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30 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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trepidation
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fear; trembling agitation ;
We must face the enemy without trepidation if we are to win this battle. |
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appease
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pacify; soothe;
We have discovered that, when we try to appease our enemies, we encourage them to make additional demands. |
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incapacitate
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disable; ;
During the winter, many people were incapacitated by respiratory ailments. |
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retain
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keep; employ ;
Fighting to retain his seat in Congress, Senator Foghorn retained a new manager to head his reelection campaign. |
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demean
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degrade; humiliate ;
He felt that he would demean himself if he replied to the scurrilous letter. |
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fulminate
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thunder; explode ;
The people against whom she fulminated were innocent of any wrongdoing. |
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levee
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earthen or stone embankment to prevent flooding ; ;
As the river rose and threatened to overflow the levee, emergency workers rushed to reinforce the walls with sandbags. |
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opulence
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extreme wealth; luxuriousness; abundance
The glitter and opulence of the ballroom took Cinderella's breath away. |
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venue
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location; ;
The attorney asked for a change of venue; he thought his client would do better if the trial were held in a less conservative county. |
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egress
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exit; ;
Barnum's sign %22To the Egress%22 fooled many people who thought they were going to see an animal and instead found themselves in the street. |
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surreptitious
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secret ; ;
News of their surreptitious meeting gradually leaked out. |
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adversary
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opponent; enemy ;
Batman struggled to save Gotham City from the machinations of his wicked adversary, the Joker. |
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coincident
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occurring at the same time; ;
Some people find the coincident events in Hardy's novels annoyingly improbable. |
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clarion
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shrill; trumpetlike sound ;
We woke to the clarion to muffle its striking. |
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inanimate
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lifeless; ;
she was asked to identify the still and inanimate body. |
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restive
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restlessly impatient; obstinately resisting control;
Waiting impatiently in the line to see Santa Claus, even the best-behaved children grow restive and start to fidget. |
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integrate
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make whole; combine; make into one unit
She tried to integrate all their activities into one program. |
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paragon
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model of perfection; ;
The class disliked him because the teacher was always pointing him out as a paragon of virtue. |
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scale
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climb up; ascend;
To locate a book on the top shelf of the stacks, Lee had to scale an exceptionally rickety ladder. |
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optician
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maker and seller of eyeglasses ; ;
The patient took the prescription given him by his oculist to the optician. |
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vent
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express; utter;
He vented his wrath on his class. |
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effusion
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pouring forth ; ;
The critics objected to her literary effusion because it was too flowery. |
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caption
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title; chapter heading; text under illustration
I find the captions that accompany these cartoons very clever and humorous. |
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diversion
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act of turning aside; pastime;
After studying for several hours, he needed a diversion from work. |
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hermitage
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home of a hermit; ;
Even in his remote hermitage he could not escape completely from the world. |
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clamber
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climb by crawling; ;
She clambered over the wall. |
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impunity
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freedom from punishment; ;
The bully mistreated everyone in the class with impunity for he felt that no one would dare retaliate. |
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respiration
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breathing; exhalation;
The doctor found that the patient's years of smoking had adversely affected both his lung capacity and his rate of respiration. |
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repertoire
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list of works of music; drama; etc
The opera company decided to include Madame Butterfly in its repertoire for the following season. |
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decimate
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kill; usually one out of ten;
We do more to decimate our population in automobile accidents than we do in war. |
