Advanced Vocabulary Lists and Exercises

Advanced Vocabulary List 7 (beta version)

adverse: Unfavorable; harmful.
For the adverse is abomination to the LORD: but his secret is with the righteous. - Conservapedia - Recent changes [en]
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advocate: A person who publicly supports something or someone.
When your main advocate is a governor who has vetoed every healthcare expansion and insurance regulation bill put before him, while accepting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the healthcare industry, you might have a credibility gap. - Rose Ann DeMoro: Ten Lessons for the Candidates from the California Healthcare Fiasco
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destiny: The fixed order of things; invincible necessity; fate; a resistless power or agency conceived of as determining the future, whether in general or of an individual.
Has not Carlyle somewhere said that a belief in destiny is the bias of all earnest minds? - Fragments of science, V. 1-2
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diminish: To make smaller in any manner; to reduce in bulk or amount; to lessen; -- opposed to augment or increase.
Some big known knowns and known unknowns about the American war in Iraq -- to borrow Donald Rumsfeld's terms -- are generally accepted: Violence in the country last summer began to diminish from the earlier level of carnage thanks in part to a surge of U.S. troops and shifting alliances among some of the warring factions, but doubts persist about how lasting those changes are. - A Bleak Iraqi Backdrop
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donor: One who gives or bestows; one who confers anything gratuitously; a benefactor. Inverse of recipient.
Sister Catherine recently learned that her main donor is being forced to scale back the assistance it provides. - The Economist: Correspondent's diary
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exempt: Cut off; set apart.
But people working on the transaction have run into a problem: At issue is whether the AIG subsidiary, American Life Insurance Co., or Alico, will remain exempt from a crucial 2004 IRS ruling. - Tax Question Stalls AIG, MetLife Deal
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query: A question in the mind; a doubt.
The police officer queried the drivers involved in the accident.
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patron: A customer
Some of the patrons complained to the waiter about the quality of the food.
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savor: That property of a thing which affects the organs of taste or smell; taste and odor; flavor; relish; scent.
Homer savored every bite of the chocolate donut.
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vocation: Employment; occupation; avocation; calling; business; trade
I treasure the opportunity and echo Frederick Buechner's sentiment: "Your vocation is the place where your deep gladness meets the world's great hunger." - Sheila Shayon: Social Networking as Spiritual School
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