Wordsmart 23
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70 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 patent | obvious |
| paternal | fatherly, fatherlike |
| pathology | the science of diseases |
| patriarch | the male head of a family or tribe |
| patrician | a person of noble birth, an aristocrat |
| patronize | to treat as an inferior, to condescend to |
| paucity | scarcity |
| peccadillo | a minor offense |
| pedantic | boringly scholarly or academic |
| pedestrian | unimaginative, banal |
| pejorative | negative, disparaging |
| penchant | a strong taste or liking for something, a predilection |
| penitent | sorry, repentant, contrite |
| pensive | thoughtful and sad |
| peremptory | final, categorical, dictatorial |
| perennial | continual, happening again and again or year after year |
| perfidy | treachery |
| perfunctory | unenthusiastic, careless |
| peripatetic | wandering, traveling continually |
| periphery | the outside edge of something |
| perjury | lying under oath |
| permeate | to spread or seep through, to penetrate |
| pernicious | deadly, extremely evil |
| perquisite | a privilege that goes along with a job, a "perk" |
| pertinent | relevant, dealing with the matter at hand |
| perturb | to disturb greatly |
| peruse | to read carefully |
| pervade | to spread throughout |
| petulant | rude, cranky, ill-tempered |
| philanthropy | love of mankind, especially by doing good deeds |
| philistine | a smugly ignorant person with no appreciation of intellectual or artistic matters |
| pious | reverent or devout, sometimes falsely reverent/devout, hypocritical |
| pivotal | crucial |
| placate | to pacify, to appease, to soothe |
| plaintive | expressing sadness or sorrow |
| platitude | a dull or trite remark, a cliche |
| plebeian | common, vulgar, low-class |
| plethora | an excess |
| poignant | painfully emotional, extremely moving, sharp or astute |
| polarize | to break up into opposing factions or groupings |
| polemic | a powerful argument often made to attack or refute a controversial issue |
| ponderous | so large as to be clumsy, massive, dull |
| portent | an omen, a sign of something coming in the future |
| postulate | something accepted as true without proof, an axiom |
| pragmatic | practical, down to earth, based on experience rather than theory |
| precedent | an earlier example or model of something |
| precept | a rule to live by, a principle establishing a certain kind of action or behavior |
| precipitate | to cause to happen abruptly |
| precipitous | steep |
| preclude | to prevent something from ever happening |
| precursor | forerunner, something that goes before and anticipates or paves the way for whatever it is that follows |
| predilection | a natural preference for something |
| preeminent | better than anyone else, outstanding, supreme |
| preempt | to seize something by prior right |
| premise | an assumption, the basis for a conclusion |
| prepossess | to preoccupy, to influence beforehand or prejudice, to make good impressions on beforehand |
| prerogative | a right or privilege connected exclusively with a position, a person, a class, a nation, or some other group or classification |
| prevail | to triumph, to overcome rivals |
| pristine | original, unspoiled, pure |
| prodigal | wastefully extravagant |
| pas/pat/path | feeling, suffering, disease (root) |
| pater/patr | father, support (root) |
| ped/pod | foot (root) |
| pen/pun | to pay, to compensate (root) |
| per | completely, wrong (root) |
| peri | around (root) |
| phil | love (root) |
| plac | to please (root) |
| ple | to fill (root) |
| pre | before (root) |
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