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Ingenuous
in JEN yoo us
Lacking in cunning, guile, or worldliness (antonym: disingenuous)
Janine was so ingenuous that it was too easy for her friends to dupe her.
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Subterfuge
SUB ter fyoozh
A deceptive stratagem or device.
The submarine pilots were trained in the art of subterfuge; they were excellent at faking out their enemies.
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Surreptitious
sir up TISH us
Secretive; sneaky
Sara drank the cough syrup surreptitiously because she didn't want anyone to know that she was sick.
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Dearth
DERTH
Scarce supply; lack
There was a dearth of money in my piggy-bank; it collected dust, but bills.
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Modicum
MAHD ik um
A small, moderate, or token amount
A modicum of effort may result in a small score improvement; to improve significantly, however, you must study as often as possible.
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Paucity
PAW sit ee
Smallness in number; scarcity
The struggling city had a paucity of jobs and therefore a high level of poverty.
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Squander
SKWAN der
To spend wastefully
Carrie squandered her savings on shoes and wasn't able to buy her apartment.
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Temperate
TEM per ut
Moderate; restrained (antonym: intemperate)
Temperate climates rarely experience extremes in temperature.
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Tenuous
TEN yoo us
Having little substance or strength; shaky
Her grasp on reality is tenuous at best; she's not even sure what year it is.
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Diligent
DIL uh jint
Marked by painstaking effort; hardworking
With diligent effort, they were able to finish the model airplane in record time.
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Maverick
MAV rik
One who is independent and resists adherence to a group
In the movie Top Gun, Tom Cruise played a maverick who often broke rules and did things his own way.
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Mercenary
MUR sin air ee
Motivated solely by a desire for money or material gain
Mercer is a mercenary lawyer; he'll argue for whichever side pays him the most for his services.
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Obstinate
OB stin it
Stubbornly attached to an opinion or a course of action
Despite Jeremy's broken leg, his parents were obstinate; they steadfastly refused to buy him an XBox.
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Proliferate
pro LIF er ayt
To grow or increase rapidly
Because fax machines, pagers, and cell phones have proliferated in recent years, many new area codes have been created to handle the demand for phone numbers.
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Tenacity
te NAS uh tee
Persistence
With his overwhelming tenacity, Clark was finally able to interview Brad Pitt for the school newspaper.
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Vigilant
VIJ uh lent
On the alert; watchful
The participants of the candlelight vigil were vigilant, as they had heard that the fraternity across the street was planning to egg them.
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Extraneous
ek STRAY nee us
Irrelevant; inessential
The book, though interesting, had so much extraneous information that it was hard to keep track of the important points.
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Juxtapose
JUK stuh pohz
To place side by side, especially for comparison or contrast
Separately the pictures look identical, but if you juxtapose them, you can see the differences.
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Superfluous
soo PUR floo us
Extra; unnecessary
If there is sugar in your tea, honey would be superfluous.
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Synergy
SIN er jee
Combined action or operation
The synergy of hydrogen and oxygen creates water.
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Tangential
tan JEN chul
Merely touching or lightly connected; only superficially relevant
Though Abby's paper was well written, its thesis was so tangential to its proof that her teacher couldn't give her a good grade.
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Aesthetic
es THET ik
Having to do with the appreciation of beauty
Aesthetic considerations determined the arrangement of paintings at the museum; as long as art looked good together, it didn't matter who had painted it.
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Aural
AW rul
Of or related to the ear or the sense of hearing
It should come as no surprise that musicians prefer aural to visual learning.
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Cacophony
kuh KAH fuh nee
Discordant, unpleasant noise
Brian had to shield his ears from the awful cacophony produced by the punk band onstage.
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Dirge
DERJ
A funeral hymn or lament
The dirge was so beautiful that everyone cried, even those who hadn't known the deceased.
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Eclectic
e KLEK tik
Made up of a variety of sources or styles
Lou's taste in music was quite eclectic; he listens to everything from rap to polka.
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Incongruous
in KAHN groo us
Lacking in harmony; incompatible
My chicken and jello soup experiment failed; the tastes were just too incongruous.
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Sonorous
SAHN ur us
Producing a deep or full sound
My father's sonorous snoring keeps me up all night unless i close my door and wear earplugs.
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Strident
STRY dent
Loud, harsh, grating, or shrill
The strident shouting kept the neighbors awake all night.
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Debacle
duh BAHK ul
Disastrous or ludicrous defeat or failure; fiasco
Jim's interview was a complete debacle; he accidentally locked himself in the bathroom, sneezed on the interviewer multiple times, and knocked over the president of the company.
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Debilitate
duh BIL i tayt
Impair the strength of; weaken
Deb ran the New York City marathon without proper training; the experience left her debilitated for weeks.
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Tumultuous
tum UL choo us
Noisy and disorderly
The tumultuous applause was so deafening that the pianist couldn't hear the singer.
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Anachronistic
ah nak ruk NIS tik
The representation of something as existing or happening in the wrong time period
I noticed an anachronism in the museum's ancient Rome display: a digital clock ticking behind a statue of Venus.
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Archaic
ar KAY ik
Characteristic of an earlier time; antiquated; old
"How dost thou?" is an archaic way of saying "How are you?"
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Dilatory
DIL uh tor ee
Habitually late
Always waiting until the last moment to leave home in the morning, Dylan was a dilatory student.
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Ephemeral
e FEM er ul
Lasting for only a brief time
The importance of SAT scores is truly ephemeral; when you are applying, they are crucial, but once you get into college, no one cares how well you did.
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Redolent
RED uh lint
Fragrant; aromatic; suggestive
The aroma of apple pie wafted into my room, redolent of weekends spent baking with my grandmother.
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Temporal
TEM per ul
Of, relating to, or limited by time
One's enjoyment of a Starbuck's mocha latte is bound by temporal limitations; all too soon, the latte is gone.
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Onerous
O ner us
Troublesome or oppressive; burdensome
The onerous task was so difficult that Ona thought she'd never she'd through it.
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Portent
POR tent
Indication of something important or calamitous about to occur; omen
A red morning sky is a terrible portent for all sailor - it means that stormy seas are ahead.
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Prescience
PRE shens
Knowledge of actions or events before they occur; foreknowledge; foresight
Preetha's prescience was such that people wondered if she was psychic; how else could she know so much about the future?
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Austere
aw STEER
Without decoration; strict
The gray walls and bare floors of his monastery cell provided an even more austere setting than Brother Austen had hoped for.
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Banal
buh NAL
Drearily commonplace; predictable; trite
The poet's imagery is so banal that I think she cribbed her work from Poetry for Dummies.
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Hackneyed
HAK need
Worn out through overuse; trite
All Hal could offer in the way of advice were hackneyed old phrases that I'd heard a hundred times before.
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Insipid
in SIP id
Uninteresting; unchallenging; lacking taste or savor
That insipid movie was so predictable that I walked out.
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Prosaic
pro ZAY ik
Unimaginative; dull (antonym: poetic)
Rebecca made a prosaic mosaic consisting of identical, undecorated tiles.
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Soporific
sah puh RIF ik
Inducing or tending to induce sleep
The congressman's speech was so soporific that even his cat was yawning.
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Vapid
VAP id
Lacking liveliness, animation, or interest; dull
Vaerie's date was so vapid that she thought he was sleeping with his eyes open.
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