English 11 McGivern Vocab 121 - 150
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30 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Obdurate | Stubborn, not easily persuaded or influenced. |
| Obviate | to prevent by anticipatory measures; to make unnecessary, to avoid something my anticipating it. |
| Occlude | to close or shut off; to obstruct, to block up (n: occlusion) |
| Opaque | Unclear, not transparent or translucent; dense; difficult to comprehend. |
| Ossified | Turned to bone; hardened like bone; Inflexible: "The ossified culture failed to adapt to new economic conditions and died out." |
| Panegyric | a writing or speech in praise of a person or thing |
| Peccadillo | a small sin, fault, or offense |
| Pedantic | Showing a narrow concern for rules or formal book learning; making an excessive display of one's own learning, focusing on a small detail too much: "We quickly tired of his pedantic conversation." (n: pedant, pedantry). |
| Perfidious | Dishonest, disloyal, deliberately treacherous; dishonest (n: perfidy) |
| Petulant | Easily or frequently annoyed, especially over trivial matters; childishly irritable, bad-tempered. |
| Philanthropy | A desire or action to improve material, social, especially charitable as in donating money or property to a charitable organization |
| Phlegmatic | Not easily excited; cool; sluggish |
| Placate | To calm or reduce anger by doing things or saying things to please him/her: "The professor tried to placate his students by postponing the exam." |
| Plastic | Related to being shaped or molded; capable of being molded. (n: plasticity n: plastic) |
| Plethora | Excessively large quantity; overabundance: "We received a plethora of applications for the position." |
| Ponderous | Heavy; massive; awkward; dull: "A ponderous book is better than a sleeping pill." |
| Pragmatic | More concerned with facts rather than theories and principles; practical, as opposed to highly principled or traditional: "His pragmatic approach often offended idealists." (n: pragmatism) |
| Precipice | High cliff with a vertical or nearly vertical face; a dangerous place from which one is likely to fall; metaphorically, a very risky state |
| Precipitate | To fall; to fall downward suddenly and dramatically; to bring about or hasten the occurrence of something: "Old World diseases precipitated a massive decline in the American Indian population." |
| Precursor | Something (or someone) that precedes another, previous holder of a job before someone else. "The assassination of the Archduke was a precursor to the war." |
| Prevaricate | To stray away from or evade the truth, to avoid giving a direct and honest answer. "When we asked him what his intentions were, he prevaricated."(n: prevarication; prevaricator) |
| Prodigal | Extremely wasteful, wasteful: "Americans' prodigal devotion to the automobile is unique." |
| Propitiate | To conciliate/ to make peace; to appease, to win somebody's favor: "They made sacrifices to propitiate angry gods." |
| Pusillanimous | Cowardly, timid, or irresolute (unsure); petty, : "The pusillanimous leader soon lost the respect of his people." |
| Quiescence | Inactive or at rest; stillness; dormancy, calm (adj: quiescent) |
| Rarefy | To make or become thin; to purify or refine (n: rarefaction, adj: rarefied) |
| Reproof | The act of scolding, rebuking, blaming (v. reprove). |
| Rescind | To repeal or annul, to cancel, withdraw. |
| Sagacious | Having a sharp or powerful intellect or discernment, wise. (n: sagacity). |
| Sanguine | Cheerful; confident, optimistic. "Her sanguine attitude put everyone at ease."(Sangfroid (noun) is a related French word meaning unflappibility. Literally, it means cold blood) |
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