a. separated at joints; out of joint; lacking order or coherence
E.g. His remarks were so disjointed that we could not follow his reasoning.
a. fundamentally distinct or different in kind; entirely dissimilar
E.g. Unfortunately, Tony and Tina have disparate notions of marriage: Tony sees it as a carefree extended love affair, while Tina sees it as a solemn commitment to build a family and a home.
a. calm; impartial; unaffected by strong emotion or prejudice
E.g. Known in the company for his cool judgment, Bill could impartially examine the causes of a problem, giving a dispassionate analysis of what had gone wrong, and go on to suggest how to correct the mess.
a. argumentative; fond of arguing; inclined to dispute
E.g. Convinced he knew more than his lawyers, Alan was a disputatious client, ready to argue about the best way to conduct the case.
v. make uneasy or anxious; trouble
E.g. Holmes's absence for a day, slightly caused to disquiet Watson; after a week with no word, however, Watson's uneasiness about his missing friend had grown into a deep fear for his safety.
v. disguise or conceal behind a false appearance; make a false show of
E.g. Even though John tried to dissemble his motive for taking modern dance, we all knew he was there not to dance but to meet girls.
v. distribute; spread; scatter like seeds
E.g. By their use of the Internet, propagandists have been able to disseminate their pet doctrines to new audiences around the globe.
n. one who differs in opinion, or one who declares his disagreement
E.g. Aside from a dissenter, speaker after speaker urged the federal government to adopt some or most of the report's 440 recommendations.
v. pretend; hide feelings from other people
E.g. She tried to dissimulate her grief by her exuberant attitude.
a. lacking moral restraint; indulging in sensual pleasures or vices
E.g. The dissolute life led by the ancient Romans is indeed shocking.
n. discord; disagreeable sounds; harsh, disagreeable combination of sounds
E.g. Composer Charles Ives often used dissonance clashing or unresolved chords for special effects in his musical works.
v. swell out or expand from or as if from internal pressure
E.g. I can tell when he is under stress by the way the veins distend on his forehead.
a. daily; relating to or occurring in a 24-hour period
E.g. A farmer cannot neglect his diurnal tasks at any time; cows, for example, must be milked regularly.
v. vary; go in different directions from the same point
E.g. The spokes of the wheel diverge from the hub.
n. difference; deviation; separation; the act of moving away in different direction
E.g. An angle is formed by the divergence of two straight lines.
a. unable to compromise about points of doctrine; unyielding
E.g. Weng had hoped that the student-led democracy movement might bring about change in China, but the repressive response of the doctrinaire hard liners crushed his dreams of democracy.
v. take off; remove; tip or remove one's hat in salutation; put aside; discard
E.g. A gentleman used to doff his hat to a lady.
n. poor verse; of crude or irregular construction
E.g. Although we find occasional snatches of genuine poetry in her work, most of her writing is mere doggerel.
a. stubbornly adhering to insufficiently proven beliefs; inflexible, rigid
E.g. We tried to discourage Doug from being so dogmatic, but never could convince him that his opinions might be wrong.
n. period of depression or unhappy listlessness; slack period; state of inactivity
E.g. Once the excitement of meeting her deadline was over, she found herself in the doldrums.
a. sorrowful; filled with or expressing grief; mournful
E.g. He found the doleful lamentations of the bereaved family emotionally disturbing and he left as quickly as he could.
v. cultivate; make fit for cultivation, domestic life, and service to humans
E.g. They planned to domesticate the wild horses.
a. low in spirits; depressed; directed downward
E.g. Cheerful and optimistic by nature, Beth was never downcast despite the difficulties she faced.
a. extremely harsh; very severe, oppressive or strict
E.g. When the principal canceled the senior prom because some seniors had been late to school that week, we thought the draconian punishment was far too harsh for such a minor violation of the rules.
n. speaking with slow and lingering utterance, from laziness, lack of spirit; lengthened, slow monotonous utterance
E.g. Suppose you ask a guy where he's from and with a deep southern drawl he tell you he's from New York.
n. waste or impure matter; worthless, commonplace, or trivial matter
E.g. Many methods have been devised to separate the valuable metal from the dross.
a. easily influenced; flexible; pliable
E.g. Copper is an extremely ductile material: you can stretch it into the thinnest of wires, bend it, even wind it into loops.
n. backward in book learning; child or other person dull or weak in intellect; dullard or dolt
E.g. It is very impolite to call others a dunce.
n. double-dealing; deliberate deceptiveness in behavior or speech; acting in bad faith.
E.g. When Tanya learned that Mark had been two-timing her, she was furious at his duplicity.
v. shrink; reduce in size; become less
E.g. The food in the life boat gradually had to dwindle away to nothing; in the end, they ate the ship's cook.
a. showing excitement; overflowing with enthusiasm
E.g. Amy's ebullient nature could not be repressed; she' was always bubbling over with excitement.
n. oddity; departure from that which is stated, regular, or usual; deviation from center
E.g. Some of his friends tried to account for his rudeness to strangers as the eccentricity of genius.
n. any form of art that borrows from multiple other styles
E.g. I love the format, and I think it allows for a very natural eclecticism of tastes.
v. save money or resource; cut back; be thrifty
E.g. Presently people do not have the incentive to economize as they are not directly paying for the procedure.
n. act of edifying, or state of being edified; building up, especially in a moral or spiritual sense; moral, intellectual, or spiritual improvement; instruction
E.g. It ought to be improved to the spiritual edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude under temporary privation.
n. building, especially one of imposing appearance or size; a structure that has a roof and walls
E.g. To him this edifice is a beautiful structure, although it will never be finished.
v. instruct or correct, especially so as to encourage intellectual, moral, or spiritual improvement
E.g. Although his purpose was to edify and not to entertain his audience, many of his listeners were amused rather than enlightened.
v. rub or wipe out; make indistinct as if by rubbing
E.g. He handled the coin so many times to efface its date.
n. shameless or brazen boldness; insolent and shameless audacity
E.g. She had the effrontery to insult the guest.
a. pouring forth; uttered with unrestrained enthusiasm
E.g. Her effusive manner of greeting her friends finally began to irritate them.