Vocab #4

obsequious - adj. obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree

• The waiters were obsequious, fretting over everything so as to a higher tip from the costumers.

beatitude - noun a state of supreme happiness

• To be true to oneself, one must be beatitude.  

bete noire - noun person or thing strongly detested or avoided

• Politician’s have the connotation of having a dirty job and so, are often bete noire.

bode - verb indicate by signs; be an omen of a particular outcome

• Paranoid about everything, John thought that the unexpected bad weather was an omen that something terrible was going to occur..

dank - adj. unpleasantly cool and humid

• The abandoned house was dank and horrid.

ecumenical - adj. of worldwide scope or applicability; concerned with promoting unity among churches or religions

• The church had an ecumenical meeting concerning the funding for the extension of the building.

fervid - adj. extremely hot; characterized by intense emotion

• The couple had a fervid goodbye, one going to college out-of-state and the other staying behind.  

fetid - adj. offensively malodorous; smelling extremely unpleasant

• After a long, tiresome practice, John’s fetid aroma wafted throughout the locker room.

gargantuan - adj. of great mass; huge and bulky; enormous

• The gargantuan cake overwhelmed the little boy.

heyday - noun the period of greatest prosperity or productivity

• Selling all of her artwork for an average price of $100,000 made her a tremendously happy artist. It was obviously her heyday.

incubus - noun a male demon believed to lie on sleeping persons and to have sexual intercourse with sleeping women; someone who depresses or worries others; a situation resembling a terrifying dream

• He was an incubus, always talking about death and decay.  

infrastructure - noun the stock of basic facilities and capital equipment needed for the functioning of a country or area; the basic structure or features of a system or organization

• After the massive earthquake, the only thing left of his house was the infrastructure.

inveigle - verb influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering; persuade (someone) to do something by means of deception or flattery

• The woman inveigled him to do the dirty work so that she wouldn’t get the brunt of the charge

kudos - noun an expression of approval and commendation

• Kudos to anyone that doesn’t change themselves in order to fit in with the “ideal societal” values

lagniappe - noun a small gift (especially one given by a merchant to a customer who makes a purchase)

• The customer was given a lagniappe for her purchase of a $500 handbag.

prolix - adj. tediously prolonged or tending to speak or write at great length

• The writing was prolix, seemingly skirting around the actual prompt by talking about something that doesn’t necessarily need to be mentioned.  

protege - noun a person who receives support and protection from an influential patron who furthers the protege's career

• The protege swore revenge when his master was brutally murdered.

prototype - noun a standard or typical example

• The computer prototype was bulky and inaccessible.  

sycophant - noun a person who tries to please someone in order to gain a personal advantage

• She was a sycophant, nodding along to everything being said even the most ridiculous statements.

tautology - noun useless repetition; (logic) a statement that is necessarily true; a phrase or expression in which the same thing is said twice in different words

• English teachers will often tell their students to avoid tautology when answering the prompts for the AP test.

truckle - noun a low bed to be slid under a higher bed; verb yield to out of weakness; try to gain favor by cringing or flattering

• She truckled under the withering gaze of her superior.