Vocabulary Flashcards

Front

alleviate; verb - to make easier to endure; to relieve; to diminish.

Back

Nothing tends to alleviate my headaches better than simple aspirin.

Front

censure; verb - to blame; to criticize adversely.

Back

Congress agreed to censure the outspoken senator.

Front

despot; noun - monarch with unlimited power.

Back

My boss calls himself a benevolent despot, but we question the validity of that adjective.

Front

engender; verb - to cause, produce, bring into being.

Back

Those sneaky actions are sure to engender suspicion.

Front

incongruous; adjective - inappropriate; out of place.

Back

Seeing the little boy in a room filled with basketball giants struck me as totally incongruous.

Front

philistine; adjective - narrow-minded; smugly conventional.

Back

Philistine stubbornness should not prevent us from advancing ourselves intellectually.

Front

relegate; verb - to put in a less important position; to assign; to banish.

Back

The usual procedure is for the chairperson to relegate the work to special committees.

Front

scoff; verb - to mock or jeer at; to make fun of.

Back

The fable of the fox and the grapes teaches that we tend to scoff at what we cannot attain.

Front

tedious; adjective - long or verbose and wearisome; tiresome; boring.

Back

I prefer the fast-paced games of football and basketball to baseball with its tedious stretches of waiting for something to happen.

Front

ungainly; adjective - clumsy; awkward; hard to handle.

Back

Hulk Hogan’s sensitivity about his threadbare garments made him ungainly.