Unit 4

Question 1

Prodigy

Answer 1

N. An extremely talented child; an extraordinary accomplishment or occurrence

The three year old prodigy could play all of Beethoven and most of Brahms on his harmonica

Question 2

Profane

Answer 2

Adj. not having to do with religion; irreverent

Sticking out your tongue in church would be a profane gesture

Question 3

Profess

Answer 3

V. To declare; to declare falsely or pretend

Jason professed to have taught himself calculus

Question 4

Proficient

Answer 4

Adj. thoroughly competent; skillful; good

I fiddled around at the piano for many years but never became proficient at playing

Question 5

Profligate

Answer 5

Adj. extravagantly wasteful and, usually, wildly immoral

The young heir was profligate with his fortune, spending millions on champagne and racehorses

Question 6

Proletariat

Answer 6

N. The industrial working class

Question 7

Proliferate

Answer 7

V. To spread or grow rapidly

Honey bees proliferated when we filled our yards with flowering plants

Question 8

Propensity

Answer 8

N. A natural inclination or tendency; a predilection

Jessie has a propensity for saying stupid things: every time she opens her mouth, something stupid comes out

Question 9

Proponent

Answer 9

N. An advocate; a supporter of a position

The proponents of a tax increase will probably not be reelected next fall

Question 10

Proprietary

Answer 10

Adj. characteristic of an owner of property; constituting property

George felt proprietary about the chocolate chip cookie recipe; he had invented it himself

Question 11

Propriety

Answer 11

N. Properness; good manners

The old lady viewed the little girls failure to curtsy as a flagrant breach of propriety

Question 12

Prosaic

Answer 12

Adj. dull; unimaginative; like prose

The little boys ambitions were all prosaic: he said he wanted to be an accountant, an auditor, or a claims adjuster

Question 13

Protract

Answer 13

V. To prolong

The trial was so protracted that one of the jurors died of old age

Question 14

Provident

Answer 14

Adj. preparing for the future; providing for the future; frugal

The provident father had long ago set aside money for the college education of each of his children

Question 15

Provincial

Answer 15

Adj. limited in outlook to ones own small corner of the world; narrow

The farmers were provincial; they had no opinions about anything but the price of corn and no interest in anything except growing more of it

Question 16

Provisional

Answer 16

Adj. conditional; temporary; tentative

Question 17

Proximity

Answer 17

N. Nearness

In a big city, one is almost always in the proximity of a restaurant

Question 18

Prudent

Answer 18

Adj. careful; having foresight

Question 19

Purported

Answer 19

Adj. rumored; claimed

Question 20

Putative

Answer 20

Adj. commonly accepted; supposed; reputed

The putative reason for placing the monument downtown is that nobody wanted it uptown

Question 21

Qualify

Answer 21

V. To modify or restrict

Susan qualified her praise of Judith by saying that her kind words applied only to Judith’s skillful cooking and not her abhorrent personality

Question 22

Qualitative

Answer 22

Adj. having to do with the quality or qualities of something

Question 23

Querulous

Answer 23

Adj. complaining; grumbling; whining

The exasperated mother finally managed to hush her querulous child

Question 24

Quixotic

Answer 24

Adj. romantic or idealistic to a foolish or impractical degree

For many years mr. Morris had led a quixotic effort to repeal the federal income tax

Question 25

Ramification

Answer 25

N. A consequence; a branching out

Question 26

Rancor

Answer 26

N. Bitter, long lasting ill will or resentment The mutual rancor felt by the two nations eventually led to war

Question 27

Rapacious

Answer 27

Adj. greedy; plundering; avaricious Wall Street investment bankers are often accused of being rapacious, but they claim they are performing a valuable economic function

Question 28

Rebuke

Answer 28

V. To criticize sharply We trembled as mr. Solomon rebuked us for flipping over his car and taking off his tires

Question 29

Rebut

Answer 29

V. To contradict; to argue in opposition to; to prove to be false

Question 30

Recalcitrant

Answer 30

Adj. stubbornly defiant of authority or control; disobedient The recalcitrant cancer continued to spread through the patients body despite every therapy and treatment the doctors tried

Question 31

Reciprocal

Answer 31

Adj. mutual; shared; interchangeable Their hatred was reciprocal; they hated each other

Question 32

Reclusive

Answer 32

Adj. hermitlike; withdrawn from society Our new neighbors were so reclusive at we didn't even meet them until a full year after they had moved in

Question 33

Recondite

Answer 33

Adj. hard to understand; over ones head The philosophers thesis was so recondite that I couldn't get past the first two sentences

Question 34

Recrimination

Answer 34

N. A bitter counter accusations Melissa was full of recrimination. When I accused her of stealing my pen she angrily accused me of being careless, evil, and stupid

Question 35

Redolent

Answer 35

Adj. fragrant The air in autumn is redolent of wood smoke and fallen leaves

Question 36

Redundant

Answer 36

Adj. unnecessarily repetitive

Question 37

Refute

Answer 37

V. To prove to be false His expensive suit and imported shoes clearly refuted his claim that he was poor

Question 38

Reiterate

Answer 38

V. To repeat

Question 39

Relegate

Answer 39

V. To banish to a lower position The most junior of the junior executives was relegated to a tiny windowless office that had once been a broom closet

Question 40

Remonstrate

Answer 40

V. To argue against My boss remonstrated with me for telling all the secretaries they could take off the rest of the week

Question 41

Renounce

Answer 41

V. To give up formally Despite the pleadings and protestations of her parents, Deborah refused to renounce her love for the leader of the motorcycle gang

Question 42

Repercussion

Answer 42

N. A consequence One repercussion of the new tax law was that accountants found themselves with a lot of new business

Question 43

Replenish

Answer 43

V. To fill again The commanding general replenished his army with a trainload of food and other supplies

Question 44

Replete

Answer 44

Adj. abounding The once polluted stream was now replete with fish of every description

Question 45

Reprehensible

Answer 45

Adj. worthy of severe blame He put the cat in the laundry chute, tied the dog to the chimney, and committed several other reprehensible acts

Question 46

Reprove

Answer 46

V. To criticize mildly My friend reproved me for leaving my dirty dish in the sink

Question 47

Repudiate

Answer 47

V. To disown Hoping to receive a lighter sentence, the convicted gangster repudiated his former connection to the mob

Question 48

Requisite

Answer 48

Adj. required Howard bought a hunting rifle and the requisite ammunition

Question 49

Prodigious

Answer 49

Adj. extraordinary; enormous The little boy caught a prodigious fish- it was ten times his size and might more easily have caught him had their situations been reversed

Question 50

Recant

Answer 50

V. To publicly take back and deny; to openly confess error The secret police to tired the intellectual for a week, by tickling his feet with a feather duster, until he finally recanted