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| V. subside or moderate. Rather than leaving immediately, they waited for the storm to abate. |
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| ADJ. abnormal or deviant. Given the aberrant nature of the data, we came to doubt the validity of the entire experiment. |
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| N. suspended action. The deal was held in abeyance until her arrival. |
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| V. depart secretly and hide. The teller who absconded with the bonds went uncaptured until someone recognized him from his photograph on America's Most Wanted. |
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| ADJ. sparing in eating and drinking; temperate. Concerned whether her vegetarian son's abstemious diet provided him with sufficient protein, the worried mother pressed food on him. |
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| V. warn; reprove. When her courtiers questioned her religious beliefs, Mary Stuart admonished them, declaring that she would worship as she pleased. |
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| V. make impure by adding inferior or tainted substances. It is a crime to adulterate food without informing the buyer. |
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| ADJ. artistic; dealing with or capable of appreciating the beautiful. The beauty of Tiffany's stained glass appealed to Alice's aesthetic sense. Aesthete, N. |
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| V. refrain; to choose not to do something. During Lent, practicing Catholics abstain from eating meat. |
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| N. an extremely deep hole. The submarine dove into the abyss to chart the previously unseen depths. |
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| V. to speak in favor of. The abolitionists advocated freedom for the slaves. Also N. |
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| V. increase or intensify; raise in power, wealth, rank or honor. The supervisor sought to aggrandize himself by claiming that the achievement of his staff were actually his own. |
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| V. gather; accumulate. Before the Wall Street scandals, dealers in so-called junk bonds managed to aggregate great wealth in short period of time. Also ADJ. aggregation, N. |
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| N. cheerful promptness; eagerness. Phil and Dave were raring to get off the mountains; they packed up their ski gear and climbed into the van with alacrity. |
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| V. relieve; to make more bearable. Taking aspirin helps to alleviate the headache. |
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| V. combine; unite in one body; to mix together. The unions will attempt to amalgamate their groups into one national body. |
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| ADJ. unclear or doubtful in meaning; able to interpreted several ways. His ambiguous instructions misled us; we did not know which road to take. Ambiguity, N. |
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| N. the state of having contradictory or conflicting emotional attitudes. Torn between loving her parents one minute and hating them next, she was confused by the ambivalence of her feelings. Ambivalent, ADJ. |
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| V. to improve; to make better. Many social workers have attempted to ameliorate the condition of people living in the slums. |
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| N. something or someone misplaced in time. Shakespeare's reference to clocks in Julius Caesar is an anachronism; no clocks existed in Caesar's time. Anachronistic, ADJ. |
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| ADJ. similar or alike in some way; equivalent to; comparable. She called our attention to the thing that had been done in as analogous situation and recommended that we do the same. |
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| N. absence of governing body; state of disorder. The assassination of the leaders led to the period of anarchy. |
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| ADJ. abnormal; irregular. She was placed in the anomalous position of seeming to approve procedure that she despised. |
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| N. deviation from what is normal; irregularity. Albino animals may display too great an anomaly in there coloring to attract normally colored mates. |
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| to annoy or provoke to anger. The child discovered that could antagonize the cat by pulling its tail. |
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| N. aversion; extreme dislike. The antipathy between the French and the English regularly erupted into open warfare. |
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| N. lack of interest or emotion; indifference. A firm believer in democratic government, she could not understand the apathy of people who never bothered to vote. Apathetic, ADJ. |
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| V. pacify or soothe; relieve. Tom and Jody tried to appease the crying baby by offering him one toy after another. However, he would not calm down until they appeased his hunger by giving him a bottle. Appeasement, N. |
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| V. inform. When NASA was apprised of the dangerous weather conditions, the head of the space agency decided to postpone the shuttle launch. |
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| N. approval. Wanting her parents' regard, she looked for some sign of their approbation. |
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| V. acquire; take possession of for one's own use. The ranch owners appropriated the lands that had originally been set aside for the Indians' use. |
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| V. act as judge. She was called upon to arbitrate the dispute between the union and the management. |
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| ADJ. antiquated; ancient, old-fashioned. Her archaic Commodore computer could not run the latest software. |
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| N. intense and passionate feeling; heat; zeal. Katya's ardor was contagious; soon all her fellow demonstrators were busily making posters and handing out flyers, inspired by her ardent enthusiasm for the cause. Ardent, ADJ. |
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| ADJ. hard; strenuous. Her arduous efforts had sapped her energy. |
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| ADJ. effective; distinct; able to speak clearly and expressively. Her articulate presentation of the advertising campaign impressed her employers. Also V. |
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| ADJ. without guile; open and honest. Red Riding Hood's artless comment, "Grandma, what big eyes you have!" indicates the child's innocent surprise at her "grandmother's" changed appearance. |
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| ADJ. practicing self-denial; austere. The wealthy, self-indulgent young man oddly drawn to the strict, ascetic life led by members of some monastic orders. Also N. asceticism, N. |
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| ADJ. diligent; persistent; hardworking. It took Rembrandt weeks of assiduous labor before he was satisfied with his portrait of his son. |
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| V. ease or lessen (pain); satisfy (hunger); soothe (anger); to make something unpleasant less severe. Like many people, Philip Larkin used alcohol to assuage his sense of meaninglessness and despair. Assuagement, N. |
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| V. make thinner; weaken or lessen (in density, force, degree). The long dry, spell attenuated the creek to the merest trickle. When a meteor strikes the ground, the initially intense shock attenuates or lessens as it diverges outward. |
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| ADJ. fearless and daring; bold. "And you, your majesty, may kiss my bum!" replied the audacious peasant. Audacity, N. |
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| ADJ. severe or stern in appearance; undecorated. The headmaster's austere demeanor tended to scare off the more timid student, who never visited his study willingly. The room reflected the man, austere and bare, like a monk's cell, with no touches of luxury to moderate austerity. |
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| ADJ. self-governing. Although the University of California at Berkeley is just one part of the state university system, in many ways Cal Berkeley is autonomous, for it runs several programs that are not subject to outside control. Autonomy, N. |
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| V. assert confidently or declare; as used in law, state formally as a fact; to declare to be true; affirm. The self-proclaimed psychic averred that, because he had extrasensory perception on which to base his predictions, he needed no seismographs or other gadgets in order to foretell earthquakes. |
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ADJ. predictable, cliched, boring.
He used banal phrases like Have a nice day or Another day, another dollar. |
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| V. contradict; give a false impression. His coarse, hard-bitten exterior belied his innate sensitivity. |
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| ADJ. kindly; doing good. The overgenerous philanthropist had to curb his beneficent impulses before he gave away all his money and left himself with nothing. |
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| V. support; reinforce. The debaters amassed file boxes full of evidence to bolster their arguments. |
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| ADJ. pompous in speech and manner; using inflated language. Puffed up with conceit, the orator spoke in such a bombastic manner that we longed to deflate him. Bombast, N. |
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| ADJ. rude; insensitive. Though Mr. Potts constantly interrupted his wife, she ignored his boorish behavior, for she had lost hope of teaching him courtesy. |
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| V. grow forth; send out buds; to sprout or flourish. In the spring, the plants that burgeon are a promise of the beauty that is to come. |
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| V. make shiny by rubbing; polish. The maid burnished the brash fixtures until they reflected the lamplight. |
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| V. support; prop up. Just as architects buttress the walls of cathedrals with flying buttresses, debaters buttress their arguments with facts. Also N. |
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