Beyond the Hit Parade Group #2 Flashcards by Katie Stutes

Adumbrate

Verb

to foreshadow vaguely or intimate; to suggest or outline sketchily; to obscure or overshadow

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Abjure

Verb

To renounce or reject solemnly; to recant; to avoid

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Anathema

Noun

a solemn or ecclesiastical (religious) curse; accursed or thoroughly loathed person or thing

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Anodyne

Adj.)/(Noun

soothing; something that assuages or allays pain or comforts

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Apogee

Noun

farthest or highest point; culmination; zenith

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Apostate

Noun

one who abandons long-held religious or political convictions

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Apotheosis

Noun

deification; glorification to godliness; an exalted example; a model of excellence or perfection

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Asperity

Noun

severity, rigor; roughness, harshness; acrimony; irritability

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Asseverate

Verb

to aver, allege, or assert

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Assiduous

Adj.

diligent, hard-working, sedulous

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Augury

Noun

omen, portent

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Bellicose

Adj.

belligerent, pugnacious, warlike

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Calumniate

Verb

to slander, to make a false accusation; “calumny” means slander, aspersion

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Captious

Adj.

disposed to point out trivial faults; calculated to confuse or entrap in argument

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Cavil

Verb

to find fault without good reason

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Celerity

Noun

speed, alacrity; think “accelerate”

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Chimera

Noun

an illusion; originally, an imaginary fire-breathing she-monster

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Contumacious

Adj.

insubordinate, rebellious; “Contumely” means insult, scorn, aspersion

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Debacle

Noun

rout, fiasco, complete failure

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Denouement

Noun

an outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot

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Descry

Verb

to discriminate or discern

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Desuetude

Noun

disuse

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Desultory

Adj.

random; aimless; marked by a lack of plan or purpose

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Diaphanous

Adj.

transparent, gauzy

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Diffident | Adj.

reserved, shy, unassuming; lacking in self-confidence

Dirge | Noun

a song of grief or lamentation

Encomium | Noun

glowing and enthusiactic praise; panegyric, tribute, eulogy

Eschew | Verb

to shun or avoid

Excoriate | Verb

to censure scathingly, to upbraid

Execrate | Verb

to denounce, to feel loathing for, to curse, to declare to be evil

Exegesis | Noun

critical examination, explication

Expiate | Verb

to atone or make amends for

Extirpate | Verb

to destroy, to exterminate, to cut out, to exscind

Fatuous | Adj.

silly, inanely foolish

Fractious | Adj.

quarrelsome, rebellious, unruly, refractory, irritable

Gainsay | Verb

to deny, to dispute, to contradict, to oppose

Heterodox | Adj.

unorthodox, heretical, iconoclastic

Imbroglio | Noun

difficult or embarrassing situation

Indefatigable | Adj.

not easily exhaustible; tireless, dogged

Ineluctable | Adj.

certain, inevitable

Inimitable | Adj.

one of a kind, peerless

Insouciant | Adj.

unconcerned, carefree, heedless

Inveterate | Adj.

deep rooted, ingrained, habitual

Jejune | Adj.

vapid, uninteresting, nugatory; childish, immature, puerile

Lubricious | Adj.

lewd, wanton, greasy, slippery

Mendicant | Noun

a beggar, supplicant

Meretricious | Adj.

cheap, gaudy, tawdry, flashy, showy; attracting by false show

Minatory | Adj.

menacing, threatening (reminds you of the Minotaur, a threatening creature indeed)

Nadir | Noun

low point, perigee

Nonplussed | Adj.

baffled, bewildered, at a loss for what to do or think

Obstreperous | Adj.

Noisily and stubbornly defiant, aggressively boisterous

Ossified | Adj.

tending to become more rigid, conventional, sterile, and reactionary with age; literally, turned into bone

Palliate | Verb

to make something seem less serious, to gloss over, to make less severe or intense

Panegyric | Noun

formal praise, eulogy, encomium; "Panegyrical" means expressing elaborate praise

Parsimonious | Adj.

cheap, miserly

Pellucid | Adj.

transparent, easy to understand, limpid

Peroration | Noun

the concluding part of a speech; flowery, rhetorical speech

Plangent | Adj.

pounding, thundering, resounding

Prolix | Adj.

long-winded, verbose; "Prolixity" means verbosity

Propitiate | Verb

to appease; to conciliate; "Propitious" means auspicious, favorable

Puerile | Adj.

childish, immature, jejune, nugatory

Puissance | Noun

power, strength; "Puissant" means powerful, strong

Pusillanimous | Adj.

cowardly, craven

Remonstrate | Verb

to protest, to object

Sagacious | Adj.

having sound judgment; perceptive, wise; like a sage

Salacious | Adj.

lustful, lascivious, bawdy

Salutary | Adj.

remedial, wholesome, causing improvement

Sanguine | Adj.

cheerful, confident, optimistic

Saturnine | Adj.

gloomy, dark, sullen, morose

Sententious | Adj.

aphoristic or moralistic; epigrammatic; tending to moralize excessively

Stentorian | Adj.

extremely loud and powerful

Stygian | Adj.

gloomy, dark

Sycophant | Noun

toady, servile, self-seeking flatterer; parasite

Tendentious | Adj.

biased; showing marked tendencies

Timorous | Adj.

timid, fearful, diffident

Tyro | Noun

novice, greenhorn, rank amateur

Vitiate | Verb

to corrupt, to debase, to spoil, to make ineffective

Voluble | Adj.

fluent, verbal, having easy use of spoken language