Round 11 - Vocab.com top 1000

Question 1

nostrums

Answer 1

ineffective drugs; patent medicine whose efficacy is questionable; placebo without effects

Question 2

immure

Answer 2

lock up or confine, in or as in a jail

When you immure someone or something, you put it behind a wall, as in a jail or some other kind of confining space.

Question 3

astringent

Answer 3

acid based; corrosive; sour or bitter in taste; toxic or bitter personality

Question 4

unfaltering

Answer 4

unwavering; marked by firm determination or resolution; not shakable

Question 5

tutelage

Answer 5

attention and management implying responsibility for safety

If you babysit and tutor younger children after school, the kids are under your tutelage. You are responsible for their care and education.

Question 6

elysian

Answer 6

being of such surpassing excellence as to suggest inspiration by the gods; blissful state

paradise; heavenly scene

blissful; delightful

Question 7

fulminate

Answer 7

criticize severely; explode

Watch a bomb fulminate or explode and hope you’re under safe cover. Have your parents fulminate or blow up at you for coming home past curfew and hope you’re not grounded for too long.

Question 8

fractious

Answer 8

easily irritated or annoyed

Question 9

manumit

Answer 9

set free; liberate; free from slavery or servitude

Question 10

triumvirate

Answer 10

group of three men responsible for public administration or civil authority

Question 11

sybarite

Answer 11

a person addicted to luxury and pleasures of the senses

Question 12

magisterial

Answer 12

offensively self-assured or given to exercising usually unwarranted power

A person who is magisterial can be distinguished and grand, or possibly just conceited and bossy.

Question 13

roseate

Answer 13

rosy; of something having a dusty purplish pink color

ie a roseate glow

Question 14

obloquy

Answer 14

a false accusation of an offense or a malicious misrepresentation of someone’s words or actions

If you are on the receiving end of obloquy, then society has turned against you and you are in a state of disgrace. Poor Hester Prynne who was forced to wear a red “A” on her chest for “adultery” knows all about obloquy.

Question 15

striate

Answer 15

mark with striae or striations (grooves or stripes)

Question 16

arrogate

Answer 16

to take over; seize and take control without authority and possibly with force; take as one’s right or possession

Question 17

rarefied

Answer 17

of high moral or intellectual value; elevated in nature or style

so stylish, smart, or moral that they seem elevated above the ordinary, like the rarefied conversation of brilliant scholars.

Question 18

chary

Answer 18

characterized by great caution and wariness

Question 19

credo

Answer 19

system of beliefs or principles

Question 20

superannuated

Answer 20

too old to be useful; obsolete

Question 21

impolitic

Answer 21

politically unwise; putting your foot in your mouth

Question 22

aspersion

Answer 22

a disparaging remark

when you cast aspersions on someone, you are questioning their abilities or doubting them

Question 23

abysmal

Answer 23

resembling an abyss in depth; so deep as to be unmeasurable

real bad

Question 24

poignancy

Answer 24

a quality that arouses emotions (especially pity or sorrow)

something that is deeply touching, especially something that brings forth strong emotions like sympathy, sadness, or sorrow. The poignancy of the movie may bring you to tears

Question 25

stilted

Answer 25

artificially formal

Question 26

effete (e-FEET) adj.

Answer 26

marked by excessive self-indulgence and moral decay; a disapproving term meaning decadent and self-indulgent, even useless.

Question 27

provender

Answer 27

food for domestic livestock food that might not be fancy but it keeps you from going hungry, like the long-time provender of college students: rice, pasta, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the occasional discount pizza.

Question 28

endemic

Answer 28

prevalent; of or relating to a disease: constantly present to greater or lesser extent in a particular locality If you want to underscore just how commonly found and present something is within a particular place, try the word endemic. Tight pants are endemic in my lunch room!

Question 29

jocund (jock-UND)

Answer 29

cheery and merry; full of or showing high-spirited merriment

Question 30

rakish

Answer 30

marked by a carefree unconventionality or disreputableness Ladies, the rakish fellow you met last night with the suave dance moves, smoothly rehearsed lines, and your number listed as “Goddess #14” in his phone is fine for a flirt, but probably isn’t meet-the-parents material.

Question 31

peroration

Answer 31

long, lofty speech; a flowery and highly rhetorical oration speech's conclusion If you attend a political convention, be prepared to hear a peroration — a long, lofty speech. If the speech really drags on, you might find yourself hoping for its peroration, as peroration can also refer to a speech's conclusion.

Question 32

nonentity

Answer 32

a person of no influence or importance

Question 33

abstemious

Answer 33

marked by temperance in indulgence; restrained

Question 34

viscid

Answer 34

having the sticky properties of an adhesive; sticky or thick and slow-moving

Question 35

doggerel

Answer 35

a comic verse of irregular measure; irregularly rhyming, really bad poetry, usually comic in tone and fit only for dogs.

Question 36

sleight/adroit

Answer 36

adroitness in using the hands ie "sleight of hand"

Question 37

wizened

Answer 37

lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness

Question 38

whorl

Answer 38

a round shape formed by a series of concentric circles (as formed by leaves or flower petals)

Question 39

fracas (FRAY-cus)

Answer 39

noisy quarrel

Question 40

iconoclast

Answer 40

someone who attacks cherished ideas or traditional institutions; challenges and attacks traditions

Question 41

saturnine

Answer 41

bitter or scornful; gloomy, mean, scowling

Question 42

discursive

Answer 42

(of e.g. speech and writing) tending to depart from the main point or cover a wide range of subjects; ramble from topic to topic in a hard to follow manner

Question 43

moribund

Answer 43

not growing or changing; without force or vitality; almost dead

Question 44

modicum

Answer 44

a small or moderate or token amount

Question 45

adventitious

Answer 45

things that "just kind of happen"; associated by chance and not an integral part

Question 46

recondite

Answer 46

abstruse or esoteric hard for the average mind to understand; difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge

Question 47

zephyr

Answer 47

gentle breeze; a slight wind (usually refreshing)

Question 48

countermand

Answer 48

cancel officially; to revoke or reverse a command

Question 49

captious

Answer 49

hypercritical; tending to find and call attention to faults

Question 50

cognate

Answer 50

words that look and mean the same in different languages; having the same ancestral language