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69 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Abjure |
To renounce or reject solemnly, to recant; to avoid |
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Adumbrate |
To foreshadow vaguely or intimate; to suggest or outline sketchily; to obscure or overshadow |
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Anathema |
A solemn or ecclesiastical (religious) curse; accursed or thoroughly loathed person or thing |
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Anodyne |
Soothing; something that assuages pain or comforts |
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Apogee |
Farthest or highest point; culmination |
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Apostate |
One who abandons long-held religious or political convictions |
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Apotheosis |
Deification, glorification to godliness, an exalted example, a model of excellence or perfection |
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Asperity |
Severity, rigor, roughness, harshness, acrimony, irritability |
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Asserverate |
To aver, allege, assert |
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Assiduous |
Diligent, hard-working, sedulous |
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Augury |
Omen |
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Bellicose |
Belligerent, war-like, pugnacious |
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Calumniate |
To slander, to make a false accusation (calumny means slander) |
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Captious |
Disposed to point out trivial faults; calculated to confuse or entrap in argument |
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Cavil |
To find fault without good reason. |
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Celerity |
To speed, alacrity (think "accelerate") |
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Chimera |
An illusion |
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Contumacious |
Insubordinate, rebellious (contumely means insult, scorn) |
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Debacle |
Rout, fiasco, complete failure |
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Denouement |
An outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot |
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Descry |
To discriminate or discern |
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Desuetude |
Disuse; the condition of being not in use or practice |
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Desultory |
Random; aimless; marked by a lack of plan or purpose. |
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Diaphanous |
Transparent; gauzy; esp of fabric, light, delicate, translucent |
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Diffident |
Reserved, shy, unassuming, lacking self-confidence |
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Dirge |
A song of grief or lamentation |
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Encomium |
Glowing and enthusiastic praise, tribute, eulogy |
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Eschew |
To shun or avoid |
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Excoriate |
To censure or criticize severely |
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Execrate |
To denounce, to feel loathing for, to curse, to declare to be evil |
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Exegesis |
Critical examination, explication |
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Expiate |
To make amends for |
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Extirpate |
To destroy, to exterminate, to cut out, to exscind |
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Fatuous |
Silly, foolish |
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Fractious |
Quarrelsome, rebellious, unruly, irritable |
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Gainsay |
To deny, dispute, contradict, oppose |
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Heterodox |
Unorthodox, heretical, iconoclastic |
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Imbroglio |
Difficult or embarrassing situation |
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Indefatigable |
Not easily exhaustible, tireless |
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Ineluctable |
Certain, inevitable |
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Inimitable |
One of a kind, peerless |
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Insouciant |
Unconcerned, carefree, heedless |
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Inveterate |
Deep, rooted, ingrained, habitual |
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Jejune |
Naive, simplistic, superficial, childish, immature; uninteresting |
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Lubricious |
Greasy, slippery |
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Mendicant |
A beggar |
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Meretricious |
Cheap, gaudy, flashy, showy; attracting by false show |
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Minatory |
Threatening, manacing |
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Nadir |
the lowest point in the fortunes of a person or organization |
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Nonplussed |
Baffled, bewildered, at a loss for what to do or think |
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Obstreperous |
Noisily and stubbornly defiant, aggressively boisterous |
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Ossified |
Tending to become more rigid, conventional, sterile, and reactionary with age (literally turning into bone) |
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Palliate |
To make something seem less serious, severe or intense |
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Panegyric |
Formal praise, eulogy |
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Parsimonious |
Cheap, stingy, unwilling to spend money |
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Pellucid |
Transparent, easy to understand, limpid |
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Peroration |
The concluding part of a speech, flowery, rhetorical speech |
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Plangent |
Pounding, thundering, resounding |
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Prolix |
Using too many words, verbose, lengthy, long-winded |
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Propitiate |
To appease, conciliate (propitious means favourable) |
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Puerile |
Childish, immature, jejune, nugatory |
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Puissance |
Power, strength (puissant means powerful and strong) |
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Pussillanimous |
Cowardly |
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Remonstrate |
To protest, object |
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Sagacious |
Having sounds judgement, perceptive, wise |
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Salacious |
Lustful and sexual; bawdy |
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Sanguine |
Cheerful, confident, optimistic |
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Salutary |
Remidial, wholesome, causing improvement |
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Saturnine |
Gloomy, dark, sullen, morose |