Vocabulary List #8
701. privy – secretly aware; in the know (“privy to”)
702. levity – lightness (physically); lack of seriousness in
conduct
703. plagiaristic – stealing others’ work and calling it
one’s own plagiarism
704. abortive – not successful; not carried to
completion
705. epigram – a concise witty saying
706. fractiousness – irritability; tending to be cross or
peevish
707. paternal – pertaining to father
708. claret – a deep red Bordeaux wine
709. extemporize – to improvise; to do or utter without
previous preparation
710. rotogravure – a process of printing pictures from
etched cylindrical plates
Vocabulary List #8
711. wag – a sporting wit or joker; a “wise guy”
712. crepe-de-chine – a black crepe used for
mourning, sometimes made of heavy silk
713. pessimist – one who consistently believes the
worst or looks at the dark side of things
714. ectoplasm – external layer of protoplasm in a cell;
an emanation from a medium which causes
objects at a distance to move
715. mincing – speaking or moving with affected
daintiness
716. oculist – a specialist in eye diseases
717. homogeneity – a state of being all of one type
718. hors d’ oeuvre – a before dinner snack
719. vacuous – empty, stupid insane
720. vinous – pertaining to wine; given to drinking wine
Vocabulary List #8
721. elicit – to draw out or to draw forth; to evoke
722. olfactory – pertaining to the sense of smell
723. beaux (pl of beau) – boyfriends
724. feudal – pertaining to the system of homage by
vassal to lord in the Middle Ages
725. nebulous – not clear, vague
726. spectroscopic – pertaining to spectrums
produced by special machines
727. obstetrical – pertaining to the art of assisting
women in delivering babies
728. distraught – beset with mental conflict; crazed;
kind of disturbed
729. demoniac – devilish; pertaining to demons
730. silhouette – a shadow
Vocabulary
List
#8
731. insidious – full of plots; wily, sly, treacherous
732. meretricious – alluring by false show; gaudy;
deceitfully ornamental
733. conceit – a concept or thought; a notion (a bit
archaic)
734. turgid – inflated, swollen; pompous; vainly
o0stentatious; bonbastic
735. euphemism – a nice way of saying something
unpleasant
736. dilatory – characterized by procrastination; given
to delay; slow; tardy
737. caravansary – a large hotel or inn
738. libertine – a person loose in morals; free and freethinking
739. prig – an irritatingly self-sufficient or punctilious
person
740. presumptuous –overbold; taking too much for
granted
Vocabulary List #8
741. grail – a cup; the cup used by Jesus at the Last
Supper
742. benediction – a blessing
743. fortuitous – happening by chance or accident
744. amorphous – having no definite shape or form
745. protégé – one under the protection or tutorship or
another
746. adventitious – not inherent but coming about
accidentally; not essentially inherent
747. pasquinade – a lampoon posted in a public
place
748. addenda – a list of things
749. transitory – fleeting, not long-last; transient;
ephemeral
750. pander – to minister to the evil passions of another
Vocabulary List #8
751. aesthetic – pertaining to art or beauty
752. orgiastic – pertaining to wild celebrations
or orgies
753. anarchist – one who advocates the
overthrow of all government
754. sultry – hot and muggy; sweltering
755. banshee – a female spirit wailing to
announce someone’s death
756. grippe – a cold or flu
757. premonition – a feeling that something
bad will happen; a foreboding
758. pince-nez – glasses that clip onto the nose
759. brothel – a house of ill-repute
760. trull – a prostitute or trollop
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761. trollop – a sexually promiscuous woman; a slattern
762. beatitude – a state of blessedness
763. fresco – painting done in plaster on a wall
764. heinous – extremely evil; hateful; hatefully bad;
outrageously offensive
765. protuberance – a bulge; something that sticks out
766. synchronous – occurring simultaneously
767. lichens – organisms, composed of a type of
fungus or algae, growing on a rock or bark
768. phantasmagoria – a succession of weird scenes in
one’s imagination; a kind of hallucination
769. exhalation – a breathing out
770. titillation – a tickling; a process of exciting
pleasurably
Vocabulary List #8
771. patriarchal – pertaining to a father leader or a
large family or tribe
772. involute – involved or intricate; curling in on itself
like a shell
773. inure – to get used to something hard or painful;
to harden
774. epitome – the highest example of
775. quondam – at one time formerly
776. corroborate – to back up with evidence
777. sloth – extreme laziness
778. sycophant – a cringing flatterer; a “kiss up”
779. piebald – mottled; of different colors especially
white or black (like a horse or other animal)
780. lineaments – outlines, features or contour of a
body or face
Vocabulary List #8
781. contingency – a possibility, a possible occurrence
782. oleograph – a kind of lithograph that resembles
an oil painting
783. caricature – a comic exaggeration
784. mercurial – inconstant; unstable, volatile;
unpredictable
785. luminous – shining; bright, intelligent, intelligible
786. alliteration – a repetition of consonant sounds (in
a somer seson when swift was the sonne)
787. potentate – a monarch wielding great power
788. intangible – unable to be touched
789. flotsam – floating wreckage
790. chide (chidden) – to scold
Vocabulary
List
#8
791. filigree – delicate lace-like ornamental work or
interwoven gold or silver wire
792. table d’ hote – a meal for which one pays a single
price (opp. of a la carte)
793. cordial – a liqueur; a very sweet alcoholic
beverage
794. extravasate – to force out of the proper vessel
(e.g. blood); to erupt in liquid from a vent (e.g.
lava)
795. chromatic – pertaining to color; pertaining to the
tones of a certain scale
796. convexity – a curving outward
797. tempestuous – stormy; turbulent
798. ghoul – a person who robs graves and feeds on
corpses
799. sublimate – to redirect a primitive emotion to a
socially acceptable end
800. girth – circumference; the distance around