Mr. MarinoName:
English IV
Vocabulary from the Law Office of Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe
Term 2: Week 2
Directions: Write an original yet beautifully constructed masterpiece of a sentence for each of the following words below.
1. to abate (verb): to put an end to; to reduce in degree or intensity; to reduce in value
ex. The forces abated their attacks on the city to focus on insurgent battles occurring in the countryside.
2. to lament (verb): to feel sorry about something; to mourn
ex. Henry lamented that he could not be at the party; he was still ailing from a strange accident involving a slingshot, a bundle of carrots, and a transient named Bucky.
3. to habituate (verb): to make used to something; to accustom; To accustom by frequent repetition or prolonged exposure
ex. Once the students became habituated to the teacher's procedures, they always showed up on time, wore fake eyelashes, and developed a love for Bisquick.
4. to exasperate (verb): to annoy, enrage, or aggravate (adj. form: exasperated)
ex. We thoroughly exasperated the teacher when we asked him for the twentieth time if Shakespeare was a good writer.
ex. The parents became exasperated when they learned that their son let a stranger with a gun borrow the car to “pick up yo’ mama.”
5. stoic or stoical (adj.): not showing feeling, passion, or emotion; impassive; restrained
ex. My father always seemed so stoic when looking at our report cards that we could never determine how he felt about our grades.
6. cynical (adj.) (one who is cynical is a cynic): contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives; believing that all human nature is motivated by pure self-interest
ex. Her parents were cynical about their daughter's relationship to Frank because they knew he was after only one thing: her iPhone.
7. destitute (adj.): lacking something that is needed or desirable; suffering from extreme poverty (noun form: destitution)
ex. The destitute family lived in a cardboard box, and they could no longer manage to buy fancy face creams from Macy's.
ex. The family lived in destitution after betting all of their money on a football replay.
8. to venerate (verb): to regard with reverential respect; to honor with a ritual act of devotion (adjective: venerable)
ex. The students venerated the teacher after they learned of his supreme power in vocabulary as well as his godly way of speaking the English language.
9. to embellish (verb): to make beautiful with decoration; to decorate
(noun form: embellishment)
ex. When explaining to the police why we were only wearing shorts and ski goggles at 3 a.m., we had to embellish the story with false events to make them believe us.
10. irascible (adj.): easily angered; short- or hot-tempered (noun form: irascibility)
ex. The television show, FawltyTowers, depicts stories involving an irascible hotel owner who believes that running the hotel would be easy if there were no guests.
11. euphemism (noun): a more agreeable, less offensive expression for a cruder, more offensive one; an alternative expression (adjective form: euphemistic)
ex. "Handicapped" is a commonly used euphemism for "crippled" or "lame."
12. erudite (adj.): learned; book-smart; well-read; educated
ex. One of my goals as a young man was to become erudite and to be able to pass on the torch of knowledge to younger generations.