Chapter 2 Word List

Here is an alphabetical list of the most important words you learned in

this chapter.

ADVOCATE (AD vuh kut) n a person who argues in favor of a

position
• Lulu believes in eliminating tariffs and import restrictions; she is
an advocate of free trade.

Advocate (AD vuh kayt) can also be a verb:

• The representative of the paint company advocated cleaning the
deck before painting it, but we were in a hurry so we painted
right over the dirt.

Advocacy (AD vuh kuh see) is support of or agreement with a position.

AMBIGUOUS (am BIG yoo us) adj unclear in meaning; confusing;

capable of being interpreted in different ways
• The poem we read in English class was ambiguous; no one had
any idea what the poet was trying to say.

The noun form is ambiguity (am bih GYOO uh tee).

AMBIVALENT (am BIV uh lunt) adj undecided; having opposing

feelings simultaneously
• Susan felt ambivalent about Alec as a boyfriend. Her frequent
desire to break up with him reflected this ambivalence.

BENEDICTION (ben uh DIK shun) n a blessing; an utterance of

good wishes

In certain church services, a benediction is a particular kind of

blessing.

In secular usage, the word has a more general meaning:

• Jack and Jill were married without their parents’ benediction; in
fact, their parents had no idea that Jack and Jill had married.

The opposite of benediction is malediction (mal uh DIK shun), which

means curse or slander:
• Despite the near-universal malediction of critics, the sequel to
Gone with the Wind became a huge bestseller.

BENEFACTOR (BEN uh fak tur) n one who provides help,

especially in the form of a gift or donation

A person who gives benefits is a benefactor. A person who receives

benefits is a beneficiary. These two words are often confused.
• If your next-door neighbor rewrites his life insurance policy so
that you will receive all his millions when he dies, then you
become the beneficiary of the policy. He is your benefactor.

A malefactor (MAL uh fak tur) is a person who does bad things.

BENEVOLENT (beh NEV uh lunt) adj generous; kind; doing good

deeds
• Giving money to the poor is a benevolent act. To be benevolent
is to bestow benefits. The United Way, like any charity, is a
benevolent organization.
• Malevolent (muh LEV uh lunt) means evil, or wishing to do
harm.

BENIGN (bih NYNE) adj gentle; not harmful; kind; mild

• The threat of revolution turned out to be benign; nothing much
came of it.
• Charlie was worried that he had cancer, but the lump on his leg
turned out to be benign.
BURGEON (BUR jun) v to expand; to flourish
• The burgeoning weeds in our yard soon overwhelmed the grass.

COMPLACENT (kum PLAY sunt) adj self-satisfied; overly pleased

with oneself; contented to a fault
• The complacent camper paid no attention to the poison ivy
around his campsite and ended up in the hospital.
• The football team won so many games that it became
complacent, leading them to be defeated by the worst team in
the league.
• To fall into complacency is to become comfortably uncaring
about the world around you.

Don’t confuse complacent with complaisant (kum PLAY zunt), which

means eager to please.

CONGREGATE (KAHN grih gayt) v to come together

• Protestors were granted permission to congregate peacefully on
the plaza.

The noun form is congregation, which often refers to the membership

of a house of worship.
• About half of the congregation attended the sunrise service.

DEXTROUS (DEX trus) adj skillful; adroit

Dextrous often, but not always, connotes physical ability. Like adroit, it
comes from the Latin word for right (as in the direction) because right-
handed people were once considered physically and mentally
superior.
• Ilya was determined not to sell the restaurant; even the most
dextrous negotiator could not sway him.

You may also see this word spelled dexterous. Dexterity is the noun
form.
ELUSIVE (ih LOO siv) adj hard to pin down; evasive

To be elusive is to elude, which means to avoid, evade, or escape.

• The answer to the problem was elusive; every time the
mathematician thought he was close, he discovered another
error. (One could also say that the answer to the problem
eluded the mathematician.)

ENCROACH (en KROHCH) v to make gradual or stealthy inroads

into; to trespass
• As the city grew, it encroached on the countryside surrounding
it.
• With an encroaching sense of dread, I slowly pushed open the
blood-spattered door.
• My neighbor encroached on my yard by building his new
stockade fence a few feet on my side of the property line.

EQUANIMITY (ek wuh NIM uh tee) n composure; calm

• The entire apartment building was crumbling, but Rachel faced
the disaster with equanimity. She ducked out of the way of a
falling beam and continued searching for an exit.
• John’s mother looked at the broken glass on the floor with
equanimity; at least he didn’t hurt himself when he knocked over
the vase.

EQUITABLE (EK wuh tuh bul) adj fair

• The pirates distributed the loot equitably among themselves, so
that each pirate received the same share as every other pirate.
• The divorce settlement was quite equitable. Sheila got the right
half of the house, and Tom got the left half.

Equity is fairness; inequity is unfairness. Iniquity and inequity both

mean unfair, but iniquity implies wickedness as well. By the way,
equity is also a finance term used to refer to how much something
(usually property or a business) is worth after subtracting what is owed
on it, i.e., home equity.

EQUIVOCAL (ih KWIV uh kul) adj ambiguous; intentionally

confusing; capable of being interpreted in more than one way

To be equivocal is to be intentionally ambiguous or unclear.

• Joe’s response was equivocal; we couldn’t tell whether he
meant yes or no, which is precisely what Joe wanted.
• Dr. Festen’s equivocal diagnosis made us think that he had no
idea what Mrs. Johnson had.

To be equivocal is to equivocate. To equivocate is to mislead by

saying confusing or ambiguous things:
• When we asked Harold whether that was his car that was
parked in the middle of the hardware store, he equivocated and
asked, “In which aisle?”

EVOKE (i VOHK) v to summon forth; to draw forth; to awaken; to

produce or suggest
• The car trip with our children evoked many memories of similar
car trips I had taken with my own parents when I was a child.
• Professor Herman tried repeatedly but was unable to evoke any
but the most meager response from his students.
• Paula’s Christmas photographs evoked both the magic and the
crassness of the holiday.

The act of evoking is called evocation (e voh KAY shun).

• A visit to the house in which one grew up often leads to the
evocation of old memories.

Something that evokes something else is said to be evocative (i VAHK

uh tiv).
• The old novel is highly evocative of its era; reading it makes you
 feel as though you have been transported a hundred years into
the past.

IMPEDE (im PEED) v to obstruct or interfere with; to delay

• The faster I try to pick up the house, the more the cat impedes
me; he sees me scurrying around and, thinking I want to play,
he runs up and winds himself around my ankles.
• The fact that the little boy is missing all his front teeth impedes
his ability to speak clearly.

Something that impedes is an impediment (im PED uh munt).

• Irene’s inability to learn foreign languages was a definite
impediment to her mastery of French literature.

INVOKE (in VOHK) v to entreat or pray for; to call on as in prayer;

to declare to be in effect
• Oops! I just spilled cake mix all over my mother’s new kitchen
carpet. I’d better go invoke her forgiveness.
• This drought has lasted for so long that I’m just about ready to
invoke the rain gods.
• The legislature passed a law restricting the size of the state’s
deficit, but it then neglected to invoke it when the deficit soared
above the limit.

The noun is invocation (in vuh KAY shun).

IRREVOCABLE (i REV uh kuh bul) adj irreversible

To revoke (ri VOHK) is to take back. Something irrevocable cannot be

taken back.
• My decision not to wear a Tarzan costume and ride on a float in
the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is irrevocable; there is
absolutely nothing you could do or say to make me change my
mind.
 • After his friend pointed out that the tattoo was spelled
incorrectly, Tom realized that his decision to get a tattoo was
irrevocable.

MALAISE (ma LAYZ) n a feeling of depression, uneasiness, or

queasiness
• Malaise descended on the calculus class when the teacher
announced a quiz.

MALFEASANCE (mal FEE zuns) n an illegal act, especially by a

public official
• President Ford officially pardoned former President Nixon before
the latter could be convicted of any malfeasance.

PLACATE (PLAY kayt) v to pacify; to appease; to soothe

• The tribe placated the angry volcano by tossing a few teenagers
into the raging crater.
• The beleaguered general tried to placate his fierce attacker by
sending him a pleasant flower arrangement. His implacable
enemy decided to attack anyway.

PLACEBO (pluh SEE boh) n a fake medication; a fake medication

used as a control in tests of the effectiveness of drugs
• Half the subjects in the experiment received the real drug; half
were given placebos. Of the subjects given placebos, 50
percent reported a definite improvement, 30 percent reported a
complete cure, and 20 percent said, “Oh, I bet you just gave us
a placebo.”
• Mrs. Walters is a total hypochondriac; her doctor prescribes
several placebos a week just to keep her from calling him so
often.

REDUNDANT (ri DUN dunt) adj unnecessarily repetitive; excessive;

excessively wordy
• Eric had already bought paper plates, so our purchase of paper
 plates was redundant.
• Shawn’s article was redundant—he kept saying the same thing
over and over again.

An act of being redundant is a redundancy.

• The title “Department of Redundancy Department” is redundant.

THWART (thwort) v to prevent from being accomplished; to

frustrate; to hinder
• I wanted to do some work today, but it seemed as though fate
thwarted me at every turn; first, someone on the phone tried to
sell me a magazine subscription, and then my printer broke
down, and then I discovered that my favorite movie was on TV.
• There’s no thwarting Yogi Bear once he gets it into his mind that
he wants a picnic basket; he will sleep until noon, but before it’s
dark, he’ll have every picnic basket that’s in Jellystone Park.

VOCIFEROUS (voh SIF ur us) adj loud; noisy; expressed in a

forceful or loud way
• Her opposition to the bill was vociferous; she used every
opportunity to condemn and protest against it.

VOLITION (voh LISH un) n will; conscious choice

• Insects, lacking volition, simply aren’t as interesting to the
aspiring anthropologist as humans are.
• The jury had to decide whether the killing had been an accident
or an act of volition.