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Vocab fill-in-blanks
FILL IN THE BLANKS Vocab: Real-life examples of usage with references
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| we commit no such dreadful crime--we _____ reckless bloodshed with all our hearts. - The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins | abhor |
| "_____ this magic, turn to God again!" - The Tragical History of Dr. Faust, by Christopher Marlowe | abjure |
| The legislature of the nation may, if a cause exist in their judgment sufficient to justify it, _____ a treaty...; so the President and Senate by a treaty may _____ a pre-existing law containing interfering provisions - James Barbour, US Senate, 1816 | abrogate |
| I'm _____ (say people who know me), But only with losers who owe me. My temper and mood Can be caustic and rude When a dude who won't pay tries to snow me. - Adapted from Chris Doyle, oedilf.com | acerbic |
| Finally, tired of disputing, and remorseful for their _____, they dined amicably together. - An Unsocial Socialist, by George Bernard Shaw | acrimony |
| Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with a(n) _____ to me incomprehensible - Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte | acumen |
| "Would you care to _____ the plot?" Asked my publisher. No, I could not, 'Cause the outline was weak; Thus my future was bleak As a novelist. Oh well, so what? - Roger Vick, oedilf.com | adumbrate |
| The remaining members of the crew...hastened with cheerful _____ to their several duties. - The Beasts of Tarzan, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | alacrity |
| Judging by the calmly moderate and _____ tone in which the French Emperor spoke, Balashev was firmly persuaded that he wished for peace and intended to enter into negotiations. - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | amicable |
| Suicide bombings, which as late as 2004 were _____ to Pashtun fighters...have now been fully embraced, resulting in incredible bloodshed in Afghanistan and Pakistan. - Newsweek, 9/23/09 | anathema |
| He divined the fanatical love of freedom in her, the deep-seated _____ for restraint of any sort. - Adventure, by Jack London | antipathy |
| The women were good and commonplace people, and did their duty, and had their reward in clear consciences and the community's _____. - Pudd'n'head Wilson, by Mark Twain | approbation |
| "Are you sure you don't _____ too much of the credit to yourself..." - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte | arrogate |
| "I long to return to my old lonely _____ hermit life; to my dry books; my Socialist propagandism; my voyage of discovery through the wilderness of thought." - An Unsocial Socialist, by George Bernard Shaw | ascetic |
| Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous _____ has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout a slatternly, untidy business. - Moby Dick, by Herman Melville | aspersion |
| The _____ merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer...look forward with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their toils. - Federalist Papers Authored by Alexander Hamilton | assiduous |
| He instructed him in the poisonous qualities of arsenic, and furnished him with an ample supply of that _____ drug. - Astoria, by Washington Irving | baneful |
| "Master," quoth he, "be ruled by me and stir not from the greenwood. To tell the truth, I'm well informed yon match is naught but a trap. I know the Sheriff has devised it to _____ us archers into some treachery." - Robin Hood, by J. Walker McSpadden | beguile |
| No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly _____ his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. - Federalist Papers Authored by James Madison | bias |
| He is interested in the Civil War, and the shelves in his house contain an entire _____ on the subject. | bibliotheca |
| In short, my dear, you must then _____ him over with a confession, that all your past behaviour was maidenly reserve only: and it will be your part to convince him...that the coyest maids make the fondest wives. - Clarissa Harlowe, by Samuel Richardson | blandish |
| There we found numbers of huge milk-giving shrubs--that strange plant which serves in great part as food and drink for the wild hordes of green men. It was indeed a _____ to us, for we all were nearly famished. - The Gods of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | boon |
| Always throw away bulging cans or foul-smelling preserved foods. Sterilizing home-canned foods by pressure cooking at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes may prevent _____. - National Institutes of Health | botulism |
| His manners had been _____, and his words had been few. - A Millionaire of Yesterday, by E. Phillips Oppenheim | brusque |
| At this Little John turned upon the Steward and smote him such a _____ that the fat man fell to the floor and lay there as though he would never move again. - The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle | buffet |
| We are proud that we have a democracy, And prefer it to any autocracy, But I wonder, my friend, Will our way of life end When we drown in official _____? - SheilaB, oedilf.com | bureaucracy |
| To bring out the most brilliant level of shine in your silver, you should _____ it. - How to _____ Silver, by Kaite Mitchell, ehow.com | burnish |
| Salvini, a noted Italian democrat, was right on the mark when he observed: "The widespread ignorance of events is the main _____ of injustice". - Dario Fo, Nobel Lecture, 12/7/97 | buttress |
| Japanese experimental artist KK Null has offered up...what can only be described as a _____ of not-so-random noise. About the only thing musical...about this album is the rhythmic pulse - Joe Smith, pluginmusic.com, 4/28/10 | cacophony |
| A man who will never more be trapped--whom no blandishments will _____, whom no threats will frighten... - The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair | cajole |
| I wish to say, that all they are told of the vices of OLD countries...is strictly true; while all that is said...of the vices and faults of this happy young country, is just so much _____. - Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief, by James Fenimore Cooper | calumny |
| "Now, the _____ is one of the best things around here because we really do pull for each other, we really do get along, and we really do want to see everyone have success." - Derek Lowe, USA Today, 7/17/02 | camaraderie |
| Instead of finding the mountain we had ascended sweeping down in the opposite direction into broad and _____ valleys, the land appeared to retain its general elevation - Typee, by Herman Melville | capacious |
| all sailors of all sorts are more or less _____ and unreliable --they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness - Moby Dick, by Herman Melville | capricious |
| "Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy _____ and affection, is most due." - Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley | clemency |
| The more attentively I consider and investigate the reasons which appear to have given birth to this opinion, the more I become convinced that they are _____ and conclusive. - Federalist Papers Authored by John Jay | cogent |
| jealousy is the usual _____ of love - Federalist Papers Authored by Alexander Hamilton | concomitant |
| "I do like it when he looks down at me from the height of his grandeur, or breaks off his learned conversation with me because I'm a fool, or is _____ to me." - Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy | condescending |
| To the east the _____ we had started was filling half the sky with smoke. - Before Adam, by Jack London | conflagration |
| "She is _____, she has confessed all to me." - Adam Bede, by George Eliot | contrite |
| "Don't bother my head by asking _____s, I beg of you." - The Patchwork Girl of Oz, by L. Frank Baum | conundrum |
| Although he had also been raised in an Ohio town, the instructor began to put on the airs of the city. He wanted to appear _____. - Winesberg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson | cosmopolitan |
| Werper had his _____ soul set upon the pouch of gems, and...the hope of obtaining possession of the fortune which the contents of the little pouch represented. - Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | covetous |
| I am equally confounded at HER impudence and HIS _____. How dared he believe what she told him in my disfavour! - Lady Susan, by Jane Austen | credulity |
| so great was the man's _____ that he reckoned no risk too great for the acquirement of a fortune. - The Monster Men, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | cupidity |
| But the _____ glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity. - Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley | cursory |
| It usually happens that a man is ignorant of rumors that are afloat about him. A whole town may be talking of his affairs; may calumniate and _____ him, but if he has no good friends, he will know nothing about it. - An Old Maid, by Honore de Balzac | decry |
| "'...Then the people of Israel will no longer stray from me, nor will they _____ themselves anymore with all their sins. They will be my people, and I will be their God, declares the Sovereign LORD.'" - Ezekiel 14:11 NIV | defile |
| The Captain continued that _____ amusement of smoking, long after the inn and the street were gone to bed. - Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray | deleterious |
| Marilla had almost begun to despair of ever fashioning this waif of the world into her model little girl of _____ manners and prim deportment. - Anne Of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery | demure |
| the target for their contempt is Tony Blair's memoirs. There are certainly things to _____ about the book, not least the atrocities on the English language perpetrated by the former Prime Minister. - Andrew Rawnsley, The Observer, 9/5/10 | deprecate |
| From the first my fellow-pupils used to tease and _____ and mock me whenever I was saying my lessons. - Poor Folk, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | deride |
| I have known a cat get up and walk out of the room on a remark _____ to her species being made by a visitor, while a neatly turned compliment will set them purring for an hour. - Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, by Jerome K. Jerome | derogatory |
| "...these lawless men are gathered together to overthrow Thy kingdom, to destroy Thy dear Jerusalem, Thy beloved Russia; to defile Thy temples, to overthrow Thine altars, and to _____ our holy shrines." - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | desecrate |
| he...began breaking out and passing up a stream of supplies--cases of salmon and beef,...of butter and preserved milk, and of all sorts of...tinned, _____, evaporated, and condensed stuff - Michael, Brother of Jerry, by Jack London | desiccated |
| The water shone pacifically; the...mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in _____ folds. - Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad | diaphanous |
| Bhaer was a _____ man and slow to offer his own opinions, not because they were unsettled, but too sincere and earnest to be lightly spoken. - Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott | diffident |
| Sadly _____ as I have already been, I must still further entreat the reader's patience, as I am about to string together, without any attempt at order, a few odds and ends of things not hitherto mentioned - Typee, by Herman Melville | discursive |
| From the beginning of time...it has been the prerogative of woman to change her mind...and to _____ in matters concerning her heart. - A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | dissemble |
| I think I'll go hence then come hither, And thence I'm inclined to go thither. So whither and whence? I'll sit on the fence; Without a direction, I'll _____. - "JimInRoses," OEDILF.com | dither |
| Michael [was] playful and rowdyish. His _____ spirits were always on tap to spill over on the slightest provocation, and...he could weary a puppy with play. In short, Michael was a merry soul. - Michael, Brother of Jerry, by Jack London | ebullient |
| He was remarkable for the poverty, not to say uncleanliness, of his personal appearance... He looked round with an air of insolent _____. His face...wore an expression of complacent satisfaction in demanding his rights - The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | effrontery |
| Night advanced and the moon shone _____ - Captain Ball; Greensboro, North Carolina Daily Record; 2/2/1911 | effulgent |
| this blustering and awful personage was one of the most _____ cowards in existence - The Posthumous Papers Of The Pickwick Club, by Charles Dickens | egregious |
| wealth, high social position and all the advantages with which fortune...can surround the young are not essential... In fact...they tend to _____ both mind and body, and thus prove in reality obstacles - Hidden Treasures, by Harry A. Lewis | enervate |
| the blackened statues...with their ancient garments...seemed to me the real inhabitants...of this place, while the...trivial men and women, hurrying to and fro, were a swarm of _____ visitants infesting it for a day. - The Lifted Veil, by George Eliot | ephemeral |
| I had the conviction that he could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave, wherefore I now went about to shun his presence and _____ his conversation. - The Professor, by Charlotte Bronte | eschew |
| These dream episodes constituted for him another land of Otherwhere, mysterious, unreal, and _____ as clouds drifting across the sky or bubbles taking iridescent form and bursting on the surface of the sea. - Jerry of the Islands, by Jack London | evanescent |
| These men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna pass and did not _____ the least surprise at seeing them there. - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | evince |
| The unblushing Macdonald, without even endeavouring to _____ himself from the crime he was charged with, meanly endeavoured to reproach Sophia - Love and Friendship, by Jane Austen | exculpate |
| as a general he is not merely bad but _____, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country. - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | execrable |
| under the law, police may enter a home without knocking if certain so-called _____ circumstances exist. - Brad Bell, CNN.com, 8/7/08 | exigent |
| "I imagine one cannot _____ such a man from blame, though he is your brother," said Alexey Alexandrovitch severely. - Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy | exonerate |
| "I am to blame, and punish me, make me _____ my fault. Anything I can do, I am ready to do anything!" - Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy | expiate |
| he wheeled suddenly toward the west as though by turning his back upon the fast disappearing plane he might _____ thoughts of its passengers from his memory. - Tarzan the Untamed, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | expunge |
| The only members of the family known to be _____ were...the Judge himself, and a single surviving son - House Of Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne | extant |
| A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less _____ them...But...these things are graceful, in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. - The Essays, by Sir Francis Bacon | extol |
| Fred gave up the _____ hope of getting a genuine opinion; but on reflection he saw that Bambridge's depreciation and Horrock's silence...indicated that they thought better of the horse than they chose to say. - Middlemarch, by George Eliot | fallacious |
| How was it that a man so exact and _____ could have made this error of a day? - Around The World In Eighty Days, by Jules Verne | fastidious |
| There is no reason why people should not call themselves Cubists, or Octagonists, or Parallelopipedonists...if they so desire; as expressing anything serious...one term is as _____ as another. History as Literature, by Theodore Roosevelt | fatuous |
| the Pacific oyster...is very _____, with females releasing about 50–200 million eggs in regular intervals (at a rate of 5–10 times a minute) - Wikipedia | fecund |
| There are many opinions about how to manage the estimated 50 million _____ and stray cats, also known as community cats, in the United States. - humanesociety.org | feral |
| One wondered about...the swarms of flies which hung about the scene, literally blackening the air, and the strange, _____ odor which assailed one's nostrils, a ghastly odor, of all the dead things of the universe. - The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair | fetid |
| in the later, which has been called the _____ style of Gothic architecture, there are buildings astonishingly rich and elaborate - Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, by Lucy Aikin | florid |
| "The baby's awful _____, and I'm clean worn out attending to him." - Anne Of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | fractious |
| Bugs Bunny: "I'm not a stewing rabbit; I'm a _____ing rabbit!" Elmer Fudd: "A _____ing wabbit?" Bugs Bunny: "Have ya got a _____ing rabbit license?" - Warner Bross, 1952 | fricassee |
| A _____ is a musical form that Bach used a lot...A _____ is like a musical game of Follow the Leader. - Capistrano Elementary School, Modesto, CA | fugue |
| Geraldine's father, Admiral Sir Seymour Conyers, was a very _____ old gentleman with fixed ideas about everything, a little deaf and exceedingly fond of conversation. - The Kingdom of the Blind, by E. Phillips Oppenheim | garrulous |
| Leonard Upjohn's coloured phrases took on a tremulous dignity, a more pathetic _____, as he described the sordid end, the shabby little room in Soho - Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham | grandiloquence |
| An authentic _____ traced up so high could not but be extremely curious; and with good reason might the Emperors of Abyssinia boast themselves the most illustrious and ancient family in the world. - A Voyage to Abyssinia, by Father Lobo | genealogy |
| A study in the...Annals of Internal Medicine found that older and cheaper oral drugs for Type II diabetes were just as effective at controlling _____ and improving lipid profiles as the newer medications. - Evelyn Pringle, opednews.com, 9/13/09 | glycemia |
| Anyone could pick him at once as _____ in his habits and communicative in his nature, with a quick wit and a ready smile. - The Valley of Fear, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | gregarious |
| When on warlike expeditions, they painted their faces and bodies in the most hideous and _____ manner - Astoria, by Washington Irving | grotesque |
| It was a _____ experience. We were weakened by lack of food. We were suffering the pangs of thirst. Capture and death were close at hand. - Pellucidar, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | grueling |
| I detest jargon of every kind, and sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and _____ out of all sense and meaning. - Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen | hackneyed |
| With growing admiration came a feeling of quick pity for the _____ situation of the great brute rendered futile and helpless by the wiles of the Gomangani. - Tarzan the Untamed, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | hapless |
| Ordinarily I am not given to long speeches, nor ever before had I descended to bombast, but...my _____ evidently deeply impressed them, and their attitude toward me thereafter was still further respectful. - A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | harangue |
| Pride goes before destruction, a _____ spirit before a fall. - Proverbs 16:18 NIV | haughty |
| now that the era of activist liberal judicial _____ is over, we liberals have to hope that Roberts and Bush’s other appointees really are devoted to judicial restraint—the way liberals were not, back in the day - Kurt Anderson, nymag.com, 8/21/2005 | hegemony |
| "It is a _____ thing to kill one who is of noble blood." - The Odyssey, by Homer | heinous |
| I told him that...it was no use his trying to _____ me by pretending he was one of my sort, because I knew very well that he was not - Dead Men Tell No Tales, by E. W. Hornung | hoodwink |
| "His doctrines are thoroughly revolutionary. He is a(n) _____ with a genius for destruction." - The Yellow Crayon, by E. Phillips Oppenheim | iconoclast |
| The team dispersed in _____ defeat, and it was not until after dark that the dogs came sneaking back, one by one, by meekness and humility signifying their fealty to White Fang. - White Fang, by Jack London | ignominious |
| I watched his face for some change of expression, but it remained _____. - Moon and Sixpence, by W. Somerset Maugham | impassive |
| She was now of an age to run lightly along by her mother's side... Often, nevertheless, more from caprice than necessity, she demanded to be taken up in arms; but was soon as _____ to be let down again - The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne | imperious |
| I was not going to stand there to expose my tortured feelings to the insolent laughter and _____ curiosity of a fellow like that. - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte | impertinent |
| his feelings would become more callous, his heart more flinty and _____ to her persuasive arguments - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte | impervious |
| He was restless, fearless, but of _____ and sometimes ungovernable temper. - Astoria, by Washington Irving | impetuous |
| to her it seemed that the angle of his jaw had changed; its pitch had become unpleasantly aggressive. At the same time a wave of intense virility seemed to surge out from him and _____ upon her. - Martin Eden, by Jack London | impinge |
| The old Squire was a(n) _____ man: he made resolutions in violent anger, and he was not to be moved from them after his anger had subsided - Silas Marner, by George Eliot | implacable |
| "Mind your own business, you _____ young rascal, and I'll mind mine!" - Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell | impudent |
| It was a visible process, the coming of the idea...Then his eyes went muddy, as if he had lost his grip on the _____ thought. - Before Adam, by Jack London | inchoate |
| "That also is _____," Messner agreed. "When three bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time, one must get out." - Love of Life And Other Stories, by Jack London | incontrovertible |
| All night long the Martians were hammering and stirring, sleepless, _____, at work upon the machines they were making ready - The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells | indefatigable |
| At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of _____ joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. - An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce | ineffable |
| "No motive of yours, Valeria, no love and hope of yours, can alter the _____ facts...I say again--our married life is at an end." - Law and the Lady, by Wilkie Collins | inexorable |
| "Did you ever know a more harmless, _____, delightful young man in your life?" - The Kingdom of the Blind, by E. Phillips Oppenheim | ingenuous |
| "Are you one of those who believe...that my harmless efforts to interest myself in great things are efforts _____ to this country; that I am, in short, a traitor? - The Vanished Messenger, by E. Phillips Oppenheim | inimical |
| For the sake of your name, LORD, forgive my _____, though it is great. - Psalm 25:11 NIV | iniquity |
| By what _____ means, with what devilish cunning, had he wormed his way into the old man's favour? - Uneasy Money, by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse | insidious |
| "I have a debt to pay to that _____ peasant who yesterday insulted our person." - Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott | insolent |
| Ms. Baxter was _____ about her most famous rule: no gum or candy in her classroom unless you’d brought enough to share with everybody. - Merriam Webster Word of the Day | intransigent |
| To hear them talking so much of Captain Wentworth...was a new sort of trial to Anne's nerves...one to which she must _____ herself..., she must teach herself to be insensible - Persuasion, by Jane Austen | inure |
| During the entire battle both sides hurled taunts and insults at one another--the human beings naturally excelling the brutes in the coarseness and vileness of their vilification and _____. - Pellucidar, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | invective |
| It was quite amusing, too, to see with what earnestness they disclaimed all cannibal propensities on their own part, while they denounced their enemies--the Typees--as _____ gourmandizers of human flesh - Typee, by Herman Melville | inveterate |
| Several rivers drain into the lake and are favorite nesting spots for many birds, including the _____ - Guatemala Pocket Adventures, by Shelagh McNally | jabiru |
| He replied in a _____ I did not comprehend. - Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte | jargon |
| The Professor smiled, and looked quite _____. - Dracula, by Bram Stoker | jubilant |
| In the centre of the eastern side of the Place, rose a heavy and hybrid construction, formed of three buildings placed in _____. - Notre-Dame de Paris, by Victor Hugo | juxtaposition |
| Abrams seems to me to bring a certain _____ energy to the whole Star Trek Universe--a revitalization, or re-energizing of the theme. - Glenda York, sfsignal.com, 4/8/2009 | kinetic |
| he received a sealed packet containing the following superbly _____ reply: "BALTIMORE, October 19. Done. BARBICANE." - From The Earth To The Moon, by Jules Verne | laconic |
| The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a _____, sleepy voice. - Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll | languid |
| he...gave far more than he received, he gave...in royal _____, his gifts of toil or heroic effort falling generously from his hands. - Burning Daylight, by Jack London | largess |
| Within the hut his nostrils were assailed by many odors; but clear and distinct among them was one that half aroused a _____ memory of the past - Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | latent |
| At the farther end of the cook room I saw George pour hot water into his dishpan...and put the tableware through its required _____. - Waifs and Strays, by O Henry | lavation |
| he practised ventriloquism and gave displays of _____ so extraordinary that the caravans returning to Asia talked about it during the whole length of their journey. - The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux | legerdemain |
| What rein can hold _____ wickedness...? - King Henry V, by William Shakespeare | licentious |
| The clear streams and running brooks yielded their savoury _____ waters in noble abundance. - Don Quixote, by Miguel Cervantes | limpid |
| By the early 1970s the practice of _____ had generally ceased, but some countries continued to use other forms of psychosurgery. - Wikipedia | lobotomy |
| in an instant the two would be swallowed in the vortex of a _____ of yelling devils, hacking and hewing at one another - The Gods of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | maelstrom |
| My conception of its _____ greatness was gone. And I looked upon the true sea - the sea that plays with men till their hearts are broken - The Mirror of the Sea, by Joseph Conrad | magnanimous |
| he that has no interest in such matters will doubtless have skipped them over with a cursory glance, and, perhaps, a _____ against the prolixity of the writer - Agnes Grey, by Anne Bronte | malediction |
| Don Quixote offered to mount guard over the castle lest they should be attacked by some giant or other _____ scoundrel - Don Quixote, by Miguel Cervantes | malevolent |
| "you should take it into further consideration, that in spite of your _____ attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you." - Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen | manifold |
| He burst into tears of _____ pity for himself, and at length suffering her to embrace him and take charge of him, let his grey head rest against her cheek, and bewailed his wretchedness. - Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens | maudlin |
| At Heidelberg I met a fat veterinary surgeon whose voice broke with sobs as he repeated some _____ poetry. - Howards End, by E. M. Forster | mawkish |
| You're deceptory. Here's what you are: You're a fake, ethics well below par. You're deceptive, you trick; You're _____ and slick. You're a phony; I think you'll go far. - Goldie (David), oedilf.com | mendacious |
| He was not a _____ man, who easily changed his point of view. - Brother Jacob, by George Eliot | mercurial |
| Only a scanty _____ of daylight entered [the dull window-panes] - Poor Folk, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | modicum |
| At that time of the year, the ground on each side becomes a _____, and is often overflowed - The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin | morass |
| This famous old French trading post continued to be a rallying point for a _____ and motley population. - Astoria, by Washington Irving | multifarious |
| our property is derived from the Emperor; we do not own a penny that is not the result of his _____. - Vendetta, by Honore de Balzac | munificence |
| I turned my gaze from the landscape to the heavens where the _____ stars formed a gorgeous and fitting canopy for the wonders of the earthly scene. - A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | myriad |
| during a period historians refer to as the _____ of American race relations, racism in the United States became much more vicious. - James Loewen, www.chicagoreader.com, 12/1/2005 | nadir |
| His beard was still in its infancy; and _____ lines of whisker traced their modest way sparely down his cheeks. - No Name, by Wilkie Collins | nascent |
| "What can this be?...a flood..." said Joe,...vigorously resorting to his skill in the art of _____. - Five Weeks in a Balloon, by Jules Verne | natation |
| he had seen her in disguise in the British camp carrying on her _____ work as a German spy - Tarzan the Untamed, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | nefarious |
| Her whole soul was possessed by the fact that a fuller life was opening before her: she was a _____ about to enter on a higher grade of initiation. - Middlemarch, by George Eliot | neophyte |
| "Don't ye be nervous...," expostulated...a young man with...his straw hat so far back upon his head that the brim encircled it like the _____ of a saint. - Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy | nimbus |
| hand washing is one of the easiest ways to help prevent the spread of _____ germs - merriam-webster.com | nocuous |
| In many houses the aluminum siding is ripped away, the copper wiring yanked out, because with a building boom overseas, demand for _____ metal is huge. - Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, 5/24/2008 | nonferrous |
| I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a _____ for a home they know not. - Moon and Sixpence, by W. Somerset Maugham | nostalgia |
| The Hermitage _____ collection has long been famed as one of the largest in the country. - hermitagemuseum.org | numismatics |
| they swarmed upon the ape-man with a thousand questions; but he was smilingly _____ to their appeals--he declined to give them the slightest clew as to the source of his immense treasure. - The Return of Tarzan, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | obdurate |
| To befog is to render unclear. It's to _____, muddy, or smear, To bedim or to screen What one doesn't want seen, To becloud, or to make disappear. - Sheila B. Blume, oedilf.com | obfuscate |
| It was then ten in the morning; the rays of the sun struck the surface of the waves at rather a(n) _____ angle - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne | oblique |
| They were _____ and servile and did not presume to talk to their masters as if they were their equals. - The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett | obsequious |
| The fellows seemed utterly unafraid of the great beasts leaping and snarling about them, handling them much the same as one might handle a pack of _____ dogs. - Tarzan the Untamed, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | obstreperous |
| Her freckles were more numerous and _____ than ever - Anne Of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery | obtrusive |
| He remembered with what a callous selfishness his uncle had treated her, how _____ he had been to her humble, devoted love. - Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham | obtuse |
| "I cannot bear to hear that mentioned. Pray do not talk of that _____ man." - Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen | odious |
| 'Who was the gentleman you danced with last,' resumed she, after a pause - 'that was so _____ in helping you on with your shawl?' - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte | officious |
| Behind his seat was hung a scarlet cloth cloak lined with fur, and a cap of the same materials richly embroidered, which completed the dress of the _____ landholder when he chose to go forth. - Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott | opulent |
| Their real preparations they masked beneath _____ ones. - The War in the Air, by H.G. Wells | ostensible |
| It is often attempted to _____ slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen...but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see - The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin | palliate |
| His hair was a silvery white; his complexion parchment-like, _____, entirely colourless. - The Vanished Messenger, by E. Phillips Oppenheim | pallid |
| with unconscious wisdom she set all the rest a good example, for with her, work was _____ for most afflictions. - Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott | panacea |
| Janet would make a _____ of a wife -- cheery, economical, tolerant, and a very queen of cooks. - Anne of The Island, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | paragon |
| Tom came upon the juvenile _____ of the village, Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard. Huckleberry was...hated and dreaded by all the mothers of the town, because he was idle and law-less and vulgar - Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain | pariah |
| "I had a chum, a very prudent, frugal young lad, who, though he had no very large allowance, had by his _____ heaped up upwards of forty guineas" - The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding | parsimony |
| George, sitting down beside the mourner, took her hand, and, with simple _____, repeated the triumphant scene of her husband's death, and his last messages of love. - Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe | pathos |
| I was not boy, nor youth, despite my _____ of years. - John Barleycorn, by Jack London | paucity |
| The Observatory noted Western media promotes [sic] Islamophobia through use of _____ terms, such as terrorist, extremist, fanatic, radical and fundamentalist associated with Islam and Muslims in general. - Arab News, 6/27/2011 | pejorative |
| above his head the sky, _____, pure, stainless, arched its tender blue from shore to shore - Tales of Unrest, by Joseph Conrad | pellucid |
| What might be extravagant to-day, might in half a century become _____ and inadequate. - Federalist Papers, by Alexander Hamilton | penurious |
| That same night the _____ Typees, who had thus inveigled her into their fatal bay, flocked aboard the doomed vessel by hundreds, and at a given signal murdered every soul on board. - Typee, by Herman Melville | perfidious |
| But see them he must, and...after a little _____ general conversation, he led the two men into the stuffy office. - Adventure, by Jack London | perfunctory |
| "Ah these cigarettes!"..."They are _____, positively _____, and yet I can't give them up! I cough, I begin to have tickling in my throat and a difficulty in breathing." - Crime And Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | pernicious |
| The box that brought the smile contained a grape, and the ape was rewarded for his _____ in reading human facial expressions - Sharon Begley, Newsweek, 8/19/2009 | perspicacity |
| Demi inherited a trifle of his sire's firmness of character...and when he made up his little mind to have or to do anything, all the king's horses and all the king's men could not change that _____ little mind. - Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott | pertinacious |
| He is...like a very impetuous baby... His manner varies from genial bullying when he is in a good humor to stormy _____ when anything goes wrong - Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw | petulance |
| [Alexander Pope] is supreme in epigrams, the terse statement of _____ truths; his poems have furnished more brief familiar quotations...than those of any other writer except Shakspere. - A History of English Literature, by Robert Huntington Fletcher | pithy |
| They turned their shoulders to her most savage slashes, and with wagging tails and mincing steps strove to _____ her wrath. - White Fang, by Jack London | placate |
| A trite _____ about his not caring to lose her was on his lips, but he refrained from uttering it. - Adventure, by Jack London | platitude |
| The mind of man can scarce conceive the _____ of carnivorous life in this lost world; and their prey, of course, is even more abundant. - The Land That Time Forgot, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | plethora |
| The professor began his _____. "This problem," he said, "is systemic. All our money, it seems, Goes to basketball teams, As our college is antiacademic!" - Sheila B. Blume, oedilf.com | polemic |
| as if these words, spoken calmly, had been the _____ of misfortune, she answered with a loud wail - Tales of Unrest, by Joseph Conrad | portent |
| Mr. Allan took much pride in the captivating, _____ lad. At the age of five the boy recited, with fine effect, passages of English poetry to the visitors at the Allan house. - An Appreciation [of Poe], by William Heath Robinson | precocious |
| It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats...; the sharks at times apparently following them in the same _____ way that vultures hover over the banners of marching regiments - Moby Dick, by Herman Melville | prescient |
| Between him and destination lay a trackless wilderness of untouched _____ savagery where, doubtless in many spots, his would be the first human foot to touch the virgin turf. - Tarzan the Untamed, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | primeval |
| There is that time..when we did not act...quite as uprightly, as we perhaps should have done--that unfortunate deviation from the path of strict _____...--that act of folly, of meanness, of wrong. - Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, by Jerome K. Jerome | probity |
| A child who learns early to fear the world is apt to lose his or her natural _____ for exploration of the world. - George F. Will, Newsweek, 3/21/1993 | proclivity |
| The country upon which all others depend for their supplies will be the land which will _____ free trade, for it will...produce its manufactures at prices lower than those of any of its competitors. - The Country Doctor, by Honore de Balzac | promulgate |
| man is a money-making animal, which _____ too often interferes with his benevolence. - Moby Dick, by Herman Melville | propensity |
| The first few days of the voyage passed prosperously, amid favourable weather and _____ winds - Around The World In Eighty Days, by Jules Verne | propitious |
| "I am not going in this time with any iridescent ideas. It is to be a cold, _____, matter-of-fact business proposition." - Martin Eden, by Jack London | prosaic |
| In 1982 the Voting Rights Act was amended to _____ any practice, regardless of discriminatory intent, that "results" in denial or abridgment of that right. - George F. Will, Newsweek, 6/30/1991 | proscribe |
| The eyes themselves were of that baffling _____ grey which is never twice the same; which runs through many shades and colourings like intershot silk in sunshine; which is grey, dark and light, and greenish-grey - The Sea Wolf, by Jack London | protean |
| A diagnosis of _____ is usually based on the appearance of the skin; there are no special blood tests or diagnostic procedures. - wikipedia.org | psoriasis |
| A _____ tear dimmed my eye while I looked--a tear of disappointment and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away. - Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte | puerile |
| They are...extremely _____, never permitting a strange beaver to enter their premises, and often fighting with such virulence as almost to tear each other to pieces. - The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A..., by Washington Irving | pugnacious |
| Professors who are considered too good-looking can be cast by their peers as lightweights, known less for their productivity than for their _____. - Robin Wilson, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/8/2010 | pulchritude |
| he was an inflexible, driving, _____ business man; everything was to move by system,--to be sustained with unfailing accuracy and precision. - Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe | punctilious |
| Igneous rock (also known as _____ rock) is formed from the cooling of magma. | pyrogenic |
| Tess, meanwhile, as the one who had dragged her parents into this _____, was silently wondering what she could do to help them out of it; and then her mother broached her scheme. - Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, | quagmire |
| an unlawful combatant is someone who engages in _____-military activity without being a legitimate soldier - "Anderson," comment, volokh.com, 5/22/10 | quasi |
| But Robin's voice did not _____ forth weakly, as formerly, and his figure had stiffened bolt upright beneath the black robe that covered his rags. - Robin Hood, by J. Walker McSpadden | quaver |
| she became _____ about the cold, and shivered and whimpered. - Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens | querulous |
| The huge and unmeaning glass chandeliers...which dangle in our most fashionable drawing-rooms, may be cited as the _____ of all that is false in taste or preposterous in folly. - Philosophy of Furniture, by Edgar Allan Poe | quintessence |
| I'm not a revolutionary. I'm not a rebel. I'm not political. I'm not the savior, man...I don't picture myself as someone [sic] kind of _____ figure. - Kevin Smith, TIME, 2/2/2011 | quixotic |
| And the consciousness that the insult was not yet avenged, that his _____ was still unspent, weighed on his heart and poisoned the artificial tranquillity which he managed to obtain - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | rancor |
| "The wolf of the forest is not more _____ for his prey than that man is greedy of gold" - The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper | rapacious |
| A _____ impresses a discerning person more than a hundred lashes a fool. - Proverbs 17:10 NIV | rebuke |
| In commenting on difficult students, Saul Schachter forgets that one of our primary jobs as teachers is converting _____, rude and unmotivated kids into learners. - Tom Lederer, Newsweek, 12/12/1999 | recalcitrant |
| We are all equally satisfied of the complete _____ of Miss Isabel's conduct, and we are all equally interested in the vindication of her good name. - My Lady's Money, by Wilkie Collins | rectitude |
| The spectators beheld the jolting vehicle come slowly and gratingly along, like a sturdy _____, holding back, until the straining horses had tugged it by main force to the brink of the fissure. - The Atlantic Monthly, September 1866. | recusant |
| "O Lord, that lends me life, Lend me a heart _____ with thankfulness!" - King Henry VI, Part 2, by William Shakespeare | replete |
| Hard and _____ as the godless man seemed now, there had been a time when he had been rocked on the bosom of a mother,--cradled with prayers and pious hymns - Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe | reprobate |
| Sometimes, the worthy gentleman would _____ my mother for being over-indulgent to her sons, with a reference to old Eli, or David and Absalom, which was particularly galling to her feelings - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte | reprove |
| a man's actions and beliefs may be wholly dominated by a desire of which he is quite unconscious, and which he indignantly _____s when it is suggested to him. - The Analysis of Mind, by Bertrand Russell | repudiate |
| It pained me afterward, but too late to _____ the order - The Little White Bird, by James Matthew Barrie | rescind |
| I have seen many horses much alarmed and _____ at the sight or sound of a steam engine - Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell | restive |
| He saw cowboys at the bar, drinking fierce whiskey, the air filled with obscenity and _____ language, and he saw himself with them drinking and cursing with the wildest - Martin Eden, by Jack London | ribald |
| Throughout the whole army and at headquarters most joyful though erroneous rumors were _____ of the imaginary approach of columns from Russia...and of the retreat of the frightened Bonaparte. - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | rife |
| The more she thought of the matter, the more convinced she became that the recent telephone message might be but a _____ to keep them inactive until the boy was safely hidden away - The Beasts of Tarzan, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | ruse |
| "the principal robber was an exalted and almost a _____ person--a Grand Duke, in fact." - Under Western Eyes, by Joseph Conrad | sacrosanct |
| quick intelligence, memory, _____, cleverness, and similar qualities, do not often grow together, and...persons who possess them and are at the same time high-spirited and magnanimous...are driven any way by their impulses - The Republic, by Plato | sagacity |
| He looked over the remainder of the team with a speculative eye that summed up instantly the _____ traits of each animal. - White Fang, by Jack London | salient |
| she...stood with her hands folded, and a most _____ expression of meekness and solemnity over her face, only broken by the cunning glances which she shot askance from the corners of her eyes. - Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe | sanctimonious |
| The success of Mr. Sowerberry's ingenious speculation, exceeded even his most _____ hopes. - Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens | sanguine |
| "I saw thee just now laugh at the _____ jests of these fellows. It would have been more becoming of thee, methinks, to have checked them with frowns instead of spurring them on by laughter." - The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle | scurrilous |
| Drymonema dalmatinum, a large non-indigenous _____ jellyfish, appeared in the northern Gulf of Mexico during fall 2000. - Journal of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences, 1/1/2002 | scyphozoan |
| Columbus and Cabot...(by the greatest _____ of history) discovered America instead of reaching the Indies - The European Discovery of America, by Samuel Eliot Morison | serendipity |
| _____ and fawning as he had been before, he was now as domineering and bellicose. - The Sea Wolf, by Jack London | servile |
| The genus name...is derived from two Greek words, _____ (S-shaped) and odous (tooth), a reference to the S-shaped enamel loops on the grinding surfaces of the cheek teeth. - Cotton Rats, thewebsiteofeverything.com | sigma |
| Chandler assisted her to her feet with instant and _____ courtesy. - The Four Million, by O. Henry | solicitous |
| Seen on a T-shirt: Is it _____ in here, or is it just me? - Zazzle.com | solipsistic |
| such a sense of heaviness oppressed my eyelids that it was literally impossible for me to open them...And yet, in this _____ condition, my mind was able to pursue lazy trains of pleasant thought. - The Two Destinies, by Wilkie Collins | somnolent |
| Winterbourne felt a superior indignation at his own lovely fellow countrywoman's not knowing the difference between a _____ gentleman and a real one. - Daisy Miller, by Henry James | spurious |
| He wondered what had become of the boys who were his companions: they were nearly thirty now...they were soldiers and parsons, doctors, lawyers; they were _____ men who were beginning to put youth behind them. - Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham | staid |
| I was burning with anger, but pride obliged me to suppress my feelings, and preserve a smooth face, or at least a _____ calmness, throughout the interview. - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte | stoic |
| Archers and seamen lay flat upon the deck, waiting in _____ silence for whatever fate might come. - The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | stolid |
| "I am going to strike a blow which will completely _____ our man." - The Man in the Iron Mask, by Alexandre Dumas | stupefy |
| Prince John...and those who courted his pleasure by imitating his foibles, were apt to indulge to excess...; and indeed it is well known that his death was occasioned by a _____ upon peaches and new ale. - Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott | surfeit (n) |
| Holmes had said nothing, and I could only _____ what his course of action would be. - The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | surmise |
| It was...as if Paris were burning like a forest of old oaks andsoaring heavenward in a _____ cloud of sparks and flame. - The Downfall, by Emile Zola | rutilant |
| "Have mercy, O Master of the Tenth Cycle!" cried one of the fellows, while the others edged toward the doorway as though to attempt a _____ escape from the presence of the mighty one. - The Gods of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | surreptitious |
| Henry felt in no mood for fencing with De Fulm, who, like the other _____s that surrounded him, always allowed the King easily to best him in every encounter. - The Outlaw of Torn, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | sycophant |
| would not my four months' silence appear to him a _____ acceptance of our situation? - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne | tacit |
| He was, in short, the least communicative of men. He talked very little, and seemed all the more mysterious for his _____ manner. - Around The World In Eighty Days, by Jules Verne | taciturn |
| when she dropped toward the ground she discovered that the violence of the wind rendered an attempt to land _____ to destruction and she rose again, rapidly. - The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | tantamount |
| He paused, ready to pounce upon any man who might have the _____ to reply. - The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane | temerity |
| The dream...had receded into a _____ haze far in the background of his thoughts. - The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | tenuous |
| his letters were less frequent, and shorter and less affectionate, especially after the first few weeks: they came slower and slower, and more _____ and careless every time. - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte | terse |
| They are so _____ that they never feed but surrounded with other beasts that defend them. - A Voyage to Abyssinia, by Father Lobo | timorous |
| those...which in a battle are impregnable to fear and immovable, are equally immovable when there is anything to be learned; they are always in a _____ state, and are apt to yawn and go to sleep over any intellectual toil. - The Republic, by Plato | torpid |
| no member of the family evinced such...partiality for him as the...pony, who, from being the most obstinate...pony on the face of the earth, was, in his hands, the meekest and most _____ of animals. - The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens | tractable |
| he was not living for this _____ life, but for the life of eternity - Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy | transient |
| alchemy...aimed to _____ the baser metals into gold - Adventure of the Black Fisherman, by Washington Irving | transmute |
| The _____ divisions between right and wrong, honest and dishonest, respectable and the reverse, had left so little scope for the unforeseen. - The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton | trenchant |
| If he came too close...she...would bare her great fighting fangs and growl ominously, and occasionally a _____ young bull would snarl a warning if Tarzan approached while the former was eating. - The Beasts of Tarzan, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | truculent |
| And so, in safety, they made the opposite shore, Korak perched high and dry above the _____ flood. - The Son Of Tarzan, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | turgid |
| Warner Bros. said it was terminating Sheen because...he has committed "felony offenses involving moral _____ (including but not limited to furnishing of cocaine to others...)," - Lisa de Moraes, washingtonpost.com, 3/8/2011 | turpitude |
| Widespread access to affordable mobile phones is making technology _____ - Akhtar Badshah, huffingtonpost.com, 3/17/2011 | ubiquitous |
| "the animal appears to have taken _____ at a lack of cordiality on the part of the cat. It seems that the hape attempted to fondle the cat, but the latter scratched him...Whereupon...he seized her tail" - Uneasy Money, by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse | umbrage |
| He saw how many knights had broken their necks in vain, but _____ he approached the steep mountain on foot and began the ascent. - The Yellow Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang | undaunted |
| he came back to Johnson for approval, wagging his tail until it made his whole body _____. - Old Caravan Days, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood | undulate |
| The outrageous treatment of poor Tom had roused her still more; and she had followed Legree to the house...to _____ him for his brutality. - Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe | upbraid |
| The life of their progress seemed to be slowly hushed, and something death-like to _____ its place. - The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens | usurp |
| _____ is most reasonably detested, as it is increasing our fortune by money itself, and not employing it for the purpose it was originally intended, namely exchange. - A Treatise on Government by Aristotle | usury |
| I happened to glance at the barometer that hung in the cabin companionway. Its normal register in the Paumotus was 29.90, and it was quite customary to see it _____ between 29.85 and 30.00 - South Sea Tales, by Jack London | vacillate |
| Too clearly, I remember the empty gazes and _____ smiles of the laudanum users. - The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer, by Lucy Weston | vacuous |
| Waiting rooms...are small rooms with plenty of chairs for waiting, as well as piles of old, dull magazines to read and some _____ paintings … while you endure the boredom that doctors...inflict on their patients — The Ersatz Elevator, by Lemony Snicket | vapid |
| They thronged the narrow length of our schooner's decks with their ornamented and barbarous crowd, with the _____ colours of checkered sarongs, red turbans, white jackets, embroideries... - Tales of Unrest, by Joseph Conrad | variegated |
| In this era of trickledown economics and the extreme glorification of the profit motive, we have come to _____ wealth as a value above all others. - Steven Cohen, huffingtonpost.com, 5/2/2011 | venerate |
| The peddler had certainly spoken the truth when he declared that the dye wouldn't wash off, however his _____ might be impeached in other respects. - Anne Of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | veracity |
| they entered the defiles of the mountains, with their basalt bases, and their summits crowned with thick and _____ forests. - Around The World In Eighty Days, by Jules Verne | verdant |
| Curious that recollections should be so mournful! Even what in that room used to _____ me and inconvenience me now looms in a purified light, and figures in my imagination as a thing to be desired. - Poor Folk, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | vex |
| "Young people are using the Web as means of creating parallel worlds where they have less constraint, they are not controlled and get a _____ thrill of living more freely than they can live in their real societies" -Rami Khouri, npr.org, 9/15/2010 | vicarious |
| it seems inadvisable for US policy makers to respond to every single _____ of changing market sentiment - Marshall Auerback, huffingtonpost.com, 10/15/2009 | vicissitude |
| they doubted not but the laying hold on all occasions to degrade and _____ him, would be highly pleasing to her; who, as she hated the boy, must love all those who did him any hurt. - The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding | vilify |
| She moved...slowly, painfully, as though each limb was hampered by a great weight, or as she were dragging her body through a _____ fluid. - The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | viscous |
| he wished to appease the wrath of I-Gos, knowing well the _____ tongue and temper of the ancient one. - The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | vitriolic |
| There are moments in life when true invective is called for, when there comes an absolute necessity, out of a deep sense of justice, to denounce, mock, _____, lash out, rail at in the strongest possible language. - In Praise of Invective, by Charles Simic | vituperate |
| the poor unknown mother...she called an impudent slut, a _____ hussy, an audacious harlot, a wicked jade, a vile strumpet - The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding | wanton |
| "There was something so sweet and _____ about her that you had to love her, that was all." - Anne's House of Dreams, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | winsome |
| He had...remarkably blue, deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and sometimes looked out seaward with a _____ quest in them, as of one seeking something precious and lost. - Anne's House of Dreams, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | wistful |
| He was a dried-up old man wearing two ragged army coats one over the other; his _____ little face...looked comical - Under Western Eyes, by Joseph Conrad | wizened |
| He was...attracted in two different directions...hesitating eternally between the heights and the depths, between the vault and the pavement, between fall and ascent, between _____ and nadir. - Notre-Dame de Paris, by Victor Hugo | zenith |
| There was not even a _____ stirring; the dead noonday heat had even stilled the songs of the birds; nature lay in a trance that was broken by no sound but the occasional far-off hammering of a wood-pecker - Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain | zephyr |
| Even a sovereign can _____; but the Prime Minister of a constitutional government is in bonds - The Prime Minister, by Anthony Trollope | abdicate |
| Did you read the full-length novel, or did you read a(n) _____? | abridgment |
| They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they _____ the LORD’s majesty. - Isaiah 24:14 NIV | acclaim |
| The personage on the well-brink now seemed to _____ her; to make some request - Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë | accost |
| In general, preventing _____ trauma is dependent on protecting the ears from loud noises as much as possible. - deaflinx.com | acoustic |
| Recently the cold war against Cuba was ratcheted up when a(n) _____ debate broke out over the issue of racism in Cuba - Jean Damu, San Francisco Bayview | acrimonious |
| I can remember my grandmother admonishing my cousins and me not to _____ her so that she lost her concentration in whatever she was doing. - Robert Beard, alphadictionary.com | addle |
| "Bollywood bids _____ to 2010" - rediff.com | adieu |
| High fructose corn syrup or cane sugar [is] used to _____ honey - Wikipedia | adulterate |
| No man thinks there is much _____ about nothing when the _____ is about himself. - Anthony Trollope | ado |
| Some less active sharks that stay near the water's surface don't have particularly _____ eyesight, while sharks that stay at the bottom of the ocean have very large eyes that let them see in near darkness. - Tom Harris, How Sharks Work | acute |
| Baron von Opperman was suddenly the _____ of several pairs of eyes. - The Yellow Crayon, by E. Phillips Oppenheim | cynosure |
| I found suspended on either side of the cabin, three long tiers of hanging bookshelves, designed apparently for volumes of the small _____ size. - American Notes for General Circulation by Charles Dickens | octavo |
| I felt him become suddenly _____ again like an animal, like a good-tempered horse when the object that scares him is removed. - Falk: A Reminiscence by Joseph Conrad | tractable |
| I resent your tone, your diction, your manners, and your methods; and only a _____ would call a man with my conceit a liar. - Immune to Murder, by Rex Stout | witling |
| Sparta made a bold stand for equality, and almost instituted a _____, but the usual idea was that a woman's opinion was not worth considering. - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators, by Elbert Hubbard | gynecocracy |
| A piece of plate representing a mounted _____ in full uniform caught his eye. - The Man Who Was, by Rudyard Kipling | hussar |
| Lange is, if anything, a big, beautiful woman—she radiates a feline, almost _____ tawniness and self-confidence - Victims on Broadway, by Daniel Mendelsohn. | leonine |
| "I would not inflict on them the cruelties we now resent. It is not to _____, but to redress, that we carry arms." - The Scottish Chiefs, by Jane Porter | aggrieve |
| Here was whiteness which no lilies, ivory, nor _____ could match. - The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding | alabaster |
| For Anne was again a dreamer of dreams, _____ a grim shape of fear went with her night and day to shadow and darken her visions. - Anne's House of Dreams, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | albeit |
| I glanced _____ at this strange creature, and found him watching me with his queer, restless eyes. - The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells | askance |
| It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by _____ ornamentation--as all good things should do. - The Four Million, by O. Henry | meretricious |
| I had early acquired habits of self-denying economy; husbanding my monthly allowance with anxious care, in order to _____ the danger of being forced, in some moment of future exigency, to beg additional aid. - The Professor, by Charlotte Bronte | obviate |
| The _____ of the slaves in New York has been gradual. - The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper | manumission |
| A loud chord from the orchestra served as the _____, signalling that the opera had begun. | inchoative |
| Messiah (HWV 56) is an English-language _____ composed by George Frideric Handel, and is one of the most popular works in the Western choral literature. - Wikipedia | oratorio |
| I think reading groups give people the opportunity to do what book lovers enjoy more than anything else: first, to read books; second, to discuss, argue and _____ about books. - Kate Morton, interview, BookBrowse.com | enthuse |
| I never saw him afterwards, but I sometimes imagine that I _____ a faint reflection of him in John Browdie. - The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens | descry |
| The main _____ of my writing is, to tell you that we have found a house for the next half year. - letter to Joseph Cottle, by Robert Southey | purport |
| When the _____ is heated, the mercury vaporizes, leaving the silver. - "Papirex," Mexconnect.com forum | amalgam |
| The organ is treated as a liturgical voice, taking up the reprise of the _____ after each of the five psalms - Metropolitan Cathedral of Edinburgh, by Jeffrey Tucker | antiphon |
| a dozen or more were taking a singing lesson, and just then joining in a "_____" (I think they called it), whereof I yet remember these words "fraîchë," "brisë," and "Venisë." - Villette, by Charlotte Brontë | barcarole |
| Overcome with shame and grief, they tried to cry and _____ their fate. - The Adventures Of Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi | bemoan |
| The amazing centerpiece of the work is a wild piano _____ here delivered in a jaw-dropping and appropriately maniacal fashion by Vicki Ray. - outwestarts.blogspot.com 12/12/2006 | cadenza |
| Too anxious to waste time in _____, she turned the conversation at once to the delicate and doubtful subject of the lost letter. - Man And Wife, by Wilkie Collins | circumlocution |
| The _____ is engaged in different ways. (Think of the most obvious, the tactile, visual, and aural, e.g..) - Judith Fitzgerald on nigelbeale.com 3/3/2009 | sensorium |
| Rules and logic only take one so far, and in _____ speech I think it’s more important to preserve colour and character than strict grammar. - stancarey.wordpress.com 3/30/09 | colloquial |
| It had come upon her suddenly that she was very tired and very small and very weak alongside this _____ of a man. - The Valley of the Moon, by Jack London | colossus |
| It is always possible to _____ oneself with dignity. - The Gambler, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | comport |
| The demagogues, to curry favour with the people, ... _____ the fortunes of the wealthy. - A Treatise on Government, by Aristotle | confiscate |
| she favoured me with a particular history of that and her other infirmities, followed by an account of her pious resignation, delivered in the usual emphatic, _____ style, which no writing can portray. - Agnes Grey, by Anne Bronte | declamatory |
| The landlady stood there with a _____ smile, sniffing for cooking by stolen gas. - The Four Million, by O. Henry | spurious |
| he is too genuine an artist not to be true to the moral principles which form so large a part of the _____ of all life. - A History of English Literature, by Robert Huntington Fletcher | substratum |
| The 28th parallel...traverses the peninsula of Florida...Then,...it _____s the arc formed by the coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana; then skirting Texas,...it continues its course over Mexico - From The Earth To The Moon, by Jules Verne | subtend |
| This isochromosome can be a _____ or a trivalent by pairing with the normal chromosome 8 short arms during meiosis. - Characterization of a maize isochromosome 8S * 8S, by Weichang Yu, et. al. | univalent |
| Romish extreme _____ is administered to those whose life is despaired of, to heal the soul, whereas James' _____ was to heal the body. — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, by Robert Jamieson | unction |
| by what _____ within the reach of so simple a people could such enormous masses have been moved or fixed in their places? - Typee, by Herman Melville | contrivance |
| the "Bright Round Garden," ... was packed with valuable porcelain, old bronzes, and every conceivable kind of _____ - China and the Manchus, by Herbert Allen Giles | curio |
| The _____ is also used often by missionaries, this is in addition to those who use one to carry Eucharist to people who cannot attend mass - What Is A ___, by Beth Guide | pyx |
| It's a rare filmmaker who could _____ festive fireworks with brutal gunfire - The Huffington Post, January 10, 2011 | juxtapose |
| Before thir eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark _____ Ocean without bound, Without dimension - Paradise Lost, by John Milton | illimitable |
| Although "_____" literally refers to a part of the body, this term is more commonly used to mean "language," as in the term "_____ franca," meaning "common language." | lingua |
| I always thought that bad lyrics are pretty unforgiveable, which makes it so funny that so many supposedly iconic songs have _____ words. - Andy Hopkins, Interview, 5/19/2010, Philistine Press | risible |
| Medical Rescue International Botswana dropped 2.56 percent or five _____ to close at 190t. - ANC Daily News Briefing, 2001 | thebe |
| we are not justified by the merit of our own works, but by a(n) _____ obediential dependence upon Jesus Christ - Commentary on the Whole Bible, by Matthew Henry | fiducial |
| With a comical _____ of manner he bowed solemnly to both of us and strode off upon his way. - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | pomposity |
| To begin with, he could not decide whether, on their wedding day, there ever had been any real spiritual _____ between them. - The Brentons, by Anna Chapin Ray | tangency |
| the murmur of the fountain, the sough of the wind and the plash of the _____, they occupy the sensorium with a soothing effect, forming a barbaric music full of sweetness and peaceful pleasure. - Arabian Nights, translated by Richard F. Burton | wavelet |
| The roof of the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth, designed by Louis Kahn, comprises sixteen vaults, each covered by a _____ arch. | cycloid |
| But it would be well for us to determine the extent of our knowledge of natural laws before we thus _____. - The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 | dogmatize |
| The youth copied and recopied the famous "statement," written on a hundred and fifty _____ sheets - Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac | folio |
| Pennsylvania's partisan warfare was mild compared with the Texas redistricting _____ of 2003. - Charles Babington, Huffington Post, 12/19/10 | imbroglio |
| In cooler 18, the cold nitrogen cools the argon to be liquefied which flows through line 9 before it enters the _____ insert 14. - Patent #4838912, Heinrich Amlinger | liquefacient |
| "What do you want, _____?" demanded the Musketeer - The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas | monsieur |
| ...mixing "folk tunes, tangos, maxixes, sambas and even Portuguese fado and transcribing them with a theme recurring between each tune like a _____. - Stephen O. Murray, review, EOpinions.com, 2009 | rondo |
| He managed to speak about all of this without a(n) _____ of pontification or superiority. - Leon Aron, Wall Street Journal 1/15/2011 | scintilla |
| Thus, Theophrastus, who is the primary basis of the doxographical tradition, says that it was Parmenides who discovered the _____ of the earth - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | sphericity |
| They are in some sort rebels battling against time, not the humble _____ content simply to live and bless God. - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 | well-doer |
| Am not I _____? Am I not of her blood? - Twelfth Night; or What You Will, by William Shakespeare | consanguineous |
| Rapid decontamination and treatment are necessary to avoid deep tissue damage, liquefaction _____, bone destruction due to decalcification, and systemic fluorosis. - Hydrofluoric Acid, by John Caterfino, CHOP.edu | necrosis |
| "What? Revolution and _____ a grand thing?..." - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | regicide |
| Some gust from brave Elizabethan times must have warmed his spirit, as he sat tuning his sublime _____. - Samuel Pepys, by Robert Louis Stevenson | theorbo |
| Americans have fought and died to free the slave, make the world safe for democracy, and _____ the world from the tyrannies of fascism, communism, and radical Islam. - Geoffrey R. Stone, Huffington Post, 8/20/08 | unyoke |
| I realized that I had in my possession the _____ to create a masterpiece - Albert Pinkham Ryder in Men of Art, by Thomas Craven | wherewith |
| "Now, Heaven _____," quoth he, "that Robin Hood has fallen into the clutches of a King's man! - Robin Hood, by J. Walker McSpadden | forfend |
| it must necessarily, being the story of a knight-errant, be _____, lofty, imposing, grand and true. - Don Quixote, by Miguel Cervantes | grandiloquent |
| In spite of his usual command over himself, Dantes could not restrain his _____. He was the first to jump on shore - The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas | impetuosity |
| He was a London boy, with a _____ air, a heavy fellow with the beginnings of a moustache on his lip and bushy eyebrows that joined one another across the bridge of his nose. - Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham | loutish |
| The multitudinous bays and ports along the _____ coasts allow easy fishing and pearl diving, both trades jealously guarded from raiders and spies. - steveneschend.com, 2/2/2009 | peninsular |
| In a _____ note to 'Mardi' (1849), Melville declares that, as his former books have been received as romance instead of reality, he will now try his hand at pure fiction. - Arthur Stedman, in Introduction to Typee by Herman Melville | prefatory |
| he couldn't find any wherewith to set light to the gas above him. Or else he would have dropped in a flare, a splendid but transitory _____ display. - The War in the Air, by H.G. Wells | pyrotechnic |
| They bring the god-inspired _____ in whom Above all other men is truth inborn. - Oedipus The King, by Sophocles | seer |
| Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that I'm a(n) "_____" (formerly called a "nerd") - Alex Pattakos, huffingtonpost.com, 10/16/2010 | techie |
| So the qustion [sic] for the individual to ask is this: is this _____ gained through the application of reason, or the repression of emotion? - cantate-domino.blogspot.com 1/6/2008 | continence |
| One of the biggest challenges facing 21st-century _____ is to develop a coherent doctrine of moral and legal responsibility in the face of powerful evidence that the will and the moral sense are both physically based. - telicthoughts.com, 7/8/2007 | jurisprudence |
| She sneered at everything and was all but a _____. - morgandempsey.wordpress.com, 3/20/2008 | nihilist |
| clearly defined standards for the lower limit of _____ aerobic training intensity have not been established yet, neither in healthy individuals nor in cardiac patients. - Peter Hofmann and Gerhard Tschakert in Cardiology Research and Practice, 2011 | prescriptible |
| ...speeches the faculty had assigned them for the commencement ceremonies. The Latin _____ went to highest ranking senior; the valedictory, to the second "mite" man. - The School Day and the School Year, by Erika Lindemann, docsouth.unc.edu | salutatory |
| He has been seated on a throne surrounded with minions and mistresses, giving audience to the envoys of foreign potentates, in all the _____ pomp of majesty. - Federalist Papers, by Alexander Hamilton | supercilious |
| The _____ per centimetre is the unit traditionally associated with measuring surface tension. - Wikipedia | dyne |
| neither was there any doubt that the big, _____, red-headed, red-faced, over-fat woman sitting near the door-way, smoking a pipe quite comfortably, was very much alive. - Rilla of Ingleside, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | frowzy |
| She rocked idly back and forth amid her surroundings of _____ disorder, and paid no attention whatever to the piercing wails proceeding from a cradle in the middle of the room. - Rilla of Ingleside, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | squalid |
| Her defense was weak and _____ but she attained her object. - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | inapt |
| Mr. WALLACE presented the petition of citizens of Preston and Monongalia counties, asking the incorporation of a joint stock company to repair and _____ the Morgantown and Beverley turnpike road - Virginia House of Delagates, 1861. | macadamize |
| It was a thick voice, with something in it--a kind of whistling _____-- that struck me as peculiar - The Island of Doctor Moreau, by H.G. Wells | overtone |
| As his eyes became accustomed to the greater darkness within the hut an object began to take form that presently outlined itself in a human form _____ upon the floor. - Tarzan the Untamed, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | supine |
| It was hardly needful for Katy to answer with her lips a question to which her _____ cheeks had made instant reply. - Can Such Things Be?, by Ambrose Bierce | telltale |
| He knew that all things human are _____ and therefore that it must cease one day or another. - Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham | transitory |
| She felt a new strength, or at least a _____ of the creature's power over her. - The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | diminution |
| Yet there was a set of the mouth and a prominence of the chin which relieved him of any trace of _____. - The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | effeminacy |
| But can something that contains no _____ benefit and provides no feeling of satiety really be categorized as food? - Drink Tax: Why We Should Tax Soda, by Susan Yager, huffingtonpost.com, 11/3/2010 | nutritive |
| The essential oil has been used medicinally since at least 50 CE when it was named by Pedanius Dioscorides in his De Materia Medica, a _____ - Parsley and its Health Effects, ivorhartmann.blogspot.com, 10/2001 | pharmacopoeia |
| my brother's son: a _____ and profligate, stained with every mean and selfish crime...knowing that the consequence...must be his being kicked into the streets...clings...like a cowardly boy - The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens | reprobate |
| It is expected that the stupid and _____ masses, the white victims of slavery, will believe, and, as a general thing, they do believe, whatever the slaveholders tell them - The Impending Crisis of the South, by Hinton Rowan Helper | sequacious |
| Locking the cow's head in an iron _____, he had shed his coat, rolled up his right sleeve almost to the shoulder, washed his hand and arm in a solution of carbolic and hot water, - Dust, by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius | stanchion |
| Herself a consummate _____, she could not have maneuvered better on meeting a man she wished to attract. - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | coquette |
| In doctrine the great difference seems to be the _____ of the spiritual authority of the Pope by the Armenians - Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia, by Mary Leonora Woulfe Sheil | disavowal |
| "Bravo!" said Mrs. Tristram, "that is very fine. You are the great Western Barbarian, stepping forth in his innocence and might, gazing a while at this poor _____ Old World and then swooping down on it." - The American by Henry James | effete |
| I ask you to accept the post of private physician to this household for the space of one--it may be two months, and I offer you also, as a(n) _____, the fee of one thousand guineas. - The Illustrious Prince, by E. Phillips Oppenheim | honorarium |
| There was not much time for Betts Shoreham to _____, and speculate on female caprices and motives - Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief, by James Fenimore Cooper | philosophize |
| we've got to keep it focused on the issues and away from the kind of _____ attacks we've seen. - Robert Zimmerman, CNN, 2/21/2007 | vituperative |
| she seemed only gravely glad, and was as little changed by praise as she had been by severe _____. - St. Elmo, by Augusta J. Evans | animadversion |
| "No!" said Miss Pink, asserting the most immovable _____ under the blandest politeness of manner. - My Lady's Money, by Wilkie Collins | obstinacy |
| Our Santa Rosans seemed to have little tact in fishing; still their spears and our hooks gathered not a few representatives of _____ life in the Napo. - The Andes and the Amazon, by James Orton | ichthyic |
| Until the eighteenth century no _____ aimed at completeness. His object was to explain the more difficult words in the language. - On Dictionaries, by Ernest Weekley | lexicographer |
| For they proved the city great and not small, and rendered it harmonious and not _____, and erected the walls instead of pulling them down. - The Orations of Lysias | dissentious |
| I'd like to present to you this reality check, made out to "Residents of Tennessee, where people will cheerfully _____ their neighbors in their sleep over college football rivalries..." - Cherie Priest, cmpriest.livejournal.com, 7/9/2004 | garrote |
| our society is infinitely more complex, and displays far greater extremes of luxury and _____ than any society of the antique world. - The Soul of Man under Socialism, by Oscar Wilde | pauperism |
| they are all _____ in some way, holding up a mirror to society and making us laugh at ourselves. - Frederik Pohl and Elizabeth Hull, sfsignal.com, 3/25/2009 | satiric |
| I know nothing of Texas probate law but I find it odd that a _____ can completely disinherit a spouse. - comment re: Marshall vs. Stern, volokh.com, 3/22/10 | testator |
| "Your services had been great," Lord Robert said, "and your fault was but _____." - The Yellow Crayon, by E. Phillips Oppenheim | venial |
| Though a long way from his full growth, White Fang, next to Lip-lip, was the largest _____ in the village. - White Fang, by Jack London | yearling |
| This is the feast that I have bid her to, And this the banquet she shall _____ on - Titus Andronicus, by William Shakespeare | surfeit (v) |
| Crowds of students ... earned a precarious living by begging or "professing" medicine ... or working wonders, such as casting horoscopes, or performing _____ tricks. - German Culture Past and Present, by Ernest Belfort Bax | thaumaturgic |
| "Excuse my little _____," said the countess,..."but that horrid man had made me feel quite uncomfortable, and I longed to be alone..." - The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas | subterfuge |
| Tom stood perfectly submissive; and yet Legree could not hide from himself that his power over his bond _____ was somehow gone. - Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe | thrall |
| he had made a particular study of leprosy, and had observed so many lepers that infallibly, except in the _____ beginnings of the disease, he could pick out a leper at a glance. - Michael, Brother of Jerry, by Jack London | incipient |
| During the day the animals obsequiously followed the shadow of the smallest tree as it moved round the stem with the _____ roll - Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman, by Thomas Hardy | diurnal |
| It would not require a Sherlock Holmes to _____ that you have been cooking over a camp-fire, to say nothing of trying out seal-blubber. - The Sea Wolf, by Jack London | deduce |
| What is to me a means of livelihood is to him the merest hobby of a(n) _____. - Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | dilettante |
| Dora kissed Anne primly and squeezed out two _____ little tears; but Davy, who had been crying on the back porch step ever since they rose from the table, refused to say good-bye at all. - Anne of The Island, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | decorous |
| I rose, and declared that PATRICK HENRY, of revolutionary fame, never made a speech more _____ in the cause of liberty, than the one we had just listened to - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave, by Frederick Douglass | eloquent |
| The formal _____ program for the fellows includes their participation in the daily 6:45 a.m. to 7:15 a.m. core resident lecture/teaching conference during the first two months of the fellowship - Educational Experiences, CHOP.edu | didactic |
| Michael, encouraged by the unmistakable _____ and kindness in the voice, wriggled his whole body and thumped double knocks of delight with his tail. - Michael, Brother of Jerry, by Jack London | geniality |
| She was a _____, charitable, good woman, and capable of strong attachments, most correct in her conduct, strict in her notions of decorum, and with manners that were held a standard of good-breeding. - Persuasion, by Jane Austen | benevolent |
| At the end of the first year of research, I was _____ enough to think that I had some results that would make a thesis - Amartya Sen, Autobiography, nobelprize.org, 1998 | bumptious |
| The chimney..., belching forth its kitchen smoke, impregnated the whole air with the scent of meats, fowls, and fishes, spicily concocted with _____ herbs - House Of Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne | odoriferous |
| It's funny how sometimes seemingly _____ details about people stick in your mind. - Growing Up in the Jackson Family, by La Toya Jackson | inconsequential |
| it is always a terrible fiasco, and after one or two feeble flounders he crawls out again, limp and _____. - Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, by Jerome K. Jerome | pitiable |
| I knew, as never before, nor since, the thousand dear and delightful anguishes of love frustrated but ever _____ and beckoned on by the very goddess of love. - The Red One, by Jack London | resilient |
| the cold-blooded little demon sticks in my thoughts; she has bitten me with those even little teeth of hers; I feel as if I might turn _____ and do something crazy in consequence. - The American, by Henry James | rabid |
| for the first week or two, he was _____ and low, fretting, I suppose, over his dear Annabella's departure, and particularly ill-tempered to me - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte | peevish |
| He wondered if it was the wind that was blowing the disease away and cleansing the _____ land. - Adventure, by Jack London | pestilential |
| Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a(n) _____ tone, "Now, Maggie, you just listen..." - The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot | peremptory |
| It pained me afterward, but too late to _____ the order - The Little White Bird, by James Matthew Barrie | rescind |
| don't give lengthy descriptions in Parts 2-5, where _____ is requested. - usatoday.com, 8/16/2007 | brevity |
| From the first my fellow-pupils used to tease and _____ and mock me whenever I was saying my lessons. - Poor Folk, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | deride |
| Thus he stood, his gaze riveted upon the Kincaid until it disappeared beyond a projecting _____ of the coast. - The Beasts of Tarzan, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | promontory |
| This class of boys, in short, must supply the world with those active, skilful hands, and clear, _____ heads, without which the affairs of life would be thrown into confusion - Grandfather's Chair, by Nathaniel Hawthorne | sagacious |
| with chagrin, he found his masters invariably _____ and irregular, constantly running about the country, or on the look-out for adventure. - Around The World In Eighty Days, by Jules Verne | whimsical |
| I think in this case her needs and her parents' needs are completely _____. - Dr. Benjamin Wilfond, Interview, CNN, 1/7/2007 | convergent |
| there is much to clear up and _____ between us - Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book For All And None, by Friedrich Nietzsche | elucidate |
| When he revives he will return to his quarters with a fine tale of his bravery and there will be none to _____ his boasts - The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | impugn |
| Using these examples as a starting point, I will _____ a non-exhaustive set of proposals to create new formal job designations - Devin Johnston, lawiscool.com, 9/14/2009 | posit |
| its waters ... moved as sluggishly as if it had quite forgotten which way it ought to flow, and had rather _____ than flow either one way or the other. - Tanglewood Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne | stagnate |
| I noticed a bluish _____ in her face which alarmed me. - The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins | tinge |
| To _____ means to dispute. Whatever I claim, you refute. Well, bluster and blurt on, But please keep your shirt on. I've heard that you're grossly hirsute. - Beverley Sharp, www.oedilf.com, 4/26/2008 | altercate |
| It cannot for a moment be doubted that we are right in believing that there is SOME difference between us and the chair in this respect: so much may be taken as fact, and as a _____ for our inquiry. - The Analysis of Mind, by Bertrand Russell | datum |
| While the days of doing business with just a handshake may not be over entirely, in our _____ society, the best way to avoid ending up in court or hot water is to put things in writing. - Rhonda Abrams, usatoday.com, 2/2/10 | litigious |
| RIBApix covers world architecture of all periods together with related subjects such as interior design, landscape, _____, planning, construction and the decorative arts. - RIBApix.com, Royal Institute of British Architects | topography |
| The lexical sign _____ (A corruption of "and per se and"), Though very inviting In casual writing, In formal should always be banned. - Richard English, oedilf.com, 3/23/06 | ampersand |
| What on earth makes you think anyone wants to know more about you, you colossal and misguided _____ and crashing bore? - "Andrew," inspectorgadget.wordpress.com, 9/10/2009 | egotist |
| upon reading the narratives of such travellers as have had the _____ to venture into these regions, your eyes would fill with tears. - Five Weeks in a Balloon, by Jules Verne | hardihood |
| you imagined, I believe, that you were about to patronize this young gentleman, like some poor _____ picked up somewhere, and taken under your magnificent protection. - The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | protege |
| Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the _____. - Sign of the Four, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | statistician |
| By the mid-1960s, the group's success began to _____ as it was eclipsed by the Supremes and other Motown acts. - Associated Press, 2/1/11 | wane |
| I noticed a tall, thin, _____ man seated in an arm-chair by the fire. - The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | angular |
| The mouth of the river proper is but about half a mile wide, formed by the contracting shores of the _____. - Astoria or Anecdotes of an enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains, by Washington Irving | estuary |
| my aunt, suddenly descrying among them the young _____...who was one of the most inveterate offenders against her...captured him...calling upon Janet to fetch the constables - David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens | malefactor |
| my grandfather, whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his _____, that which he inherited being much what I possess now - The Republic, by Plato | patrimony |
| Asteroseismology, also known as _____ seismology, gives us the same kind of insight into the structure of stars. - universetoday.com, 1/5/10 | stellar |
| His civilization was at best but an outward _____ which he gladly peeled off with his uncomfortable European clothes whenever any reasonable pretext presented itself. - Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | veneer |
| Curious is it to note what little, trivial incidents will nearly make a man crazy, and strike terror to his heart, and _____ the firm purpose with which he has armed himself. - Poor Folk, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | annihilate |
| in the lobby he was accosted by an old acquaintance, Maurice Mainhall, who fell upon him with _____ cordiality and indicated a willingness to dine with him. - Alexander's Bridge, by Willa Cather | effusive |
| the goddess wore a dress of a light _____ fabric, very fine and graceful - The Odyssey, by Homer | gossamer |
| Captain Jim had the gift of the born storyteller, whereby "unhappy, far-off things" can be brought vividly before the hearer in all their pristine _____. - Anne's House of Dreams, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | poignancy |
| the door opened, and the owner of the house, a jovial, _____ figure in shirt and trousers, presented himself. - The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | rotund |
| They are so _____ that they never feed but surrounded with other beasts that defend them. - A Voyage to Abyssinia, by Father Lobo | timorous |
| I thought I might pay a visit to York Prep, a private school on the Upper West Side that I'd heard was raising honeybees successfully in its rooftop _____, and even harvesting a little honey - Ralph Gardner JR., WSJ.com, 9/23/10 | apiary |
| your papa was very well in his way, and Heaven forbid that I should _____ him. - David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens | disparage |
| Often, in such instances as our image of a friend's face or of a(n) _____ dog, an image is not derived from one prototype, but from many; when this happens, the image is vague - The Analysis of Mind, by Bertrand Russell | nondescript |
| The varzea forest has a lower canopy, less species diversity, and a(n) _____ of palms. - World Wildlife Fund, eoearth.org, 8/21/08 | predominance |
| it is a bitter trial to behold him, on his return, doing his utmost to _____ my labours and transform my innocent, affectionate, tractable darling into a selfish, disobedient, and mischievous boy - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte | subvert |
| She stopped, out of breath but seething with the _____ yet to come. - The Valley of the Moon, by Jack London | tirade |
| The moment they hear of John's _____ well, they look as if they never drank water. - Man And Wife, by Wilkie Collins | Artesian |
| Cypher's store of eatables she poured out upon us with royal indifference to price and quantity, as from a _____ that knew no exhaustion. - The Four Million, by O. Henry | cornucopia |
| It designates the dark, _____ substance which is scraped off the back of the Greenland or right whale - Moby Dick, by Herman Melville | glutinous |
| There is a psychological school called "Behaviourists," of whom the _____ is Professor John B. Watson, formerly of the Johns Hopkins University. - The Analysis of Mind, by Bertrand Russell | protagonist |
| he arrived...in a high fever...and it was thought...that he would never travel farther than the burying-ground...of St. George's, where the troops should fire a _____ over his grave - Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray | salvo |
| he abandoned art to take up caricature, _____ designing, and drawing for books, which twenty years later went by the name of "illustration." - Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac | vignette |
| I observed the title of one of them, THE ORIGIN OF TREE WORSHIP, and it struck me that the fellow must be some poor _____, who, either as a trade or as a hobby, was a collector of obscure volumes. - The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | bibliophile |
| this agenda won't _____ Bush to liberals. - bullmooseblogger.blogspot.com, 11/7/05 | enamor |
| ...glittering pieces of computer-generated machinery that _____, undulate, somersault and explode. - Joe Morgenstern, online.wsj.com, 6/25/09 | gyrate |
| This fellow here, with envious carping tongue, Upbraided me about the rose I wear, Saying the _____ colour of the leaves Did represent my master's blushing cheeks - King Henry VI, Part 1, by William Shakespeare | sanguine |
| Marianne, who had never much _____ for any thing like impertinence, vulgarity...or even difference of taste from herself, was...particularly ill-disposed...to be pleased with the Miss Steeles - Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen | toleration |
| the mate and _____ begged the master of our ship to let them cut away the fore-mast, which he was very unwilling to do; but the _____ protesting to him that if he did not the ship would founder, he consented - Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe | boatswain |
| Fostrap gum, whose active ingredient is a substance derived from _____ exoskeletons, is designed to bind to phosphate in the saliva of people with kidney malfunction - Paul Sonne, WSJ.com, 2/2/11 | crustacean |
| Archer looked with a sort of vicarious envy at this eager _____ young man who had fared so richly in his poverty. - The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton | impecunious |
| those penalties...would turn the course of opinion...and would hinder it from regarding...this most serious crime against society as a venial _____. - Considerations on Representative Government, by John Stuart Mill | peccadillo |
| Lying in it, as in a grave or _____, with a hurried drapery of sheet and blanket thrown across it, was the body of a heavily-made man - Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens | sarcophagus |
| WHEN A BUSINESS IS SOLD (OR OTHERWISE TRANSFERRED), THE BUYER (OR OTHER _____) OF THE BUSINESS MAY BE LIABLE TO PAY THE UNPAID UNEMPLOYMENT TAXES AND INTEREST - michigan.gov/documents | transferee |
| he obeys his...captain, and the captain his major, and the major his colonel, and the colonel his _____ commanding three regiments, and the _____ the general, who obeys the Viceroy - The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling | brigadier |
| the traveler's experience enables him to _____ common misconceptions and fears about myriad aspects of the journey. - Ben Kerschberg and Narinder Singh, huffingtonpost.com, 1/13/11 | debunk |
| Tears and Janet seemed so _____ that Anne was honestly alarmed. - Anne of The Island, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | incongruous |
| [The ‘Rêve d’Or’ rose] is especially recommended for use on porch pillars, where the _____, globular flowers can be seen and appreciated more easily. - fairegarden.wordpress.com, 1/20/08 | pendulous |
| They labour under the disadvantages of a _____ of wood and water - The Prairie, by James Fenimore Cooper | scarcity |
| Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to _____ the law, because, don't you see, they are ordinary. - Crime And Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | transgress |
| He saw the _____ was supported by a mere score of soldiers, all in the helmets and breastplates of the old Romans. - Lost World of Time, by Lin Davies | centurion |
| Snopes.com debunked the myth that an eelskin wallet could _____ credit cards. | demagnetize |
| with the tenacity and _____ courage of his kind he still faced his cruel and relentless foes - The Gods of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | indomitable |
| He has been described as a(n) _____, somebody who is living in his car. - Dan Simon, CNN, 3/15/06 | transient |
| The _____ had broken out in its most fatal form and people were dying like flies. - The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett | cholera |
| a silver-tongued _____, comes to power, promising...that...the reason you're not doing well is because he has what's owed to you. - Paul Gigot, wsj.com, 11/1/10 | demagogue |
| Be bright and _____ among your guests tonight. - Macbeth, by William Shakespeare | jovial |
| A French _____ captured the vessel on her passage home - Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief, by James Fenimore Cooper | privateer |
| He reproached himself, made good resolutions, and prayed over this fault, but still he remained _____ and idle. - English Literature For Boys And Girls, by H.E. Marshall | slothful |
| The roar of the wind...came to the ear muffled like the distant rumble of a train crossing a _____ - Story of a Typhoon off the Coast of Japan, by Jack London | trestle |
| Belle-Isle is fortified, admirably fortified; Belle-Isle has...a _____, two detached forts; its ports contain three corsairs; and the side batteries only await their cannon. - Ten Years Later, by Alexandre Dumas | citadel |
| Notwithstanding he had made the city of Athens...as great and rich as can be imagined,...he, for his part, did not make the patrimony his father left him greater than it was by one _____. - Pericles, by Plutarch | drachma |
| their...skins were of a curious fish-like _____, and the sunlight struck them with an ever-varying rainbow bloom as they moved. - The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | iridescence |
| there stood three solemn buzzards, who, at the sight of the new comers uttered _____ screams of disappointment and flapped sullenly away. - A Study In Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | raucous |
| the usher announced, in a _____ voice, "Messieurs the Envoys of Monsieur the Duke of Austria." - Notre-Dame de Paris, by Victor Hugo | sonorous |
| The passage he read not only describes her own life, it is her _____ to us, her final instruction about how we should live our lives. - Bill Clinton, 2/13/97 | valediction |
| in spite of repeated demands boots had not been issued by the Austrian _____, and the regiment had marched some seven hundred miles. - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | commissariat |
| All seemed pleasure, joy, and roguish _____ - A Tramp Abroad, by Mark Twain | gaiety |
| "...the low _____ and the ferocious cruelty incidental to them, the plotting and the lying and the bribing, the blustering and bragging, the screaming egotism..." - The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair | knavery |
| of a situation so desirable in every respect, so _____ with advantage, so promising for happiness, Jane had been deprived, by the folly and indecorum of her own family! - Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen | replete |
| ...a black-browed, _____ man, as brown and supple as a hazel twig. - The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | swarthy |
| I dug up a piece of ground...and sowed the rest of my seed in February, a little before the _____ equinox; and this having the rainy months of March and April to water it, sprung up very pleasantly - Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe | vernal |
| she was..._____ by nature and upbringing, and already crystallized into the cranny of life where she had been born and formed. - Martin Eden, by Jack London | conservative |
| The course here indicated will be followed unless current events...shall show a modification...to be proper, and in every case and _____ my best discretion will be exercised - Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address | exigency |
| What happened to Egypt over the past 12 days? Was it a popular _____? Was it a real revolution? - Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis, buzzle.com, 2/7/2011 | insurgence |
| Most high, most mighty, and most _____ Caesar, Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat An humble heart - Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare | puissant |
| I'm going to _____ you with photos of two dinners we had last week, and I'll post a recipe or two from them on Monday! - Bryanna Clark Grogan, veganfeastkitchen.blogspot.com, 8/13/09 | tantalize |
| Clayton was...a strong, _____ man --mentally, morally, and physically. - Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | virile |
| Shipping delays — known in the industry as _____ — can be costly as vessels may lease for tens of thousands of dollars per day - Mark Reichman, chron.com, 1/8/11 | demurrage |
| If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high _____ and a deep ditch. - The Art of War, by Tzu Sun | rampart |
| to _____ and wait for something now when Bonaparte fears nothing so much as a general battle is impossible. - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | temporize |
| The three children watched intently as their mother attempted to _____ the last piece of pie into perfectly equal portions. | trisect |
| The tearful family followed her into the house and sat in _____ silence watching the big drops that began to beat on the western window. - The Second Chance, by Nellie L. McClung | doleful |
| Thus in a race, if one Raramuri were to fall behind, others in that race would slow down to let the _____ catch up. - Shep Lenchek, mexconnect.com, 1/1/2000 | laggard |
| The _____ he had met with in his first attempt to win Lydgate's confidence, disinclined him to a second - Middlemarch, by George Eliot | rebuff |
| The air in the _____ is extremely thin with individual gas molecules being separated from each other by large distances. - Michael Pidwirny, eoearth.org, 1/4/10 | thermosphere |
| Other numbers on the program include the invocation by Rev. L. M. Halling...; salutory by Cleo Knapp; _____ by Ruby Alm; selections by the girls glee club; musical numbers by the juvenile band and presentation of diplomas - Binford Times, 5/28/1930 | valedictory |
| the very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric...draping the low shores in _____ folds. - Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad | diaphanous |
| the Pharox 60 LED Dimmable Lightbulb...uses just 6 Watts and has the equivalent _____ of the traditional 60 Watt incandescent bulb. - Piper Kujac, inhabitat.com, 10/05/09 | luminescence |
| He was known to us all as...a common drunkard, who had, by his reckless mismanagement and _____ dissipation, already wasted a large portion of his father's property. - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave, by Frederick Douglass | profligate |
| Even today I _____ when I think of how he lied and cheated, and got away with it. - Candace Chellew-Hodge, huffingtonpost.com, 2/14/11 | seethe |
| Republicans and Democrats _____ over cuts to the discretionary spending that is determined by Congress every year - Naftali Bendavid and Janet Hook, wsj.com, 3/4/11 | wrangle |
| This metal, in fact, is the most tenacious, the most _____, and the most malleable, and consequently suitable for all moulding operations - From The Earth To The Moon, by Jules Verne | ductile |
| If you say anything, no matter how _____, enough times, people will come to believe it's true. - Marty Kaplan, huffingtonpost.com, 9/27/10 | mendacious |
| the oracle was consulted and it bade them _____ themselves of blood-guiltiness. - Oedipus The King, by Sophocles | purge |
| Seventeen-year old Rapunzel is an unwitting prisoner in said tower, where Mother Gothel has _____ed the inquisitive girl after stealing her from a regal crib. - Pete Roche, clevelandmovieblog.com, 11/26/10 | sequester |
| Are not the doors of double and even of _____ strength, and the sentinels ten times more watchful? - The Black Tulip, by Alexandre Dumas | treble |
| To find _____ from the maze he must perforce travel a considerable distance through the winding corridors and chambers, since he had no idea as to the location or direction of any exit. - The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | egress |
| Russia under the waste and stresses of _____ festered towards bankruptcy and decay. - The War in the Air, by H.G. Wells | militarism |
| the men were lined up in a long _____, making their way to the recruiting office. - The Kingdom of the Blind, by E. Phillips Oppenheim | queue |
| "_____" is an astronomical term. The winter _____ is the shortest day/longest night. The summer _____ is contrariwise. - Jeffrey Weiss, dallasnews.com, 6/17/08 | solstice |
| The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute _____ over these States. - The Declaration of Independence | tyranny |
| Clinton sought to _____ his presidential legacy with the glowing statistics of what, at the end of February, will be the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. - Clinton's Final State of the Union, by Carolyn Lochhead, 1/28/2000 | emblazon |
| Around the walls stood several _____ bookcases, the lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios and black-letter quartos, and the upper with little parchment-covered duodecimos. - Twice Told Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne | oaken |
| Still with _____ face she gazed afar into the sunset west, with eyes that saw visions trooping splendidly across that glowing background. - Anne Of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | rapt |
| The great promenade and _____, as most people know, is Broadway; a wide and bustling street - American Notes for General Circulation, by Charles Dickens | thoroughfare |
| We _____ with one another in the splendor of our accoutrements - The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | vie |
| I have never met a pigeon, or poultry, or duck, or rabbit _____, who was not fully convinced that each main breed was descended from a distinct species. - The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin | fancier |
| Elderly people can also increase their chest expansion and breathing capacity, but it takes more time, for with the years the chest cartilages have a tendency to harden and even to _____. - Maintaining Health, by R. L. Alsaker | ossify |
| Given that companies have limited resources to _____ their staffs, understanding bargaining power helps them better prioritize where they spend their money. - Lara Moroko and Mark D. Uncles, wsj.com, 3/23/2009 | remunerate |
| But he, who would henceforth be dead to his native land, would have no _____ save scornful and vindictive words. - Grandfather's Chair, by Nathaniel Hawthorne | epitaph |
| She stood by a window, holding a book in close contiguity to her nose, as if with the hope of gaining a(n) _____ acquaintance with its contents, since her imperfect vision made it not very easy to read them. - House Of Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne | olfactory |
| Last September European leaders agreed that relations with China should be based on “_____”. - economist.com, 1/13/11 | reciprocity |
| I cannot reproduce it _____, for I had no after opportunity of refreshing my memory. - The Golden Road, by Lucy Maud Montgomery | verbatim |
| He was fashionably dressed and _____, with his hair parted in the middle, well combed and pomaded, and wore a number of rings on his well-scrubbed fingers and a gold chain on his waistcoat. - Crime And Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky | foppish |
| In Sacramento was a railroad Governor who might _____ or even pardon bank-wreckers and grafters, but who dared not lift his finger for a workingman. - The Valley of the Moon, by Jack London | reprieve |
| Mrs Kenwigs...had finally returned to propose that Mr Johnson should instruct the four Miss Kenwigses in the French language as spoken by natives, at the weekly _____ of five shillings - The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, by Charles Dickens | stipend |
| One told how he had taken a life, another had taken two, a third had set a house on fire, while another had simply been a _____ and had done nothing. - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | vagrant |
| The colts were wild and _____ - Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell | frolicsome |
| When he got abroad at last he was hardly grateful that he had been spared, remembering how lonely was his estate, how companionless and _____ he was. - Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain | forlorn |
| The night was not a dark one, for the sky was clear and the moon _____. - Ma'ame Pelagie, by Kate Chopin | resplendent |
| I felt physically weak and broken down: but my worse ailment was an unutterable _____ of mind: a _____ which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed. - Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte | wretchedness |
| Coral patches uprose everywhere from the turquoise depths, running the _____ of green from deepest jade to palest tourmaline - Jerry of the Islands, by Jack London | gamut |
| the 64-year-old _____ has more than 100 recordings to his credit; this year will see the release of his complete Beethoven sonatas on disc, as well as the five Beethoven concertos with the Vienna Philharmonic - Stuart Isacoff, wsj.com, 3/17/11 | virtuoso |
| In the "Grand Room," a wide open living room with 50-foot-high wood beam ceilings, a Joan Miro _____ hangs above a vast stone fireplace. - Shawn O'Connor, wsj.com, 1/6/2011 | tapestry |
| There are ranks, here. There are _____s, princes, governors, sub-governors, sub-sub-governors, and a hundred orders of nobility - Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven, by Mark Twain | viceroy |
| the _____ updates we share publicly with friends and followers in Twitter...add up to what she called “ambient intimacy.” - Jeff Jarvis, buzzmachine.com, 5/6/2008 | syncopated |
| When our hearts are _____, grieving in pain, thy touch can call us back to life again, fields of hearts that dead and bare have been - Now the Green Blade Riseth, by John M.C. Crum | wintry |
| I’m a hard-line skeptic when it comes to the topic of ESP (extra-sensory perception). I don’t believe in _____, precognition, telekinesis, or people bending flatware just by looking at it. - ewillett.livejournal.com, 3/17/08 | telepathy |
| The idea behind The Muppet Show was that the Muppets had a weekly show that would have famous human guest stars in a kind of _____ theater atmosphere. - Jill Sommer, translationmusings.com, 1/16/09 | vaudeville |
| the Catholic Church does not support the notion of a _____, that is...that a priestly class also holds the reins of government. - David Palm, distributist.blogspot.com, 3/18/07 | theocracy |
| It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and _____. - Moon and Sixpence, by W. Somerset Maugham | vindictive |
| He showed me also, in one of his books, the figures of the sun, moon, and stars, the _____, the tropics, and polar circles - Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift | zodiac |
| He wrote with a brutal honesty in his 1997 autobiography that he felt "_____" when one of his rivals later died in a plane crash - Newsweek, 11/18/2001 | ambivalent |
| A strange _____ was La of Opar--a creature of circumstance torn by conflicting emotions...Sometimes the incarnation of jealousy and revenge and sometimes a sobbing maiden, generous and forgiving - Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, by Edgar Rice Burroughs | anomaly |
| Sometimes when he came he was silent and moody, and after a few _____ remarks went away again - My Antonia, by Willa Cather | sarcastic |
| He continued to grin with a _____ humour, with a cynical mockery and defiance. He was master of the situation. - The Sea Wolf, by Jack London | sardonic |
| While apparently too _____ for some, my sarcastic comments above...pointed out that the romances...upon which Shakespeare based his work were widely denigrated as being foolish - Sarah Neville, bookninja.com, 11/15/2009 | snide |
| Prior to the Revolution there is a(n) _____ of records; the earlier documents and archives of the Custom-House having, probably, been carried off to Halifax - The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne | dearth |
| Every young man who came to the house-...hearing the fitful bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly _____ of young girls...- experienced the same feeling;...an expectation of happiness. - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | prattle |
| The doctor and valet lifted the cloak with which he was covered and, making _____ faces at the noisome smell of mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful place. - War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy | wry |
| I always admired to study R.'s art, it was so fresh and _____. - A Connecticut Yankee, by Mark Twain | unconventional |
| He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for to express a(n) _____ opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in the Land of the Saints. - A Study In Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | unorthodox |
| She inspected it with _____ care, while One Eye, who had returned, stood in the entrance and patiently watched her. - White Fang, by Jack London | painstaking |
| He kept a _____ eye on all her cancelled checks and knew to a penny what she spent. - Dust, by Mr. and Mrs. Julius Haldeman | meticulous |
| Now it was certainly a little _____ of him to venture to say to the Emperor's daughter, 'Will you marry me?' - The Yellow Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang | audacious |
| Like them, hate them, or remain _____ to them, they have had a considerable impact on modern culture. - ulysses-ithaka.blogspot.com, 5/7/2008 | indifferent |
| from an indifferent and _____ believer she turned him into an ardent and steadfast adherent of the new interpretation of Christian doctrine, which had been gaining ground of late in Petersburg. - Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy | apathetic |
| "We should start delivering a message that is not left or right, but a message that is _____, that is centrist, that works on policies that work, that deal with people's problems." - Bill Richardson, CNN, 10/10/2004 | pragmatic |
| Fans in the stadiums or on TV spend most of the game watching grass grow. That's not all bad. Part of baseball's charm is its leisurely _____ of summer's slower pace. - Joe Lapointe, huffingtonpost.com, 4/8/2010 | evocation |
| The deity predicted certain disaster to the _____ mortal who laid hands on the sacred gem - The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins | presumptuous |
| 'It's all these cursed women!' muttered Grimsby: 'they're the very _____ of the world! They bring trouble and discomfort wherever they come, with their false, fair faces and their deceitful tongues.' - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte | bane |
| never...speak another word in private with Philip Wakem, or...I tell my father...that you are a disobedient, deceitful daughter, who throws away her own respectability by _____ meetings - The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot | clandestine |
| the new chief had been very _____ and had talked to him as to an acquaintance. - Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy | affable |
| "One isn't usually _____ to guests who stay when they're not asked," Trent answered gruffly. - A Millionaire of Yesterday, by E. Phillips Oppenheim | amiable |
| But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull and torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at bottom very bright, with that pleasant, _____, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe - Moby Dick, by Herman Melville | genial |
| as time went on he led a more and more _____ life, refusing everything superfluous, and finally he accepted nothing but rye-bread once a week. Everything else that was brought to him he gave to the poor - Father Sergius, by Leo Tolstoy | austere |
| Her black dress, simple to _____, suggested her bereaved condition - Moon and Sixpence, by W. Somerset Maugham | austerity |
| transplant centers are increasingly accepting non-blood-related donors, such as spouses, close friends and so-called _____ donors, who offer to donate a kidney with no particular recipient in mind. - Jeremy Singer-Vine, wallstreetjournal.com, 3/23/2010 | altruistic |
| The expression was _____, since the Latin word beneficium might mean either a personal benefit or a feudal concession. - The Catholic Encyclopedia, by Charles George Herberman | ambiguous |
| Now with the Persians to be called worse than a woman is the greatest possible _____. - The History of Herodotus | reproach |
| In 2007, he had praised the role of a government-sponsored enterprise like Freddie only to _____ congressional Democrats for their support of the same firm. - Jonathan Weisman and Sara Murray, wsj.com, 12/16/11 | castigate |
| What passes in those remote depths-- what beings live, or can live, twelve or fifteen miles beneath the surface of the waters--what is the organisation of these animals, we can scarcely _____. - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne | conjecture |
| there will be a connection with the long past--a reference to forgotten events and personages, and to manners, feelings, and opinions, almost or wholly _____ - House Of Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne | obsolete |
| He spoke...in correct, rather _____ English, having learned it from a study of the English classics...; and it was odd to hear him use words colloquially which Philip had only met in the plays of Shakespeare. - Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham | archaic |
| He who first opens Chaucer, or any other ancient poet, is so much struck with the obsolete spelling, multiplied consonants, and _____ appearance of the language, that he is apt to lay the work down in despair - Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott | antiquated |
| "It's a happy circumstance, a truly happy circumstance... I trust, Mr Garland, my dear Sir, that we may mutually congratulate each other upon this _____ occasion." - The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens | auspicious |
| He had been in a(n) _____ mood, ever since his dear wife's death. - Robin Hood, by J. Walker McSpadden | morose |
| Just how much Mr. Paterson can do to break the _____ will be a test of his leadership, as the sides are very far apart. - Eliot Brown, obsever.com, 7/20/2009 | impasse |
| I am convinced that he is the perfect type of the primitive man, born a thousand years or generations too late and a(n)_____ in this culminating century of civilization. - The Sea Wolf, by Jack London | anachronism |
| Queequeg, said I, do you think that we can make out a supper for us both on one clam? However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to _____ the apparently cheerless prospect before us. - Moby Dick, by Herman Melville | belie |
| "I greatly fear your presence would rather increase than _____ his unhappy fortunes." - The Last of The Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper | mitigate |
| But the ready-witted Dorothea...said, to _____ his wrath, "Be not irritated at the absurdities your good squire has uttered...for perhaps he did not utter them without cause" - Don Quixote, by Miguel Cervantes | mollify |
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