Vocabulary List #12

English 2 Vocab List 12

1. alleviate; verb - to make easier to endure; to relieve; to diminish. Nothing tends to alleviate my headaches better than simple aspirin.

2. censure; verb - to blame; to criticize adversely. Congress agreed to censure the outspoken senator.

3. despot; noun - monarch with unlimited power. My boss calls himself a benevolent despot, but we question the validity of that adjective.

4. engender; verb - to cause; produce; bring into being. Those sneaky actions are sure to engender suspicion.

5. incongruous; adjective - inappropriate; out of place. Seeing the little boy in a room filled with basketball giants struck me as totally incongruous.

6. philistine; adjective - narrow-minded; smugly conventional. Philistine stubbornness should not prevent us from advancing ourselves intellectually.

7. relegate; verb - to put in a less important position; to assign; to banish. The usual procedure is for the chairperson to relegate the work to special committees.

8. scoff; verb - to mock or jeer at; to make fun of. The fable of the fox and the grapes teaches that we tend to scoff at what we cannot attain.

9. tedious; adjective - long or verbose and wearisome; tiresome; boring. I prefer the fast-paced games of football and basketball to baseball with its tedious stretches of waiting for something to happen.

10. ungainly; adjective - clumsy; awkward; hard to handle. Hulk Hogan’s sensitivity about his threadbare garments made him ungainly.

11. viable; adjective - able to live or exist; practicable. Professor Fields agreed to accept a diary as a viable substitute for a short story.

12. writhe; verb - to twist or squirm, as in pain; to suffer from shame or shyness. When the parents saw the child writhe in pain, they decided to rush him to the hospital.

13. zenith; noun - the point in the sky directly above one; the highest point. At noon the sun is at its zenith.

14. aloof; adjective - indifferent; unsympathetic; not interested; apart. She was adamant about remaining aloof from family problems.

15. chastise; verb - to criticize severely. If you chastise Jason, he immediately begins to weep.