-
abstinence
- the giving up of certain pleasures such as food or
- drink. Myra’s abstinence from
- cake, candy, and ice cream led to a dramatic weight loss.
-
abstract
- theoretical,
- not applied to practical; not concrete; hard to understand. To him, hunger was
- an abstract concept, having never missed a meal himself
-
belittle
- make something seem less important. We all realized that Roger belittled
- the painting because he could not compete with the artist.
-
embellish
- to
- decorate; to elaborate upon. Our
- principal thinks himself a comedian and can be relied upon to embellish
- his graduation message with a few spirited jokes
-
extirpate
- to exterminate; to root up. The missionary hoped to extirpate the
- habit of ritual sacrifice by substituting feasting and dancing.
-
immutable
- never changing.
- Cabot was an immutable heretic and nothing we said could persuade
- him to convert to our beliefs.
-
inviolate
- intack, not violated. Thomas Hardy wrote, “The great inviolate
- place had an ancient permanence which the sea cannot claim.”
-
latent
- present
- but invisible or inative; lying hidden and undeveloped. The appearance of the famous actor at the
- school awakened Lisa’s latent interest in a stage career.
-
opulent
- wealth; abundance.
- The hungry man was speechless when he saw the opulent banquet set
- before the king.
-
prurience
- obsessive interest in sex. The Marquis de Sade’s prurience led to
- him imprisonment in the Bastille on charges of sexual assaults on numerous
- women.
-
pseudo
- false. His pseudo
- accept fooled most people until he encountered a native speaker.
-
psychotic
- one
- afflicted with a mental disorder. The
- killer’s psychotic condition was not discovered in time to present his
- shooting rampage.
-
stilted
- stiffly formal; pompous. Using big words to impress a reader
- usuallyproduces a stilted essay.
-
tenet
- a
- principle, doctrine, or belief held as a truth by a group. The belief in the right of ownership of
- property is one of the most important tenets of Western culture.
-
vituperative
- harshly abusive; scolding. Amis’s vituperative comments left his
- young nephew in tears.
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