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78 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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abjure
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to renounce or reject solemnly; to recant; to avoid
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adumbrate
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to foreshadow vaguely or intimate; to suggest or outline sketchily
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anathema
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a solemn or ecclesiastical (religious) curse; accursed or thoroughly loathed person or thing
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anodyne
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soothing, something that assuages or allays pain or comforts
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apogee
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farthest or highest point; culmination; zenith
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apostate
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one who abandons long-held religious or political conventions
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apotheosis
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deification, glorification to godliness, a model of excellence or perfection
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asperity
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severity, rigor; roughness, harshness; acrimony
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asseverate
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to aver, allege, assert
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assiduous
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diligent, hard-working, sedulous
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augury
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omen, portent
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bellicose
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beligerent, pugnacious, warlike
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calumniate
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to slander, make a false accusation; calumny means slander
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captious
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disposed to point out trivial faults, calculated to conuse or entrap in argument
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cavil
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to find fault without good reason
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celerity
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speed, alacrity; think accelerate!
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chimera
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an illusion; originally, an imaginary fire-breathing she-monster
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contumacious
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insubordinate, rebellious
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debacle
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rout, fiasco, complete failure
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denouement
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an outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot
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descry
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to discriminate or discern
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desuetude
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disuse
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desultory
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random; aimless; marked by a lack of plan or purpose
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diaphanous
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transparent; gauzy
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diffident
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reserved, shy, unassuming, lacking in self-confidence
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dirge
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a song of grief or lamentation
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encomium
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glowng and enthusiastic praise; panegyric, tribute
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eschew
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to shun or avoid
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excoriate
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to censure scathingly, to upbraid
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execrate
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denounce, feel loathing for, curse
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exegesis
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critical examination, explication
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expiate
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to atone or make amends for
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extirpate
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to destroy; exterminate; cut out
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fatuous
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silly, inanely foolish
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fractious
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quarrelsome, rebelliuos, unruly
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gainsay
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to deny, dispute, contradict, oppose
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heterodox
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unorthodox, heretical, iconoclastic
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imbroglio
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difficult or embarassing situation
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indefatigable
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not easily exhaustible; tireless, dogged
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ineluctable
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certain, inevitable
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inimitable
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one of a kind, peerless
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insouciant
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unconcerned, carefree, heedless
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inveterate
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deep rooted, ingrained, habitual
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jejune
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vapid, uninteresting, nugatory, childish, immature
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lubricious
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lewd, wanton, greasy, slippery
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mendicant
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a beggar, supplicant
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meretricious
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cheap, gaudy, tawdry, flashy
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minatory
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menacing, threatening (Minotaur)
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nadir
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low point, perigee
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nonplussed
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baffled, bewildered, at a loss for what to do or think
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obstreperous
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noisily and stubbornly defiant, aggressively boisterous
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ossified
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tending to become more rigid, conventional, sterile, and reactionary with age
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palliate
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to make something seem less serious, to gloss over, to make less severe or intense
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panegyric
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formal praise, eulogy, encomium
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parsimonious
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cheap, miserly
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pellucid
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transparent, easy to understand, limpid
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peroration
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the concluding part of a speech; flowery, rhetorical speech
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plangent
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pounding, thundering, resounding
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prolix
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long-winded, verbose; prolixity means verbosity
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propitiate
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to appease; to conciliate; propitious means favorable
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puerile
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childish, immature, jejune, nugatory
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puissance
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power, strength
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pusillanimous
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cowardly, craven
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remonstrate
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to protest, object
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sagacious
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having sound judgment, perceptive, wise like a sage
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salacious
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lustful, lascivious, bawdy
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salutary
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remedial, wholesome, causing improvement
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sanguine
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cheerful, confident, optimistic
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saturnine
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gloomy, dark, sullen, morose
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sententious
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aphoristic or moralistic; epigrammatic
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stentorian
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extremely loud and powerful
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stygian
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gloomy, dark
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sycophant
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toady, servile, self-seeking flatterer; parasite
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tendentious
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biased; showing marked tendencies
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timorous
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timid, fearful, diffident
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tyro
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novice, greenhorn, rank amateur
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vitiate
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to corrupt, debase, spoil, make ineffective
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voluble
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fluent, verval, having easy use of spoken language
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