- abstruse: difficult to understand
- ambivalent: simultaneously feeling opposing feelings
- astute: shrewd
- brevity: briefness
- contentious: quarrelsome
- debacle: disastrous or ludicrous failure
- dirge: funeral hymn or lament
- disparage: to speak of negatively
- exonerate: to free from blame
- ignominy: humiliation; disgraceful conduct
- impugn: to attack as false or questionable
- incontrovertible: indisputable
- insular: isolated
- intransigence: refusal to compromise
- juxtapose: to place side by side
- parity: equality
- pernicious: deadly; irrevocably harmful
- pragmatic: practical
- precocious: exhibiting early aptitude
- rancorous: marked by bitter ill-will
- repugnant: offensive, repulsive
- vacillate: to sway from one side to the other