| Term | Definition |
|---|
| pervasive | spreading throughout |
| glibly | ina manner of smooth ease and fluency, without hesitation |
| ephemeral | enduring a very short time |
| notoriety | the state of being known for some unfavorable act or quality |
| intrinsic | situated within or belonging solely to the organ or body part on which it acts |
| mongers | A seller of a specific item. |
| congeries | a collection; an aggregation. |
| venue | the scene of any event or action (especially the place of a meeting) |
| posterity | all future generations |
| overtly | Not hidden or secret. |
| tepid | moderately warm |
| sacrosanct | must be kept sacred |
| icon | a visual representation (of an object or scene or person or abstraction) produced on a surface |
| scrutinized | to read or look at very closely |
| infamy | evil fame or public reputation |
| mores | moral standards, conventions, customs |
| prescient | Foreknowing. |
| pundit | a learned person, expert, or authority |
| inept | revealing lack of perceptiveness or judgment or finesse |
| pejorative | expressing disapproval |
| implicit | implied though not directly expressed |
| contrive | come up with (an idea, plan, explanation, theory, or priciple) after a mental effort |
| hierarchical | in order of rank or authority |
| incessant | occurring so frequently as to seem ceaseless or uninterrupted |
| indignation | a feeling of righteous anger |
| mammon | wealth regarded as an evil influence |
| Precarious | dependent on circumstances beyond one's control; uncertain; unstable; insecure |
| vernacular | the everyday speech of the people (as distinguished from literary language) |
| Nuance | a subtle difference or distinction in expression, meaning, response, etc. |
| loathe | hate a lot |
| jargon | Confused, unintelligible speech or highly technical speech. |
| aesthetic | pertaining to beauty |
| impromptu | with little or no preparation or forethought |
| salient | having a quality that thrusts itself into attention |
| arbiter | someone chosen to judge and decide a disputed issue |
| shadenfreude | Enjoyment of another person's misfortune. |
| maven | someone who is dazzlingly skilled in any field |
| boisterous | violently agitated and turbulent |
| empathy | understanding and entering into another's feelings |
| Quotidian | usual or customary; everyday |
| cynical | believing the worst of human nature and motives |
| duress | compulsory force or threat |
| cogent | powerfully persuasive |
| Equanimity | steadiness of mind under stress |
| Hubris | excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance. |
| shamans | religious leader |
| Hyperbole | obvious and intentional exaggeration. |
| Vagaries | an unpredictable or erratic action, occurrence, course, or instance |
| Acute | sharp or severe in effect; intense |
| Awe | an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc. |
| Suavity | smoothly agreeable quality. |
| Pernicious | causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful |
| Furtively | taken, done, used, etc., surreptitiously or by stealth; secret |
| Tangible | capable of being touched; discernible by the touch; material or substantial. |
| Cunningly | skill employed in a shrewd or sly manner, as in deceiving; craftiness; guile. |
| Steathily | secretly |
| Blithe | carefree and happy and lighthearted |
| Trifle | something of small importance |
| Placidly | in a quiet and tranquil manner |
| Consternation | fear resulting from the awareness of danger |
| Sagacity | the trait of forming opinions by distinguishing and evaluating |
| Tatoo | indicates motion, course, or tendency toward a time |
| Jocund | full of or showing high-spirited merriment |
| Pert | high-spirited; lively; bold, saucy; jaunty; |
| Derision | scoffing at, mockery, ridicule |
| Miscreant | Utterly reprehensible in nature or behavior. A person without moral scruples |
| Vex | be a mystery or bewildering to |
| Torpid | slow and apathetic |
| Travesty | a composition that imitates somebody's style in a humorous way |
| Craven | Coward or extremely fearful |
| Execrable | deserving a curse |
| Pitch | a thick, black, sticky substance made from tar or turpentine |
| Gaily | Merrily. |
| Mar | a mark or flaw that spoils the appearance of something (especially on a person's body) |
| Cull | the person or thing rejected or set aside as inferior in quality |
| Fidelity | loyalty, faithfulness |
| Bliss | a state of extreme happiness |
| Wont | a pattern of behavior acquired through frequent repetition, accustomed to, used to |
| Cambric | a finely woven white linen |
| Congenial | pleasant; friendly; in agreement with one's tastes and nature |
| Verily | in truth |
| Hale | Of sound and vigorous health. |
| Wan | unnaturally pale or sickly looking, weak, faint |
| Sly | marked by skill in deception |
| Querulous | habitually complaining |
| Alms | voluntary contributions to aid the poor, charity |
| Valerian | promotes sleep |
| Chintz | a brightly printed and glazed cotton fabric |
| Fatuity | complacent stupidity; foolishness |
| Garrulousness | the quality of being wordy and talkative |
| Spry | moving with quickness and ease; lively |
| Lurid | Causing shock or horror; gruesome. |
| Frieze | ornamental horizontal band on a wall |
| Pliant | capable of being bent or flexed or twisted without breaking |
| Felicity | n. A state of well-founded happiness. |
| Impertinences | inappropriate playfulness, rudeness |
| Undulating | moving with a wavelike motion |
| decorous | characterized by propriety and dignity and good taste in manners and conduct |
| lithe | gracefully slender |
| archaic | little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral type |
| dulcet | pleasing to the ear |
| utopia | an imaginary place considered to be perfect or ideal |
| pedants | those who flaunt their knowlage |
| treason | an act of deliberate betrayal |
| banality | a trite or obvious remark |
| copulation | the act of sexual procreation between a man and a woman |
| puritanical | morally rigorous and strict |
| languor | inactivity |
| magnanimous | generous and understanding and tolerant |
| amiable | diffusing warmth and friendliness |
| benign | pleasant and beneficial in nature or influence |
| imperious | (adj.) arrogant; urgent |
| impotence | the quality of lacking strength or power |
| vile | thoroughly unpleasant |
| uncouth | lacking refinement or cultivation or taste |
| paradox | (logic) a self-contradiction |
| vapid | lacking significance or liveliness or spirit or zest |
| robust | physically strong |
| ominous | presaging ill-fortune |
| countenance | the appearance conveyed by a person's face |
| shrewd | marked by practical hardheaded intelligence |
| languid | lacking spirit or liveliness |
| hearty | warm and friendly, healthy, lively, and strong, large and satisfying to the appetite |
| catharsis | a clensing or purging that releases emotions |
| catholic | a religion in which you believe in one God as well as Jesus Christ |
| cognizance | having knowledge of |
| creed | any system of principles or beliefs |
| crucible | a severe, searching test or trial |
| dallied | waste time |
| denouement | the final resolution of the main complication of a literary or dramatic work |
| dissemble | to put on the appearance of |
| heathen | a person who does not acknowledge your God |
| hubris | overbearing pride or presumption |
| innate | possessed at birth; inborn |
| junta | a group of military officers who rule a country after seizing power |
| marauded | To rove and raid in search of plunder |
| parochial | relating to or supported by or located in a parish |
| rankle | to cause keen irritation or bitter resentment in |
| smirch | smear so as to make dirty or stained |
| wanton | behave extremely cruelly and brutally |
| abide | to continue in a particular condition, attitude, relationship |
| auspicious | promising success; propitious; opportune; favorable |
| barbaric | unrestrained and crudely rich |
| calumny | an abusive attack on a person's character or good name |
| congeries | a collection of items or parts in one mass |
| conspicuous | obvious to the eye or mind |
| dissonant | lacking in harmony |
| fetish | excessive or irrational devotion to some activity |
| inculcation | teaching or impressing upon the mind by frequent instruction or repetition |
| intimate | someone to whom private matters are confided |
| introspections | the act of looking within oneself |
| lascivious | driven by lust |
| licentious | lacking moral discipline |
| malign | speak unfavorably about |
| mores | (sociology) the conventions that embody the fundamental values of a group |
| perspicacious | having keen mental perception and understanding |
| resonance | the quality imparted to voiced speech sounds by the action of the resonating chambers of the throat and mouth and nasal cavities |
| sidle | move sideways |
| allegory | an expressive style that uses fictional characters and events to describe some subject by suggestive resemblances |
| allusion | a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication |
| hyperbole | extravagant exaggeration |
| metaphor | a figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity |
| metonymy | substituting the name of an attribute or feature for the name of the thing itself (as in 'they counted heads') |
| personification | the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas etc. |
| simile | a figure of speech that expresses a resemblance between things of different kinds (usually formed with 'like' or 'as') |
| symbol | something visible that by association or convention represents something else that is invisible |
| synecdoche | understanding one thing with another; the use of a part for the whole or the whole for the part |
| understatement | a statement that says less than what is meant |
| connotation | an idea that is implied or suggested |
| denotation | the most direct or specific meaning of a word or expression |
| diction | the manner in which something is expressed in words |
| syntax | the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences |
| alliteration | the commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group |
| assonance | resemblance of sounds |
| onomatopoeia | the formation of a word, as cuckoo or boom, by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent. |
| ballad | any light, simple song, esp. one of sentimental or romantic character, having two or more stanzas all sung to the same melody |
| blank verse | Poetry written without rhymes, but which retains a set metrical pattern, usually iambic pentameter |
| couplet | a stanza consisting of two successive lines of verse |
| elegy | a mournful poem |
| end rhyme | The words or final syllables at the end of a line of poetry rhyme in a set pattern. |
| end stopped line | Denoting a line of verse in which a logical or rhetorical pause occurs at the end of the line, usually marked with a period, comma, or semicolon. |
| enjambment | the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line of verse into the next line without a pause |
| epic | a long narrative poem telling of a hero's deeds |
| epigram | a witty saying |
| haiku | 3 unrhymed lines (5, 7, 5) usually focusing on nature |
| iamb | a metrical unit with unstressed-stressed syllables |
| internal rhyme | a rhyme occurring within the line |
| lyric poetry | in which the speaker's ardent expression of a (usually single) emotional element predominates |
| narrative poetry | The narration of an event or story, stressing details of plot, incident, and action |
| ode | a lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion. |
| open form (free verse) | A fluid form which conforms to no set rules of traditional versification |
| sestina | highly structured poem with 39 lines, iambic pentameter, and repetitino of six words from first stanza in each of six stanzas |
| stanza | an arrangement of a certain number of lines, usually four or more, sometimes having a fixed length, meter, or rhyme scheme, forming a division of a poem. |
| villanelle | a short poem of fixed form, written in tercets, usually five in number, followed by a final quatrain, all being based on two rhymes. |
| dramatic irony | when the words and actions of the characters of a work of literature have a different meaning for the reader than they do for the characters |
| situational irony | discrepancy between what is expected, as in action or as regards to the situation/setting, and what one wold expect to happen |
| verbal irony | discrepancy between what is said and what is meant |
| Ambiguity | A word or phrase with multiple meanings. (noun). |
| Deference | Deference means to show respect to someone or something. (noun). |
| Denunciation | to publicly mark someone as being evil. (noun) |
| Depravity | The definition of depravity is simply corruption. (noun). |
| Ineffable | An event, word, or phrase that is unable to be described with words.(adj.) |
| Ignominy | The definition of ignominy is utter disrespect. (noun). |
| Immutable | Set in stone, permanent. (adj.) |
| Injurious | To cause pain or injure. (adj.) |
| Insurrection | A retaliation against the law makers of a certain country. (noun). |
| Obdurate | Something or someone that is not easily persuaded or won over. (adj.) |
| Pathos | The pitiful feeling within each and every person. (noun). |
| Pretensions | To make a claim that might not be the truth. (noun) |
| Sanction | An order where permission is given. (noun). |
| Rapturous | To be filled with joy. (adj.) |
| Dehumanizing | to make someone feel less important or less like a human. (trans. Verb). |
| Overarching | Describes something as being all-inclusive. (adj.) |
| Reckoning | a certain prediction or calculation (noun) |
| Circumvent | To attempt to bypass or avoid an order or rule. Trans. Verb. |
| Circumlocution | To get around a word or phrase by saying something different with a similar meaning. Noun. |
| Circumnavigation | A way of traveling where you avoid or go around a specific location. Noun. |
| Circumspect | Similar to look around or analyze; to take notice of something, to be prudent. Adj. |
| Preclude | To stop something before actually occurring. Very similar to prevent. Trans. Verb. |
| Precede | To come before another object in a certain instance. Trans. Verb. |
| Congenital | An odd occurrence or feature that someone is born with. Adj. |
| Concord | To have peace with another person. Noun. |
| Collusion | To do a risky, undercover, or sneaky thing with a partner or friend. Noun. |
| Coalesce | To put one thing with another; mesh them together. Trans. Verb. |
| Demented | Completely unfathomable. Not making sense at all. Adj. |
| Demote | To move someone down in rank. Trans. Verb. |
| Obtrude | To be in the way of someone, block their path. Verb. |
| Obviate | to make something unimportant or not valued by standing in the way of it. Trans. Verb. |
| Obliterate | When something destroys everything in its path. Trans. Verb. |
| Obsess | To think and think over one little thing or pay very close attention to something for a long time. Verb. |
| Decadent | The process of something going down. Adj. |
| Deprecate | To mark something as evil or to make something a public enemy. Trans. Verb. |
| Perturb | When someone annoys, upsets or angers another person. Trans. Verb. |
| Perennial | Something that continually repeats to the end. Adj. |
| Permeate | To go through something. Trans. Verb. |
| Perforate | To make a hole through something. Verb. |
| Deciduous | Something that falls down. Adj. |
| Deviate | To go in the wrong direction or opposite way. Intrans. Verb. |
| Penal | Having to do with a penalty. Adj. |
| Penance | Punishment imposed by yourself. Noun. |
| Punitive | Done as a penalty or done for punishment. Adj. |
| Alacrity | Active and ready. Noun. |
| Morose | An unfriendly attitude or unsocial. Adj. |
| Abjure | To publicly deny with an oath. Trans. Verb. |
| Perjury | to be proven guilty of lying under an oath. Noun. |
| Jurisprudence | A branch or system of law. Noun. |
| Objurgate | to tell someone their wrong or make a fool of them. Trans. Verb. |
| Conflagration | An instance of a great flame or blaze. |
| Accede | to come to peace with or agree with. Intrans. Verb |
| Antecedent | occurring prior to something else. Adj. |
| Concession | To give up or having to give in with regret. Noun. |
| Precedent | Something used an example to a future event as a reference. Noun. |
| Festoon | A chain of decorative items in the form of a circle. Noun. |
| Concise | To the point and gets the point across efficiently. Adj. |
| Excise | A tax on any domestic item in a market. Noun. |
| Incisive | Someone who cuts down on the time it takes to understand something. Adj. |
| Obsequiously | Very, very excited to listen and excite someone. Adj. |
| Supercilious | To be full of hatred or disgust for someone. Adj. |
| Anachronism | Something that is not supposed to occur or appear in that time period. Noun. |
| Chronic | Having to with a certain length of time. Adj. |
| Chronological | Having to do with in order of time. Adj. |
| Synchronous | Going on at the same time. Adj. |
| Contrite | Regretful for doing the wrong thing. Adj. |
| Flay | To brutally beat someone or something. Trans. Verb. |
| Assail | To hurl harmful phrases or actions at somebody. Trans. Verb. |
| Doggerel | An awful piece of writing. Noun. |
| Relent | To become less forceful or demanding. To back down or decrease in intensity. Intransitive verb. |
| Guise | A new display or appearance. Noun. |
| Gall | A source of courage or strength to do something. Noun. |
| Copiously | To be in great size or amount. Adverb. |
| Jauntily | To act happily and without worries. Adverb. |
| Emphatic | done to the point and direct. Adj. |
| Peevish | someone who is found to be a complainer or a whiner. Adj. |
| Ebb | To decrease in force. Intrans. Verb. |
| Emulate | an attempt at duplicating something or trying to produce the same output as something else. |
| Fiat | An official order to do something. Noun. |
| Gainsay | To go against something that someone said about you. Trans. Verb. |
| Gratuitous | To be given as a gift or without a cost. Adj. |
| Implacable | Something that is too strong to be stopped. Adj. |
| Bicameral | A government with two houses. Adj. |
| Bipartisan | something that deals with two political parties. Adj. |
| Biennial | Something that happens every two years. Adj. |
| verdant | Green with vegetation. |
| acrimonious | caustic, stinging, or bitter in nature, speech, behavior |
| acquiescence | acceptance without protest |
| cantankerous | disagreeable to deal with |
| appease | make peace with |
| ecclesiastical | of or pertaining to the church or the clergy |
| corroborating | supporting with evidence or authority |
| mollified | to soften in feeling or temper |
| predilection | a tendency to think favorably of something in particular |
| feral | wild and menacing |
| palliate | to relieve or lessen without curing |
| temerity | fearless daring |
| blasphemy | impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things |
| prerogative | a right reserved exclusively by a particular person or group (especially a hereditary or official right) |
| premise | to set forth beforehand |
| reconnaissance | the act of reconnoitring (especially to gain information about an enemy or potential enemy) |
| unmitigated | not softened or lessened |
| undulate | increase and decrease in volume or pitch, as if in waves |
| umbrage | a shadowy appearance |
| halcyon | marked by peace and prosperity |
| sadistic | any enjoyment in being cruel |
| maudlin | effusively or insincerely emotional |
| gaff | an iron hook with a handle for landing large fish |
| ornery | having a difficult and contrary disposition |
| chronic | continuing a long time or recurring frequently |
| matriarchy | a form of social organization in which a female is the family head and title is traced through the female line |
| giddy | affected with vertigo |
| jetty | a pier built to influence the current to protect a harbor |
| bedlam | a scene or state of wild uproar and confusion |
| gripe | complain |
| notorious | widely and unfavorably known |
| bile | a digestive juice secreted by the liver and stored in the gallbladder |
| ramshackle | loosely made or held together |
| platitude | A written or spoken statement that is flat, dull, or commonplace. |
| prototype | the original or model on which something is based or formed |
| braggart | a very boastful and talkative person |
| hovel | a small, very humble dwelling house |
| lobotomy | the operation of cutting into a lobe, as of the brain or the lung |
| antebellum | belonging to a period before a war especially the American Civil War |
| hegemony | the domination of one state over its allies |
| oligarchy | a political system governed by a few people |
| bellicose | having or showing a ready disposition to fight |
| abdicate | give up, such as power, as of monarchs and emperors, or duties and obligations |
| euphemism | an inoffensive expression that is substituted for one that is considered offensive |
| epiphany | a divine manifestation |
| pecuniary | relating to or involving money |
| formidable | extremely impressive in strength or excellence |
| futility | uselessness as a consequence of having no practical result |
| aberration | a state or condition markedly different from the norm |
| precocious | appearing or developing early |
| evanescent | tending to vanish like vapor |
| xenophobe | a person undult fearful or contemtuous of that which is foreign, esp. of strangers or foreign peoples |
| diffident | lacking self-confidence |
| glutton | a person who is devoted to eating and drinking to excess |
| adroit | skillful (or showing skill) in adapting means to ends |
| uncouth | lacking in polish or grace; uncultivated in appearance or behavior |
| plutocrat | someone who exercises power by virtue of wealth |
| belligerent | someone who fights (or is fighting) |
| caste | a social class separated from others by distinctions of hereditary rank or profession or wealth |
| betroth | give to in marriage |
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