Words I Didn't Know

Front 1

parochially
parochial

Back 1

provincially
narrow in scope or outlook

ex. a parochial mentality

Front 2

pertinaciously
pertinacious

Back 2

stubborn, tenacious, resolute
very persistent

ex. a pertinacious salesman

Front 3

divisively

Back 3

causing dissension or disagreement

Front 4

obfuscate

Back 4

render obscure or unclear
to bewilder

Front 5

alacrity

Back 5

brisk and cheerful willingness
liveliness, briskness

Front 6

paucity

Back 6

scarcity

Front 7

maintain

Back 7

assert, declare

Ex. He maintained that he was an innocent man

Front 8

egregious

Back 8

shocking, outstandingly bad

Front 9

extant

Back 9

still in existence
surviving

ex. though people read books less and less in their traditional form, literature itself will remain extant for years to come.

Front 10

contentious

Back 10

controversial
involving heated argument
likely to argue or provoke argument (person)

Front 11

sedulous

Back 11

diligent

ex. he plopped himself down and sedulously studied for the GRE for the whole day

Front 12

stem

Back 12

hold back/limit

note: more to do with stemming the FLOW of something, whereas checking something has to do with checking the GROWTH of something.

Front 13

blinkered

Back 13

narrow point of view
limited outlook/understanding

ex. He is given to being blinkered when exploring new places, equating a city with the few people he knows in it.

Front 14

raft

Back 14

a lot

ex. a raft of city ordinances

Front 15

retiring

Back 15

shy, withdrawing from others

ex. a retiring nature

Front 16

expansive

Back 16

sociable, unreserved

ex. an expansive personality, he liked to talk

Front 17

moment

Back 17

importance

ex. the incident turned out to be of no great moment to their friendship, despite the initial awkwardness.

Front 18

base

Back 18

neg connotation

meanspirited, selfish, no morals

Front 19

benighted

Back 19

crude, ignorant

ex. Many mistakenly characterize the Middle Ages with benighted ideas, but there was actually a lot of intellectual progress during this time period.

Front 20

arch

Back 20

playfully mischievous
sly

ex. arch smile

Front 21

beg

Back 21

evade
ex. the article begs the actual issue

beg a question can mean: evade a question, invite an obvious answer, or ask a question w/ unwarranted assumptions

Front 22

fleece

Back 22

to deceive
ex. money that he fleeced from innocent bystanders

Front 23

wax

Back 23

to grow
ex. my admiration waxed with each passing day

Front 24

fletcherize

Back 24

chew food slowly

Front 25

beatific

Back 25

saintly, blissful

Front 26

errant

Back 26

wandering, straying from the norm

ex. her errant ways
errant walks

Front 27

arrant

Back 27

complete, utter

ex. an errant fool

Front 28

err

Back 28

to make a mistake

Front 29

artful

Back 29

cunning

Front 30

artless

Back 30

natural, simple
innocent, guileless

Front 31

artifice

Back 31

devices meant to trick others

Front 32

expunge

Back 32

erase/remove any trace of

ex. the tickets were expunged from my driving record

Front 33

ponderous

Back 33

slow, labored fashion
ex. ponderous steps, ponderous speech

Front 34

imponderable

Back 34

impossible to estimate

ex. an imponderable distance

Front 35

junta

Back 35

a military/political group that takes over after forcing the previous gov out

Front 36

schadenfreude

Back 36

pleasure from other people's misfortune

Front 37

nabob

Back 37

wealthy, influential person

ex. the crowd of nabobs rubbed elbows at the charity function

Front 38

zeitgeist

Back 38

defining spirt or mood of a particular period in history

ex. the song captures the zeitgeist of the postwar era

Front 39

parvenu

Back 39

nouveau-riche people

Front 40

arriviste

Back 40

a person who is nouveau-riche, with lots of aggressive ambition

Front 41

melee

Back 41

confused struggle, skirmish
ex. despite the teasing, i was not baited into entering the melee

a confused mass of people
ex. i made my way through the melee of concert-goers

Front 42

lagniappe

Back 42

bonus, unexpected gift

Front 43

picayune

Back 43

fussing over a trivial point
picky

ex. a picayune grader

Front 44

eponym

Back 44

word derived from a person's name

Front 45

Pollyannaish

Back 45

very optimistic

Front 46

Pyrrhic

Back 46

pyrrhic victory: a victory that comes at a great cost

Front 47

kafkaesque

Back 47

denoting the absurd, complex nature of faceless bureaucracy

Front 48

maudlin

Back 48

self-pitying, tearfully sentimental
usually drunken

Front 49

Panglossian

Back 49

blindly optimistic

Front 50

Malapropism

Back 50

mistaken use of a word in place of a similar sounding one

ex of a malapropism: the graffiti artist defecated the church walls with his "art"

Front 51

quisling

Back 51

traitor

Front 52

byzantine

Back 52

very complicated (neg connotation)
ex. the byzantine regulations discourages me from opening up my own business