Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Vocab #2

accoutrements - noun dress or equipment, or other items carried or worn by a person or used for a particular activity
  • Toys for little kids, specially dolls and action figures, often come with tiny accoutrements.
apogee - noun highest or most distant point; climax; point in the orbit of a heavenly body
  • Looking over the lavish buildings and the citizens of the kingdom, the king knows that he is at the apogee of his reign.
apropos - adj. very appropriate to a particular situation
  • The ending of a movie always warrants an apropos clapping from the people.
bicker - verb argue about petty and trivial matters
  • Very different from one another, my brother and I often bicker over everything.
coalesce - verb come together and form one mass whole; combine
  • In order to make lemonade, one has to coalesce freshly squeezed lemon juice, ice, and some water.
contretemps - noun unexpected and unfortunate occurrence;  minor dispute or disagreement
  • The teacher had to take care of a few contretemps between multiple students.
convolution - noun a coil or twist, especially one of many
  • Convolutions in the cerebral cortex are the grooves and folds.
cull - noun person or thing rejected or set aside as inferior in quality; verb remove something that has been rejected
  • In the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the Epsilsons were culls of the society.  
disparate - adj. essentially different in kind; not allowing comparison
  • Sapphire glass is a disparate material for technologies.
dogmatic - adj. inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true; opinionated
  • The professor was a dogmatic character, arguing over everyone that questioned his teachings
licentious - adj. promiscuous and unprincipled in sexual matters
  • Flappers of the 1920’s, the New Women, were described as being licentious.
mete - noun a line that indicates a boundary; verb dispense or allot justice, a punishment, or harsh treatment
  • The buoys on the beach are metes that dissuades people to swing past for safety reasons.
noxious - adj. injurious to physical or mental health; harmful, poisonous, or very unpleasant
  • Carbon dioxide, specially when inhaled, is noxious.  
polemic - adj. of or involving dispute or controversy; noun a strong verbal or written attack on someone or something
  • A polemic note was distributed across the hall of the high school causing drama to ensue.
populous - adj. densely populated
  • India is a populous country with a population estimate of about 1.27 billion.  
probity - noun  quality of having strong moral principles; honesty and decency
  • An excellent orator can exude great probity.
repartee - noun speech characterized by quick, witty comments or replies
  • The entertainer, trying to keep the audience on their toes, spoke with repartee.
supervene - verb occur later than a specified or implied event or action, typically in such a way as to change the situation
  • A man supervened on the wedding of his ex-girlfriend and her fiance.
truncate - adj. terminating abruptly by having an end or point cut off; verb make shorter as if by cutting off
  • There always seems to be someone truncating the girl mid-sentence.
unimpeachable - adj. not able to be doubted, questioned, or criticized; entirely trustworthy

  • Millicent Angulo is an unimpeachable character with her trusting eyes and wide smile.

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