vocab.

1) Breach

n., v.

a lapse, gap or break, as in a fortress wall. To break or break through. ex: Unfortunately, the club members never forgot his breach of etiquette.

2) Dearth

n

lack, scarcity: "The prosecutor complained about the dearth of concrete evidence against the suspect."

3) depredation

n.

the act of preying upon or plundering: "The depredations of the invaders demoralized the population."

4) engender

v.

to give rise to, to propagate, to cause: "His slip of the toungue engendered much laughter."

5) incorrigible

adj

not capable of being corrected: "The school board finally decided the James was incorrigible and expelled him from school."

6) Indelible

adj.

permanent; unerasable; strong: "The Queen made an indelible impression on her subjects."

7) Infer

v.

to deduce: "New genetic evidence led some zoologists to infer that the red wolf is actually a hybrid of the coyote and the gray wolf."

8) ingenious

adj

clever: "She developed an ingenious method for testing her hypothesis."(n: ingenuity)

9) intransigent

adj.

stubborn; immovable; unwilling to change: "She was so intransigent we finally gave up trying to convince her." (n: intransigence)

10) lugubrious

adj

weighty, mournful, or gloomy, especially to an excessive degree: "Jake's lugubrious monologues depressed his friends

11) misanthrope

n.

one who hates people: "He was a true misanthrope and hated even himself."

12) mitigate

v.

to make less forceful; to become more moderate; to make less harsh or undesirable: "He was trying to mitigate the damage he had done."

noisome

adj.

harmful, offensive, destructive: "The noisome odor of the dump carried for miles."

13) Placate

v.

to calm or reduce anger by making concessions: "The professor tried to placate his students by postponing the exam."

14) precipitate

v., n

to fall; to fall downward suddenly and dramatically; to bring about or hasten the occurrence of something: "Old World diseases precipitated a massive decline in the American Indian population."

15) prodigal

adj.

rashly wasteful: "Americans' prodigal devotion to the automobile is unique."

16) propitiate

v.

to conciliate; to appease: "They made sacrifices to propitiate angry gods."

17) specious

adj.

seemingly true but really false; deceptively convincing or attractive: "Her argument, though specious, was readily accepted by many."

18) superficial

adj.

only covering the surface: "A superficial treatment of the topic was all they wanted."

19) tractable

adj.

ability to be easily managed or controlled: "Her mother wished she were more tractable."

20) verbose

adj.

wordy: "The instructor asked her verbose student to make her paper more concise."

21) Vex

v.

to annoy; to bother; to perplex; to puzzle; to debate at length: "Franklin vexed his brother with his controversial writings."

22) pedantic

adj

showing a narrow concern for rules or formal book learning; making an excessive display of one's own learning: "We quickly tired of his pedantic conversation."

23) pragmatic

adj.

concerned with facts; practical, as opposed to highly principled or traditional: "His pragmatic approach often offended idealists."

24) precursor

n.

something (or someone) that precedes another: "The assassination of the Archduke was a precursor to the war."

25) prevaricate

v.

to stray away from or evade the truth: "When we asked him what his intentions were, he prevaricated."