| A | B |
|---|
| accost | to approach and speak to first; to 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 |
| 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 |
| halcyon | a legendary bird identified with the kingfisher; calm, peaceful; happy, golden; prosperous, affluent |
| histrionic | pertaining to actors and their techniques; theatrical, artificial; melodramatic |
| celerity | swiftness, rapidity of motion or action |
| incendiary | deliberately setting or causing fires; designed to start fires; tending to stir up strife or rebellion; one wo 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 |
| 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 easily recognized |
| pejorative | tending to make worse; expressing disapproval or disparagement, derogatory, deprecatory, belittling |
| 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 |
| suppliant | asking humbly and earnestly; 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 |
