Vocab 9

Question 1

acumen

Answer 1

(n.) keen insight (Because of her mathematical acumen, Laura was able to figure out in minutes problems that took other students hours.)

Question 2

burnish

Answer 2

(v.) to polish, shine (His mother asked him to burnish the silverware before setting the table.

Question 3

credulity

Answer 3

(n.) readiness to believe (His credulity made him an easy target for con artists.)

Question 4

diffident

Answer 4

(adj.) shy, quiet, modest (While eating dinner with the adults, the diffident youth did not speak for fear of seeming presumptuous.)

Question 5

exculpate

Answer 5

(v.) to free from guilt or blame, exonerate (Jacob’s discovery of the ring behind the dresser exculpated him from the charge of having stolen it.)

Question 6

fractious

Answer 6

(adj.) troublesome or irritable (Although the child insisted he wasn’t tired, his fractious behavior—especially his decision to crush his cheese and crackers all over the floor—convinced everyone present that it was time to put him to bed.)

Question 7

imperious

Answer 7

(adj.) commanding, domineering (The imperious nature of her boss’s manner led Paulina to dislike her at once.)

Question 8

ingenuous

Answer 8

(adj.) not devious; innocent and candid (He must have writers, but his speeches seem so ingenuous it’s hard to believe he’s not speaking from his own heart.)

Question 9

latent

Answer 9

(adj.) hidden, but capable of being exposed (Sigmund’s dream represented his latent paranoid obsession with other people’s shoes.)

Question 10

morass

Answer 10

(n.) a wet swampy bog; figuratively, something that traps and confuses (When Theresa lost her job, she could not get out of her financial morass.)