Comprehensive Glossary of Common English Terms

Essential Vocabulary Definitions

• Audacious: Willing to take risks; daring, showing disrespect or lack of courtesy.
• Confiscate: To seize, by force if necessary; to take possession of.
• Conscientious: Thorough; careful; honest; principled.
• Depict: To give a picture of; to describe.
• Embark: To go on board a ship or airplane at the start of a voyage.
• Inkling: A slight suspicion; a vague idea.
• Lackadaisical: Showing little spirit or enthusiasm.
• Mutiny: Deliberate refusal to obey orders given by those in command, especially by sailors. To rebel openly against a commander.
• Pilfer: To steal repeatedly small amounts or things that are of little value.
• Profusion: A plentiful supply; a great or generous amount. Given or occurring in generous amounts; abundant.
• Prudent: Very careful; showing judgment and wisdom. The avoidance of risk; carefulness in what one says or does.
• Rankle: To cause continuing anger or irritation.
• Rebuke: To criticize strongly; to reprimand.
• Serene: Calm and untroubled; peaceful.
• Slovenly: Untidy; carelessly done.

Advanced Vocabulary Terms

• Anarchy: Total absence of government; lack of order, total confusion.
• Apprehend: To seize; to arrest; to grasp the meaning of; to understand.
• Arraign: To bring before a court to face charges.
• Assimilate: To absorb into a population; to take in a part and absorb into the whole.
• Bizarre: Strikingly out of the ordinary; peculiar.
• Calamity: An event that causes great suffering and harm; a disaster.
• Conspire: To plan together secretly to do something wrong or illegal. To join or act together.
• Dissension: A difference of opinion; disagreement.
• Elapse: To pass or slip by (used with time).
• Imminent: About to happen; likely to occur in the very near future.
• Interrogate: To ask questions of, especially in a thorough or formal manner.
• Lionize: To treat as a celebrity or hero.
• Meticulous: Extremely careful; attentive to small details.
• Shackle: A ring or band put around the arm or leg to prevent free movement. Something that prevents free action. To prevent freedom of action.
• Swelter: To suffer from or to be overcome by great heat.