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| (v) to assert without proof or confirmation; The newspaper tabloid alleged that the movie star and the director were having creative differences. |
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| (adj) thoroughgoing, out-and-out; shameless, blatant; In Shakespeare's tragedy the audience sees clearly that lago is an arrant scoundrel, but Othello is blind to his treachery. |
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| (n) light and playful conversation; I engjoy the delighful badinage between stars like Spencer Tracy and Katerine Hepburn in 1940's movies. |
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| (v) to overcome the distrust of, win over; to appease, pacify, to reconcile, make consistent; Because of the weakness of our army, we had to try to conciliate the enemy. |
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| (v) to cancle or reverse one order or command with another that is contrary to the first.; Today's directive clearly contermanded all previous instuctions on how to exit the building in case of a fire. |
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| (n) one of a series of grades in a n organization or field of activity; an organized military unit; a steplike formation or arrangement; Although the civil servant began in the lower echelon of government service, he rose quickly through the ranks. |
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| (v) to make more violent, severe, bitter, or painful; Shouting and name-calling are sure to exacerbate any quarrel. |
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| (adj) stupid or foolish in a self-satisfied way; In order to discredit the candidate, the columnist quoted some of his more fatuous, sel-serving remarks. |
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| (adj)impossible to disprove; beyond argument; The jury felt the prosecution presednted them with irrefutable evidence of the defendant's guilt. |
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| (n) a massive and inescapable force or object that crushes whatever is in its path; Any population that has experienced the juggernaut of war firsthand will probaly not easily forget its destructive power. |
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| (n) a prayer consisting of short appeals to God recited by the leader alternating with responses from the congregation; any repetative chant; a long list; Whenever she talks about her childhood, she recites an interminable litany of grievances. |
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| (adj) grisly, gruesome; horrible, distressing; having death as a subject; The continuing popularity of horror movies suggests that one way to score at a the box office is to exploit the macabre. |
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| (n) an inadequate quantity, scarcity, dearth; The senate campaign was marred by a paucity of original ideas. |
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| (v) to indicate beforehand that somethign is about to happen; to give advance warning of |
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| (v) to tear down, destroy completly; to cut or scrape off or out; The town razed the old schoolhouse to make room for a larger, more modern school complex. |
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| (v) to withdraw a statement or belief to which one has previously been committed, renounce, retract |
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| (v) to soak thorourghly, fill to capacity; to satisfy fully; A sponge that is saturated with water swells up but does not drip. |
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| (adj) of gloomy or surly diposition; cold or sluggish in mood; Ebenezer Scrooge, the main character of Dickens's A Christmas Carol, has a decidedly saturnine temperament. |
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| (v) to cast off, discard; to get rid of something objectionable or unnecessary; to plod through as if through mud; (n) a mire; a state of depression; At New Year's time, many people resolve to slough off bad habits and start living better healthierlives.; The advancing lineo f tanks begame bogged down in a slough. |
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