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abscond to depart clandestinely; to steal off and hide ameliorate to make better or more tolerable arduous strenuous; taxing; requiring significant effort ascetic one who practices rigid self-denial, esp. as an act of religious devotion austere without adornment; bare; severely simple; ascetic axiom a universally recognized principle axiomatic taken as a given; possessing self-evident truth bucolic rustic and pastoral; characteristic of rural areas and their inhabitants canonical following or in agreement with accepted, traditional standards contentious argumentative; quarrelsome; causing controversy or disagreement convoluted complex or complicated culpable deserving blame disabuse to undeceive; to set right eclectic composed of elements drawn from various sources effrontery extreme boldness; presumptuousness ephemeral brief; fleeting erudite very learned; scholarly eulogy a speech honoring the dead extemporaneous improvised; done without preparation facetious playful; humorous fulminate to loudly attack or denounce hyperbole an exaggerated statement, often used as a figure of speech lucid clear; easily understood oscillation the act or state of swinging back and forth with a steady, uninterrupted rhythm paean a song or hymn of praise and thanksgiving penurious penny-pinching; excessively thrifty; ungenerous perfidy intentional breach of faith; treachery pernicious extremely harmful; potentially causing death perspicacious acutely perceptive; having keen discernment pious extremely reverent or devout; showing strong religious devotion precipitate acting with excessive haste or impulse precipitate to cause or happen before anticipated or required precursor one that precedes and indicates or announces another predilection a disposition in favor of something; preference prolific producing large volumes or amounts; productive qualms misgivings; reservations; causes for hesitancy quiescence stillness; motionlessness; quality of being at rest recant to retract, esp. a previously held belief redoubtable awe-inspiring; worthy of honor reticent quiet; reserved; reluctant to express thoughts and feelings satire a literary work that ridicules or criticizes a human vice through humor or derision sordid characterized by filth, grime, or squalor; foul squalid sordid; wretched and dirty as from neglect squander to waste by spending or using irresponsibly stoic indifferent to or unaffected by pleasure or pain; steadfast stymie to block; thwart supplant to take the place of; supersede synthesis the combination of parts to make a whole torpid lethargic; sluggish; dormant torque a force that causes rotation ubiquitous existing everywhere at the same time; constantly encountered; widespread veracity truthfulness; honesty vilify to defame; to characterize harshly virulent extremely harmful or poisonous; bitterly hostile or antagonistic