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Vocab Unit 2 AP Lit
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Accost | To approach and speak to first; to confront in a challenging or aggressive way |
Brackish | Having a salty taste and unpleasant to drink |
Celerity | Swiftness, rapidity of motion or action |
Halcyon | A legendary bird identified with the kingfisher; of or relating to the halcyon; calm, peaceful; happy, golden; prosperous, affluent |
Incendiary | Deliberately setting or causing fires; designed to start fires; tending to stir up strife or rebellion; One who deliberately sets fires, arsonist; one who causes strife |
Maelstrom | a whirlpool of great size and violence; a situation resembling a whirlpool in violence and destruction |
Overt | Open, not hidden, expressed or revealed in a way that is easily recognized |
Pejorative | tending to make worse; expressing disapproval or disparagement, derogatory, deprecatory, belittling |
Suppliant | asking humbly and earnestly; one who makes a request humbly and earnestly; a petitioner, suitor |
Undulate | To move in waves or with a wavelike motion; to have a wavelike appearance or form |
Animadversion | a comment indicating strong criticism or disapproval |
Avid | desirous of something to the point of greed; intensely eager |
Devious | Straying or wandering from a straight or direct course; done or acting in a shifty or underhanded way |
Gambit | in chess, an opening move that involves risk or sacrifice of a minor piece in order to gain a later advantage; any opening move of this type |
Histrionic | pertaining to actors and their techniques; theatrical, artificial; melodramatic |
Myopic | nearsighted; lacking a broad, realistic view of a situation; lacking foresight or discernment |
Propriety | the state of being proper, appropriateness; standards of what is proper or socially acceptable |
Sacrilege | Improper or disrespectful treatment of something held sacred |
Summarily | Without delay or formality; briefly, concisely |
Talisman | An object that serves as a charm or is believed to confer magical powers, an amulet, fetish |