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Unit 2 Level G Vocab
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Accost | approach and speak to first; confront in a challenging or aggressive way |
Animadversion | a comment indicating strong criticism or disapproval |
Avid | desirous of something to the point of greed; intensely eager |
Brackish | having a salty taste and unpleasant to drink |
Celerity | swiftness, rapidity of motion or action |
Devious | straying or wandering from a straight or direct course; done or acting in a shifty or underhand way |
Gambit | in chess and opening move that involves risk or sacrifice of a minor piece in order to gain a later advantage; any opening move of this type |
Halcyon | a legendary bird identified with the kingfisher; (adj) of or relating to the halcyon; calm, peaceful; happy, golden; prosperous, affluent |
Histrionic | pertaining to actors and their techniques; theatrical, artificial; melodramatic S: affected, stagy |
Incendiary | deliberately setting or causing fires; designed to start fires; tending to sir up strife or rebellion; (n) one who deliberately sets fires, arsonist; one who cases strife |
Maelstrom | whirlpool of great size and violence; a situation resembling a whirlpool in violence and destruction |
Myopic | nearsighted, lacking a broad, realistic view of a situation; lacking foresight or discernment |
Overt | open, not hidden, expressed or revealed in a way that is not easily recognized |
Pejorative | tending to make worse; expressing disapproval or disparagement, derogatory, deprecatory, belittling |
Propriety | the state of being proper, appropriateness; (pl) standards of what is proper or socially acceptable |
Sacrilege | improper or disrespectful treatment of something held sacred |
Summarily | without delay or formality; briefly, concisely |
Suppliant | asking humbly and earnestly (n) one who makes a request humbly and earnestly, a petitioner, suitor |
Talisman | an object that serves as a charm or is believed to confer magical powers, an amulet, fetish |
Undulate | to move in waves or with a wavelike motion; to have a wavelike appearance or form |