| A | B |
|---|
| abeyance | state if suspension;temporary inaction |
| abstemious | characterized by a state of self-denial, particularly in the area of food or drink |
| ascetic | given to severe self-denial; oracticing excessive abstinence |
| assiduous | persistant; unceasing |
| aver | to avouch, justify or prove |
| banal | trite; commonplace |
| burgeon | to grow forth; to send out buds |
| coda | concluding section of a musical or literary piece; something that summarizes |
| consternation | panic |
| contumacious | rebellious |
| craven | cowardly |
| deleterious | hurtful, morally or physically |
| delineate | to represent by sketch or diagram |
| desultory | aimless; haphazard |
| diatribe | bitter or malicious criticism |
| didactic | pertaining to teaching |
| dilatory | causing delay |
| dissemble | to disguise or pretend |
| efficacy | power to produce an intended effect |
| egress | exit |
| engender | to produce |
| enervate | to weaken |
| ennui | boredom |
| ephemeral | short-lived; fleeting |
| equanimity | evenness of mind or temper |
| equivocal | ambiguous |
| erudite | very learned |
| eschew | to keep clear of |
| esoteric | hard to understand; known only by a few |
| exculpate | to free from blame |
| expatiate | to speak or write at some length |
| extirpate | to root out; to eradicate |
| fallacious | illogical |
| fatuous | idiotic |
| foment | to nurse to life; to encourage |
| fulminate | to cause to explode |
| gainsay | to contradict; to deny |
| garrulous | trivial talking |
| grandiloquent | pompous; bombastic |
| halcyon | calm |
| harangue | a tirade |
| iconoclast | an image-breaker |
| ignominious | shameful |
| impecunious | having no money; broke |
| imperious | insisting on obedience |
| importune | to harass with persistent demands |
| impugn | to assail with arguments or accusations |
| inane | silly |
| inchoate | recently begun |
| indolence | laziness |
| ineffable | unutterable |
| inert | inactive; lacking power to move |
| inexorable | unrelenting |
| innocuous | harmless |
| insouciant | nonchalant |
| inure | to harden or toughen by use, exposure, or exercise |
| invidious | showing or feeling envy |
| irascible | easily angered |
| laconic | brief and to the point |
| loquacious | talkative |
| lucid | easily understood; clear |
| malingerer | one who feigns illness to escape duty |
| malleable | pliant |
| mendacious | untrue |
| misanthrope | one who hates mankind |
| mordant | biting |
| mundane | worldly |
| nefarios | extremely wicked |
| neophyte | beginner |
| obdurate | stubborn |
| obfuscate | to darken |
| obsequious | servile; ready to serve |
| obviate | to make unnecessary |
| officious | meddlesome |
| onus | burden |
| opprobrium | infamy; vilification |
| parsimonious | sparing; in spending of money |
| pathos | having a quality that rouses emotion or sympathy |
| pausity | few |
| penurious | excessively sparing in the use of money;in frugal |
| perfity | treachery |
| pernicious | tending to kill or hurt |
| pahlegmatic | not easily roused to feeling or motion |
| platitude | trite or commonplace statement |
| portend | foretell |
| prescience | knowledge of events before they happen |
| prevaricate | to use ambiguous language for the purpose of deceiving |
| puerile | childish |
| pusillanimous | cowardly; faint hearted |
| quiescence | being quite or still; inactive |
| quixotice | idealistic; romantic to a ridiculous degree |
| recondite | incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding; profound |
| reprobate | a sinful and depraved person |
| rescind | to void by enacting authority |
| rout | to drive out, stampede |
| ruminate | to chew over again, to think over |
| sagacious | wise |
| salubrious | healthful |
| sanguine | cheerfully confident; optimistic |
| sedulous | persevering in effort or endeavor |
| seminal | influencing future developments |
| sinuous | curving in and out |
| skittish | lively; frisky |
| solicitous | worried; concerned |
| sonorous | resonet |
| soporific | causing sleep |
| specious | seeming reasonable but incorrect |
| spurious | not genuine |
| stentorian | extremely loud |
| stolid | dull; impassive |
| striated | marked with parallel bands |
| supercilious | careless; contempt |
| tacit | understood |
| taciturn | stern; silent |
| tangential | digressing |
| tantamount | equivalent in effect or value |
| temerity | a foolish disregard of danger |
| thrall | slave; bondage |
| thwart | to frustrate |
| torpid | dull; sluggish; inactive |
| tractable | docile |
| truculence | ferocity |
| tyro | beginner |
| umbrage | sense of injury |
| unassuaged | unsatisfied; not soothed |
| unerringly | infallibility |
| ungainly | awkward; clumsy |
| untenable | indefensible |
| upbraid | to reproach as deserving blame |
| vapid | having lost quality and flavor; dull; lifeless |
| veracious | truthful |
| vicissitude | change of condition or circumstances, generally of fortune |
| vituperate | overwhelm with wordy abuse |
| vociferous | making a loud outcry |
| welter | turmoil |
| whorl | ring |
| winsome | attractive |
| zeitgeist | intellectual and moral tendencies of any age |
