exculpate

v. 

exonerate; to clear of blame

PICTURE IMAGE:  Mr. eXperience was culpable in da murder of da bitch.  There was no way that he would ever be exculpated of his crime. -- Elsewhere

perfidy

n. 

(adj. perfidious)

intentional breach of faith; treachery 

PICTURE IMAGE / HINT:  

Perdida seemed liked a nice dog, but she perfidiously told Cruella where the puppies were because she was a crazy mother dog who felt like she was being smothered and consumed by her children.

relegate 

v.

to forcibly assign, esp. to a lower place or position

PICTURE IMAGE / HINT:  more extreme version of delegate???

stymie

v.

to block; thwart

Styer's throat-part stymied the jello from being properly swallowed, so he consequently chocked on the jello.

daring and fearless; recklessly bold 

PICTURE IMAGE / HINT:  Audrey Hepburn was quite audacious in supporting her lesbian friend in that play that I read from college.  

exigent 

adj.

urgent, pressing; requiring immediate action or attention 

Larry exigently decided to change his attitude towards life when he found out he was a Gentile.

extemporaneous 

adj.

improvised; done without preparation 

HINT:  EX = lacking?  TEMP= time; ANEOUS = like instantaneous or 0

austere

adj.

without adornment; bare; severely simple; ascetic 

PICTURE IMAGE / HINT:  Remember the Penelope Cruz saying that about her Cuban father in Elegy; her character seemed like the opposite of austere...from what I saw anyway.

axiomatic

taken as a given; possessing self-evident truth 

PICTURE IMAGE / HINT:  The plastic surgery, makeup, hair, and airbrushing on the girls in Maxim magazine was pretty axiomatic.??

perfunctory 

adj.

cursory; done without care or interest; done merely as a duty

PICTURE IMAGE / HINT:  Pretty pretty princess me hardly cared about behaving perfectly when she was playing a drinking game with her friends and regarded all of the rules in a perfunctory manner precisely because she wanted to get WASTED.

perspicacious 

adj. 

acutely perceptive; having keen discernment (perspicacity)

PICTURE IMAGE / HINT:  Percy Weasley perspired so much, he used his sweat and magically transformed it into something that he could use to perspicaciously observe the liberal members of the Ministry of Magic.

prattle

v.

to babble meaninglessly; to talk in empty and idle manner

SAMPLE SENTENCE:  I tend to prattle in class discussion when I get nervous or I don't quite have a handle on the material.  In fact, I tend to use abstract, jargony language to try to disguise my ineptitude.

precipitate

adj.

acting with excessive haste or impulse

SAMPLE SENTENCE:  I get pretty bored when I groom in the morning, so I tend to regard them as if they were precipitate activities.

precipitate 

v.

to cause or happen before anticipated or required

HINT:  I have never, not even once, precipitously completed a paper in college.

prescience 

n.

prevaricate 

v.

to deliberately avoid the truth; to mislead

syn. (sort of):  equivocate [rhymes], and filibuster and mealymouthed

SAMPLE SENTENCE:  John always prevaricates, he almost distorts the truth and almost believes it.  (This seems to be what people with Borderline Personality Disorder do too.)

reticent

adj. 

quiet; reserved; reluctant to express thoughts and feelings

HINT: I've never heard a retina talk.

abate

v.

abscond

v.

to hide clandestinely; to go off and hide 

HINT:  esconder

persuasive 

COMMON PHRASE = <a X argument>

equivocate

to use ambiguous language with a deceptive intent

HINT:  syn.  filibuster and mealymouthed

SAMPLE SENTENCE:  "Savannah asked Ben what he thought of her friend Maggie's carrot cake; he thought it was nasty, but he couldn't tell her that - and he didn't want to lie, so he had to equivocate and said that he thought it had an "interesting" taste.  (He thought it was so nasty that he actually spit it out of his mouth once Maggie left the room." 

having lost motion or the power of exertion 

HINT:  like ennui, sort of

PICTURE:  like the opposite of a torpedo

a very learned man; someone who addresses the public in a media event and gives an opinion in an authoritative manner

HINT:  this is a degree of a "tyro"

sordid 

adj.

to retract a previously held belief 

HINT:  syn. = countraband, and countermand (sort of)

aberrant 

(aberration)

deviating from the norm 

HINT:  syn. = anomaly

an expression of approval 

to corrupt or debase

SAMPLE SENTENCE:  Women who engaged in adulterous relationships are often considered corrupt or debase simply because of their engagement in a deviant activity related to sexuality.

only POSITIVE AMAZEMENT 

IMPORTANT:  there is one that can have a negative connotation

anathema 

(multiple definitions)

 1.  a solemn curse 

2.  a person or thing that is cursed

3.  one intensely disliked 

SAMPLE SENTENCE FOR DEFINITION #3:  "Our columnist, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, may well be right that Madonna should be considered anathema to the feminist movement because she has 'spawned a tragic world where, according to Time magazine, 40 percent of American teenage girls now wear thongs and thousands of college girls lift their shirts in exchange for a T-shirt.'"

epithet

<a racial epithet>

a useless repetition of a word or phrase

HINT:  sort of like filibuster

astound

male deer 

PICTURE:  Harry Potter's deer would not have been a female...I guess.

mélage 

[mey] '[loje]

1.  nearness in place or time

2.  nearness of blood 

HINT:  PRO and QUITY

1. to punish 

2.  to punish by a fine that is fixed by the court 

HINT:  syn.  mulcht, a

axiom

n.

bucolic 

adj.