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BatesT
100 words
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| accolade | any award, honor, or laudatory notice |
| acrimony | sharpness, harshness, or bitterness of nature, speech, disposition |
| angst | a feeling of dread, anxiety, or anguish. |
| anomaly | a deviation from the common rule, type, arrangement, or form. |
| antidote | a medicine or other remedy for counteracting the effects of poison, disease, etc. |
| avant-garde | the advance group in any field, especially in the visual, literary, or musical arts, whose works are characterized chiefly by unorthodox and experimental methods. |
| baroque | anything extravagantly ornamented, especially something so ornate as to be in bad taste. |
| bona fide | made, done, presented, etc., in good faith; without deception or fraud |
| boondoggle | a product of simple manual skill, as a plaited leather cord for the neck or a knife sheath, made typically by a camper or a scout. |
| bourgeois | a member of the middle class. |
| bravado | a pretentious, swaggering display of courage. |
| brogue | an Irish accent in the pronunciation of English. |
| brusque | brupt in manner; |
| byzantine | of or pertaining to Byzantium. |
| cacophony | harsh discordance of sound; dissonance: a cacophony of hoots, cackles, and wails. |
| camaraderie | comradeship; good-fellowship. |
| capricious | subject to, led by, or indicative of caprice or whim; |
| carte blanche | unconditional authority |
| Catch-22 | a frustrating situation in which one is trapped by contradictory regulations or conditions. |
| caustic | capable of burning, corroding, or destroying living tissue. |
| charisma | a divinely conferred gift or power. |
| cloying | causing or tending to cause disgust or aversion through excess |
| déjà vu | the illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time. |
| dichotomy | division into two parts, kinds, etc.; subdivision into halves or pairs. |
| dilettante | a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, especially in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler. |
| disheveled | hanging loosely or in disorder; unkempt: disheveled hair. |
| élan | dash; impetuous ardor |
| ennui | a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom |
| epitome | a person or thing that is typical of or possesses to a high degree the features of a whole class: He is the epitome of goodness. |
| equanimity | mental or emotional stability or composure, especially under tension or strain |
| equivocate | to use ambiguous or unclear expressions, usually to avoid commitment or in order to mislead |
| esoteric | belonging to the select few. |
| euphemism | the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt. |
| fait accompli | an accomplished fact |
| fastidious | excessively particular, critical, or demanding; hard to please: a fastidious eater. |
| faux pas | a slip or blunder in etiquette, manners, or conduct; an embarrassing social blunder or indiscretion. |
| fiasco | a complete and ignominious failure. |
| finagle | to trick, swindle, or cheat (a person) (often followed by out of ): He finagled the backers out of a fortune. |
| Freudian slip | an inadvertent mistake in speech or writing that is thought to reveal a person's unconscious motives, wishes, or attitudes. |
| glib | readily fluent, often thoughtlessly, superficially, or insincerely so |
| gregarious | fond of the company of others; sociable. |
| harbinger | a person who goes ahead and makes known the approach of another; herald. |
| hedonist | a person whose life is devoted to the pursuit of pleasure and self-gratification. |
| heresy | opinion or doctrine at variance with the orthodox or accepted doctrine, especially of a church or religious system. |
| idiosyncratic | a characteristic, habit, mannerism, or the like, that is peculiar to an individual. |
| idyllic | suitable for or suggestive of an idyll |
| indelicate | offensive to a sense of generally accepted propriety, modesty, or decency; improper, unrefined, or coarse |
| infinitesimal | indefinitely or exceedingly small; minute: infinitesimal vessels in the circulatory system. |
| insidious | intended to entrap or beguile: an insidious plan. |
| junket | a sweet, custardlike food of flavored milk curdled with rennet. |
| kitsch | something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste. |
| litany | a ceremonial or liturgical form of prayer consisting of a series of invocations or supplications with responses that are the same for a number in succession. |
| lurid | gruesome; horrible; revolting: the lurid details of an accident. |
| Machiavellian | of, like, or befitting Machiavelli. |
| malaise | a condition of general bodily weakness or discomfort, often marking the onset of a disease. |
| malinger | to pretend illness, especially in order to shirk one's duty, avoid work, etc. |
| mantra | a word or formula, as from the Veda, chanted or sung as an incantation or prayer. |
| maudlin | tearfully or weakly emotional; foolishly sentimental |
| mercenary | a professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army. |
| minimalist | a person who favors a moderate approach to the achievement of a set of goals or who holds minimal expectations for the success of a program. |
| misnomer | a misapplied or inappropriate name or designation. |
| narcissist | inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity. |
| nirvana | a place or state characterized by freedom from or oblivion to pain, worry, and the external world. |
| non sequitur | a statement containing an illogical conclusion. |
| nouveau riche | a person who is newly rich: the ostentation of the nouveaux riches of the 1920s. |
| oblivion | the state of being completely forgotten or unknown: |
| ogle | to look at amorously, flirtatiously, or impertinently. |
| ostentatious | characterized by or given to pretentious or conspicuous show in an attempt to impress others |
| ostracize | to banish (a person) from his or her native country; expatriate. |
| panacea | a remedy for all disease or ills; cure-all. |
| paradox | a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth. |
| peevish | cross, querulous, or fretful, as from vexation or discontent |
| perfunctory | performed merely as a routine duty |
| philistine | a person who is lacking in or hostile or smugly indifferent to cultural values, intellectual pursuits, aesthetic refinement, etc., or is contentedly commonplace in ideas and tastes. |
| precocious | unusually advanced or mature in development, especially mental development |
| propriety | conformity to established standards of good or proper behavior or manners. |
| quid pro quo | something that is given or taken in return for something else; substitute. |
| quintessential | the pure and concentrated essence of a substance. |
| red herring | a smoked herring. |
| revel | to take great pleasure or delight |
| rhetoric | the undue use of exaggeration or display; bombast. |
| scintillating | animated |
| spartan | brave; undaunted. |
| stigma | a mark of disgrace or infamy; a stain or reproach, as on one's reputation. |
| stoic | of or pertaining to the school of philosophy founded by Zeno |
| suave | smoothly agreeable or polite |
| Svengali | a person who completely dominates another, usually with selfish or sinister motives. |
| sycophant | a self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite. |
| teetotaler | a person who abstains totally from intoxicating drink. |
| tête-à-tête | a private conversation or interview, usually between two people. |
| tirade | a prolonged outburst of bitter, outspoken denunciation |
| tryst | an appointment to meet at a certain time and place, especially one made somewhat secretly by lovers. |
| ubiquitous | existing or being everywhere, especially at the same time |
| unrequited | not returned or reciprocated: unrequited love. |
| untenable | incapable of being defended, as an argument, thesis, etc.; indefensible. |
| vicarious | performed, exercised, received, or suffered in place of another |
| vile | wretchedly bad |
| waft | to carry lightly and smoothly through the air or over water |
| white elephant | a possession unwanted by the owner but difficult to dispose of: |
| zealous | full of, characterized by, or due to zeal; ardently active, devoted, or diligent. |
Created by:
meehanenglish
Popular English Vocabulary sets