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94 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Dearth
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Scarcity; famine; an inadequate supply or lack.
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Biota
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A collective term for the animal and plant life of a region.
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Insuperable
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Incapable of being surmounted over-come, passed-over, or solved.
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Velleity
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Volition in its weakest form; a mere wish, unaccompanied by an effort to obtain it.
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Volition
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An act of willing or resolving; a decision or choice made after due consideration or deliberation; a resolution or determination.
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Apoplexy
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A malady, very sudden in its attack, which arrests the powers of sense and motion; it is usually caused by an effusion of blood or serum in the brain, and preceded by giddiness, partial loss of muscular power, etc
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Serried
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Of files or ranks of armed men: Pressed close together, shoulder to shoulder, in close order.
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Caduceus
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The wand carried by an ancient Greek or Roman herald. spec. The fabled wand carried by Hermes or Mercury as the messenger of the gods; usually represented with two serpents twined round it.
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Pellucid
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Transmitting or allowing the passage of light; translucent, transparent.
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Isometric
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Of equal measure or dimensions.
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Equity
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The quality of being equal or fair; fairness, impartiality; evenhanded dealing.
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Laconic
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Following the Laconian (Spartan-like) in manner, esp. in speech and writing; brief, concise, sententious. Of persons: Affecting a brief style of speech.
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Aggregate
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Verb: To gather into one whole or mass; to collect together, assemble; to mass. Adj: Constituted by the collection of many particles or units into one body, mass, or amount; collected, collective, whole, total.
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Addle
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To muddle; to confuse; to spoil, make abortive. ALSO: To acquire or gain as one's own; to earn.
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Prolapse
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Of an organ or part: to slip out of place, usually downwards or outwards, often so as to protrude through a body orifice. Of a person or animal: to suffer such a displacement.
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Derision
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The action of deriding or laughing to scorn; ridicule, mockery.
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Ply
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To bend, bow; to fold or double (cloth, etc.); to mould or shape (esp. something plastic). ALSO: To apply oneself assiduously; to exert oneself (with a weapon, etc.)
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Orifice
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An opening or aperture, esp. one forming the communication between a cavity or hollow organ and the surface of an animal or plant body.
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Assiduous
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Of persons or agents: Constant in application to the business in hand, persevering, sedulous, unwearyingly diligent. Constantly endeavouring to please, obsequiously attentive.
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Aperture
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An opening, an open space between portions of solid matter; a gap, cleft, chasm, or hole; the mouth of the shell of a mollusc. ALSO: The process of opening. The opening up of what is involved, intricate, restricted.
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Sedulity
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The quality of being sedulous; painstaking attention to duty, diligent application, industry.
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Acedia
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Sloth, torpor, esp. as a condition leading to listlessness and want of interest in life.
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Listlessness
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Want of relish for some particular object or pursuit: languid indifference as to one's surroundings, or as to what one has to do.
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Ibis
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A genus of large grallatorial birds allied to the stork and heron, comprising numerous species with long legs and long slender decurved bill, inhabiting lakes and swamps in warm climates; a bird of this genus, esp. (and originally) the Sacred Ibis of Egypt with white and black plumage, an object of veneration among the ancient Egyptians.
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Butte
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In Western U.S.: An isolated hill or peak rising abruptly.
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Bunt
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A swelling, a pouch or bag-shaped part of a net, sail, etc. ALSO: The tail of a hare or a rabbit. ALSO: An extra profit or gain; something to the good. ALSO: A portion of the stem or rachis of corn.
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Re-bar
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A steel reinforcing rod in concrete.
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Dervish
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A Muslim friar, who has taken vows of poverty and austere life. Of these there are various orders, some of whom are known from their fantastic practices as dancing or whirling, and as howling dervishes.
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Insouciant
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Careless, indifferent, unconcerned.
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Candescent
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Glowing with, or as with, heat.
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Fecundate
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To render fruitful or productive. To make the female (individual or organ) fruitful by the introduction of the male element; to impregnate.
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Genuflect
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To bend the knee, esp. in worship.
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Berm
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A narrow space or ledge; a space of ground, from 3 to 8 feet wide, sometimes left between the ditch and the base of the parapet.
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Parapet
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A low wall or barrier, often ornamental, placed at the edge of a platform, balcony, roof, etc., or along the sides of a bridge, pier, quay, etc., to prevent people from falling.
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Impacable
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That cannot be pacified or appeased; implacable.
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Desiccate
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To make quite dry; to deprive thoroughly of moisture; to dry, dry up.
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Umbrous
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Lying in the shade; shady, shadowed.
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Bouillon
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Broth, soup.
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Archaic
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Marked by the characteristics of an earlier period; old-fashioned, primitive, antiquated.
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Atrophy
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A wasting away of the body, or any part of it, through imperfect nourishment: emaciation.
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Glissade
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To slide down a steep slope.
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Arroyo
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A rivulet or stream; hence, the bed of a stream, a gully.
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Promontory
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A point of high land which juts out into the sea or another expanse of water; a headland.
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Excise
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To cut out (a passage or sentence) from the context; to expunge. To cut out (a limb, organ, etc.). Also fig.
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Pallid
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Lacking depth or intensity of colour; faint or feeble in colour; spec. (of the face) wan, pale, esp. from illness, shock, etc.
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Geodesy
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Land surveying; the measuring of land.
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Concatenate
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To chain together; to connect like the links of a chain, to link together.
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Incarnate
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Of a quality or other abstraction: Embodied in human form; impersonated. ALSO: Clothed or invested with flesh; embodied in flesh; in a human (or animal) bodily form. Of a person, soul, or spirit.
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Subsidy
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Help, aid, assistance. ALSO: A grant or contribution of money.
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Pandemonium
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A centre of vice or wickedness; a haunt of evil.. A place or state of utter confusion and uproar; a noisy disorderly place.
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Peat
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A firm brown deposit resembling soil, formed by the partial decomposition of vegetable matter in the wet acidic conditions of bogs and fens, and often cut out and dried for use as fuel and in gardening. ALSO: A dark brown colour resembling that of peat.
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Lout
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An awkward ill-mannered fellow; a bumpkin, clown. ALSO: (verb) To bow, stoop, submit to.
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Salve
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A healing ointment for application to wounds or sores. Used in the same sense as a verb.
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Paucity
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Smallness of number or quantity.
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Vestige
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A trace or visible sign left by something lost or vanished.
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Attenuate
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To make thin in consistency, to separate the particles of a substance, to diminish density, rarefy. To render thinner. To weaken or reduce in force, effect, amount; in value, estimation.
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Innundate
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To fill with an overflowing abundance or superfluity; to overwhelm, ‘swamp’.
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Gradient
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Of animals: Characterized by taking steps with the feet, as their distinctive mode of progression; walking, ambulant. Of a road or railway: Amount of inclination to the horizontal; degree of slope.
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Nascent
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That is about to be born or is in the act of being born or brought forth. n extended use: that is in the act or condition of coming into existence; beginning to form, grow, develop, etc.
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Draconic
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Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Draco, archon at Athens in 621 B.C., or the severe code of laws said to have been established by him; rigorous, harsh, severe, cruel.
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Temerity
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Excessive boldness; rashness; recklessness.
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Primordial
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Existing from the very beginning of time; earliest in time; primeval, primitive; (more generally) ancient, distant in time.
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Recalcitrant
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Obstinately disobedient; uncooperative
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Admonishment
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To put (a person) in mind of duties; to counsel against wrong practices; to give authoritative or warning advice; to exhort, to warn.
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Ecclesiastic
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Of or pertaining to the church; concerned with the affairs of the church.
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Circumlocution
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Speaking in a roundabout or indirect way; the use of several words instead of one, or many instead of few.
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Pater
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A priest belonging to a religious order; a monk, a friar; spec. a male superior of a religious community.
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Meretricious
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Alluring by false show; showily or superficially attractive but having in reality no value or integrity.
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Obsequious
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Prompt to serve, please, or follow directions; obedient; dutiful.
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Vestiges
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A mark, trace, or visible sign of something, esp. a building or other material structure, which no longer exists or is present; something which remains after the destruction or disappearance of the main portion.
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Mien
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The look, bearing, manner, or conduct of a person, as showing character, mood, etc.
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Venial
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Of an error or fault: That may be excused or overlooked; of a light, unimportant, or trivial nature; excusable.
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Complaisance
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The action or habit of making oneself agreeable; desire and care to please; compliance with, or deference to, the wishes of others; obligingness, courtesy, politeness.
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Fissure
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A cleft or opening (usually rather long and narrow) made by splitting, cleaving, or separation of parts.
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Pirogue
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Originally: a long narrow canoe hollowed from the trunk of a single tree
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Caprice
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A sudden change or turn of the mind without apparent or adequate motive; a desire or opinion arbitrarily or fantastically formed; a freak, whim, mere fancy.
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Indolence
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Insensibility or indifference to pain; want of feeling.
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Tenuous
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Slender, of slight importance or significance; meagre, weak; flimsy, vague, unsubstantial.
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Certitude
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A feeling of certainty in a particular case; the opposite of a doubt.
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Plaintive
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Afflicted by sorrow; grieving, lamenting; suffering.
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Diadem
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A crown; an ornamental cincture or covering for the head, worn as a symbol of honour.
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Gaol
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A place or building for the confinement of persons accused or convicted of a crime or offence; a prison.
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Virile
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Of, belonging to, or characteristic of a man; manly, masculine; marked by strength or force.
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Anthropophagy
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The eating of men, cannibalism.
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Martyr
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A person who undergoes death or great suffering for a faith, belief, or cause.
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Enigma
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A short composition in prose or verse, in which something is described by intentionally obscure metaphors, in order to afford an exercise for the ingenuity of the reader or hearer in guessing what is meant; a riddle.
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Voluptuary
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One who is addicted to sensuous pleasures; one who is given up to indulgence in luxury or the gratification of the senses; a sybarite.
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Farceur
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A joker, wag.
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Abstruse
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Concealed, hidden, secret. Remote from apprehension or conception; difficult, recondite.
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Perspicacity
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Clearness of understanding or insight; great mental penetration; discernment.
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Pecunious
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Money-loving, avaricious; miserly, ungenerous.
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Codger
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A mean, stingy, or miserly (old) fellow; sometimes, like cadger, a pedlar, tramp, or beggar.
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Effrontery
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Shameless audacity, unblushing insolence.
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Recondite
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Little known or understood; abstruse, obscure; profound.
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