VOCABULARY LIST 9

• Aficionado: an ardent devotee; fan, enthusiast.
• He was a cigar aficionado who collected all of the world's finest cigars and enclosed them within glass casing. 
• Browbeat: to intimidate by overbearing looks or words; bully.
• I found it unfair how the older kid could browbeat the littler ones.
• Commensurate: having the same measure; of equal extent or duration; proportionate; adequate.
• You will receive wages that are commensurate to your workload. 
• Diaphanous: very sheer and light; almost completely transparent or translucent; delicately hazy.
• Her bright, yellow shirt was so diaphanous that you could see her skin underneath it.
• Emolument: profit, salary, or fees from office or employment; compensation for services.
• Tips are emolument in addition to wages.
• Foray: a quick raid, usually for the purpose of taking plunder.
• Quite some time ago, pirates were known to make forays on ships containing precious cargo.
• Genre: a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like.
• Some people's favorite genre of music is country, but I can't stand it personally.
• Homily: a sermon, usually on a Biblical topic and usually of a nondoctrinal nature; an inspirational saying or cliché.
• The motivational speaker gave not a lecture but a homily to the delinquent students in order to help them get their lives back on track.
• Immure: to enclose within walls.
• The prisoner was immured within the walls of the jail cell as consequence for his transgressions.
• Insouciant: free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant.
• That guy is so insouciant that if the world were to end tomorrow, he would still carry on with his day as if it were like any other without a care in the world.
• Matrix: something that constitutes the place or point from which something else originates, takes form, or develops.
• Game developers create a matrix in order to develop and originate new ideas for their product. 
• Obsequies: a funeral rite or ceremony.
• The obsequies of my Aunt took place in the town in which she was raised.
• Panache: a grand or flamboyant manner; verve; style; flair.
• Some people display great panache when they overuse flagrant hand motions while speaking.
• Persona: the characters in a play, novel, etc.
• Shakespeare created a complex persona when writing Hamlet.
• Philippic: any speech or discourse of bitter denunciation.
• After losing the big game, the infuriated coach denounced his players with an aggressive philippic that greatly discouraged yet motivated them to do better at the same time.
• Prurient: having a restless desire or longing.
• All her life, the young girl was prurient for love, but she never found it.
• Sacrosanct: extremely sacred or inviolable; not to be entered or trespassed upon.
• In the Biblical era, God's altar was so sacrosanct that if it touched the floor, those who caused the error were killed.
• Systemic: of or pertaining to a system.
• The systemic team of producers worked like a well-oiled machine when they were together.
• Tendentious: having or showing a definite tendency, bias, or purpose.
• After seeing much repetition of his favorite theme throughout most of his writing, the tendentious author began to bore his readers.
• Vicissitude: a change or variation occurring in the course of something.
• After experiencing almost every type of vicissitude in war, General Robert E. Lee surrendered and made peace with the Union.