Essential Vocabulary: Definitions for 20 Sophisticated Words

Essential Vocabulary Definitions

• Delve: To dig or labor with or as if with a spade; to make a careful or detailed search for information; to examine a subject in detail.
• Proclivity: An inclination or predisposition toward something; especially a strong inherent inclination toward something objectionable.
• Miasma: A vaporous exhalation formerly believed to cause disease; a heavy vaporous emanation or atmosphere; an influence or atmosphere that tends to deplete or corrupt; fog.
• Affluent: Flowing in abundance; having a generously sufficient and typically increasing supply of material possessions.
• Tremulous: Characterized by or affected with trembling or tremors; affected with timidity; such as is or might be caused by nervousness or shakiness; exceedingly sensitive; easily shaken or disordered.
• Oldster: An elderly person.
• Capitulate: To surrender, often after negotiation of terms; to cease resisting; to acquiesce.
• Nocebo: A harmless substance that, when taken by a patient, is associated with harmful effects due to negative expectations or the psychological condition of the patient.
• Replete: Fully or abundantly provided or filled; abundantly fed; fat or stout; complete.
• Googol: The figure 1 followed by 100 zeros, equal to 10^100.
• Victual: Food usable by people; supplies of food.
• Slapstick: A device made of two flat pieces of wood fastened at one end so as to make a loud noise when used by an actor to strike a person; comedy stressing farce and horseplay; activity resembling slapstick.
• Delectation: Delight; enjoyment.
• Pellucid: Admitting maximum passage of light without diffusion or distortion; reflecting light evenly from all surfaces; easy to understand.
• Underwhelm: To fail to impress or stimulate.
• Ruddy: Having a healthy reddish color; red or reddish.
• Haplology: Contraction of a word by omission of one or more similar sounds or syllables.
• Extradite: To send one who has been accused of a crime to another state or country for trial.
• Williwaw: A sudden violent gust of cold land air common along mountainous coasts of high latitudes; a sudden violent wind; a violent commotion.
• Umami: A taste sensation that is meaty or savory and is produced by several amino acids and nucleotides, such as glutamate and aspartate.