11_Vocabulary Lessons 1-4

Match the following vocabulary words with their definitions.

• perfunctory

• extremely holy

• boor

• a rude or impolite person

• impale

• to stare angrily

• sacrosanct

• done without care; in a routine fashion

• glower

• to pierce with a pointed object; to spear

Match the following

• optimum

• a shield; protection

• aegis

• best; most favorable; ideal

• importune

• comical; jocular; flippant

• extenuate

• to lessen seriousness by providing partial excuses

• facetious

• to ask persistently; to beg

Match the following

• opulent

• to correct; to make right

• edify

• a total rejection of established laws

• shard

• a fragment

• rectify

• rich, luxurious; wealthy

• nihilism

• to improve someone morally

Match the following

• perspicacity

• a showy but useless thing

• bauble

• abstaining from intercourse; unmarried

• celibate

• to make dirty; to stain

• besmirch

• local; narrow; limited

• parochial

• keenness of judgment

Match the following

• bland

• mild; tasteless; dull

• fecund

• to confuse; to bewilder

• fortuitous

• to make dirty; to stain

• obfuscate

• to weaken

• enervate

• happening by chance or accident

Match the following

• obloquy

• a whirlpool; turbulence; an agitated state of mind

• labyrinth

• strong disapproval; a bad reputation resulting from public criticism

• besiege

• a complicated network of winding passages; a maze

• maelstrom

• to overwhelm; to surround and attack

• antithesis

• an exact opposite; an opposite extreme

Match the following

• emendation

• ordinary or dull

• pedestrian

• lasting only a brief time; short-lived

• hedonism

• a correction

• ephemeral

• decaying flesh

• carrion

• the pursuit of pleasure, especially of the senses

Match the following

• amorphous

• extremely necessary; vitally important

• imperative

• to turn aside from a course; to stray

• deviate

• very sheer and light

• recapitulate

• to summarize; to repeat briefly

• diaphanous

• shapeless, formless; vague