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305 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Eminent |
famous and respected person |
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Emulate |
match or surpass, typically by imitation |
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Encomium |
formal expression of high praise |
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Endearment |
word or phrase expressing love or affection |
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Enigma |
mysterious; puzzling; difficult to understand |
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Erratic |
irregular; unpredictable; inconsistent; turbulent |
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Erudite |
having or showing great knowledge or learning |
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Anomaly |
something that is not normal; abberation; deviation from the norm |
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Equivocal |
neutral; uncertain; vague; ambiguous |
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Eschew |
to shun or avoid |
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Lucid |
transparent; clear |
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Esoteric |
intended for/ likely to be understood by only small number of people with specialized knowledge/ interest |
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Precipitate |
bring down abruptly |
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Assuage |
to satisfy; pacify |
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Exegesis |
critical examination |
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Exorbitant |
unreasonably high price or amount; inflated |
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Expiate |
to atone or make amends for |
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Extirpate |
to destroy, cutout or tear up by the roots; to destroy completely |
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Facetious |
treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humour |
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Prodigal |
Spending resources recklessly; careless |
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Fervid |
intensely enthusiastic or passionate |
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Fatuous |
silly; foolish |
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Placate |
pacify or gaining goodwill; making terrible situations better |
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Implacable |
Not satisfied, no matter how much they have |
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Zeal |
Cheerful, enthusiastic |
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Fidelity |
faithful; loyal; supportive |
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Abstain |
stay away from something; avoid; restrain |
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Apathy |
absence of feelings |
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Adulterate |
contaminate |
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Fiasco |
a thing that is a complete failure |
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Audacious |
invulnerable to fear; bold; insolent willingness to take bold risks showing a lack of respect |
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Laconic |
brief; to the point |
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Flaunder |
struggle or stagger clumsily |
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Capricious |
impulsive; indecisive; changing very quickly |
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Laudable |
praise; appreciate |
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Fractious |
quarrelsome; rebellious |
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Loquacious |
someone full of trivial conversation; gossiper |
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Fubsy |
short and stout |
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Corroborate |
establish; strengthen; produce or support something |
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Gainsay |
deny, contradict or oppose |
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Mitigate |
reduce the effect of something; trying to reduce the seriousness |
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Dessicate |
lacking passion, or energy |
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Pedant |
bookworm; gives lots of attention to following proper rules a person who makes an excessive display of learning |
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Engender |
generate or give rise to something |
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Gaucherie |
lack of social grace, sensitivity or acuteness |
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Pragmatic |
practical dealing with problems in a reasonable and logical way instead of depending on theories |
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Ephemeral |
short-lived |
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Gonzo |
crazy; filled with bizarre or subjective ideas |
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Propriety |
proper behaviour |
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Gullible |
innocent; naive |
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Vacillate |
waver between different opinions or actions |
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Avaricious |
greedy; covetous; mercernary |
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Volatile |
liable to change rapidly and unpredictably, especially for the worse |
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Gregarious |
fond of company; sociable |
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Guile |
sly or cunning intelligence |
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Guzzle |
eat or drink greedily |
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Harbinger |
person or thing that announces or signals the approach |
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Asperity |
hard-hearted |
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Antipathy |
negative feelings |
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Bolster |
support and strengthen someone |
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Cacophony |
clamor; harsh sound |
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Deride |
mockery; torment; ridicule; express contempt for |
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Dissonance |
conflict of opinion |
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Abhorrence |
hatred; anathema |
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Lethargic |
laziness; couch potato; lack of alertness and energy |
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Malleable |
easily influenced; capable of being shaped or formed; tractable; pliable |
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Salubrious |
healthy; beneficial; salutary |
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Dither |
hesitate; oscillate; teeter; vacillate; waver |
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churlish |
hostile; antithetic; curmudgeon |
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Ignoble |
not honourable in character or purpose |
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Misanthrope |
dislikes people |
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Obdurate |
stubbornly resistant; does not obey anyone; obstinate; inflexible; hard-hearted |
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Ostentation |
showing off; excessive display of wealth |
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Paradox |
statement that contradicts itself |
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Philanthropist |
loves humanity and does lots of things for community; seeking to promote welfare of others |
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Enervate |
to feel drained of energy or vitality; weaken |
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Eulogy |
formal expression of praise |
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Garrulous |
talkative |
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Prevaricate |
deliberately ambiguous; avoid telling the truth by not directly answering a question; beguile |
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Venerate |
respect or revere someone |
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Impasse |
situation in which no progress is possible |
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Impede |
hinder; delay or prevent something by obstructing them |
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Impugn |
dispute the truth, validity or honesty; call into question; dispute |
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Incarcerate |
imprison or confine |
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Fastidious |
picky; fussy; finicky |
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Boorish |
bad-mannered |
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Curt |
rudely brief |
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Ingenuous |
innocent and unsuspecting |
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Alacrity |
Eager and enthusiastic willingness |
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Approbation |
An expression of approval or praise |
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Abscond |
to depart secretly (clandestinely); to steal off and hide |
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Arduous |
strenuous; taxing; requiring significant effort |
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Austere |
without adornment; bare; severely simple; ascetic |
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Axiomatic |
taken as a given; possessing self-evident truth |
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Canonical |
following or in agreement with accepted, traditional standards |
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Censure |
to criticize severely; to officially rebuke |
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Chicanery |
trickery or subterfuge |
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Connoisseur |
an informed and astute judge in matters of taste; expert |
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Convoluted |
complex or complicated |
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Disabuse |
to undeceive; to set right |
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Discordant |
conflicting; dissonant or harsh in sound |
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Disparate |
fundamentally distinct or dissimilar |
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Effrontery |
extreme boldness; presumptuousness |
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Eloquent |
well-spoken, expressive, articulate |
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Enervate |
to weaken; to reduce in vitality |
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Ennui |
dissatisfaction and restlessness resulting from boredom or apathy |
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Equivocate |
to use ambiguous language with a deceptive intent |
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Exculpate |
exonerate; to clear of blame |
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Exigent |
urgent, pressing; requiring immediate action or attention |
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Extemporaneous |
improvised; done without preparation |
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Fulminate |
to loudly attack or denounce |
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Ingenuous |
artless; frank and candid; lacking in sophistication |
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Inured |
accustomed to accepting something undesirable |
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Irascible |
easily angered; prone to temperamental outbursts |
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Laud |
praise highly |
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Magnanimity |
quality of being generously noble in mind and heart, especially in forgiving |
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Martial |
associated with war and the armed forces |
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Mundane |
of the world; typical of or concerned with the ordinary |
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Nascent |
coming into being; in early developmental stages |
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Nebulous |
vague; cloudy; lacking clearly defined form |
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Neologism |
new word; expression or usage; the creation or use of new words or senses |
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Noxious |
harmful; injurious |
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Obtuse |
lacking sharpness of intellect; not clear or precise in thought or expression |
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Obviate |
to anticipate and make unnecessary |
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Onerous |
troubling; burdensome |
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Paean |
song or hymn of praise and thanksgiving |
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Perennial |
recurrent through the year or many years; happening repeatedly |
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Perfidy |
intentional breach of faith; treachery |
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Perfunctory |
cursory; done without care or interest |
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Perspicacious |
acutely perspective; having keen discernment |
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Prattle |
to babble meaninglessly; to talk in an empty and idle manner |
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Predilection |
a disposition in favor of something; preference |
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Prescience |
foreknowledge of events; knowing of events prior to their occuring |
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Prevaricate |
to deliberately avoid the truth; to mislead |
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Qualms |
misgivings; reservations; causes for hesitancy |
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Recant |
to retract, especially a previous belief |
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Refute |
to disprove; to successfully argue against |
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Relegate |
to forcibly assign especially to a lower place or position |
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Reticent |
quiet; reserved; reluctant to express thoughts and feelings |
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Solicitous |
concerned and attentive; eager |
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Sordid |
characterized by filth, grime or squalor; foul |
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Sporadic |
occurring only occasionally, or in scattered instances |
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Squander |
to waste by spending or using irresponsibly |
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Stupefy |
to stun, baffle, or amaze |
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Stymie |
to block; to thwart |
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Synthesis |
the combination of parts to make a whole |
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Torque |
a force that causes rotation |
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Tortuous |
winding; twisting; excessively complicated |
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Truculent |
fierce and cruel; eager to fight |
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Veracity |
truthfulness; honesty |
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Virulent |
extremely harmful or poisonous; bitterly hostile or antagonistic |
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Voracious |
having an insatiable appetite for an activity or pursuit; ravenous |
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Abate |
to lessen in intensity or degree |
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Accolade |
an expression of praise |
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Adulation |
excessive praise; intense adoration |
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Ameliorate |
to make better or more tolerable |
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Ascetic |
one who practices rigid self-denial, especially as an act of religious devotion |
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Avarice |
greed; especially for wealth |
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Axiom |
universally recognized principle |
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Burgeon |
to grow rapidly or flourish |
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Bucolic |
rustic and pastoral; characteristic of rural areas and their inhabitants |
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Canon |
established set of principles or code of laws, often religious in nature |
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Castigation |
severe criticism or punishment |
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Catalyst |
substance that accelerates the rate of chemical reaction without itself changing; a person or thing that causes change |
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Caustic |
burning or stinging; causing corrosion |
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Chary |
wary; cautious; sparing |
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Cogent |
appealing forcibly to the mind or reason; convincing |
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Complaisance |
willingness to comply with the wishes of others |
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Contentious |
argumentative; quarrelsome; causing controversy or disagreement |
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Contrite |
regretful; penitent; seeking forgiveness |
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Culpable |
deserving blame |
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Dearth |
smallness of quantity or number; scarcity; lack of |
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Demur |
to question or oppose |
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Didactic |
intended to teach or instruct |
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Discretion |
cautious reserve in speech; ability to make responsible decisions |
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Disinterested |
free of bias or self-interest; impartial |
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Dogmatic |
expressing a rigid opinion based on unproved or improvable principles |
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Ebullience |
quality of lively or enthusiastic expression of thoughts and feelings |
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Eclectic |
composed of elements drawn from various sources |
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Elegy |
mournful poem especially one lamenting the dead |
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Emollient |
soothing; making less harsh; mollifying; an agent that softens or smooths the skin |
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Empirical |
based on observation or experiment |
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Enigmatic |
mysterious; obscure; difficult to understand |
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Esoteric |
intended for or understood by a small specific group |
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Eulogy |
speech for honoring the dead |
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Exonerate |
to remove blame |
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Facetious |
playful; humorous |
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Fallacy |
an invalid or incorrect notion; mistaken belief |
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Furtive |
marked by stealth; covert; surreptitious |
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Harangue |
to deliver a pompous speech or tirade, usually long |
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Heretical |
violating accepted dogma (rigid opinions based on unproved or improvable principles) or convention |
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Impecunious |
lacking funds; without money |
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Incipient |
beginning to come into being or to become apparent |
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Inert |
unmoving; lethargic; sluggish |
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Innocuous |
harmless; causing no damage |
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Intransigent |
refusing to compromise |
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Inveigle |
to obtain by deception or flattery |
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Morose |
sad; sullen; melancholy |
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Odious |
evoking intense aversion or dislike |
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Oscillation |
the act or state of swinging back and forth with a steady, uninterrupted rhythm |
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Penurious |
penny-pinching; excessively thrifty; ungenerous |
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Pernicious |
extremely harmful in a way that is not easily seen or noticed; unexpectedly harmful |
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Peruse |
to examine with great care |
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Pious |
extremely reverent or devout; showing strong religious devotion |
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Precursor |
one that precedes and indicates or announces another |
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Preen |
to dress up; to primp; to groom oneself with elaborate care |
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Prodigious |
abundant in size, force or extent; extraordinary |
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Putrefy |
to rot; decay and give off a foul odor |
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Quaff |
to drink deeply |
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Quiescence |
stillness; motionless; quality of being at rest |
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Redoubtable |
awe-inspiring; worthy of honour |
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Sanction |
authoritative permission or approval; penalty intended to enforce compliance; to give permission or authority |
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Squalid |
sordid; wretched and dirty as from neglect |
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Stoic |
indifferent to or unaffected by pleasure or pain; steadfast |
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Supplant |
to take the place of; to supersede |
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Torpid |
lethargic; sluggish; dormant |
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Ubiquitous |
existing everywhere at the same time; constantly encountered; widespread |
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Urbane |
sophisticated; refined; elegant |
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Vilify |
to defame; to characterize harshly |
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Viscous |
thick; sticky |
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Acumen |
keen, accurate |
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Amalgamate |
to combine several elements into a whole |
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Archaic |
outdated; associated with an earlier, perhaps more primitive, time |
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Aver |
to state as a fact; to declare or assert |
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Bolster |
to provide support or reinforcement |
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Diatribe |
harsh denunciation |
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Dissemble |
disguise or conceal; mislead |
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Eccentric |
departing from norms |
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Endemic |
characteristic of or often found in a particular locality, region or people |
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Evanescent |
tending to disappear like vapor; vanishing |
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Exacerbate |
to make worse or more severe |
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Fervent |
greatly emotional or zealous |
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Fortuitious |
happening by accident or chance |
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Germane |
Relevant to the subject at hand; appropriate in subject matter |
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Grandiloquence |
pompous speech or expression |
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Hackneyed |
rendered trite or commonplace by frequent usuage |
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halcyon |
calm and peaceful |
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Hedonism |
devotion to pleasurable pursuits, especially to pleasures of the senses |
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Hegemony |
the consistent dominance of one state or group over others |
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Iconoclast |
one who attacks or undermines traditional conventions or institutions |
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Idolatrous |
given to intense or excessive devotion to something |
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Impassive |
revealing no emotion |
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Impeturbable |
marked by extreme calm, impassivity and steadiness |
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Implacable |
not capable of being appeased or significantly changed |
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Impunity |
immunity from punishment or penalty |
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Inchoate |
in an initial stage; not fully formed |
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Infelicitous |
unfortunate; inappropriate |
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Insipid |
lacking in qualities that interest, stimulate, or challenge |
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Malevolent |
having or showing often vicious ill will |
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Mendacity |
the condition of being untruthful; dishonesty |
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Meticulous |
characterized by extreme care and precision; attentive |
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Obsequious |
exhibiting a fawning attentiveness |
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Occlude |
to obstruct or block |
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Opprobrium |
disgrace; contempt; scorn |
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Pedagogy |
profession or principle of teaching, or instructing |
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Penury |
poverty; destitution |
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Pervasive |
having the tendency to permeate or spread throughout |
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Pith |
the essential or central part |
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Pithy |
precise and brief |
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Polemical |
controversial; argumentative |
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Profuse |
given or coming forth abundantly; extravagant |
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Proliferate |
to grow or increase swiftly and abundantly |
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Querulous |
prone to complaining or grumbling; peevish |
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Rancorous |
characterized by bitter, long lasting resentment |
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Recalcitrant |
obstinately defiant of authority; difficult to manage |
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Repudiate |
to refuse to have anything to do with |
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Rescind |
to invalidate; to repeal; to retract |
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Salubrious |
promoting health or well being |
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Solbent |
able to meet financial obligations; able to dissolve another substance |
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Specious |
seeming true but actually being fallacious; misleadingly attractive; plausible but false |
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Spurious |
lacking authenticity or validity; false; counterfeit |
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Subpoena |
court order requiring appearance and/or testimony |
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Succinct |
brief; concise |
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Superfluous |
exceeding what is sufficient or necessary |
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Surfeit |
an overabundant supply; excess to feed or supply to excess |
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Tenacity |
the quality of adherence or persistence to something valued; persistent determination |
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Tenuous |
having little substance or strength; flimsy; weak |
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Tirade |
long and extremely critical speech; harsh denunciation |
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Transient |
ephemeral; brief; fleeting; passing quickly |
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Acerbic |
having sour or bitter taste or character; sharp; biting |
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Aggrandize |
to increase in intensity, power, influence or prestige |
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Amenable |
agreeable; responsive to suggestion |
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Anachronism |
something or someone out of place in terms of historical or chronological context |
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Astringent |
having a tightening effect on living tissue; harsh; severe; something with a tightening effect on tissue |
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Contiguous |
sharing a border; touching; adjacent |
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Credulous |
gullible |
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Decorum |
polite or appropriate conduct or behavious |
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Derision |
scorn; ridicule; contemptuous treatment |
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Desiccate |
to dry out or dehydrate; to make dry or dull |
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Dilettante |
one with amateur interest in arts or other branch of knowledge |
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Disparage |
to slight or belittle |
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Divulge |
to disclose something secret |
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Fawn |
to flatter or praise excessively |
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Flout |
to show contempt for, as in a rule or convention |
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Convention |
generally agreed upon practice or attitude |
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Garrulous |
pointlessly talkative; talking too much |
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Glib |
marked by ease or informality; lacking in depth; superficial |
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Imminent |
about to happen; impending |
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Immutable |
not capable of change |
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Impetuous |
hastily or rashly energetic; impulsive and vehement |
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Inimical |
damaging; harmful; injurious |
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Intractable |
not easily managed or directed |
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Intrepid |
steadfast and courageous |
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Phlegmatic |
calm; sluggish; unemotional |
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Obstinate |
stubborn; hard-headed; uncompromising |
