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abjure
to renounce or reject solemnly; to recant; to avoid
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adumbrate
to foreshadow vaguely or intimate; to suggest or outline sketchily; to obscure or overshadow
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anathema
a solemn or ecclesiastical (religious) curse; accursed or thoroughly loathed person or thing
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anondyne
soothing; something that assuages or allays pain or comforts
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apogee
farthest or highest point; culmination; zenith
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apostate
one who abandons long-held religious or political conventions
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apotheosis
deification; glorifiation to godliness; an exalted example; a model of excellence or perfection
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asperity
severity, rigor; roughness, harshness; acrimony, irritability
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asseverate
to aver, allege, or assert
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assiduous
diligent, hard-working, sedulous
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bellicose
belligerent, pugnacious, warlike
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calumniate
to slander, to make a false accusation; calumny means slander, aspersion
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captious
disposed to point out trivial faults; calculated to confuse or entrap in argument
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cavil
to find fault without good reason
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celerity
speed, alacrity; think accelerate
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chimera
an illusion; originally, an imaginary fire-breathing she-monster
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contumacious
insubordinate, rebellious; contumely means insult, scoren, aspersion
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debacle
rout, fiasco, complete failure
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denouement
an outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot
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descry
to discriminate or discern
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desultory
random; aimless; marked by a lack of plan or purpose
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diaphanous
transparent, gauzy
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diffident
reserved, shy, unassuming; lacking in self-confidence
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dirge
a song of grief or lamentation
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encomium
glowing and enthusiastic praise; panegyric, tribute, eulogy
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excoriate
to censure scathingly, to upbraid
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execrate
to denounce, to feel loathing for, to curse, to declare to be evil
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exegesis
critical examination, explication
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expiate
to atone or make amends for
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extirpate
to destory, to exteriminate, to cut out, to exscind
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fatuous
silly, inanely foolish
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fractious
quarrelsome, rebellious, unruly, refractory, irritable
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gainsay
to deny, to dispute, to contradict, to oppose
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heterodox
unorthodox, heretical, iconoclastic
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imbroglio
difficult or embarrassing situation
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indefatigable
not easily exhaustible; tireless, dogged
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ineluctable
certain, inevitable
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inimitable
one of a kind, peerless
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insouciant
unconcerned, carefree, heedless
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inveterate
deep rooted, ingrained, habitual
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jejune
vapid, uninteresting, nugatory; childish, immature, puerile
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lubricious
lewd, wanton, greasy, slippery
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mendicant
a beggar, supplicant
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meretricious
cheap, gaudy, tawdry, flashy, showy; attracting by false show
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minatory
menacing, threatening (reminds you of the Minotaur, a threatening creature indeed)
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nonplussed
baffled, bewildered, at a loss for what to do or think
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obstreperous
noisily and stubbornly defiant, aggressively boisterous
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ossified
tending to become more rigid, conventional, sterile, and reactionary with age; literraly, turned to bone
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palliate
to make something seem less serious, to gloss over, to make less severe or intense
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panegyric
formal praise, eulogy, encomium; panegyrical means expressing elaborate praise
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parsimonious
cheap, miserly
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pellucid
transparent, easy to understand, limpid
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peroration
the concluding part of a speech; flowery, rhetorical speech
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plangent
pounding, thundering, resounding
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prolix
long-winded, verbose; prolixity means verbosity
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propitiate
to appease; to conciliate; propitious means auspicious, favorable
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puerile
childish, immature, jejune, nugatory
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puissance
power, strength; puissant means powerful, strong
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pusillanimous
cowardly, craven
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remonstrate
to protest, to object
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sagacious
having sound judgement; perceptive, wise; like a sage
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salacious
lustful, lascivious, bawdy
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salutary
remedial, wholesome, causing improvement
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sanguine
cheerful, confident, optimistic
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saturnine
gloomy, dark, sullen, morose
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sententious
aphoristic or moralistic; epigrammatic; tending to moralize excessively
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stentorian
extremely loud and powerful
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sycophant
today, servile, self-seeking flatterer; parasite
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tendentious
biased; showing marked tendencies
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timorous
timid, fearful, diffident
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tyro
novice, greenhorn, rank amateur
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vitiate
to corrupt, to debase, to spoil, to make ineffective
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voluble
fluent, verbal, having easy use of spoken language
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