VOCAB #2

accoutrements: clothing; equipment
The soccer player needed the correct accoutrements for the referee to let him play the game.

apogee: the highest or most distant point; climax
Her career reached its apogee last year when she was promoted to Chief Executive Officer of the business.

apropos: fitting; at the right time; opportune; pertinent
He comment on dinosaurs was not apropos to the ongoing discussion regarding United States history.

bicker: to engage in petulant argument; wrangle; to move quickly; to glitter
The mother was tired of listening to her sons' constant bickering in the backseat of the car so she pulled over.

coalesce: to blend or come together; to cause to unite into one body
Their suggestions were so similar that the group coalesced them into one brilliant idea.

contretemps: an inopportune occurrence; an embarrassing mischance
The high school student thought it a major contretemps when she tripped going up the stairs in front of everyone in the hall.

convolution: a rolled up condition; a coiled together
The writer had a hard time phrasing the convolution of words in his mind into understandable sentences.

cull: to choose; to gather the choice things; to collect
The scientist culled additional observations in hopes of finding better results.

disparate: distinct in kind; dissimilar; essentially different
Kingsolver and Montaigne have disparate styles when their novels are compared.

dogmatic: doctrinal; asserting opinions in an arrogant manner; opinionated
His dogmatic assertions were proved to be correct, no matter how unsatisfactory.

licentious: lewd; immoral; disregarding rules
Her lewd behavior over the years was scorned by all of her family.

mete: to distribute by measure; allot; dole out
For the Beowulf questions, each group member was meted a certain section of the questions to answer.

noxious: injurious to health; morally harmful; corrupting; pernicious
Their decision to steal a car was extremely noxious.

polemic: a controversial argument; a person who argues opposite to another; controversial
She decided not to assign her class to read the book because of its possibly polemic political theme.

populous: full of inhabitants; crowded with people; comprising of a large quantity
New York City and Los Angeles are two of the most populous cities in the United States.

probity: integrity and uprightness; honesty
His parents were proud of his probity in every question of theirs he answered.

repartee: a quick, witty reply; a conversation full of such replies
The two characters witty repartee in the play impressed the audience.

supervene: to take place as something additional; to occur as something extraneous; to ensue
Her enormous homework load supervened upon the free time she expected to have that weekend.

truncate: to shorten by cutting off a part; to shorten
Her friend truncated her lengthy description of what had happened to tell her to get to the point.

unimpeachable: above suspicion; impossible to discredit; impeccable
The psychologist was an unimpeachable witness during the trial.