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77 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
Abjure (verb)
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to renounce or reject solemnly; to recant; to avoid
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Adumbrate (verb)
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to foreshadow vaguely or intimate; to suggest or outline sketchily; to obscure or overshadow
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Anathema (noun)
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a solemn or ecclesiastical (religious) curse; accursed or thoroughly loathed person or thing
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Anodyne (adj.)/(noun)
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soothing; something that assuages or allays pain or comforts
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Apogee (noun)
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farthest or highest point; culmination; zenith
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Apostate (noun)
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one who abandons long-held religious or political conventions
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Apotheosis (noun)
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deification; glorification to godliness; an exalted example; a model of excellence or perfection
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Asperity (noun)
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severity; rigor; roughness; harshness; acrimony, irritability
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Asseverate (verb)
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to aver, allege, or assert
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Assiduous (adj.)
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diligent, hard-working, sedulous
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Augury (noun)
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omen, portent
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Bellicose (adj.)
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belligerent, pugnacious, warlike
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Calumniate (verb)
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to slander, to make false accusation; calumny means slander, aspersion
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Captious (adj.)
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disposed to point out trivial faults; calculated to confuse or entrap in argument
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Cavil (verb)
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to find fault without good reason
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Celerity (noun)
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speed, alacrity; think accelerate
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Chimera (noun)
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an illusion; originally, an imaginary fire-breathing she-monster
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Contumacious (adj.)
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insubordinate; rebellious; contumely means insult, scorn, aspersion
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Denouement (noun)
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an outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot
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Descry (verb)
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to discriminate or discern
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Desuetude (noun)
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disuse
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Desultory (adj.)
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random; aimless; marked by a lack of plan or purpose
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Diaphanous (adj.)
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transparent, gauzy
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Diffident (adj.)
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reserved, shy, unassuming; lacking in self-confidence
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Dirge (noun)
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a song of grief or lamentation
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Encomium (noun)
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glowing and enthusiastic praise; panegyric, tribute, eulogy
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Eschew (verb)
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to shun or avoid
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Excoriate (verb)
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to censure scathingly, to upbraid
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Execrate (verb)
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to denounce, to feel loathing for, to curse, to declare to be evil
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Exegesis (noun)
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critical examination, explication
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Expiate (verb)
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to atone or make amends for
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Extirpate (verb)
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to destroy, to exterminate, to cut out, to exscind
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Fatuous (adj.)
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silly, inanely foolish
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Fractious (adj.)
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quarrelsome, rebellious, unruly, refractory, irritable
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Gainsay (verb)
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to deny, to dispute, to contradict, to oppose
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Heterodox (adj.)
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unorthodox, heretical, iconoclastic
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Imbroglio (noun)
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difficult or embarrassing situation
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Indefatigable (adj.)
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not easily exhaustible; tireless, dogged
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Ineluctable (adj.)
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certain, inevitable
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Inimitable (adj.)
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one of a kind, peerless
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Insouciant (adj.)
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unconcerned, carefree, heedless
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Inveterate (adj.)
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deep rooted, ingrained, habitual
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Jejune (adj.)
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vapid, uninteresting, nugatory; childish, immature, puerile
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Lubricious (adj.)
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lewd, wanton, greasy, slippery
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Mendicant (noun)
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a beggar, supplicant
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Meretricious (adj.)
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cheap, gaudy, tawdry, flashy, showy; attracting by false show
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Minatory (adj.)
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menacing, threatening (reminds you of the Minotaur, a threatening creature indeed)
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Nadir (noun)
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low point, perigee
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Nonplussed (adj.)
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baffled, bewildered, at a loss for what to do or think
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Obstreperous (adj.)
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noisy and stubbornly defiant, aggressively boisterous
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Ossified (adj.)
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tending to become more rigid, conventional, sterile, and reactionary with age; literally, turned into bone
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Palliate (verb)
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to make something seem less serious, to gloss over, to make less severe or intense
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Panegyric (noun)
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formal praise, eulogy, encomium; panegyrical means expressing elaborate praise
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Encomium
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Parsimonious (adj.)
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cheap, miserly
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Pellucid (adj.)
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transparent, easy to understand, limpid
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Peroration (noun)
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the concluding part of a speech; flowery, rhetorical speech
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Plangent (adj.)
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pounding, thundering, resounding
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Prolix (adj.)
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long-winded, verbose; prolixity means verbosity
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Propitiate (verb)
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to appease; to conciliate; propitious means auspicious, favorable
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Puerile (adj.)
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childish, immature, jejune, nugatory
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Jejune
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Puissance (noun)
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power, strength; puissant means powerful, strong
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Pusillanimous (adj.)
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cowardly, craven
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Remonstrate (verb)
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to protest, to object
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Sagacious (adj.)
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having sound judgement; perceptive, wise; like a sage
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Salacious (adj.)
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lustful, lascivious, bawdy
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Salutary (adj.)
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remedial, wholesome, causing improvement
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Sanguine (adj.)
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cheerful, confident, optimistic
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Saturnine (adj.)
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gloomy, dark, sullen, morose
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Sententious (adj.)
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aphoristic or moralistic; epigrammatic; tending to moralize excessively
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Stentorian (adj.)
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extremely loud and powerful
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Stygian (adj.)
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gloomy, dark
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Saturnine
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Sycophant (noun)
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toady, servile, self-seeking flatterer; parasite
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Tendentious (adj.)
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biased; showing marked tendencies
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Timorous (adj.)
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timid, fearful, diffident
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Tyro (noun)
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novice, greenhorn, rank amateur
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Vitiate (verb)
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to corrupt, to debase, to spoil, to make ineffective
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Voluble (adj.)
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fluent, verbal, having easy use of spoken language
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