10 • Lesson 15 Word List

(v) To hate or loathe intensely.
Many who abominated slavery worked unremittingly for its cessation.

abominable (adj) 1. Detestable, loathsome.
Because of his abominable behavior, he had few friends.

2. Disagreeable and unpleasant.
She held her nose so that she couldn?t smell the abominable odor coming from the dump.

(v) To shorten in duration or extent; to diminish.
The publishers plan to abridge the 950-page novel to a more manageable 650 pages.

abridged (adj)
The abridged edition of To Kill a Mockingbird is easier to read, but I like the original better.

(n) Intense ill will.
His animosity was clear from the baleful looks he gave them.

(adj) Favorable, promising.
The speaker felt he was off to an auspicious beginning when the audience laughed at his opening anecdote.

(v) 1. To besiege; to surround with an army.
The small group of rebels was beleaguered by the well-trained army.

2. To surround with troubles; to harass.
The actress was beleaguered by the freezing theater, the small audience, and her costar?s cold.

(n) (spelled confidante when female) A person to whom secrets are told.
Not even the governor?s closest confidants knew whether he would run for reelection.

(n) 1. One of the parts that make up a whole.
Oxygen and nitrogen are the main constituents of the air we breathe.

2. A voter represented by a particular official.
The mayor of Santa Cruz met with her constituents after her election to office.

(adj) Unjust; wicked.
The iniquitous practice of making young children work long hours has been banned in some countries but is still in effect in others.

(v) To adjust to and accept unpleasant or undesirable conditions.
People living on Blakeslee Street soon became inured to the smells from the nearby paper mill.

(v) (used with against) To complain or protest strongly.
The newspaper?s education columnist inveighed against the school?s decision to institute an additional testing program.

(n) A person or thing that has held a position or office before another.
President Bill Clinton?s predecessor was George H. W. Bush.

(n) Acts that intentionally damage, hinder, or seek to discredit.
Hiding the notes for my final report wasn?t a practical joke, it was sabotage.

(v) To engage in intentionally damaging acts.
Members of the French underground regularly attempted to sabotage trains bound for Nazi concentration camps.

(adj) Taking pleasure in causing pain.
Marcos thought his teacher must be really sadistic to smile while assigning the class this much homework.

(adj) Harshly critical.
The author was devastated by the scathing reviews of her book; her previous book had been a best seller.

(v) 1. To become apparent; to come to light.
It transpired that the two senators knew about the planned invasion all along.

2. To happen or occur.
The meeting that Miguel and Xing had planned never transpired.