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Question 1

weevil

Answer 1

any of various beetles that destroy crops such as grains and cotton

Examples:
Unexpectedly, parasitized weevils had the lowest mortality rates (prior to larval parasitoid emergence).

It was also susceptible to weevil attack and had small grains.

Question 2

carnation

Answer 2

(a plant with) a small flower with a sweet smell, usually white, pink, or red in color

Examples:
But hostile journalists insisted that the green carnation, like the sunflower and lily, was just the latest fashion.

Question 3

postulated

Answer 3

to suggest a theory, idea, etc. as a basic principle from which a further idea is formed or developed:
[ + that ] It was the Greek astronomer, Ptolemy, who postulated that the earth was at the center of the universe.

Examples:
The apparent postponement of saturation is postulated to be due to modification of the flow field by convergence.

Question 4

sustenance

Answer 4

the ability of food to provide people and animals with what they need to make them strong and healthy

During this freezing weather, the food put out by householders is the only form of sustenance that the birds have.

emotional or mental support:

When her husband died, she drew sustenance from/she found sustenance in her religious beliefs.

Question 5

fraternity

Answer 5

a group of people who have the same job or interest:
the legal fraternity (= lawyers)
the criminal fraternity (= criminals)
The racing world is a pretty close-knit fraternity.

The misogyny and violence inherent in artisan fraternities also emerged in mainstream culture.

a social organization for male students at an American or Canadian college

Compare
sorority (a social organization for female students at an American or Canadian college)

Question 6

brassiere

Answer 6

formal for bra

Question 7

steno

Answer 7

paper used for writing shorthand (= a system of writing quickly using lines and symbols)

Question 8

strumpet

Answer 8

old use

a female prostitute

Question 9

supplicant

Answer 9

a person who asks a god or someone who is in a position of power for something in a humble way

Examples:
Meanwhile, the main tasks of lowranking officers often appear to be collecting tolls from drivers and supplicants, and waiting for something to happen.

The supplicant hardly needed to add that the essay and the reward could both be sent by electronic mail.

Question 10

interloper

Answer 10

someone who becomes involved in an activity or a social group without being asked, or enters a place without permission:

Security did not prevent an interloper from getting onto the stage at the opening ceremony.

He then designates some as deserving and others as imposters and interlopers.

Not only did these interlopers represent interests often opposed to those of the settlers, but they contradicted the social relations of power on the ground.

Synonym
intruder

Question 11

burgeoning

Answer 11

developing quickly:

The company hoped to profit from the burgeoning communications industry.

Question 12

afterglow

Answer 12

a pleasant feeling produced after an experience, event, feeling, etc.:

The team were basking in the afterglow of winning the cup.

Gamma-ray bursts : accumulating afterglow implications, progenitor clues, and prospects.

The atmosphere was electric, arguably thus followed by a power cut in the afterglow.

Question 13

bunting

Answer 13

rows of brightly coloured small flags, often in the colours of a country’s flag, that are hung across roads or rooms, or above a stage, as decoration for special occasions or political events:
The room was decked with festive bunting.
Flags and red, white and blue bunting were hung along the main street.

any of several types of small singing bird with a short, wide beak, and usually brownish feathers, found in Europe, Asia, and Africa:
They saw lapwings, skylarks and buntings.

in the game of baseball, an act by the batter of hitting the ball fairly slowly and only a short distance, to put it into a position that causes difficulties for the fielders (= the players on the team whose turn it is to throw and catch the ball), and helps the batter’s own team to score:
Infielders struggled with Gray’s skilful bunting.

Question 14

ply

Answer 14

to sell or to work regularly at something, especially at a job that involves selling things:
Fishermen in small boats ply their trade up and down the coast.
Dealers are openly plying drugs in school playgrounds.
The market traders were loudly plying their wares

ply for business, trade, etc.

to try to get customers for your business in a public place, for example, as a taxi driver, by driving around or waiting in a regular place:
UK There are never any taxis plying for trade/hire in our area.
I noticed a couple of prostitutes plying for business on the corner.

old-fashioned
When a boat, train, bus, etc. plies a particular route, it makes that journey regularly:
High-speed trains regularly ply between Paris and Lyons.
This airline has been plying the transatlantic route for many years.

Phrasal verb
ply sb with sth (to keep giving a person something, usually food or drink)
John’s been plying me with drinks all evening.

Question 15

bosom

Answer 15

a woman’s breasts

literary
the front of a person’s chest, especially when thought of as the center of human feelings:
She held him tightly to her bosom.
A dark jealousy stirred in his bosom.

Related word
bosomy (used to describe a woman with large breasts)

Idiom
in the bosom of sth (If you are in the bosom of a group of people, especially your family, you are with them and protected and loved by them.)

Question 16

confide

Answer 16

to tell something secret or personal to someone who you trust not to tell anyone else:
[ + that ] He confided (to her) that his hair was not his own.
[ + speech ] “My husband doesn’t know yet, but I’m going to leave him,” she confided.

A single question to measure the extent to which our respondent’s had close or confiding relationships outside those in the home was added.

I feel uneasy when others confide in me. 18.

Question 17

reverent

Answer 17

showing great respect and admiration:
A reverent silence fell over the crowd.
Opposite
irreverent

The tone of the whole volume is sympathetic, reverent and even affectionate, yet this is not an uncritical piece of hagiography.

Tennyson was disingenuous, if reverent, when he proclaimed that denizens of the afterlife were darkling things, flitting suggestively behind nature’s veil.
From Cambridge English Corpus

Question 18

indomitable

Answer 18

used to say that someone is strong, brave, determined, and difficult to defeat or frighten:
The indomitable Mrs Furlong said she would continue to fight for justice.

Conference and the medical profession has in the last 15 years given its general support, having previously contributed indomitable individuals rather than effective organization.

With her indomitable spirit of adventure, she consistently broke both social and martial rules, moving as she pleased without passes and working with unsatiable fury.

Question 19

diatribe

Answer 19

an angry speech or piece of writing that severely criticizes something or someone:
He launched into a long diatribe against the lack of action in Congress.

His diatribes became increasingly anachronistic and fraught with difficulties in establishing a clear division between necessary and conspicuous expenditure.

The original poem contains a fierce diatribe against women; against this background other more innocent features acquire some significance.

Question 20

recite

Answer 20

to say a piece of writing aloud from memory, or to publicly say a list of things:
She proudly recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
The opposition party recited a long list of the government’s failings.
In English, many past and present participles of verbs can be used as adjectives. Some of these examples may show the adjective use.
Even if a student wears a shirt outside the school, he normally removes it inside and always takes it off when reciting texts.
Reciting the texts from memory allowed me to locate myself in an inner space of memory and association.

Question 21

stigma

Answer 21

a strong feeling of disapproval that most people in a society have about something, especially when this is unfair:
There is no longer any stigma to being divorced.
Being an unmarried mother no longer carries the social stigma that it used to.

the top of the central female part of a flower, where pollen is received
By 18h45-19h15 the flowers were open and the anthers and stigmas were exposed.
Their stamens were light green and the stigmas pink.

Question 22

aerosol

Answer 22

a container in which liquids are kept under pressure and forced out in a spray (= mass of small drops):
The gasses used in aerosols were damaging the atmosphere.

The bacteria are transmitted by ‘nose to nose ‘ contact or inhalation of aerosols [16].

Question 23

drape

Answer 23

drape sth across, on, over, etc. sth

to put something such as cloth or a piece of clothing loosely over something:
He draped his jacket over the back of the chair and sat down to eat.
She draped the scarf loosely around her shoulders.

be draped in/with sth

to be loosely covered with a cloth:
The coffins were all draped with the national flag.

drapes [ plural ] US (also draperies)

heavy curtains made with thick cloth

Idiom
draped all over sb
very close to someone and with your arms around them:
I saw him last night with some woman draped all over him.

Question 24

oxtail

Answer 24

meat from the tail of an ox, or the tail itself:
oxtail soup
I bought an oxtail to make some soup.
The head, spine and oxtail go to the renderers.
Paradoxically, too, the centre of the oxtail bone does not consist of marrow but of a form of light gristle.

Question 25

behooves

Answer 25

it behoves sb to do sth

it is right for someone to do something:
It ill behoves you to (= you should not) speak so rudely of your parents.
Having established that error-contingent models are available to the child, it behoves researchers to assess what impact, if any, they have on grammatical development.
It thus behoved them to maximize the impact of the very considerable political advantages they currently enjoyed.