Vocabulary List #6 and worksheet

agenda

apoplectic

circumspect

denude

dote/dotage

emote

exacerbate

fey (2 meanings)

insatiable

laity

mordant (2 meetings)

neuter

opprobrium

precipitous

reinstate

throes

vicissitudes

Circle the number before the sentence that uses a vocabulary word incorrectly.

  1. A) The next item on the agenda is the appointment of a new secretary. B) The agenda was prepared last week and cannot be changed just before the meeting. C) She was chief agenda to the president for several years. D) Following the fall of France, the next item on Hitler’s agenda was the invasion of Russia.
  1. A) She is an apoplectic and believes she can foretell the future by reading cards. B) He fell to the floor in an apoplectic fit. C) The woman’s condition was diagnosed as apoplexy, and she was rushed to the hospital. D) He was almost apoplectic with rage.
  1. A) Ferdinand Magellan was killed in 1521 while circumspecting the earth. B) She should be more circumspect in choosing how she will invest her money. C) the investigation was carried out very circumspectly, and no one’s feelings were hurt.
  1. A) They denuded the bark from the logs before splitting them. B) The gallery had been denuded of all its paintings and looked strangely bare. C) The once heavily wooded grounds had been denuded of everything but a few shrubs.
  1. A) They dote on the two children and are always giving them gifts. B) The old man must be in his dotage to have done such a silly thing. C) He felt a great dote for his faithful old dog. D) The parents looked dotingly upon their children, even though they treated the parents unkindly.
  1. A) It’s fun to watch the old-time Hollywood actors emote in silent movies. B) He emoted his lines so softly that we could hardly hear him from the first row. C) That actress needs to show more restraint; she emotes far too much.
  1. A) His attempts to soothe her only exacerbated her rage. B) “It serves you right,” he exacerbated, delighting in her suffering. C) Her condition was exacerbated by the improper treatment she received. D) Ironically, by eliminating disease, we exacerbate the problem of feeding the world’s hungry.
  1. A) A fey smile crossed her face, giving her an elfin, unworldly look. B) Oberon, the king of the feys, took the hand of his fairy queen Titania. C) Sir Walter Scott writes of a girl who was fey and therefore had not long to live.
  1. A) The children have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. B) The problem is insatiable because there are too many unknown factors. C) The more they paid the blackmailer, the more insatiable were the demands.
  1. A) She was made a laity and was able to perform various ceremonies of the church. B) The cardinal urged all Catholics, both clergy and laity, to make greater efforts. C) He was for many years a church layman, but he left the laity to become an ordained priest.
  1. A) She has a mordant, almost savage wit. B) A metallic salt or other mordant is sued to fix the dye permanently. C) The soil had grown mordant with neglect, and nothing would grow on it. D) The mordancy of the critic’s review made the actors wince.
  1. A) “It” is a neuter pronoun. B) Switzerland remained neuter during both world wars. C) The amoeba, a neuter creature that lacks sex organs, multiplies by dividing.
  1. A) No opprobrium is attached to coming in last. B) The tightrope walker held a long pole to maintain her opprobrium. C) So opprobrious was her conduct that she was shunned by all who knew her. D) The opprobrium that surrounds the name Benedict Arnold is fully deserved.
  1. A) He acted precipitously in giving them the money without checking their credentials. B) It was damp and precipitous that morning, and rain had been predicted for later in the day.
  1. A) When it was realized she had been unjustly fired, she was immediately reinstated. B) He reinstated as firmly as he knew how that no one would be allowed to leave. C) Her reinstatement to the status of amateur after briefly playing as a professional is being challenged. D). Everyone was delighted when he was reinstated as world champion.
  1. A) With a violent throe of her arms. She managed to free herself from her bonds. B) They were young and in the throes of love and blind to everything else. C) As we looked at the old man suffering, we knew he was in his death throes. D) The country is currently in the throes of revolution.
  1. A) A strong faith may enable some people to cope with the vicissitudes of life. B) Their soft lives had turned them into vicissitudes, unable to cope with life’s ups and downs. C) The vicissitudes of Christopher Columbus’s voyages would have felled a lesser man.