a. perfect or blameless in every respect; faultless; impeccable
E.g. Homer's conduct at the office party was irreproachable; even Marge didn't have anything bad to say about how he behaved.
v. say, state, or perform again; repeat
E.g. The more you try, the more you learn, the faster you iterate, the better you get, and the more chances that you have of being productive.
a. wandering; traveling place to place, especially to perform work or duty
E.g. Since the storm, the city had also been attracting a new kind of itinerant idealist.
a. prejudiced; affected by jaundice which causes yellowing of skin; yellow or yellowish
E.g. Because Sue disliked Carolyn, she looked at Carolyn's paintings with a jaundiced eye, calling them formless smears.
n. gear; tackle; combination of tackles, for hoisting or lowering the lower yards of a ship
E.g. As I said, it is very easy to jeer from the sidelines and make boastful claims of what you would do in the same situation.
a. given to joking; merry; humorous
E.g. The salesman was so jocose that many of his customers suggested that he become a stand-up comic.
a. merry; cheerful; gay; airy; lively; sportive
E.g. Her jocund character made her the most popular girl in the county.
n. gayness; splendor; cheerfulness or celebration
E.g. The festive Christmas dinner was a merry one, and old and young alike joined in the general jollity.
a. happy; merry; joyful and proud especially because of triumph or success
E.g. Arriving in Rome to a jubilant crowd and tearful relatives, the women said they had been treated well.
n. rejoicing; feeling of extreme joy
E.g. There was great jubilation when the armistice was announced.
a. exhibiting good judgment or sound thinking; prudent
E.g. At a key moment in his life, he made a judicious investment that was the foundation of his later wealth.
n. philosophy or science of law; division or department of law
E.g. He was more a student of jurisprudence than a practitioner of the law.
n. act of positioning close together; side-by-side position
E.g. It is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors.
n. central or vital part; most material and central part; grain or seed as of corn
E.g. "Watson, buried within this tissue of lies there is a kernel of truth; when I find it, the mystery will be solved.".
v. build or fuel a fire; cause to glow; light up; inspire
E.g. One of the first things Ben learned in the Boy Scouts was how to kindle a fire by rubbing two dry sticks together.
a. relating to, or produced by motion; dynamic
E.g. For the electric automobile, light and efficient storage batteries is the source of the kinetic energy to propel the vehicle.
n. untrustworthy person; deceitful and unreliable scoundrel; man of humble birth; male servant
E.g. Any politician nicknamed Tricky Dick clearly has the reputation of a knave.
a. tied in knots; covered with knots or knobs; difficult to understand or solve
E.g. What to Watson had been a knotty problem, to Sherlock Holmes was simplicity itself.
a. demanding much work or care; tedious
E.g. In putting together his dictionary of the English language, Doctor Johnson undertook a laborious task.
a. lacking purpose or zest; halfhearted; lacking spirit or liveliness
E.g. Because Gatsby had his mind more on his love life than on his finances, he did a very lackadaisical job of managing his money.
a. brief; effectively cut short; marked by use of few words
E.g. Many of the characters portrayed by Clint Eastwood are laconic types: strong men of few words.
a. slow; sluggish; wasting time
E.g. The sailor had been taught not to be laggard in carrying out orders.
a. mourning; sorrowful; expressing grief
E.g. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.
v. ridicule; subject to abusive ridicule expressed in work of art
E.g. The articles lampoon the pretensions of some movie moguls.
a. lacking energy or vitality; weak; sluggish; lacking spirit or liveliness
E.g. Her siege of illness left her languid and pallid.
v. lose animation; be or become weak or feeble; lose strength or vigor
E.g. Left at Miss Minchin's school for girls while her father went off to war, Sarah Crewe refused to languish; instead, she hid her grief and actively befriended her less fortunate classmates.
n. feeling of lack of interest or energy; depression
E.g. His friends tried to overcome the languor into which he had fallen by taking him to parties and to the theater.
n. state or feeling of weariness, diminished energy, or listlessness
E.g. After a massage and a long soak in the hot tub, I gave in to my growing lassitude and lay down for a nap.
v. give praise to; glorify; celebrate or honor
E.g. The NFL began to laud Boomer Esiason's efforts to raise money to combat cystic fibrosis.
a. deserving of praise; worthy of high praise
E.g. Kristin's dedication is laudable, but she does not have the necessary skills to be a good paralegal.
v. wash or flow against; wash one's face and hands
E.g. The waves lave the shore day and night.
n. someone who is not a clergyman or a professional person; generally ignorant person
E.g. His is just the layman's view of medicine.
n. small leaf; leaf like organ or part
E.g. The leaflet is tiny because it's meant to appeal to people who'll just glance at it before throwing it away.
v. cause to rise, especially by fermentation; add a rising agent to
E.g. When we leaven bread dough, it puffs up, expanding in volume.
a. vigorously passionate; excessive desire, especially in sexual activity
E.g. The school board censored the movie because of its portrayal of the lecherous criminal.
n. unrestrained indulgence in sexual activity; impurity in thought and deed
E.g. In his youth he led a life of lechery and debauchery; he did not mend his ways until middle age.
n. show of skill or deceitful cleverness, considered magical by naive observers
E.g. The magician demonstrated his renowned legerdemain.
a. readable; distinct; plainly discernible; apparent
E.g. A fragment of Psalm 83 is legible but it will take much longer to analyze the whole manuscript.
n. inactivity; showing an unusual lack of energy
E.g. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the afternoon, and wakes up about six or seven.
n. something unusually large of its kind, especially a ship; very large animal, especially a whale
E.g. There are creatures so little, so weak, as to be easily restrained thus, and triumphed over; but the leviathan is not one of these: he is made to be the terror, not the sport and diversion, of mankind.