VOCABULARY 1

• Adumbrate: to outline; give a faint indication of.
• Great thinkers like Benjamin Franklin adumbrated their thoughts briefly to others while also recording them on paper.
• Apotheosis: the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god.
• After one of my piano recitals, an elderly woman approached me and embarrassed me to be the apotheosis of skill.
• Ascetic: a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons; exceedingly strict or severe in religious exercises or self-mortification.
• In some Catholic societies, there are a few ascetics who punish themselves physically for sinning in the eyes of their God.
• Bauble: a showy, usually cheap, ornament; trinket.
• As a child, I remember winning an unusual bauble in class that looked like it came from the dollar store.
• Beguile: to influence by trickery, flattery, etc.; mislead; delude.
• Be weary of the common thief who beguiles his victims artistically before he strikes.
• Burgeon: to grow or develop quickly; flourish.
• The small village burgeoned into a metropolis in only a few decades.
• Complement: something that completes or makes perfect.
• The flavorful dipping sauce served as the ideal complement to the party chips.
• Contumacious: stubbornly perverse or rebellious; willfully and obstinately disobedient.
• My little, contumacious cousin delights in badgering his father, especially after being asked to stop.
• Curmudgeon: a bad-tempered, difficult, cantankerous person.
• The old, Irish man was known to be the town's curmudgeon who seemingly hated most people and hollered at any passersby to stay off his property.
• Didactic: intended for instruction; instructive.
• The didactic parable's intention was to teach children the consequences of stealing.
• Disingenuous: lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere.
• Her enthusiasm for attending the new charter school down the road seemed disingenuous.
• Exculpate: to clear from a charge of guilt or fault; free from blame; vindicate.
• Martin Luther King Jr. was exculpated from prison because of his righteous intentions.
• Faux pas: a slip or blunder in etiquette, manners, or conduct; an embarrassing social blunder or indiscretion.
• In the older generations, maintaining proper etiquette was so important that a minor faux pas in front of an audience at any social gathering could damage a reputation.
• Fulminate: to explode with a loud noise; detonate.
• If I listen closely, I can hear Mr. Ferrari fulminate at his students from my calculus classroom.
• Fustian: a stout fabric of cotton and flax; pompous or bombastic, as language.
• My Aunt is known to be a fustian entrepreneur who shows off every little thing to the world in the most ridiculous and ostentatious manner.
• Hauteur: haughty manner or spirit; arrogance.
• That man may be rich, but he is greatly disliked because of his pride and hauteur.
• Inhibit: to prohibit; forbid.
• I inhibited my baby sister from playing outside in the cold weather without a coat.
• Jeremiad: a prolonged lamentation or mournful complaint.
• The strict teacher showed no sympathy for the student's jeremiad about the ridiculous amount of homework.
• Opportunist: a person who practices opportunism, or the policy of adapting actions, decisions, etc., to effectiveness regardless of the sacrifice of ethical principles.
• He is an extreme opportunist who would willingly jump head-first into any bargain for his desired results.
• Unconscionable: not guided by conscience; conscienceless.
• The unconscionable inmate never consulted reason or his conscience before assaulting a child.