Barrons Essential words Flashcards

Question

euphemism N

Answer 1

use of agreeable or inoffensive language in place of unpleasant or offensive language An illustration of the tendency toward euphemism is the change (reflecting the political concerns of the day) in the accepted appellation of poor countries from the unambiguous poor, to undeveloped, to underdeveloped, to less developed, to developing.

Answer 2

proper behavior When addressing the nation, the president generally has an air of decorum. The adjective is decorous.

Answer 3

In Indian philosophy a position between monism at one extreme and dualism at the other is qualified non-dualism, a philosophy in which reality is considered to have attributes of both dualism and monism. Qualification is a noun meaning limitation or restriction. So many qualifications had been added to the agreement that Sue was now reluctant to sign it. The verb qualify means to modify or limit.

Answer 4

a person possessing expert knowledge or training; a person of informed and discriminating taste The art connoisseur selected works by Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and Picasso for the exhibition.

Answer 5

purposeful exaggeration for effect The American tradition of the tall tale uses hyperbole to depict a world in which the inhabitants and their deeds are larger than life, as befitting a people inhabiting a vast landscape.

Answer 6

beginner; novice The coach said that some of the team's fledglings would play in Saturday's game. The adjective fledgling means immature or inexperienced.

Answer 7

practical The cult of romantic love was a major factor in making a marriage for love, rather than for more pragmatic reasons, a ubiquitous phenomenon in the West by the nineteenth century. Pragmatism means a practical way of approaching situations or solving problems. Pragmatism is similar to Positivism in rejecting lofty metaphysical conceptions and in asserting that the main role of philosophy is to help clarify phenomena experienced. A pragmatist is someone who approaches situations in a practical way. The word “pragmatist” is often used to refer to someone who is willing to sacrifice his principles to expediency.

Answer 8

long, pompous speech; tirade The football team sat silently listening to their coach's half-time harangue about poor tackling, dropped passes, and lost opportunities to score.

Answer 9

to adorn; decorate; enhance; make more attractive by adding details The story he had been told was so powerful that the writer felt no need to embellish it.

Answer 10

disgrace; contempt It is difficult to imagine the opprobrium heaped on a person who is a traitor to his or her group.

Answer 11

an embankment that prevents a river from overflowing An extensive system of levees is the only way to prevent the river from flooding the area during periods of heavy rain.

Answer 12

concerned; attentive; eager The nurse is extremely solicitous of the health of every patient in the ward.

Answer 13

to specify as an essential condition. The president's lawyer stipulated that he would appear before the investigative committee, but would answer only questions directly relevant to the issue at hand. The noun is stipulation. Stipulations in a contract should be clear in order to obviate the need for parties to resort to litigation.

Answer 14

based on a false idea or fact; misleading The belief of the Nazis that they could create a “master race” was based on the fallacious premise that some races are inherently superior to others. The noun fallacy means an incorrect idea. Critics of the “strong” anthropic principle argue that its proponents are guilty of a logical fallacy: on the basis of one known case of intelligent life, they extrapolate the existence of a multitude of such cases.

Answer 15

strong or sharp in smell or taste; penetrating; caustic; to the point Slang frequently expresses an idea succinctly and pungently.

Answer 16

light manner or attitude The comedian has a gift for finding an element of levity in the most serious of subjects.

Answer 17

state of not fitting There is an incongruity between the poem's solemn tone and its light-hearted theme. The adjective is incongruous. The assumptions underlying Jonathan Swift's definition of literary style–“The proper words in the proper order”–recognize that there are many effective styles, but that the effectiveness of each is dependent on the context within which it is found: for example, the rambling, exuberant style of Walt Whitman's poem “Song of Myself” would be incongruous in Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock, with its dependence on sustained wit and irony.

Answer 18

to support with proof or evidence The validity of fossil identification is substantiated by data from geology and carbon-14 dating.

Answer 19

involving a cause The philosopher Plato believed there is a causal relationship between income inequality, on the one hand, and political discontent and crime, on the other hand: in his Laws he quantified his argument, contending that the income of the rich should be no more than five times that of the poor, and he proposed policies to limit extremes of wealth and poverty.

Answer 20

to fall; plunge The fighter jet, struck by an enemy missile, plummeted to earth.

Answer 21

weak; insubstantial Study of the historical evidence has shown that there is only a tenuous connection between the country Plato describes in The Republic and the legendary land of Atlantis.

Answer 22

to be sparing Stinting on funding for education strikes many people as shortsighted. Stint is also a noun meaning a period of time spent doing something. Isaac Asimov did a short involuntary stint in the army as a conscript during the 1950s.

Answer 23

act of straying from the main point The novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig contains many fascinating digressions from the main story that discuss topics such as Platonic philosophy.

Answer 24

act of trespassing or violating a law or rule The teacher made it clear on the first day of the term that she would not countenance any transgression of classroom rules. The verb is transgress. Western medicine transgressed Hippocrates'; prescriptions for medicine when doctors debilitated patients through the administration of purges and bloodletting.

Answer 25

to dishonor; disgrace; cause to be doubted The candidate's attempt to discredit his opponent by spreading damaging rumors about him failed.

Answer 26

derived from observation or experiment Some people erroneously cite the theory of relativity as support for ethical relativism, whereas in reality the former is a scientific theory, while the latter is a moral issue, and thus by its nature is not subject to empirical verification.

Answer 27

change; transformation In recent years, many areas of China have been undergoing a metamorphosis, transforming themselves from predominantly agricultural areas to industrial ones.

Answer 28

to adore; honor; respect Mother Theresa is venerated for her compassion for the poor people of India. Venerable is an adjective meaning respected because of age, character, or position. In the plain-language edition of the venerable Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy the original definition of a hangnail–“Acute or chronic inflammation of the periungual tissues”–is transmogrified into “An infection around the edge of a fingernail or toenail.”

Answer 29

easily angered The irascible old man complains every time someone makes a little noise.

Answer 30

one-sided; committed to a party, group, or cause; prejudiced Supporters of constitutional monarchy believe that while in this system, as it is generally practiced today, virtually all power is vested in popularly elected assemblies, the institution of the monarchy continues to serve a purpose as a focus of national unity above the furor of partisan politics.

Answer 31

dissenter Bernie Sanders of Vermont has a reputation as a maverick; he is one of only two members of the United States Congress who is independent (that is, not a member of the Republican or Democratic Party).

Answer 32

to provoke; draw out The Socratic method is designed to elicit responses that guide the student toward understanding.

Answer 33

proportional In the United States, malpractice suits have raised the cost of medicine because doctors must pay more for insurance, and thus increase their fees commensurately.

Answer 34

aggressiveness; ferocity The principal warned the student that his truculence might one day land him in jail.

Answer 35

a piece of broken glass or pottery Archeologists were able to reconstruct the drinking vessel from shards found around the ancient campsite.

Answer 36

truthful; accurate The witness' testimony appeared to be veracious at first, but under cross-examination, several inconsistencies appeared.

Answer 37

to prod; urge on Goaded by his friends into trying out for the football team as a walk-on, Jeff went on to become an all-American linebacker.

Answer 38

not easily disturbed Buddha counseled that one should try to remain imperturbable through life's vicissitudes.

Answer 39

practicable; capable of developing Since the early 1950s, government planners have faced a dilemma: Spend a great deal of money to keep cities viable by rebuilding decrepit infrastructure, or allow them to decay. The noun is viability. According to the historian Arnold Toynbee, there is a strong relationship between a society's view of itself relative to other societies and its continued viability.

Answer 40

capable of being shaped by pounding; impressionable Behaviorists such as B. F. Skinner believe that human nature is malleable, and that people's behavior can be changed by changing their environment.

Answer 41

trickery; fraud The governor ordered an audit to investigate alleged financial chicanery.

Answer 42

to consign to an inferior position Idealist philosophers are a common target of satire; however, instead of relegating them all to the garbage can, one should reflect that thinkers such as Plato and Kant have given humanity some of its most profound ideas.

Answer 43

morally unprincipled person The social worker refused to give up hope of reforming the criminal who was generally regarded as a reprobate.

Answer 44

quarrelsome; causing quarrels When genetic engineering began in the 1970s, there was a contentious, and sometimes acrimonious, debate among scientists themselves about its dangers.

Answer 45

careful; cautious According to psychologists, human beings are naturally wary of strangers.

Answer 46

to cover with water; overwhelm Farmers in the arid areas called for the government to build a dam to provide water to irrigate their crops and provide hydroelectric power; however, this plan was opposed by environmentalists, who dislike inundation of land because it would have an adverse effect on wildlife.

Answer 47

not candid; crafty When a person starts a sentence, “I don't mean to appear disingenuous,” one might be tempted to suspect that the person is being just that.

Answer 48

unprejudiced; objective The newspaper reporter looked for disinterested witnesses to the events so that she could get an objective account of what had happened.

Answer 49

faithless; disloyal; untrustworthy The novel tells the story of the hero's perfidious lover.

Answer 50

devoutness Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was a medieval French monk revered for his piety.

Answer 51

to represent or depict Quantum theory led to the formulation of the uncertainty principle, which was delineated in 1937 by Werner Heisenberg.

Answer 52

inclination; tendency There is a natural propensity to stress the importance of what one is saying by exaggerating it.

Answer 53

to tear out; scoop out; overcharge The store is able to gouge its customers because it is the only store in the area that carries that particular line of merchandise.

Answer 54

spread throughout every part It is a plausible hypothesis that the atheistic and materialistic philosophy of Marxism was readily accepted in China because of its similarities with Confucian views on spiritual matters, which had a pervasive influence in China for many centuries. The noun is pervasiveness. An indicator of the pervasiveness of psychotropic drugs in American society is the fact that approximately 50% of adults have used tranquilizers at some time in their lives. The verb is pervade.

Answer 55

to contradict; disprove The eighteenth-century English author Samuel Johnson claimed to have refuted the philosophy of idealism by kicking a large stone. The noun is refutation. Fundamentalism arose in Protestantism as a refutation of the liberal theology of the early twentieth century, which interpreted Christianity in terms of contemporary scientific theories.

Answer 56

carelessly; unintentionally The songwriter says that it is easy to inadvertently use the melody of another song when composing.

Answer 57

untouched; uncorrupted The bank's hermetically sealed vault has kept the manuscript in pristine condition for 50 years.

Answer 58

implied; understood but not stated Implicit in the review is the idea that the writing of serious literature is a moral undertaking. An implication is that which is hinted at or suggested. The guiding principle of common law is that decisions of previous courts should be followed unless there are compelling reasons for ruling differently, which by implication would invalidate the earlier rulings.

Answer 59

to inform Nadine Cohodas's biography of the blues singer Dinah Washington keeps the reader apprised of the racism black Americans had to endure.

Answer 60

determination; resolve Fred's resolution to succeed is unshaken despite the many setbacks he has suffered.

Answer 61

concluding part of a literary or musical composition; something that summarizes or concludes The coda of the Danish composer Per Norgard's Sixth Symphony seems to return to the serene sounds of the opening.

Answer 62

The encyclopedia editors worked hard to cut out extraneous material so that readers could find information easily on a given subject.

Answer 63

expressing deep respect; worshipful The biologist Loren Eisely had what could be described as a reverent attitude toward nature. The verb is revere.

Answer 64

means to deflect sound or light. Intermittently the ionosphere refracts radio waves of certain frequencies, allowing transmissions between distant points on the Earth.

Answer 65

firmly established by nature or habit Some studies of random numbers generated by computers suggest that an inherent order exists in nature, since certain patterns appear that one would not expect in a random system, but skeptics dismiss such patterns as either artifacts of imperfectly designed experiments, or as the attempt of the human mind to impose a pattern where there is no intrinsic order.

Answer 66

to suggest; say indirectly; imply If you read his speech carefully you will see that the senator is insinuating that his party has taken the wrong path.

Answer 67

mark of disgrace or inferiority A problem with giving formal psychological treatment to a child who is believed to be poorly adjusted to society is that he may acquire a stigma as a result of officially being labeled as deviant, and he may act to corroborate society's expectation. The verb is stigmatize. The civil rights movement helped to stigmatize racism, augmenting legal efforts to desegregate American society.

Answer 68

to pretend; disguise one's motives “Miss,” the prosecutor said, “I believe you are dissembling. I want you to tell me the whole truth about what happened that night.”

Answer 69

respect; regard for another's wish There was a movement to condemn slavery among some of the writers of the Declaration of Independence, but despite many misgivings, the proposal was dropped in deference to the objections of a number of people. The verb defer means to submit to the wishes of another due to respect or recognition of the person's authority or knowledge. The young lawyer deferred to the view of the senior partner in the law firm.

Answer 70

to spread; scatter; disperse While belief in reincarnation appeared as doctrine first in India and was disseminated throughout Asia by Buddhism, it is interesting that it was accepted by the most influential philosophy of the West, Platonism, and by some important early Christian thinkers, such as the theologian Origen.

Answer 71

fickle The rule of law is regarded by many historians as one of humanity's great achievements because since its inception citizens are no longer subject to capricious decisions and penalties of rulers.

Answer 72

unsure of how to act; weak The president admonished Congress, saying that although it faced difficult choices it must not be irresolute.

Answer 73

collapse inward violently The building was imploded in order to make way for the construction of a new apartment complex. The noun is implosion.

Answer 74

difference between The book studies the discrepancy in values and outlook between men who fought in the war, whether voluntarily or not, and those who remained civilians.

Answer 75

twisted; complicated Unraveling the convoluted genetic code is one of the great achievements of modern science.

Answer 76

to incite; arouse The government accused the newspaper of fomenting unrest in the country.

Answer 77

to cancel The salesperson said he would rescind his offer to sell the goods at a 10% discount unless he received full payment within 24 hours.

Answer 78

generosity; nobility The senator showed his magnanimity when he conceded defeat to his opponent in the disputed election, saying that further uncertainty would be harmful to public confidence in the political system.

Answer 79

to baffle; perplex; mix up Everyone but astrophysicists seems to be confounded by the question, “What happened before the Big Bang?”

Answer 80

praise; approval The Congressional Medal of Honor is the highest approbation an American soldier can receive.

Answer 81

to assert One of the most famous philosophers to argue for ethical relativism was the German Friedrich Nietzsche, who contended that the right- ness of a particular action is dependent on the circumstances of the time and culture in which it occurs. Contention is a noun meaning an assertion. The study's contention is that obesity is America's biggest health problem.

Answer 82

Produce (human, animal)

Answer 83

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Barrons Essential words Flashcards

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