WordMasters Contest #2, Grade 8, 2012
Please save this list and continue to study it even after the second contest. These words will
also be used on the third contest. The second contest will be the week of February 20th on
whatever day you have Reading/Language group. Don't forget to study the words from the first
list also.
(sycophant)
▸ noun: a person who tries to please someone in order to gain a personal advantage
(dragoon)
▸ noun: a member of a European military unit formerly composed of heavily armed
cavalrymen
▸ verb: subjugate by imposing troops
▸ verb: compel by coercion, threats, or crude means
(acerbic)
▸ adjective: harsh or corrosive in tone ("An acerbic tone piercing otherwise flowery
prose")
▸ adjective: sour or bitter in taste
(fawn)
▸ noun: young deer
▸ noun: a color varying around light grayish brown
▸ verb: show submission or fear
▸ verb: have fawns ("Deer fawn")
▸ verb: try to gain favor by cringing or flattering
(surmise)
▸ noun: a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence
▸ verb: infer from incomplete evidence
▸ verb: imagine to be the case or true or probable ("I surmised that the butler did it")
(malleable)
▸ adjective: easily influenced
▸ adjective: capable of being shaped or bent or drawn out ("Malleable metals such as gold")
(collusion)
▸ noun: secret agreement
▸ noun: agreement on a secret plot
(defraud)
▸ verb: deprive of by deceit ("She defrauded the customers who trusted her")
(vivacious)
▸ adjective: vigorous and active ("A charming and vivacious hostess")
(ruse)
▸ noun: a deceptive maneuver (especially to avoid capture)
(expunge)
▸ verb: remove by erasing or crossing out
(feral)
▸ adjective: wild and menacing
(manifesto)
▸ noun: a public declaration of intentions (as issued by a political party or government)
(abet)
▸ verb: assist or encourage, usually in some wrongdoing
(colloquial)
▸ adjective: characteristic of informal spoken language or conversation ("Wrote her letters in
a colloquial style")
(domestication)
▸ noun: accommodation to domestic life ("Her explorer husband resisted all her
attempts at domestication")
▸ noun: adaptation to intimate association with human beings
▸ noun: the attribute of having been domesticated
(domesticate)
▸ verb: make fit for cultivation, domestic life, and service to humans ("The horse was
domesticated a long time ago")
▸ verb: overcome the wildness of; make docile and tractable
▸ verb: adapt (a wild plant or unclaimed land) to the environment
(hew)
▸ verb: strike with an axe; cut down, strike ("Hew an oak")
▸ verb: make or shape as with an axe ("Hew out a path in the rock")
(reserved)
▸ adjective: marked by self-restraint and reticence ("Was habitually reserved in speech,
withholding her opinion-Victoria Sackville-West")
▸ adjective: set aside for the use of a particular person or party
▸ adjective: cool and formal in manner
(oration)
▸ noun: an instance of oratory ("He delivered an oration on the decline of family values")
noun▸a formal public speech, especially one that is made as part of a ceremony
(oratory)▸ noun: addressing an audience formally (usually a long and rhetorical address and
often pompous) ("He loved the sound of his own oratory")
(wheedle)
▸ verb: influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering
(callow)
▸ adjective: lacking experience of life ("A callow youth of seventeen")
(forge)
▸ noun: a workplace where metal is worked by heating and hammering
▸ noun: furnace consisting of a special hearth where metal is heated before shaping
▸ verb: make a copy of with the intent to deceive ("She forged a Green Card")
▸ verb: create by hammering ("Forge a pair of tongues")
▸ verb: move or act with a sudden increase in speed or energy
▸ verb: move ahead steadily ("He forged ahead")
▸ verb: make out of components (often in an improvising manner)
▸ verb: come up with (an idea, plan, explanation, theory, or priciple) after a mental effort
▸ verb: make something, usually for a specific function
(confide)
▸ verb: reveal in private; tell confidentially
▸ verb: confer a trust upon
(tractable)
▸ adjective: easily managed (controlled or taught or molded) ("Tractable young minds")
▸ adjective: readily reacting to suggestions and influences
(fulminate)
▸ noun: a salt or ester of fulminic acid
▸ verb: cause to explode violently and with loud noise
▸ verb: come on suddenly and intensely ("The disease fulminated")
▸ verb: criticize severely ("He fulminated against the Republicans' plan to cut Medicare")