50/1000 Important Words

Front 1

disingenuous

Back 1

insincere, lacking candor or frankness

Front 2

enmity

Back 2

hostility, antagonism; Latin inimicus (enemy), based on the negative -in and amicus (friend)

Front 3

fallow

Back 3

literally, plowed and unseeded; metaphorically, dormant, inactive, unproductive; also, "pale, yellow, dun", derived from the color of unplowed land; avoid this last use

Front 4

germane

Back 4

relevant, pertinent; Latin germanus (from the same parents)

Front 5

importunate

Back 5

persistent in making requests; Latin importunus (assertive, inconsiderate)

Front 6

jettison

Back 6

the act of throwing cargo overboard to lighten a vessel, and Is also the verb that describes such action; by extension, to jettison is to get rid of any burden, anything unwanted, to discard; Latin jacere (to throw)

Front 7

malleable

Back 7

impressionable; applied to material in manufacture or sculpture, it means "workable, shapable"; figuratively, used to describe people who can be influenced, those with impressionable or tractable mentalities; Latin malleus (hammer)

Front 8

niggardly

Back 8

niggardly people are stingy, loath to part with even the smallest contribution; niggardly things are meanly small or scanty

Front 9

pariah

Back 9

an outcast, a person subjected by society or his immediate circle; Indian language meaning "drummer", which was the hereditary task of a low Indian caste

Front 10

tacitum

Back 10

uncommunicative, inclined to keep silent; the oppose of voluble or garrulous; Latin tacere (to be silent)

Front 11

waft

Back 11

to travel or carry lightly through the air

Front 12

pernicious

Back 12

very injurious; pernicious disease means fatal disease; Latin perniciosus (destructive, ruinous)

Front 13

probity

Back 13

honesty, integrity; Latin probitas (uprightness, honesty)

Front 14

queue

Back 14

as a noun, denotes a line of people waiting to take their turn; to queue is to form a line while waiting turn; Latin coda (tail)

Front 15

risible

Back 15

generally, describes anything pertaining to laughter; its usual meaning is "laughable" or more strongly, "ludicrous"; Latin ridere (to laugh)

Front 16

slew

Back 16

as a noun, a lot of something, an abundance, "oceans"; as a verb, slew is a variant of the more common form slue; Irish sluagh (army, multitude)

Front 17

abdicate

Back 17

to step down, as from a throne, or give something up; Latin abdicare (to renounce, abdicate)

Front 18

antic

Back 18

describes odd or eccentric behavior, amusing gestures, pranks, and capers; Latin anticus (in front, by extension, primitive)

Front 19

belligerent

Back 19

as a noun, means a nation at war; as an adj. means "hostile, bellicose"; Latin belligerare (to wage war)

Front 20

cipher

Back 20

zero; a person with a minimum of personality, a nonentity; a code, a secret method of communication in writing or otherwise; Arabic cifr (zero)

Front 21

cynosure

Back 21

the center of attraction; usually found in the expression "cynosure of all eyes";

Front 22

disparate

Back 22

distinctly different in kind; Latin disparare (to separate)

Front 23

ennui

Back 23

boredom; French, expresses world-weariness and emptiness of feeling, often felt by the "man who has everything"

Front 24

falter

Back 24

to waver, vacilate; to stumble, tooter, to give way; usually means waver or stumble; Icelandic, faltrast means (to be uncertain)

Front 25

googol

Back 25

an astronomical number, the largest that can be expressed in words, used primarily to measure the unimaginable distances of outer space; technically, it is 1 followed by 100 zeros