjective) Dependent; possible Our agreement to buy their house is contingent upon the seller finding another house to move into. That is, they will not sell their house to us unless they can find another house to buy. A contingency is a possibility or something that may happen but is at least as likely not to happen.

Answer 188

(Adjective) Admitting guilt; especially feeling remorseful To be contrite is to admit whatever terrible thing you did. Becky was contrite about her mistake, so we forgave her. A criminal who won't confess his crime is not contrite. Saying that you are sorry is an act of contrition.

Answer 189

(Adjective) Artificial; labored Sam's acting was contrived: no one in the audience believed his character or enjoyed his performance. The artist was widely admired for her originality, but her paintings seemed contrived to me. A contrivance is a mechanical device, usually something rigged up.

Answer 190

(Adjective) Common; customary; unexceptional Tipping the waiter in a restaurant is a conventional courtesy. Conventional wisdom is what everyone thinks.

Answer 191

(Adjective) Fond of partying; festive A convivial gathering is one in which the people present enjoy eating, drinking, and being together. To be convivial is to be an eager but generally well-behaved party animal

Answer 192

(Adjective) abundant; plentiful Matt had a copious supply of nails in his workshop. Everywhere you stepped, it seemed, there was a pile of nails.

Answer 193

(Noun) Something that follows; a natural consequence In mathematics, a corollary is a law that can be deduced without further proof from a law that has already been proven. Bloodshed and death are corollaries of any declaration of war.

Answer 194

(Verb) To confirm; to back up with evidence The police could find no evidence of theft and thus could not corroborate Greg's claim that he had been robbed.

Answer 195

(Adjective) At home in many places or situations; internationally sophisticated A truly cosmopolitan traveler never feels like a foreigner anywhere on earth. New York is a cosmopolitan city; you can hear nearly every language spoken there

Answer 196

(Noun) Face; facial expression, especially an encouraging one Ed's harsh words belief his countenance, which was kind and encouraging. Countenance can also be a verb. To countenance something is to condone it or tolerate it

Answer 197

(Noun) A brilliant victory or accomplishment; the violent overthrow of a government by a small internal group Winning a gold-medal at the Olympics was a real coup for the 50-year-old man. In the attempted coup in the Philippines, some army officers tried to take over the government. The full name for this type of coup is coup d'état. A coup de grace is a final blow or a concluding event.

Answer 198

(Noun) A solemn agreement; a contract; a pledge We signed a covenant never to drive our father's car without permission again.

Answer 199

(Adjective) Secret; hidden To be covert is to be covered Covert activities are secret activities. The opposite of covert is overt. Overt means open or unconcealed

Answer 200

(Verb) To wish for enviously To covet thy neighbors wife is to want thy neighbor's wife for thyself To be covetous is to be envious

Answer 201

(Adjective) Eager to believe; gullible The credulous housewife believed that she had win a million dollars through an email scam. Credulous should not be confused with credible. To be credible is to be believable. Almost anything, however incredible, is credible to a credulous person. A story that cannot be believed is incredible. If you don't believe that story someone just told you, you are incredulous. If something is credible, it may gain credence, which means belief or intellectual acceptance. Another similar word is creditable, which means worthy of credit or praise

Answer 202

(Noun) Standard; basis for judgment In choosing among the linemen, the most important criterion was quickness.

Answer 203

(Adjective) Mysterious; mystifying Julie's remarks were cryptic; Jerry was baffled by what she said.

Answer 204

(Adjective) Relating to cooking or the kitchen

Answer 205

(Verb) To climax; to reach full effect Jills years of practice culminated in a great victory at the international juggling championship. The masquerade ball was the culmination of our fund-raising efforts.

Answer 206

(Adjective) Deserving blame; guilty

Answer 207

(Adjective) Hasty; superficial To give a book a cursory reading is to skim it quickly without comprehending much.

Answer 208

(Verb) To shorten; to cut short

Answer 209

(Noun) One who deeply distressed human nature; one who believes humans are motivated only by selfishness When the popstar give $1 million to the museum, cynics said he was merely trying to buy himself a reputation as a cultured person.

Answer 210

(Verb) To make fearful; to intimidate The steepness of the mountain daunted the team of amateur climbers, because they had not realized what they were in for. To be dauntless or undaunted is to be fearless or unintimidated.

Answer 211

(Noun) Lack; scarcity When there is a dearth of food, many people may starve.

Answer 212

(Noun) Violent breakdown; sudden overthrow; overwhelming defeat A political debate would become a debacle if the candidates began screaming and throwing dinner rolls at each other

Answer 213

(Noun) Wild living; excessive intemperance To debauch is to seduce or corrupt. Someone who is debauched has been seduced or corrupted.

Answer 214

(Verb) To weaken; to cripple The football player's career was ended by a debilitating injury to his knee. To become debilitated is to suffer a debility, which is the opposite of an ability

Answer 215

(Adjective) Decaying or decayed, especially in terms of morals A person who engages in decadent behavior is a person whose morals have decayed or fallen into ruin.

Answer 216

(Verb) To kill or destroy a large part of

Answer 217

(Adjective) Proper; in good taste; orderly Decorous behavior is good, polite, orderly behavior. To behave decorously is to behave with decorum.

Answer 218

(Verb) To conclude from the evidence; to infer To deduce something is to conclude it without being told it directly. From the footprints on the ground, Clarice deduced that the criminal had feet.

Answer 219

(Verb) To libel or slander; to ruin the good name of To defame someone is to make accusations that harm the person's reputation. To defame is to take away fame, to take away a good name. To suffer such a loss of reputation is to suffer defamation.

Answer 220

(Noun) Submission to another's will; respect; courtesy To show deference to another is to place that person's wishes ahead of your own. To show deference is also to be deferential

Answer 221

(Adjective) Conclusive; providing the last word

Answer 222

(Verb) To breakdown; to deteriorate A person whose behavior has degenerated can be referred to as a degenerate Degenerate could also be an adjective, meaning degenerated.

Answer 223

(Adjective) Harmful

Answer 224

(Verb) To describe accurately; to draw an outline After Jack had delineated his plan, we had no doubt about what he intended to do. The portrait artist delineated Sarah's features then filled in the shading.

Answer 225

(Verb) To deceive The ConMan deluded us into thinking that he would make us rich. To be deluded is to suffer from a delusion.

Answer 226

(Noun) A flood; an inundation A deluge is a flood, but the word is often used figuratively.

Answer 227

(Noun) A leader who uses prejudice to get more power A demagogue is a leader, but not in a good sense of the word. She manipulates the public to support her aims, but she is little different from a dictator. A demagogue is often a despot. The methods a demagogue uses are demagoguery or demagogy.

Answer 228

(Noun) Inhabitant To be a denizen of a country is to live there. A citizen of a country is usually also a denizen. To be a denizen of a restaurant is to go there often, so often that people begin to wonder whether you live there.

Answer 229

(Noun) Extreme wickedness or corruption The teacher wondered whether the depravity of her class of eight-year-olds was the result of their watching Saturday morning television. To exhibit depravity is to be depraved.

Answer 230

(Verb) To express disapproval of To deprecate a colleague's work is to risk making yourself unwelcome in your colleague's office. The critic's deprecating comments about my new novel put me in a bad mood. To be self-deprecating is to belittle one's own efforts.

Answer 231

(Verb) To ridicule; to laugh at contemptuously The boss derided her secretary mercilessly, so she quit her job.

Answer 232

(Adjective) Disapproving; degrading Derogatory remarks are negative remarks expressing disapproval. They are nastier than merely critical remarks.

Answer 233

(Verb) To dry out Plums become prunes through a process of desiccation.

Answer 234

(Adjective) Extremely depressed; full of despair The team fell into despondency after losing the state championship game by a single point.

Answer 235

(Noun) An absolute ruler; an autocrat The island kingdom was ruled by a ruthless despot who executed suspected rebels at noon each day in the village Square

Answer 236

(Adjective) Extremely poor; utterly lacking Destitute people are people without money or possessions, or with very little money and very few possessions. To be left destitute is to be left without money or property. The word can also be used figuratively. A teacher might accuse her students of being intellectually destitute.

Answer 237

(Adjective) Without a plan or purpose; disconnected; random Bob made a few desultory attempts to start a garden, but nothing came of them. The discussion at our meeting was desultory; no one's comments seemed to bear any relation to anyone else's.

Answer 238

(Adjective) Skillful; adroit Dexterous often, but not always, connotes physical ability. Like adroit, it comes from the Latin word for right because right-handed people were once considered physically and mentally superior. The word can also be spelled dexterous. Dexterity is the noun form. For an antonym, see gauche.

Answer 239

(Adjective) Relating to discussions; relating to the rules and methods of reasoning; approaching truth in the middle of opposing extremes The game of 20 questions is dialectical, in that the participants attempt to narrow down a chosen object by asking a series of ever more specific questions The noun is dialectic.

Answer 240

(Noun) An authoritative saying; an adage; a maxim; a proverb "No pain, no gain" is a hackneyed dictum of sadistic coaches everywhere.

Answer 241

(Adjective) Intended to teach; morally instructive; pedantic The priest was always didactic. He never said anything that was not intended to teach a lesson.

Answer 242

(Adjective) Timid; lacking in self-confidence Diffident and confident are opposites. The diffident student never made a single comment in class.

Answer 243

(Verb) To stray from the main subject Speaking metaphorically, to digress is to leave the main highway in order to travel aimlessly on back roads.. When a speaker digresses, she departs from the main topic and tells a story only distantly related to it. Such a story is called a digression.

Answer 244

(Noun) Someone with superficial knowledge of the arts; an amateur; a dabbler To be a dilettante is to dabble in something rather than doing it in a serious way. Becky said she was an artist, but she was merely a dilettante; she did not know a pencil from a paintbrush.

Answer 245

(Verb) To have insight; to see things clearly; to discriminate; to differentiate To discern something is to perceive it clearly. A writer whose work demonstrates discernment is a writer who is a keen observer.

Answer 246

(Adjective) Prudent; judiciously reserved To make discreet inquiries is to ask around without letting the whole world know you are doing it. He had discretion. To be indiscreet is to be imprudent and especially to say or do things you should not.

Answer 247

(Adjective) Unconnected; separate; distinct Do not confuse discrete with discreet. The drop in the stock market was not the result of any single force but of many discrete trends. When things are all jumbled up together, they are said to be indiscrete, which means not separated or sorted.

Answer 248

(Verb) To notice or point out the difference between two or more things; to discern; to differentiate A person with a refined aesthetic sense is able to discriminate subtle differences where a less observant person would see nothing. Such a person is discriminating. This kind of discrimination is a good thing. To discriminate unfairly, though, is to dwell on differences that should not make a difference. It is unfair, and illegal, to discriminate between black people and white people in selling a house. Such a practice is not discriminating, but discriminatory. Indiscriminate means not discriminating; in other words random or haphazard.

Answer 249

(Noun) Arrogant scorn; contempt The snobbish millionaire looked upon the poor workers with evident disdain. Distain can also be a verb.

Answer 250

(Adjective) Not taking sides; unbiased Disinterested should not be used to mean uninterested. If you do not care about something, you are uninterested, not disinterested. A referee should be disinterested. He should not be rooting for one of the competing teams.

Answer 251

(Verb) To belittle; to say uncomplementary things about, usually in a somewhat indirect way My guidance counselor disparaged my high school record by telling me that not everybody belongs in college.

Answer 252

(Adjective) Different; incompatible; unequal Our interests were disparate: Cathy liked to play with dolls, and I liked to throw her dolls out the window. The noun form of disparate is disparity. Disparity means inequality. The opposite of disparity is parity.

Answer 253

(Verb) To spread the seeds of something; to scatter; to make widely known News is disseminated through many media: Internet, radio, television, newspapers, magazines, and gossips.

Answer 254

(Verb) To thin out, drift away, or dissolve; to cause to thin out, drift away, or dissolve; to waste or squander The smoke dissipated as soon as we open the windows. The police dissipated the riotous crowd by spraying the demonstrators with fire hoses and firing rubber bullets. Cathy won the weekly lottery but dissipated the entire winnings in one abandoned, fun-filled weekend. We can also say that a person is dissipated, by which we mean that she indulges in wild living. Cathy is dissipated.

Answer 255

(Verb) To swell; to extend a great deal A distended belly is one symptom of malnutrition. A swelling is a distention.

Answer 256

(Verb) To tell apart; to cause to stand out The rodent expert's eyesight was so acute that he was able to distinguish between a shrew and a vole at more than 1000 paces.

Answer 257

(Adjective) Easily taught; obedient; easy to handle The baby raccoons appeared docile at first, but they proved almost impossible to control.

Answer 258

(Adjective) Inflexibly committed to a doctrine or theory without regard to its practicality; dogmatic A doctrinaire opponent of fluoridation of water would be someone whose opposition could not be shaken by proof that fluoride is good for teeth and not bad for anything else.

Answer 259

(Adjective) Arrogantly assertive of unproven ideas; stubbornly claiming that something (often a system of beliefs) is beyond dispute A dogma is a belief. A dogmatic person, however, is stubbornly convinced of her beliefs. Ted is dogmatic on the subject of creationism. He dismisses any views inconsistent with his belief.

Answer 260

(Adjective) Having to do with the household or family; not foreign A home that enjoys domestic tranquility is a happy home. The domestic steel industry is the steel industry in this country.

Answer 261

(Adjective) Inactive; as though asleep; asleep Dormant, like dormitory, comes from a root meaning sleep. Many plants remain dormant through the winter; that is, they stop growing until spring.

Answer 262

(Adjective) Full of doubt; uncertain We were dubious about the team's chance of success and, as it turned out, our dubiety was justified: the team lost. Dubious and doubtful do not mean exactly the same thing. A dubious person is a person who has doubts. A doubtful outcome is an outcome that is not certain to occur. Becky's chance of getting the job were doubtful because the employer was dubious of her claim that she had been president of United States while in high school. Something beyond doubt is indubitable. A dogmatic person believes her opinions are indubitable.

Answer 263

(Noun) The act of being two-faced; double-dealing; deception The duplicitous salesman sold the red sports car to someone else even though she had promised to sell it to us.

Answer 264

(Adjective) Boiling; bubbling with excitement; exuberant A boiling liquid can be called ebullient. More often, though, this word describes excited or enthusiastic people. The roaring crowd in a full stadium before the World Series might be said to be ebullient.

Answer 265

(Adjective) Not conventional; a little kooky; irregular Betsy's political views are eccentric: she believes that we should have kings instead of presidents and that the government should raise money by holding bake sales. An eccentric person is a person who has eccentricities.

Answer 266

(Adjective) Choosing the best from many sources; drawn from many sources Peter's taste in art was eclectic. He liked the Old Masters, the Impressionist panel and Walt Disney.

Answer 267

(Verb) To enlighten; to instruct, especially in moral or religious matters The teacher's goal was to edify her students, not to force a handful of facts down their throats.

Answer 268

(Verb) To erase; to rub away the features of The inscription on the tombstone had been effaced by centuries of weather. To be self-effacing is to be modest.

Answer 269

(Noun) A pouring forth When the child was rescued from the well, there was an intense effusion of emotion from the crowd that had gathered around the hole.

Answer 270

(Adjective) Believing in the social and economic equality of all people People often lose interest in egalitarian measures when such measures interfere with their own interest.

Answer 271

(Adjective) Selfish; believing that one is the center of everything It never occurred to the egocentric musician that her audiences might like to hear someone else's songs every once in a while. And egotist is another type of egocentric. An egotist is an egoist who tells everyone how wonderful she is.

Answer 272

(Adjective) Extremely bad; flagrant Save this word for things that are worse than bad. The mother's egregious neglect was responsible for her child's accidental cross-country ride on the freight train.

Answer 273

(Verb) To bring out; to call forth The defendant try to elicit the sympathy of the jury by appearing at the trial in a wheelchair, but the jury convicted her anyway. Don't confuse this word with illicit.

Answer 274

(Adjective) Oval; missing a word or words; obscure This word has several meanings. The orbit of the earth is not perfectly round; it is elliptical. An elliptical statement is one that is hard or impossible to understand, either because something is missing from it or because the speaker or writer is trying to be hard to understand. The announcement from the State Department was purposely elliptical-the government did not really want reporters to know what was going on

Answer 275

(Adjective) Hard to pin down; evasive To be elusive is to elude, which means to avoid, evade, or escape. The answer to the problem was elusive; every time the mathematician thought he was close, he discovered another error.

Answer 276

(Verb) To leave a country permanently; to expatriate The Soviet dissidents were persecuted by the secret police, so they sought permission to emigrate. At the heart of this word is the word migrate, which means to move from one place or country to another. Emigrate add to migrate the sense of moving out of someplace in particular. On the other end of every emigration is an immigration.

Answer 277

(Adjective) Well-known and respected; standing out from all others in quality or accomplishment; outstanding

Answer 278

(Adjective) Relying on experience or observation; not merely theoretical The Apple-dropping experiment gave the scientists empirical evidence that gravity exist.

Answer 279

(Verb) To strive to equal or excel, usually through imitation The American company emulated its successful Japanese competitor but it never quite managed to do as well.

Answer 280

(Verb) To make gradual or stealthy inroads into; to trespass My neighbor encroached on my yard by building his new stockade fence a few feet on my side of the property line.

Answer 281

(Adjective) Native; restricted to a particular region or area You will not find that kind of tree in California; it is endemic to our part of the country.

Answer 282

(Verb) To reduce the strength or energy of, especially to do so gradually

Answer 283

(Verb) To grant the privileges of citizenship, especially the right to vote To disfranchise (or disenfranchise) someone is to take away the privileges of citizenship or to take away the right to vote.

Answer 284

(Verb) To bring into existence; to create; to cause My winning lottery ticket engendered a great deal of envy among my co-workers; they all wished that they had won.

Answer 285

(Noun) A mystery Ben is an enigma; he never does any homework but he always gets good grades The wizard spoke in riddles and enigmas, and no one could understand what he was saying.

Answer 286

(Noun) Extreme evil; a hideous offense; immensity Hitler's soldiers stormed through the village, committing one enormity after another. "Hugeness" or "great size" is not the main meaning of enormity. When you want to talk about the gigantic size of something, use immensity instead.

Answer 287

(Adjective) Lasting a very short time

Answer 288

(Noun) A brief and usually witty or satirical saying People often find it difficult to remember the difference between an epigram and an: Epigraph: an apt quotation placed at the beginning of a book for essay Epitaph: a commemorative inscription on a grave Epithet: a term used to characterize the nature of something; sometimes a disparaging term used to describe a person

Answer 289

(Noun) A brief summary that captures the meaning of the whole; the perfect example of something; a paradigm Bob's freshman year was the epitome of a college experience; he made friends, joined a fraternity, and ate too much pizza.

Answer 290

(Noun) Composure; calm The entire apartment building was crumbling, but Rachael faced the disaster with equanimity. She ducked out of the way of a falling beam and continued searching for an exit.

Answer 291

(Adjective) Fair

Answer 292

(Adjective) Ambiguous; intentionally confusing; capable of being interpreted in more than one way Joe's response was equivocal; we could not tell whether he meant yes or no, which is precisely what Joe wanted. To be equivocal is to equivocate. To equivocate is to mislead by saying confusing or ambiguous things.

Answer 293

(Adjective) Scholarly; deeply learned The professor said such erudite things that none of us had the slightest idea of what he was saying. To be erudite is to possess erudition, or extensive knowledge

Answer 294

(Adjective) Hard to understand; understood by only a select few; peculiar The author's books were so esoteric that even his mother did not buy any of them.

Answer 295

(Verb) To support; to advocate

Answer 296

(Adjective) Heavenly; as light and insubstantial as a gas or ether The ethereal music we heard turned out to be not angels plucking on their harps but the wind blowing through the slats of the metal awning.

Answer 297

(Noun) A pleasant or inoffensive expression used in place of an unpleasant or offensive one

Answer 298

(Adjective) Fleeting; vanishing; happening for only the briefest period

Answer 299

(Verb) To make worse

Answer 300

(Adjective) Extremely demanding; difficult; requiring great skill or care The exacting math teacher subtracted points if you did not show every step of your work. The surgeon's exacting task was to reconnect the patient's severed eyelid.

Answer 301

(Verb) To raise high; to glorify The adjective exalted is used frequently. Being queen of England is an exalted occupation.

Answer 302

(Verb) To annoy thoroughly; to make very angry; to try the patience of The child's insistence on hopping backwards on 1 foot exasperated her mother, who was in a hurry.

Answer 303

(Verb) To illustrate by example; to serve as a good example An exemplar is an ideal model or a paradigm. Exemplary means outstanding or worthy of imitation.

Answer 304

(Adjective) Thorough; rigorous; complete; painstaking

Answer 305

(Verb) To urge strongly; to give a serious warning to The coach used his bullhorn to exhort us to try harder. The adjective is hortatory (HOR tuh tor ee)

Answer 306

(Noun) An emergency; an urgency Exigent means urgent.

Answer 307

(Adjective) Having to do with existence; having to do with the body of thought called existentialism, which basically holds that human beings are responsible for their own actions but is otherwise too complicated to summarize in a single sentence This word is overused but under-understood by virtually all of the people who use it. Unless you have a very good reason for throwing it around, you should probably avoid it.

Answer 308

(Verb) To free completely from blame; to exculpate

Answer 309

(Verb) To throw (someone) out of his or her native land; to move away from one's native land; to emigrate To repatriate is to return to one's native citizenship

Answer 310

(Adjective) Providing an immediate advantage; serving one's immediate self-interest; practical

Answer 311

(Verb) To speed up or ease the progress of

Answer 312

(Adjective) Clearly and directly expressed Implicit means indirectly expressed or implied.

Answer 313

(Verb) To praise highly; to laud

Answer 314

(Adjective) Unnecessary; irrelevant; extra To be extraneous is to be extra and always with the sense of being unnecessary.

Answer 315

(Verb) To project or deduce from something known; to infer

Answer 316

(Verb) to free from difficulty It took two days to extricate the little girl from the abandoned well into which she had fallen. Something that is permanently stuck is inextricable

Answer 317

(Noun) An open, outgoing person; a person whose attention is focused on others rather than on himself An introvert is a person whose attention is directed inward and who is concerned with little outside himself.

Answer 318

(Verb) To rejoice; to celebrate The team exulted in its victory at the finals. They were exultant.

Answer 319

(Noun) Something made up

Answer 320

(Adjective) Humorous; not serious; clumsily humorous

Answer 321

(Adjective) Fluent; skillful in a superficial way; easy To say that a writer's style is facile is to say both that it is skillful and that it would be better if the writer exerted herself more. The word facile almost always contains this sense of superficiality. Becky's poems are facile rather than truly accomplished; if you read them closely, you soon realize they are filled with clichés.

Answer 322

(Noun) A group, usually a small part of a larger group, united around some cause; disagreement within an organization

Answer 323

(Adjective) Absurd; ludicrous Farcical means like a farce, which is a mockery or a ridiculous satire.

Answer 324

(Adjective) Meticulous; demanding; finicky

Answer 325

(Noun) Someone who believes that future events are already determined and that humans are powerless to change them Fatalist is closely related to the word fate. A fatalist is someone who believes that fate determines everything.

Answer 326

(Adjective) Foolish; silly; idiotic Pauline is so pretty that her suitors are often driven to fatuous acts of devotion. They are infatuated with her.

Answer 327

(Noun) Animals

Answer 328

(Adjective) Fertile; productive The state of being fecund is fecundity