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