SAT Vocabulary for Juniors Lesson Twelve

#1 Halcyon: adj. calm; pleasant syn: tranquil; unruffled / ant: troubled; tumultuous The balloon drifted in the halcyon and cloudless sky. “Anne spent a fortnight of halcyon days at Echo Lodge in the golden prime of August.” -Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of the Island

#2 Fastidious: adj. hard to please; fussy syn: meticulous; exacting / ant: casual; lax The fastidious writer rarely met her deadlines, but the magazine was still willing to purchase her superior articles. “A fastidious person in the throes of love is a rich source of mirth.” -Martha Duffy

#3 Badinage: n. playful, teasing talk syn: chaff; joshing Their superficial relationship was comprised mainly of badinage and frivolous day trips. “Anne, as she listened to the ceaseless badinage that went on between him and Phil, wondered if she had only imagined that look in his eyes when she had told him she could never care for him.” -Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of the Island

#4 Malapropism: n. a word humorously misused Listen for malapropisms, which are word confusions, and you’ll be rewarded with a laugh or two. "He was a man of great statue.“ "Listen to the blabbing brook.“ "Cardial - as in cardial arrest."

#5 Garner: v. to gather; to acquire syn: harvest After attending several conventions, the comic book collector had garnered a complete set of his favorite series. “Garner up pleasant thoughts in your mind, for pleasant thoughts make pleasant lives.” -John Wilkins

#6 Kismet: n. destiny; fate; fortune (one’s lot in life) Aaron refused to believe that his low-paying delivery job was his kismet in life. “You can't plan the kind of deep love that results in children. Fatherhood was not a conscious decision. It was part of the wonderful ride I was on. It was destiny; kismet. All the math finally worked.” -Unknown

#7 Hegira: n. flight; escape The road extended to the horizon for the hegira of refugees leaving the bombed-out city. “Yet, palpitating and real, shimmering in the sun- flashed dust of ten thousand hoofs, she saw pass, from East to West, across a continent, the great hegira of the land-hungry Anglo- Saxon.” -Jack London, The Valle of the Moon

#8 Paradigm: n. a model; an example Diane’s thoughtful and accurate biography of Einstein became the paradigm for subsequent studies. “Your paradigm is so intrinsic to your mental process that you are hardly aware of its existence, until you try to communicate with someone with a different paradigm.” -Donella Meadows

#9 Debauchery: n. corruption; self-indulgence syn: excess; dissipation Local residents blamed the casino for the drugs, prostitution, and general debauchery surrounding it. “True debauchery is liberating because it creates no obligations. In it you possess only yourself; hence it remains the favorite pastime of the great lovers of their own person” -Albert Camus

#10 Milieu: n. environment; setting Unlike the other professors, Dr. Rowley never felt at ease in the academic milieu in which he worked. “I don't know that the arts have a milieu here, any of them; they're more like a very thinly settled outskirt.” -Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

#11 Regress: v. to move backward The decadent society steadily regressed into anarchy. “People on the righteous path always progress, while people who are ignorant always falter and regress.” -Rig Veda

#12 Bilious: adj. bad tempered; cross syn: grouchy; cantankerous / ant: pleasant The bilious fool erringly blamed and chastised people for mistakes that others made. “’He is a nervous, bilious subject,’ said Larrey, ‘and will not recover.’” -Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

#13 Necromancy: n. magic, especially that practiced by a witch syn: black magic; conjuring After asserting her mastery of necromancy, the old woman attempted to communicate with the spirits of the dead. “There is a dread, unhallowed necromancy of evil, that turns things sweetest and holiest to phantoms of horror and affright.” -Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

#14 Gumption: n. courage and initiative; common sense syn: enterprise; aggressiveness; drive Some called it gumption, others called it true grit, but whatever the settlers’ motivation, they endured hardships unimaginable to reach their destinations. “It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.” -Jessamyn West

#15 Blandishment: n. flattery syn: overpraise; bootlicking The scam artist’s blandishments lowered the victim’s defenses enough to get her to donate money to the bogus charity. “When the blandishments of life are gone, the coward creeps to death - the brave lives on.” -Marcus Aurelius