Advanced Vocabulary Lists and Exercises

Advanced Vocabulary List 6 (beta version)

apathy: Lack of interest or concern.
There is widespread apathy among the school staff.
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dismal: Gloomy; drepressing; dreary.
When the weather is gloomy, I have a hard time getting motivated to do anything.
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dismay: To cause the sudden loss of courage; to cause the feeling of consternation and distress.
We were dismayed by the president's policy reversal.
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emulation: The imitation or copying of someone.
As though in emulation of Binnen, she ate heartily and said not a single word (so far as Dame Beatrice was aware) to anyone. - Death of a Delft Blue
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endeavor: To try very hard to achieve something.
We hoped that the president would endeavor to help the people.
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frugal: Thrifty; economical
He wished to be more simple, frugal, and austere than the Americans themselves. - Memoirs Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette
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impair: The mild character of the good Theresa seemed so fitted to my own, that I united myself to her with an attachment which neither time nor injuries have been able to impair, and which has constantly been increased by everything by which it might have been expected to be diminished. - The Confessions of J J Rousseau
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mercenary: A professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army.
The war was fought mostly by mercenaries.
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naive: Lacking experience.
I think the idea that it creates a psychological effect may be somewhat naive, the idea that somehow people are more open to looking at the narrative around their trauma because of the sort of subjective effects of the drug, that, to me, is kind of naive because it's so biologically powerful. - CNN Transcript Feb 26, 2004
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stringent: Mary has been on a stringent diet for months.
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