- accolade: award of merit
- adulation: flattery; admiration
- adversity: poverty; misfortune
- ascendency: controlling influence; domination
- ascetic: practicing self-denial; austere
- austere: forbiddingly stern; severely simple
- belie: contradict; give a false impression
- coercion: use of force to get someone to obey
- conciliatory: reconciling; soothing
- condone: overlook; forgive; give tacit approval; excuse
- corroborate: confirm; support
- credulity: belief on slight evidence; gullibility; naiveté
- cursory: casual; hastily done
- delineate: portray
- despondent: depressed; gloomy
- disseminate: distribute; spread; scatter (like seeds)
- duplicity: double-dealing; hypocrisy
- emulate: imitate; rival
- ephemeral: short-lived; fleeting
- equivocal: ambiguous; intentionally misleading
- erudite: learned; scholarly
- esoteric: hard to understand; known only to the chosen few
- exonerate: acquit; exculpate
- expedient: suitable; practical; politic
- extol: praise; glorify
- extricate: free; disentangle
- frugality: thrift; economy
- furtive: stealthy; sneaky
- garrulous: loquacious; wordy; talkative
- gregarious: sociable
- guile: deceit; duplicity; wiliness; cunning
- hedonist: one who believes that pleasure is the sole aim in life
- inane: silly; senseless
- incite: arouse to action
- incorrigible: not correctable
- innocuous: harmless
- insipid: lacking in flavor; dull
- inundate: overwhelm; flood; submerge
- laud: praise
- levity: lack of seriouness; lightness
- listless: lacking in spirit or energy
- mitigate: appease; moderate
- opulence: extreme wealth; luxuriousness; abundance
- ostentatious: showy; pretentious; trying to attract attention
- partisan: one-sided; prejudiced; committed to a party
- placate: pacify; conciliate
- prodigal: wasteful; reckless with money
- profusion: overabundance; lavish expenditure
- reprove: censure; rebuke
- repudiate: disown; disavow
- reticence: reserve; uncommunicativeness; inclination to silence
- servile: slavish; cringing
- succinct: brief; terse; compact
- surreptitious: secret; furtive; sneaky
- sycophant: servile flatterer
- taciturn: habitually silent
- usurp: seize another's power of rank
- vacillate: waver; fluctuate
- venerate: revere
- vilify: slander