Vocabulary List #31: 5/18/98
aberration | deviation from what is normal, common, or correct |
alteration | modification, change |
ambient | surrounding on all sides; encompassing |
bathos | anticlimax; excessive sentimentality or triteness |
benighted | overtaken by darkness or night; moral or intellectual darkness |
bivouac | a temporary shelter or settlement |
capitulation | a giving over of resistance (agreement) upon terms |
castigate | to punish or chastise |
concordant | agreeing; harmonious |
cupidity | a strong desire, especially for wealth; greed |
declivity | downward inclination; descending slope |
dirge | a funeral hymn or requiem mass; song of mourning |
divination | foretelling the future by occult means; prophecy; augury |
exude | to ooze or pour out gradually |
fatuous | complacently or inanely foolish |
fulsome | characterized by abundance; copious; lavish; overdone |
fallow | cultivated land that is allowed to lie idle during the growing season |
gesticulate | to make gestures, especially when speaking |
glaucous | of a pale yellow-green color; waxy |
harridan | a haggard, shrewish old woman |
hauter | arrogance; haughtiness |
homunculus | a little man; manikin |
imposture | practice of deceiving by means of assumed character or name |
libertine | a freethinker, especially in a religious manner |
panegyric | formal praise, ecomium, eulogistic oration or writing |
photic | of or relating to, or involving light; of the sun |
plait | to pleat or braid |
retrospect | a review or meditation on a past event or events |
taciturn | temperamentally disinclined to talk; reticent, quiet |
vouchsafe | to be gracious enough to condescend to grant |