| Term | Definition |
|---|
| ague | n. 1. a fever (as malaria) marked by paroxysms of chills, fever, and sweating that recur at regular intervals; 2. a fit of shivering |
| arbitrary | adj. 1. determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason or principle; 2. based on or subject to individual judgment or preference; 3. established by a court or judge rather than by a specific law or statute; 4. not limited by law; despotic. |
| bequeath | v. 1. To give or leave by will; to give by testament; -- said especially of personal property; 2. To hand down; to transmit. |
| blight | n. 1.a plant disease, esp. one caused by fungi; 2. a thing that spoils or damages something; 3. ugly or neglected urban landscape |
| chattel | n. 1. an item of tangible moveable or immoveable property except real estate, freehold, and things (like buildings) connected with real property; 2. slave, bondsman |
| compulsion | n. 1a. an act of compelling: the state of being compelled [to drive or urge forcefully or irresistibly]; 1b. a force that compels; 2. an irresistible impulse to perform an irrational act |
| deference | n. 1. submission or courteous yielding to the opinion, wishes, or judgment of another; 2. courteous respect |
| descant | v. 1. to sing melodiously; 2. to comment, discourse, or write at length (on a topic). |
| evince | v. to indicate; display (a quality, feeling, etc.) |
| excoriate | v. 1. to denounce or berate severely; to flay verbally; 2. to pull off the skin or hide from (a man or beast); to flay;. |
| inculcate | v. to teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions; implant |
| incur | v. to become liable or subject to as a result of one's actions; to bring upon oneself |
| loquacious | adj. 1. full of excessive talk; wordy; 2. given to fluent or excessive talk; garrulous |
| obdurate | adj. 1. hardened in wrongdoing or sin; stubbornly impenitent; resistant or insensible to moral influence; 2. physically hardened or hard. |
| odiousness | n. the quality of being offensive |
| odium | n. 1. strong dislike, aversion, or contempt: 2. state of disgrace resulting from hateful or detestable conduct. |
| pernicious | adj. 1a. tending to cause death or serious injury; deadly; 1b. causing great harm; destructive; 2. evil, wicked. |
| pious | adj. 1. having or exhibiting religious reverence; earnestly compliant in the observance of religion; devout; 2. marked by conspicuous devoutness: a pious and holy observation; 3. marked by false devoutness; solemnly hypocritical: a pious fraud; 4. professing or exhibiting a strict, traditional sense of virtue and morality; high-minded. |
| sophistry | n. plausible but fallacious argument |
| staunch | adj. firm and steadfast; true |
| unabated | adj. sustaining an original intensity or maintaining full force with no decrease. |
| vestige | n. a trace, mark, or sign of something that once existed but has passed away or disappeared |
| vindication | n. The defense, such as evidence or argument, that serves to justify a claim or deed. |
| analogy | n. likeness in some respects between things otherwise different; similarity; comparison |
| arbitrate | v. 1. decide a dispute, acting as an arbiter or arbitrator 2. submit a dispute to arbitration |
| axiom | n. self-evident truth; maxim |
| axiomatic | adj. self-evident; universally accepted as true |
| bias | n. opinion formed before there are grounds for it; prejudice; predilection; partiality |
| bigoted | adj. intolerant; narrow-minded |
| bigotry | n. views of behavior of a bigot (one intolerantly devoted to one's own beliefs and prejudices); narrow-mindedness; intolerance |
| cogitate | v. think over; consider with care; ponder; deliverate |
| criterion | n. standard; rule or test for judging |
| crux | n. most important point; essential part |
| deduce | v. derive by reasoning; infer |
| dilemma | n. situation requiring a choice between two equally bad alternatives; predicament |
| dogmatic | adj. asserting opinions as if they were facts; opinionated; asserted without proof; doctrinate |
| eclectic | adj. choosing (ideas, methods, etc.) from various sources; selective |
| fallacious | adj. based on a fallacy (erroneous idea); misleading; deceptive |
| fallible | adj. liable to be mistaken |
| heterodox | adj. rejecting regularly accepted beliefs or doctrines; heretical; nonconformist |
| hypothetical | adj. suppsoed; having the characteristics of a hypothesis, a supposition made as a basis for reasoning or research |
| illusion | n. misleading appearance; false impression; misconception |
| indubitable | adj. certain; incontrovertible; indisputable |
| orthodox | adj. generally accepted, especially in religion; conventional; approved |
| paradoxical | adj. having the characteristics of a self-contradictory statement which may nevertheless be tru |
| plausible | adj. apaprently trustworthy; superficiallyl true or reasonable |
| preposterous | adj. senseless; absurd; irrational |
| rational | adj. 1. able to think clearly; having the power to reason |
| rationalize | v. invent excuses for one's actions, desires, failures, etc. |
| speculate | v. reflect; meditate; conjecture 2, buy or sell with the hope of profiting by price fluctutaions |
| specious | adj. superficially true, reasonable, attarctive, or just, but not really so |
| tenable | adj. capable of being maintained or defended; defensible |
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