Mrs. Anderson's vocab. word list
for second semester
18984076 | Babbitt | an American middle-class businessman who was vastly pleased with himself; not tolerant | |
18984077 | Brobdingnagian | a giant as tall as a steeple; synonym for gigantic | |
18984078 | bumble | an officious, puffed-up, and pompous person; one to be avoided; from Oliver Twist | |
18984079 | Cinderella | any girl who goes from rags to riches | |
18984080 | Don Juan | an unsavory lover | |
18984081 | Falstaffian | bragging, bawdy, good-humored fat man; for comic relief | |
18984082 | Frankenstein | monster that destroys its creator | |
18984083 | Friday | a helper who is dependable, cheerful, and hardworking; from Robinson Crusoe | |
18984084 | Galahad | most noble and pure of all knights | |
18984085 | Jekyll and Hyde | a person who alternates between good and evil | |
18984086 | lilliputian | six-inch people; miniature of tiny | |
18984087 | Little Lord Fauntleroy | any little boy who is too-good-to-be-true | |
18984088 | lothario | well-known lover from The Fair Penitent | |
18984089 | malapropism | from The Rivals; means an hilarious use of words | |
18984090 | Milquetoast | from The Timid Soul; a wimp | |
18984091 | Pickwickian | comments were "not in accordance with usual meaning;" understood in an esoteric, special sense | |
18984092 | Pollyanna | any little girl who is too-good-to-be-true | |
18984093 | pooh-bah | the Lord-High-Everything-Els; a politician who holds several offices | |
18984094 | quixotic | noble but unrealistic; from one who imagined himself a knight | |
18984095 | robot | a rebel; one who exists and works without thought, who does what he/she is told | |
19483551 | rodomontade | vain boasting; empty bluster | |
19483552 | scrooge | penny-pinching miser with a heart like the Grinch's; a curmudgeon | |
19483553 | Simon Legree | anyone who works others without mercy | |
19483554 | Svengali | anyone who controls others by seemingly mysterious means | |
19483555 | Tartuffe | complete moral hypocrite; anyone who pretends great devotion to religion but lives a secretly immoral life. | |
19483556 | Uncle Tom | a black seen by other blacks as being too quick to cooperate with white people | |
19483557 | Uriah Heep | from David Copperfield; a hypocritical and holier than thou person | |
19483558 | Walter Mitty | one who dreams and fantasizes | |
19483559 | yahoo | an unlovely lot; a crudball, a stupid person | |
20407745 | Achilles' heel | place of vulnerability | |
20407746 | aeolian | referring to winds | |
20407747 | Apollo and Adonis | a handsome or desirable male | |
20407748 | Atlantic/Atlas | indicates strength | |
20407749 | aurora | the dawn | |
20407750 | bacchanal | an orgy | |
20407751 | bacchanalian | like a wild orgy or party | |
20407752 | calliope | steam whistle or steam organ; anything making a shrill sound | |
20407753 | Cassandra | one who prophesies trouble: doom prophet | |
20407754 | centaur | a rider who seems part of his horse | |
20407755 | chimera | imaginative creature; wild, scary dream of fancy | |
20407756 | cupidity | greed or avarice | |
20407757 | erotic | pertaining to sexual love | |
20407758 | furor | winged creatures with snakes for hair who committed murders in their families | |
20407759 | fury | an avenging spirit | |
20407760 | gorgon | ugly, frightening person; turns one to stone | |
20407761 | halcyon | peaceful, tranquil | |
20407762 | harpy | part woman, part bird | |
20407763 | hector | to bully or pick on; to annoy exceedingly | |
20920603 | Helen (of Troy) | a woman of incomparable beauty; a perfect 10 | |
20920604 | Herculean | extraordinarily strong or large; difficult, dangerous | |
20920605 | hydra-headed | an evil with many sources, difficult to control | |
20920606 | iridescent | having a rainbowlike play of colors, like a soap bubble | |
20920607 | jovial | good-natured, jolly expansive in nature | |
20920608 | Junoesque | queenly, statuesque, strikingly handsome (of woman) | |
20920609 | lethargy | sluggishness, torpor, languor, lassitude | |
20920610 | martial | warlike; suited for army or military life | |
20920611 | mentor | respected guide, teacher, or counselor | |
20920612 | mercurial | volatile; as applied to mood, easily changeable | |
21420082 | mnemonics | the art of improving memory; a mnemonic device assists memory | |
21420083 | morphine | an addictive narcotic | |
21420084 | muse | source of inspiration or guiding genius | |
21420085 | narcissism | self-love and admiration; extreme egotism | |
21420086 | nemesis | relentless pursuer of evildoers; jinx, bane | |
21420087 | Neptune | figuratively speaking, the oceans; thinks the world emerged from water | |
21420088 | odyssey | long wandering or voyage | |
21420089 | Olympian | majestic, superior to other, regal or commanding | |
21420090 | paean | hymn or song of praise | |
21420091 | Pandora's box | source of ill or evil; a malign influence needing to be kept under control | |
21881772 | Parnassus | having to do with poems; to climb Mount Parnassus is to write poetry | |
21881773 | pegasus | extremely swift hoarse; poetic inspiration | |
21881774 | phoenix | symbol of immortality; something that died and was reborn | |
21881775 | plutocracy | government by the weathy | |
21881776 | Promethean | unusually original and creative; life-giving | |
21881777 | protean | assuming many shapes or forms; greatly adaptable | |
21882243 | psyche | the rational and spiritual in us; the soul or mind | |
21882244 | saturnalia | wild party or orgy | |
21882245 | sibyl | prophetess; fortune-teller | |
21882246 | Sisyphean | needing to be redone, time and time again, unending | |
22368607 | stentorian | extremely loud, like a town crier's voice | |
22368608 | stygian | gloomy; dark; hellish and frightening | |
22368609 | tantalize | to torment or tease | |
22368610 | terpisichorean | referring to dance | |
22368611 | titanic | gigantic in size, power, or both | |
22368612 | volcanoes | erupting mountains | |
22368613 | vulcanize | chemical treatment for rubber to enhance uses | |
22368614 | Zeus | ruler, king | |
22368615 | Attila | the Hun; typically uncouth | |
22368616 | bacitracin | Marvelous for skin ailments | |
25790990 | berserk | eighth-century norse warrior, named after the bear skin he'd had tailored for war; fought like crazy man | |
25790991 | bloomer | amelia bloomer, forerunner of women's liberation; urged women to give up long heavy skirts and wear her idea of trousers. means fullish pants | |
25790992 | bowdlerize | decided that her should clean up literature; to rewrite to the detriment | |
25790993 | boycott | irish land agent for an absentee owner; to refrain, as a group from using or purchasing to force change | |
25790994 | Casanova | italian hunk who must have been irresistible to women: pro lover | |
25790995 | chauvinist | soldier who worshiped Napoleon; so devoted to a cause that judgement is affected; a blind patriot | |
25790996 | derrick | hangman in England; any apparatus that hoist by means of a tackle at end of a spar; noose | |
25790997 | Horatio Alger | poor boy making good in the end; like male cinderella | |
25790998 | Machiavellian | Renaissance Italian statesman, means untrustworthy, conniving and sneaky | |
25790999 | McCarthyism | suggests with-hunting and is a strongly negative term | |
26117370 | mesmerize | hypnosis. mesmerist is a hypnotist | |
26117371 | Nostradamus | fortune-teller, a soothsayer | |
26117372 | Pyrrhic | describing a dubious victory, when more is lost than gained | |
26117373 | Rabelaisian | marked by gross robust humor, extravagance of caricature or bold naturalism | |
26117374 | stonewall | not to yield an inch | |
26117375 | Swiftian | strongly scornful of mocking | |
26117376 | thespian | an actor | |
26117377 | Uncle Sam | represents United States; maybe named after Sam Wilson | |
26117378 | Wagnerian | physical size and impressive power | |
27058389 | bohemian | nomadic or rootless; free, nontraditional life | |
27058390 | canopy | cloth covering fixed or held above a person for protection | |
27058391 | donnybrook | marked by fighting and brawling | |
27058392 | dungaree | jeans. dating back to Dhungaree, India | |
27058393 | El Dorado | place of incredible wealth or good fortune | |
27058394 | hackney | a horse; special horse of english breed | |
27058395 | laconic | brief and succinct of speech; to say as little as possible; from the spartans | |
27058449 | limerick | town in ireland; five-line poems that rhyme | |
27058450 | marathon | go on forever; from greece | |
27214985 | meander | goes slowly and twists and turns | |
27215234 | sardonic | superior, disdainful, scornful and generally unpleasant | |
27215235 | shanghai | fooled or coerced into a nasty job | |
27215236 | Spartan | to suffer pain or unhappiness stoically; to live without luxuries | |
27215237 | sybaritic | life that is fun and luxuries almost exclusively | |
27215238 | utopia | the perfect place; although literally means "no place" | |
27215239 | Waterloo | dismal performance; from Napoleons failed final battle |