The Hit Parade: Week 4

Front 1

ingenuous (adj)

Back 1

lacking in cunning, guile, or worldliness (antonym: disingenuous)

Janine was so ingenuous that it was so easy for her friend to dupe her.

Front 2

subterfuge (n)

Back 2

a deceptive stratagem or device

The submarine pilots were trained in the art of subterfuge; they were excellent at faking out their enemies.

Front 3

surreptitious (adj)

Back 3

secretive; sneaky

Afraid of failing the test, Sara took a surreptitious glance at her neighbor's test booklet and hoped the teacher didn't see her.

Front 4

dearth (n))

Back 4

scarce supply; lack

There was a dearth of money in my piggybank; it collected dust, not bills.

Front 5

modicum (n)

Back 5

a small, moderate, or token amount

A modicum of effort may result in small score improvement; in order to improve significantly, however, you must study as often as possible.

Front 6

paucity (n)

Back 6

smallness in number; scarcity

The struggling city had a paucity of resources and therefore a high level of poverty.

Front 7

squander (v)

Back 7

to spend wastefully

Kerri squandered her savings on shoes and wasn't able to buy her apartment.

Front 8

temperate (adj)

Back 8

moderate; restrained (antonym: intemperate)

Temperate climates rarely experience extremes in temperature.

Front 9

tenuous (adj)

Back 9

having little substance or strength

Her grasp on reality is tenuous at best; she's not even sure what year it is.

Front 10

diligent (adj)

Back 10

marked by painstaking effort; hard-working

With diligent effort, they were able to finish the model airplane in record time.

Front 11

maverick (n)

Back 11

one who is independent and resists adherence to a group

In the movie Top Gun, Tom Cruise played a maverick who often broke rules and did things his own way.

Front 12

mercenary (n)

Back 12

motivated solely by a desire for money or material gain

During the war, Mercer as a mercenary; he'd fight for whichever side paid him the most for his services.

Front 13

obstinate (adj)

Back 13

stubbornly attached to an opinion or a course of action

Despite Jeremy's broken leg, his parents were obstinate; they steadfastly refused to buy him an Xbox.

Front 14

proliferate (v)

Back 14

to grow or increase rapidly

Because fax machines, pagers, and cell phones have proliferated in recent years, many new area codes have been created to handle the demand for phone numbers.

Front 15

tenacity (n)

Back 15

persistence

With his overwhelming tenacity, Clark was finally able to interview Brad Pitt for the school newspaper.

Front 16

vigilant (adj)

Back 16

on the alert; watchful

The participants if the candlelight vigil were vigilant, as they had heard that the fraternity across the street was planning to egg them.

Front 17

extraneous (adj)

Back 17

irrelevant; inessential

The book, though interesting, had so much extraneous information that it was hard to keep track of the important points.

Front 18

juxtapose (v)

Back 18

to place side by side, especially for comparison or contrast

Separately the pictures look identical, but if you juxtapose them, you can see the differences.

Front 19

superfluous (adj)

Back 19

extra; unnecessary

If there is sugar in your tea, honey would be superfluous.

Front 20

synergy (n)

Back 20

combined action or operation

The synergy of hydrogen and oxygen creates water.

Front 21

tangential (adj)

Back 21

merely touching or slightly connected; only superficially relevant

Though Abby's paper was well written, its thesis was so tangential to its proof that her teacher couldn't give her a good grade.

Front 22

aesthetic (adj)

Back 22

having to do with the appreciation of beauty

Aesthetic considerations determined the arrangement of paintings at the museum; as long as art looked good together, it didn't matter who had painted it.

Front 23

aural (adj)

Back 23

of or related to the ear or the sense of hearing

It should come as no surprise that musicians prefer aural to visual learning.

Front 24

cacophony (n)

Back 24

discordant, unpleasant noise

Brian had to shield his ears from the awful cacophony produced by the punk band onstage.

Front 25

dirge (n)

Back 25

a funeral hymn or lament

The dirge was so beautiful that everyone cried, even those who hadn't known the deceased.

Front 26

eclectic (adj)

Back 26

made up of a variety of sources or styles

Lou's taste in music is quite eclectic; he listens to everything from rap to polka.

Front 27

incongruous (adj)

Back 27

lacking in harmony; incompatible

My chicken and jello soup experiment failed; the tastes were just too incongruous.

Front 28

sonorous (adj)

Back 28

producing a deep or full sound

My father's sonorous snoring keeps me up all night unless I close my door and wear earplugs.

Front 29

strident (adj)

Back 29

loud, harsh, grating, or shrill

The strident shouting kept the neighbors awake all night.

Front 30

debacle (n)

Back 30

disastrous or ludicrous defeat or failure; fiasco

Jim's interview was a complete debacle; he accidentally locked himself in the bathroom, sneezed on the interviewer multiple times, and knocked over the president of the company.

Front 31

debilitate (v)

Back 31

impair the strength of; weaken

Deb ran the New York City marathon without proper training; the experience left her debilitated for weeks.

Front 32

tumultuous (adj)

Back 32

noisy and disorderly

The tumultuous applause was so deafening that the pianist couldn't hear the singer.

Front 33

anachronism (n)

Back 33

the representation of something as existing or happening in the wrong time period

I noticed an anachronism in the museum's ancient Rome display; a digital clock ticking behind a statue of Venus.

Front 34

archaic (adj)

Back 34

characteristic of an earlier time; antiquated; old

"How dost thou?" is an archaic way of saying "How are you?"

Front 35

dilatory (adj)

Back 35

habitually late

Always waiting until the last moment to leave home in the morning, Dylan was a dilatory student.

Front 36

ephemeral (adj)

Back 36

lasting for only a brief time

The importance of Sat scores is truly ephemeral; when you are applying, they are crucial, but once you get into college, no one care how well you did.

Front 37

temporal (adj)

Back 37

of, relating to, or limited by time

One's enjoyment of a mocha latte is bound by temporal limitations; all too soon, the latte is gone.

Front 38

onerous (adj)

Back 38

troublesome or oppressive, burdensome

The onerous task was so difficult that Ona thought she'd never get through it.

Front 39

portent (n)

Back 39

indication of something important or calamitous about to occur; omen

A red mourning sky is terrible portent for all sailors--it means that stormy seas are ahead.

Front 40

prescience (n)

Back 40

knowledge of actions or events before they occur; foreknowledge; foresight

Front 41

austere (adj)

Back 41

without decoration; strict

The gray walls and bare floors of his monastery cell provided an even more austere setting than Brother Austen had hoped for.

Front 42

banal (adj)

Back 42

drearily commonplace; predictable; trite

The poet's imagery is so banal that I think she cribbed her work from Poetry for Dummies.

Front 43

hackneyed (adj)

Back 43

worn out though overuse; trite

All Hal could offer in the way of advice were hackneyed old phrases that I'd heard a hundred times before.

Front 44

insipid (adj)

Back 44

uninteresting; unchallenging; lasting taste or savor

That insipid movie was so predictable that I walked out.

Front 45

prosaic (adj)

Back 45

unimaginative; dull (antonym: poetic)

Rebecca made a prosaic mosaic consisting of identical, undecorated tiles.

Front 46

soporific (adj)

Back 46

inducing or tending to induce sleep

The congressman's speech was so soporific that even his cat was yawning.

Front 47

vapid (adj)

Back 47

lacking liveliness, animation, or interest; dull

Valerie's date was so vapid that she thought he was sleeping with his eyes opens.