Advanced Vocabulary

Ingrained: fixed firmly and deeply into the surface or inside.

Sentence – These traits are ingrained and stable dispositions to respond to certain situations in particular ways characteristic of the personality.

Scramble: to move quickly, especially with difficulty, using your hands to help you.

Sentence – A scramble over the rocks takes you to the most perfect of beaches.

Itemize: to produce a detailed list of things.

Sentence – Make sure the bill you receive is itemized and shows the individual price of each job that has been done.

Laconic: using very few words to express what you mean.

Sentence – This design has the advantage of having a laconic structure and economizing the hardware resource.

Malice: the wish, desire or intention to harm someone.

Sentence – I searched my soul for any malice that could have provoked his words, but found none.

Nonplus: to cause someone to be surprised and not know what to think or do.

Sentence – She expected him to ask for a scotch and was rather nonplussed when he asked her to mix him a martini and lemonade.

Proclivity: propensity.

Sentence – It is those who had no proclivity towards will making about whom we most wish to know.

Marauding: moving around in search of something to steal, bum or destroy.

Sentence – Marauding birds such as herring gulls will grab and swallow a chick if they get a chance.

Ingenuous: simple, direct, and inexperienced; naive.

Sentence – His confusion and his ingenuous air were new delights to Bertha.

Gross: Clearly wrong; inexcusable.

Sentence – I think it would be a gross distortion of reality to say that they were motivated by self-interest.

Beholden: having to feel grateful or having a duty (to).

Sentence – The mainstream left was beholden to its militants, union friends and class warriors.

Ineffable: too wonderful to be described.

Sentence – Why on my body often ineffable the erythema since its second?

Morose: miserable; bad tempered; not willing to talk.

Sentence – She shrugged and resumed her morose study of the green glass which stood in front of her.

Cleavage: a break caused by splitting.

Sentence – There is a marked cleavage between the parties about the government’s defence policy.

Compatible: able to exist together, live together or with another thing.

Sentence – Mildred and I are very compatible. She’s interested in the things that interest me.

Malleable: soft and easily made into different shapes.

Sentence – By turning clothing into white porcelain malleable forms are fossilised into permanent , yet fragile, objects.

Dynamics: the way in which people or things behave and react to each other in a particular situation.

Sentence – Research into group dynamics indicates that a group of high achievers, for example, do not perform as well as a mixed-ability group.

Ordeal: a difficult or painful experience.

Sentence – Mona remains unshaken by her ordeal and is matter-of-fact about her courage.

Straightjacket: something which prevents free development; also spelled as “straitjacket”.

Sentence – Diagnosis can also sometimes be used to straightjacket patients into ill-defined and ill-fitting categories that lend a scientific appearance of socially constructed biases.