Vocab Words Ap 11 English Comulative Semester 1

Front 1

anachronism

Back 1

noun
something belonging to another time, old-fashioned

There home was decorated as it would have been in the 19th century when it was constructed except for one anachronism, a laptop computer on the kitchen table.

Front 2

facetious

Back 2

adjective
treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; flippant
The student displayed facetious behavior by cracking a joke when his teacher attempted to talk to him about his failing grade.

Front 3

sublime

Back 3

adj
inspires admiration or awe

Mozart's sublime piano concertos are recognized to be among the best of the 18th century, if not all time.

Front 4

viscera

Back 4

noun
internal organs
When John helped his mother prepare Christmas dinner he was given the unpleasant task of removing the turkey's viscera.

Front 5

convoluted

Back 5

adj
complex, difficult to follow
The convoluted explanation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity did little to enlighten me on the subject.

Front 6

quotidian

Back 6

adj
daily

Our commute was slowed by the quotidian traffic.

Front 7

reticent

Back 7

adj
not revealing one's thoughts or feelings readily

Alex was extremely private and was very reticent about his family life.

Front 8

rhetoric

Back 8

noun
the art of persuasive speaking/writing

The dictator's skillful use of rhetoric led him to power.

Front 9

dilatory

Back 9

adj.
slow to act; intended to cause delay

Sarah's questions were largely dilatory; if the teacher spent too long explaining the homework there would not be enough time for the quiz.

Front 10

ethereal

Back 10

adj
delicate/light; too perfect for this world

Her ethereal beauty seemed otherworldly.

Front 11

serendipitous

Back 11

occurring happily, by chance

The glue that makes sticky notes was created under serendipitous conditions; the inventor was attempting to create a special sort of super glue for NASA.

Front 12

tantamount

Back 12

adj
equally serious; the same

The Governor's resignation was tantamount to an admission of his involvement in the scandal.

Front 13

obstreperous

Back 13

adj
noisy and difficult to control

The obstreperous little boy only screamed and cried louder when his mother asked him to calm down.

Front 14

beguile

Back 14

verb
to charm someone deceptively

He beguiled everyone he met; no one would have suspected he was really the ax murderer.

Front 15

evanescent

Back 15

adj
quickly fading; short-lived

Sally and her brother usually got along well and so any anger from their argument was evanescent.

Front 16

halcyon

Back 16

adj
(describing a time in the past) idyllic; happy and peaceful

Economists look back on the halycon days when the housing market seemed only to be rising.

Front 17

grandiloquent

Back 17

adj
pompous/extravagant

His speech was grandiloquent and he seemed to be bragging about his extensive knowledge of American history.

Front 18

acrimony

Back 18

noun
bitterness; ill feeling

There was a great sense of acrimony between the opposing candidates at the debate.

Front 19

ubiquitous

Back 19

adj
present everywhere

The world famous singer was ubiquitous in popular music nearly everywhere.

Front 20

clairvoyant

Back 20

noun
someone with the supernatural ability to perceive events beyond normal senses

Johnny informed his mother that there was no way he could have known about the pop quiz because he was not clairvoyant.

Front 21

effervescent

Back 21

adj
(describing a liquid) giving off bubbles; fizzy

The effervescent potion suddenly exploded when Ron added the red flowers instead of the purple ones.

Front 22

Imprecate

Back 22

verb
to utter a curse or invoke evil against someone

The old witch imprecated the woman when she refused to give her another extension on her mortgage.

Front 23

allusion

Back 23

noun
an indirect reference

The song, appropriately entitled Summer's Day, included allusions to Shakespeare's famous sonnet.

Front 24

impeccable

Back 24

adj
faultless

Her impeccable conduct impressed her coworkers, and especially her boss, so much that she was promoted almost immediately.

Front 25

polemic

Back 25

noun
an attack on someone

The atheist writer's novel was essentially a polemic against all forms of religion.

Front 26

languid

Back 26

adj
slow and relaxed

The hot summer sun made us feel languid and so we did nothing but sit around the pool all day.

Front 27

paramount

Back 27

adj
supreme; most important

The signing of the Declaration of Independents was paramount to the formation of the country.

Front 28

adroit

Back 28

adj
clever or skillful in using the hands or mind

The adroit magician's act was very convincing.

Front 29

apostrophe

Back 29

noun
an exclamtory passage in a speech or poem

"O CAPTAIN! my Captain!" is a famous apostrophe.

Front 30

ignominy

Back 30

noun
public shame or disgrace

After his posy schemes were exposed, the billionaire had to deal public lawsuits and ignominy.

Front 31

scintillating

Back 31

verb
to emit flashes of light; sparkle

The vibrant ornaments on the tree were scintillating, sending glittering light everywhere.

Front 32

crapulous

Back 32

of or relating to drinking of alcohol or drunkenness

He felt crapulous after eating the enormous meal.

Front 33

pussilanimous

Back 33

adj
timid; lacking courage or determination

The pussilanimous boy refused to go on the roller coaster.

Front 34

sophomoric

Back 34

adj
pretentious or juvenile

His sophomoric behavior in health class earned him a trip to the principle's office.

Front 35

querulous

Back 35

adj
whiny

When the child did not get the toy she asked for she became querulous and demanding.

Front 36

rotund

Back 36

adj
round or spherical

The rotund man was so large he barely fit through the door.

Front 37

anaphora

Back 37

noun
repeating words at the beginning of neighboring clauses

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" is a famous anaphora from the first lines of Charles Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities.

Front 38

anomaly

Back 38

noun
something that deviates from the norm

Emily is a hardworking student; the failing grade on her math test was only an anomaly.

Front 39

daedal

Back 39

adj
skilful; intricate

MacGuiver was incredibly daedal; he could make useful things out of whatever he could get his hands on.

Front 40

ephemeral

Back 40

adj
lasting for a very short time

The beauty of a rose is very ephemeral because, once cut, it only lasts a few days before it begins to wilt.

Front 41

contemporaneous

Back 41

adj
existing or occurring in the same period of time

No Doubt and Nirvana were contemporaneous.

Front 42

stultify

Back 42

verb
to cause to lose enthusiasm and initiative

Failing the test was stultifying to Sam and he could not focus in class for the rest of the day.

Front 43

chimerical

Back 43

noun
a thing that is hoped or wished for but is impossible to achieve

Kelly desired to be a famous actress but her parents told her that her goal was chimerical; it was not likely she would ever be successful as an actress.

Front 44

pernicious

Back 44

adj
harmful

Gossip has a pernicious effect on a person's reputation.

Front 45

abyss

Back 45

noun
a deep or seemingly bottomless chasm

The woman threw the necklace overboard into the abyss of the ocean.

Front 46

harrowing

Back 46

verb
to cause distress

The news about the oil spill was harrowing and caused public outcry for an improvement to environmental laws.

Front 47

abstruse

Back 47

adj
difficult to understand

Ann found calculus to be a very difficult class because the subject was so abstruse.

Front 48

abhor

Back 48

verb
to detest

Health insurance providers abhor socialized medicine because it would potentially ruin their business.

Front 49

fortuitous

Back 49

adj
lucky

It was extremely fortuitous that Alex and Christin ran into each other at the Food Lion because neither of them usually went there.

Front 50

mythomane

Back 50

mythomane
noun

When she began describing her date with Orlando Bloom I knew that I was in the presence of a mythomane.

Front 51

acquiesce

Back 51

verb
to accept something without protest

Prior to WWII, France and England aquiesced to Hitler's demands in hopes of avoiding war.

Front 52

asyndeton

Back 52

noun
the omission of a conjunction between parts of sentence

Asyndeton's are sometimes used by politicians and other speakers in order to create emphasis on an idea. Julius Caesar's motto, "Veni, vidi, vici" is a famous example of the use of asyndeton.

Front 53

cacophonous

Back 53

noun
a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds

The various noises of the city combine to make a rather loud and cacophonous sound.

Front 54

esoteric

Back 54

adj
intended for only a small number of people

The paper on Quantam Physics was esoteric in that it was only comprehensible by people already very well informed on the topic.

Front 55

callow

Back 55

adj
inexperienced and immature

The callow young man ignored his mother's advice and spent his first semester of college partying instead of focusing on his studies.

Front 56

fastidious

Back 56

adj
attentive to detail

The fastidious student careful edited his paper, making sure that there was not a single grammatical error.

Front 57

vitriolic

Back 57

adj
bitter; malicous

The article on the current economic downturn was really a vitrolic attack on the current administration.

Front 58

spurious

Back 58

adj
fake

Her claim that she hated John was spurious; she was actually in love with him.

Front 59

recondite

Back 59

adj
little known; abstruse

The text book was useless as a resource for my report because it contained various recondite information that was of no particular importance.

Front 60

lackadaisical

Back 60

adj
halfhearted; apathetic

Her lackadaisical efforts on the project earned her only a C.

Front 61

effulgent

Back 61

adj
radiant

The ghost of Christmas past of effulgent; light appeared to shine forth from him.

Front 62

gewgaw

Back 62

noun
a trinket

The little gewgaw from the McDonald's happy meal was very cheap but it gave the child hours of entertainment.

Front 63

Defenestrate

Back 63

noun
the act of throwing someone or something out of the window

When the computer wouldn't work Sarah threatened to defenestrate it but then realized that throwing something of that size out the window might be dangerous.

Front 64

Predilection

Back 64

noun
a bias or preference for something

When it came to selecting kids for her team during gym class, Hannah had a predilection for the ones who were her friends.

Front 65

anticlimax

Back 65

noun
a disappointing end to an exciting or impressive series of events

Beginning with images of various explosions, the rest of the documentary was a relative anticlimax.

Front 66

errant

Back 66

adj
delinquent; straying from proper course

The errant actions of the delinquent landed him in juvie.

Front 67

vim

Back 67

noun
energy; enthusiasm

The little girl was so full of vim that she could not sleep that she did not fall asleep until eleven on Christmas eve.

Front 68

Cadence

Back 68

noun
a modulation or inflection of the voice

The cadence of the politician's speech created a sense of intense emotion.

Front 69

effigy

Back 69

noun
a sculpture or model of a person

The effigy of the Roman Goddess Venus was perfectly proportioned.

Front 70

bellicose

Back 70

adj
aggressive; willing to fight

The bellicose young man often got in bar fights.

Front 71

obsequious

Back 71

adj
obedient to the point of being servile

The obsequious waitress apologized profusely and got the man a new dish even though the one she brought him was exactly what he had ordered.

Front 72

Emasculate

Back 72

verb
to make someone/something weaker or less effective

The man felt emasculated because his wife refused to let him by a new car.