Honors List C

overweening adj.	presumptuously arrogant; overbearing; excessive; immoderate -- Sure he had good grades, but it was fairly overweening of him to presume he'd be valedictiorian when he was still just a sophomore.
liquidate v. / liquidation n.	1. clear away, resolve; pay (a debt); 2. put an end to or get rid of, esp by violent means; wipe out 3. convert to liquid (monetary) assets -- Hitler's goal was to liquidate Jews off the face of the earth. -- Having heard the bookstore went bankrupt, we were not surprised to see the signs for its liquidation sale.
festoon v.&n.	to decorate, adorn; a decorative chain or strip hanging between two points – These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims. – Within days of the 9/11 attack, it seemed as if every public space in the country was festooned with red, white, and blue.
dragoon n.& v.	1. a mounted infantryman in the household troops of the British army; a rough, fierce man; 2.set dragoons upon; force, drive, persecute or oppress by rigorous or harassing measures -- We were appalled to see the football dads behaving like dragoons and embarrassing their town. -- All too often, elementary school bullies can be seen dragooning their classmates into cruel pranks that they would not likely have undertaken on their own.
fricative adj.& n.	consonant characterized by frictional passage of expired breath through a narrowing at some point in the vocal tract. – Many of the most satisfying Anglo-Saxon profanities capitalize on the pleasure of expelling harsh fricatives.
sibilant adj. / sibilance n.	having or making a hissing sound -- Parseltongue is the sibilant language understood by both Voldemort and Harry Potter. -- I find the jury is out on the sibilant opening of Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 30, "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought": I know some readers who find it charming, and others who find it cloying.
louche adj.	of questionable or lax taste or morality -- In Victorian London, even in a place as louche and notoriously crime-ridden as a Lambeth Marsh, the sound of gunshots was rare indeed. – I had no problem wearing spandex pants to church but my shocked grandmother called my taste in clothes louche.
gauche adj.	lacking in tact or ease of manner, awkward, blundering; crude, unsophisticated -- What Donald Trump considers opulence many regard as merely gauche.
prolix adj./ prolixity n.	prosy; verbose; tiresomely wordy -- The toddler's prolixity wears her parents out: she names everything she sees.
terse adj. / terseness n.	characterized by brevity that conveys arrogance; succint, to the point -- The teacher's terse remarks shut the students up immediately.
fatuous adj.	(of a person, personal action, feeling, etc) vacantly silly, purposeless, idiotic -- "Barney" has got to be the most fatuous kids' TV show ever produced.
ordure n.	filth, dirt, excrement, dung; moral defilement, corruption, obscene language or action -- She gagged when she read Potter's line describing "the glistening sewers with their floating lumps of ordure."
offal n.	1. the edible parts cut off as less valuable in dressing the carcass of an animal meant for food, esp. the entrails and internal organs; 2. the parts of a slaughtered or dead animal unfit for human consumption; decomposing flesh; carrion. – Offal has long been a stable of the English diet, but Americans relegate it mostly to pet food. – As James Joyce describes the physical conditions of life in Dublin, he loves to play on the punning associations of “offal” with “awful,” as well as “ordure” with “order.”
onus n.	a duty, a responsibility; burden of proof -- When students miss class, the onus falls on them, not their teachers, to keep track of their missed work.
humor n.	mental disposition, temperament, mood -- Once they saw the D's on my report card, my parents were in no humor to let me go out with my friends on the weekend.
vitriol n./ vitriolic adj.	acrimonious, caustic, or scathing speech, criticism, or feeling -- The moment Gladys dropped her loathed mother-in-law off at the airport, she unleashed all her pent-up vitriol at her unsuspecting husband, who could not escape out of the speeding car.
splenetic adj.	1. of or pertaining to the spleen; 2. characterized by or tending to cause melancholia; 3. irritable, peevish, ill-tempered, testy. – When caught cheating, his fury was splenetic, but we were glad to see his title go to the salutatorian, who actually deserved the honor.
lachrymose adj.	tearful, inclined to weep. – I loathe the manipulative, lachrymose soundtracks of most cheesy chick-flicks.
puling adj. / pule v.	unrestrained crying or whimpering or simpering, as of a fretful or whining child -- No trip to the toy section of Target would be complete without the sound of puling children ringing in one's ears.
mercurial adj.	demonstrating personal qualities supposed to be associated with being born under the planet Mercury, including liveliness, ready-wit, volatility, rapid changeability -- Nomatter when their birthdays are, teenagers are notoriously mercurial, shifting moods all the time.
sanguine adj.	1. of or pertaining to blood; 2. having a temperament characterized by the predominance of blood over the other three bodily humors; 3. confident, optimistic, eager -- Despite his friends' confidence that he would win the election, the modest boy did not feel sanguine about his chances.
phlegmatic adj.	hard to rouse to action, sluggish; full of phlegm
torrid adj.	1. scorched, burned, intensely hot; 2. ardent, zealous, fiercely passionate. – I can’t wait to read trashy, torrid novels at the beach this summer.
turgid adj.	1. swollen, distended; 2. (of language) inflated, bombastic. – Lame, turgid speeches are a staple of graduation ceremonies.
torpid adj./ torpor n.	inactive, apathetic, slow, sluggish, dull – So are torpid audiences desperate for the pain to end.