Magoosh - Learned Flashcards
Solicitous
✓ anxious to please
Our neighbors are constantly knocking on our door to make sure we are ok, and I don’t know how to ask them to stop being so solicitous about our health.
Resignation
accepting the unpleasant
Since Jack could not think of a convincing reason why he had to miss the seminar, he attended it with a sense of resignation.
denouement
✓ resolution of a story
إدراك الحبكة الفنية
At the denouement of the movie, all questions were answered, and the true identity of the robber was revealed.
celerity
✓ quickness
We aim to respond to customers’ questions with celerity and accuracy, with no longer than a 24 hour wait time.
Impregnable
✓ indestructible
As a child, Amy would build pillow castles and pretend they were impregnable fortresses.
enmity
✓ hate
Charles’s rude remark toward Sarah yesterday was due to his illness, not due to any real enmity toward Sarah.
nettlesome
✓ annoying
Maria found her coworker’s cell phone nettlesome, because every few minutes it would buzz to life with another text message.
Moment
importance
Despite the initial hullabaloo, the play was of no great moment in Hampton’s writing career, and within a few years the public quickly forgot his foray into theater art
illustrious
✓ famous
Einstein was possibly the most illustrious scientist in recent history.
vindictive
✓ seeking revenge
Though the other girl had only lightly poked fun of Vanessa’s choice in attire, Vanessa was so vindictive that she waited for an entire semester to get the perfect revenge.
sagacious
wise
Steve Jobs is surely one of the most sagacious CEOs, making Apple the most recognizable and valuable companies in the world.
dolorous
sorrowful
Chopin’s ballades are filled with sharp changes in moods–a dolorous melody can give way to a lighthearted tempo.
frustrate
prevent
I thought I would finish writing the paper by lunchtime, but a number of urgent interruptions served to frustrate my plan.
sardonic
✓ mocking
A stand-up comedian walks a fine line when making jokes about members of the audience; such fun and joking can quickly become sardonic and cutting.
precarious
✓ dangerous
People smoke to relax and forget their cares, but ironically, in terms of health risks, smoking is far more precarious than either mountain-climbing or skydiving.
lacerate
✓ distress deeply
The teacher was fired for lacerating a student who wrote a poor essay.
Tact
proper social behavior
In a tremendous display of tact, Shelly was able to maintain a strong friendship with Marcia, even though Marcia’s husband, Frank, confessed to finding Shelly more attractive than Marcia.
rebuke
criticize severely تعنيف، تبكيت
The police chief rebuked the two officers whose irresponsible decisions almost led to the deaths of seven innocent by-standers.
conflagration
✓ large fire
In the summer months, conflagrations are not uncommon in the southwest, due to the heat and lack of rain.
machinate
✓ scheme
The rebels met at night in an abandoned barn to machinate.
trite
✓ lacking originality
Many style guides recommend not using idioms in writing because these trite expressions are uninteresting and show a lack of imagination on the part of the writer.
disenfranchise
deprive of votes
حرمان من الحق الشرعي
The U.S. Constitution disenfranchised women until 1920 when they were given the right to vote.
halcyon
peaceful متقدم ومزدهر
The first decade after WWI was a halcyon period in America with new-found wealth and rapidly improving technology.
surreptitious
سِرّيّ؛مختَلَس؛زائف؛مُسْتَسِرّ؛عاملٌخِلسة
stealthy
Since his mom was a light sleeper, Timmy had to tiptoe surreptitiously through the entire house, careful to not make the floors creak, until he at last was able to enjoy his plunder: a box of chocolate chip cookies.
deride
يسخرمن؛يهزأ
put down
The nun derided the students for trying to sneak insects and worms into the classroom.
uncanny
✓ غريب؛خارقللطبيعة
strange, unsettling
Reggie has an uncanny ability to connect with animals: feral cats will readily approach him, and sometimes even wild birds will land on his finger.
disparate
تفاوُت؛تبايُن
With the advent of machines capable of looking inside the brain, fields as disparate as religion and biology have been brought together by scientists trying to understand what happens in the brain when people have a religious experience.
ostracize
exclude
ينفي؛ينبذ(منالمجتمع
Later in his life, Leo Tolstoy was ostracized from the Russian Orthodox Church for his writings that contradicted church doctrine.
dilapidated
خَرِب؛مُتهدّم.
✓ run down
The main house has been restored but the gazebo is still dilapidated and unuseable.
boon
عطيّة؛نِعمةَ
✓ helpful thing
Modern technology has been a boon to the travel industry.
retiring
✓ shy
Nelson was always the first to leave soirees—rather than mill about with “fashionable” folk, he was retiring, and preferred the solitude of his garret.
mellifluous
sweet-sounding
Chelsea’s grandmother thought Franz Schubert’s music to be the most mellifluous ever written; Chelsea demurred, and to her grandmother’s chagrin, would blast Rihanna on the home stereo speakers.
verisimilitude
✓ appearance of truth
All bad novels are bad for numerous reasons; all good novels are good for their verisimilitude of reality, placing the readers in a world that resembles the one they know.
complacent
✓ contented to a fault
After the water polo team won their sixth championship, they became complacent and didn’t even make it to the playoffs the next year.
reprisal
✓ retaliatory action
The Old Testament doctrine of an eye for an eye is not the kind of retaliation practiced in war; rather, an arm, a leg, and both ears are the reprisal for the smallest scratch.
firebrand
✓ troublemaker
Freddie is a firebrand: every time he walks into the office, he winds up at the center of heated argument.
ethereal
Extremely delicate رقيق
Because she dances with an ethereal style, ballet critics have called her Madame Butterfly.
obstreperous
✓ noisily defiant صاخب، صعب المراس
When the teacher asked the obstreperous student simply to bus his tray, the student threw the entire tray on the floor, shouted an epithet, and walked out.
punctilious
overly precise
The colonel was so punctilious about enforcing regulations that men feel compelled to polish even the soles of their shoes.
exasperate
annoy مسخط مغضب
As a child, I exasperated my mother with strings of never-ending questions.
serendipity
✓ luck
By pure serendipity, Sarah discovered, at a flea market in Peoria, a matching earring to replace the one that fell down the storm drain back home.
moribund
about to die
Whether you like it or not, jazz as a genre is moribund at best, possibly already dead.
chastise
scold
Though chastised for eating the snacks for the party, Lawrence shrugged off his mother’s harsh words, and continued to plow through jars of cookies and boxes of donuts.
martinet
✓ disciplinarian
The job seemed perfect to Rebecca, until she found out that her boss was a total martinet; after each project the boss would come by to scrutinize—and inevitably criticize—every little detail of the work Rebecca had done.
