Quick Quizzes 11 - 20 Flashcards

Question

Axiom

Answer 1

(AK see um) n a self-evident rule or truth; a widely accepted saying "Everything that is living dies" is an axiom. An axiom in geometry is a rule that doesn't have to be proved because its truth is accepted as obvious, self-evident, or unprovable

Answer 2

(buh NAL) adj unoriginal; ordinary The dinner conversation was so banal that Amanda fell asleep in her dessert dish. A banal statement is a boring, trite, and uncreative statement. It is a banality. This word can also be pronounced "BANE ul"

Answer 3

(bayn) n poison; torment; cause of harm Bane means poison (wolfbane is a kind of poisonous plant), but the word is usually used figuratively. To say that someone is the bane of your existence is to say that that person poisons your enjoyment of life. Baneful means harmful.

Answer 4

(BAS chun) n stronghold; fortress; fortified place Mrs. Garnett's classroom is a bastion of banality; that is, it's a place where originality seldom, if ever makes its way inside. The robbers terrorized the village for several weeks, then escaped to their bastion high in the treacherous mountains.

Answer 5

(bih GET) v to give birth to; to create; to lead to; to cause Those who lie should be creative and have good memories, since one lie often begets another lie, which begets another.

Answer 6

(bi LAY bur) v to go over repeatedly or to an absurd extent For more than an hour, the boring preacher belabored his point about the values of motherhood. Mr. Irving spent the entire period belaboring the obvious; he made the same dumb observation over and over again.

Answer 7

(bih LEE gur) v to surround; to besiege; to harass | No one could leave the beleaguered city; the attacking army had closed off all the exits.

Answer 8

(bih LYE) v to give a false impression of; to contradict Melvin's smile belied the grief he was feeling; despite his happy expression he was terribly sad inside. A word that is sometimes confused with belie is betray. To rework the first example above: Melvin was smiling, but a small tear in one eye betrayed the grief he was feeling.

Answer 9

(bih LIT ul) v to make to seem little; to put someone down We worked hard to put out the fire, but the fire chief belittled our efforts by saying he wished he had brought some marshmallows. The chairman's belittling comments made everyone feel small.

Answer 10

(buh LIJ ur unt) adj combative; quarrelsome; waging war Al was so belligerent that the convention had the feel of a boxing match. A bully is belligerent. To be belligerent is to push other people around, to be noisy and argumentative, to threaten other people and generally make a nuisance of oneself. Opposing armies in a war are referred to as belligerents. Sometimes one belligerent in a conflict is more belligerent than the other.

Answer 11

(bih MYOOZD) adj confused; bewildered The two stood bemused in the middle of the parking lot at Disneyland, trying to remember where they had parked their car. To muse is to think about or ponder things. To be bemused, then, is to have been thinking about things to the point of confusion. People often use the word bemused when they really mean amused, but bemusement is no laughing matter. Bemused means confused.

Answer 12

(BEN uh fak tur) n one who provides help, especially in the form of a gift or donation. To give benefits is to be a benefaactor. To receive benefits is to be a beneficiary. People very, very often confuse these two words. It would be to their benefit to keep them straight.

Answer 13

(ben uh FISH ee ary) n one who receives benefits If your neighbor rewrites his life insurance policy so that you will receive all his millions when he dies, then you become the beneficiary of the policy. If your neighbor dies, he is your benefactor.

Answer 14

(MAL uh fak tur) n a person who does bad things | Batman and Robin made life hell for malefactors in Gotham City.

Answer 15

(beh NEV uh lunt) adj generous; kind; doing good deeds Giving money to the poor is a benevolent act. To be benevolent is to bestow benefits. The United Way, like any charity, is a benevolent organization.

Answer 16

(muh LEV uh lunt) means evil, or wishing to do harm

Answer 17

(bih NYNE) adj gentle; not harmful; kind; mild Karla has a benign personality; she is not at all unpleasant to be with. Charlie was worried that he had cancer, but the lump on his leg turned out to be benign. The difference between a benign person and a benevolent one is that the benevolent one is actively kind and generous while the benign one is more passive.

Answer 18

(muh LIG nant) adj deadly, mean, nasty, evil, full of ill will A malignant tumor is the opposite of a benign tumor. It can kill you. An adjective that means the same thing is malign. As a verb, malign has a different meaning.

Answer 19

(muh LINE) v To malign someone is to say unfairly bad things about that person, to injure that person by telling evil lies about him or her. Slander and malign are synonyms.

Answer 20

(bih KWEST) n something left to someone in a will If your next-door neighbor leaves you all his millions in a will, the money is a bequest from him to you. It is not polite to request a bequest. Just keep smiling and hope for the best. To leave something to someone in a will is to bequeath it. A bequest is something that has been bequeathed.

Answer 21

(buh REEVD) adj deprived or left desolate, especially through death The children were bereaved b y the death of theri pet. Then they got a new pet. Bereft means the same thing as bereaved.

Answer 22

(bih SET) v to harass; to surround The bereaved widow was beset by grief. Problems beset the expedition almost from the beginning; and the mountain climbers soon returned to their base camp.

Answer 23

(BLAS fuh mee) n irreverence; an insult to something held sacred; profanity In the strictest sense, to commit blasphemy is to say nasty, insulting things about God. The word is used more broadly, though, to cover a wide range of nasty, insulting comments. To blaspheme is to use swear words or say deeply irreverent things. A person who says such things is blasphemous.

Answer 24

(BLAYT unt) adj unpleasantly or offensively noisy; glaring David was blatantly critical of our efforts; that is, he was noisy and obnoxious in making his criticisms. Blatant is often confused with flagrant, since both words mean glaring. Blatant indicates that something was not concealed very well, whereas flagrant indicates that something was intentional. A blatant act is usually also a flagrant one, but a flagrant act isn't necessarily blatant. You might want to refer to the listing for flagrant.

Answer 25

(blyte) n a disease in plants; anything that injures or destroys An early frost proved a blight to the citrus crops last year, so we had no orange juice for breakfast.

Answer 26

(blythe) adj carefree; cheerful The blithe birds in the garden were making so much noise that Jamilla began to think about the shotgun in the attic. The children were plying blithely in the hazardous-waste dump. While they played, they were blithely unaware that they were doing something dangerous. To be blithely ignorant is to be happily unaware.

Answer 27

(boor ZHWAH) adj middle class, usually in a perjorative sense, boringly conventional The original bourgeoisie (boor zhwaw ZEE) were simply people who lived in cities, an innovation at the time. They weren't farmers and they weren't nobles. They were members of a new class--the middle class. Now the word is used mostly in making fun of or sneering at people who seem to think about nothing but their possessions and other comforts and about conforming with other people who share those concerns. A hip young city dweller might reject life in the suburbs as being too bourgeois. A person whose dream is to have a swimming pool in his backyard might be called bourgeois by someone who thinks there are more important things in life. Golf is often referred to as a bourgeois sport.

Answer 28

(BO vyne) adj cow related; cowlike Cows are bovine, obviously. Eating grass is a bovine concern. There are a number of similar words based on other animals...

Answer 29

(KAY nyne) dogs

Answer 30

(EE kwyne) horses

Answer 31

(FEE lyne) cats

Answer 32

(PYE seen) fish

Answer 33

(POR syne) pigs

Answer 34

(UR syne) bears

Answer 35

(BREV i tee) n briefness The audience was deeply grateful for the brevity of the after-dinner speaker's remarks. The reader of this book may be grateful for the brevity of the example. Brevity is related to the word abbreviate.

Answer 36

(brohch) v to open up a subject for discussion, often a delicate subject Henrietta was proud of her new dress, so no one knew how to broach the subject with her of how silly grandmothers look in leather.

Answer 37

(byoo KAHL ik) adj charmingly rural; rustic, countrylike The changing of the autumn leaves, old stone walls, distant views, and horses grazing in green meadows are examples of bucolic splendor. The bucolic scene didn't do much for the city child, who preferred screaming fire engines and honking horns to the sounds of a babbling brook.

Answer 38

(byoo RAHK ruh see) n a system of government administration consisting of numerous bureaus or offices, especially one run according to inflexible and inefficient rules; any large administrative system characterized by inefficiency, lots of rules, and red tape. The Department of Motor Vehicles is a bureaucracy. The forms you have to fill out all request unnecessary information. After you finally get everything all filled out and handed in, you don't hear another word from the department for may months. The people who work in a bureaucracy are called bureaucrats. These people and the inefficient procedures they follow might be called bureaucratic. Administrative systems outside the government can be bureaucratic, too. A high school principal who requires teachers and students to fill out forms for everything might be called bureaucratic.

Answer 39

(BUR jun) v to expand; to flourish | The burgeoning weeds in our yard soon overwhelmed the grass.

Answer 40

(bur LESK) n a ludicrous, mocking, lewd imitation Vaudeville actors frequently performed burlesque works on the stage. Burlesque, parody, lampoon, and caricature share similar meanings.

Answer 41

(buh KWEETH) v to leave something to someone in a will.

Answer 42

(kuh KAHF uh nee) n harsh-sounding mixture of words, voices, or sounds The parade's two marching bands played simultaneously; the resulting cacophony drove many spectators to tears. A cacophony isn't just a lot of noise--it's a lot of noise that doesn't sound good together. A steam whistle blowing isn't a cacophony. But a high school orchestra that had never rehearsed together might very well produce a cacophony. The roar of engines, horns, and sirens arising from a busy city street would be a cacophony. A lot of people all shouting at once would produce a cacophony. Euphony is the opposite of cacophony. Euphony is pleasing sound.

Answer 43

(KAYD uns) n rhythm; the rise and fall of sounds | We wished the tone of Irwin's words would have a more pleasing cadence, but he spoke in a dull monotone.

Answer 44

(kuh JOHL) v to persuade someone to do something he or she doesn't want to do I didn't want to give the speech, but Enrique cajoled me into doing it by telling me what a good speaker I am. As it turned out, he simply hadn't been able to find anyone else.

Answer 45

(KAL oh) adj immature The patient was alarmed by the callowness of the medical staff. The doctors looked too young to have graduated from high school, much less from medical school. To be callow is to be youthfully naive, inexperienced, and unsophisticated.

Answer 46

(KAN dur) n truthfulness; sincere honesty My best friend exhibited candor when he told me that for many years now he has believed me to be a jerk. Teddy appreciated Ross's candor; Teddy was glad to know that Ross thought Teddy's sideburns looked stupid. To show candor is to be candid. What is candid about the camera on "Candid Camera"? The camera is candid because it is truthful in showing what people do when they can't turn off the coffee machine in the office where they're applying for a job. Candid does not mean concealed or hidden, even though the camera on "Candid Camera is concealed. To be candid is to speak frankly.

Answer 47

(KAP uh tuh liz um) n an economic system in which businesses are owned by private citizens (not by the government) and in which the resulting products and services are sold with relatively little government control. The American economy is capitalist. If you wanted to start a company to sell signed photographs of yourself, you could. You, and not the government, would decide how much you would charge for the pictures. Your success or failure would depend on how many people decided to buy your pictures.

Answer 48

(kuh PICH uh layt) v to surrender; to give up or give in On the twentieth day of the strike, the workers capitulated and went back to work without a new contract. So few students paid attention to Mr. Hernandez that he had to recapitulate his major points at the end of the class. To recapitulate is not to capitulate again. To recapitulate is to summarize.

Answer 49

to summarize

Answer 50

(kuh PRISH us) adj unpredictable; likely to change at any moment Arjun was capricious. One minute he said his favorite car was a Volkswagen Jetta; the next minute he said it was a Passat. The weather is often said to be capricious. One minute it's sowing; the next minute it's 120 degrees in the shade. Kendra attempted a quadruple somersault off the ten-meter diving board as a caprice. It was a painful caprice. A caprice (kuh PREES) is a whim.

Answer 51

(KAR uh kuh chur) n a portrait or description that is purposely distorted or exaggerated, often to prove some point about its subject Khoa sat for a caricature at the end of the marathon, but wasn't pleased with the result: The portrait exaggerated his already dominant acne. Editorial cartoonists often draw caricatures. Big noses, enormous glasses, floppy ears, and other distortions are common in such drawings. A caricature uses exaggeration to bring out the hidden character of its subject. The word can also be used as a verb. To caricature someone is to create such a distorted portrait.

Answer 52

(KAS tuh gayt) v to criticize severely; to chastise | Jose's mother-in-law castigated him for forgetting to pick her up at the airport.

Answer 53

(KAT uh list) n in chemistry, something that changes the rate of a chemical reaction without itself being changed; anyone or anything that makes something happen without being directly involved in it When the mad scientist dropped a few grains of the catalyst into his test tube, the bubbling liquid began to boil furiously. This word is often used outide the laboratory as well. The launching of Sputnik by the Russians provided the catalyst for the creation of the modern American space program. The tragic hijacking provided the catalyst for Congress's new anti-terrorist legislation.

Answer 54

(kat uh GOR uh kul) adj unconditional, absolute A categorical denial is one without exceptions--it covers every category. Crooked politicians often make categorical denials of various charges against them. Then they go to jail. I categorically refuse to do anything whatsoever at any time, in any place, with anyone.

Answer 55

(kuh THAR sis) n purification that brings emotional relief or renewal To someone with psychological problems, talking to a psychiatrist can lead to a catharsis. A catharsis is a sometimes traumatic event, after which one feels better. A catharsis is is cathartic. Some people find emotional movies cathartic--watching one often allows them to release buried feelings. Cathartic can also be a noun.

Answer 56

(KATH lik) adj universal, embracing everything Da Vinci was a catholic genius who excelled at everything he did. Parochial means narrow-minded, so parochial and catholic are almost opposites. Catholic with a small c means universal. Catholic with a large C means Roman Catholic or pertaining to an ancient, undivided Christian church.

Answer 57

(KAW stik) adj like acid; corrosive Paint remover is a caustic substance; if you spill it on your skin, your skin will burn. The caustic detergent ate right through Henry's laundry. The teacher's caustic criticism of Sally's term paper left her in tears. Caustic can be used figuratively as well. A caustic comment is one that is so nasty or insulting that it seems to sting or burn the person to whom it is directed.

Answer 58

(SEL uh buh see) n abstinence from sex People who practice celibacy don't practice sex. Celibacy is one of the requirements for Catholic priesthood. To practice celibacy is to be celibate. You will look a very long time in Hollywood before you find a celibate celebrity.

Answer 59

(SEN shur) v to condemn severely for doing something bad The Senate sometimes censures senators for breaking laws or engaging in behavior unbecoming to an elected official. Censure can also be a noun. The clumsy physician feared the censure of his fellow doctors, so he stopped treating anything more complicated than the common cold. A Senate that made a habit of censuring senators might be said to be censorious. To be censorious is to be highly critical--to do a lot of censuring.

Answer 60

(suh REE brul) adj brainy; intellectually refined Your cerebrum is the biggest part of your brain. To be cerebral is to do and care about things that really smart people do and care about. A cerebral discussion is one that is filled with big words and concerns abstruse matters that ordinary people can't understand. Sebastian was too cerebral to be a baseball announcer; he kept talking about the existentialism of the outfield. This word can also be pronounced "SER uh brul"

Answer 61

(shuh GRIN) n humiliation; embarrassed disappointment Much to my chagrin, I began to giggle during the eulogy at the funeral. Doug was filled with chagrin when he lost the race because he had put his shoes on the wrong feet. The word chagrin is sometimes used incorrectly to mean surprise. There is, however, a definite note of shame in chagrin. To be chagrined is to feel humiliated or mortified.

Answer 62

(kuh RIZ muh) n a magical-seeming ability to attract followers or inspire loyalty The glamorous presidential candidate had a lot of charisma; voters didn't seem to support him so much as to be entranced by him. To have charisma is to be charismatic.

Answer 63

(SHAR luh tun) n fraud; quack; con man Buck was selling what he claimed was a cure for cancer, but he was just a charlatan (the pills were jelly beans). The flea market usually attracts a lot of charlatans who sell phony products that don't do what they claim they will.

Answer 64

(KAZ um) n a deep, gaping hole; a gorge | Mark was so stupid that his girlfriend wondered whether there wasn't a chasm where his brain should be.

Answer 65

(chas TYZE) v to inflict punishment on; to discipline | Mother chastised us for firing our bottle rockets through the living-room window.

Answer 66

(shi KAY nuh ree) n trickery; deceitfulness; artifice, especially legal or political Political news would be dull were it not for the chicanery of our elected officials.

Answer 67

(kye MEER uh) n an illusion; a foolish fancy | Ivy's dream of becoming a movie star was just a chimera.

Answer 68

(KAHL ur ik) adj hot-tempered; quick to anger | When the grumpy old man was in one of his choleric moods, the children refused to go near him.

Answer 69

(KRAHN ik) adj constant; lasting a long time; inveterate DJ's chronic back pains often kept him from football practice, but the post-game internal bleeding lasted only a day. Someone who always comes in last could be called a chronic loser. Chronic is usually associated with something negative or undesirable: chronic illness, chronic failure, chronic depression. You would be much less likely to encounter a reference to chronic success or chronic happiness, unless the writer or speaker was being ironic.

Answer 70

(KRAHN uh kul) n a record or account of events in order of time; a history Sally's diary provided her mother with a detailed chronicle of her daughter's extracurricular activities. Chronicle can also be used as a verb. The reporter chronicled all the events of the revolution. Chronology and chronicle are nearly synonyms: Both provide a chronological list of events. Chronological means in order of time.

Answer 71

list in time order

Answer 72

in order of occurrence

Quick Quizzes 11 - 20 Flashcards

(96 cards)