A

Ad nauseum - to the point of sickness

Amoral - seemingly having no moral standards

Antipathy - feeling totally opposed to something

Audacity - great daring

Austere - stand-offish

B

Badinage - chat

Banal (banality) - dull, boring

Belligerent - quick to get into a fight

Berate - to tell someone off for a long time

Bohemian - out of the ordinary

C

Charisma - having an attractive personality

Coerce - persuade by force

Coquette - flirt

Credulous - believing

Camaraderie - a spirit of friendship esp. in a team

D

Deranged - totally mad

Deferential - exceptionally polite and submissive

Derisision (derisive) - scorn

Diffident - shy

Duplicity (duplicitous) - deliberate deceit

E

Ebullient - exceedingly cheerful

Effrontery - cheek

Elucidate - clarify

Enigma - a mystery

Euphemism - to soften a blow

F

Facade - pretend facial expression

Fastidious - really fussy

Flamboyant - over the top

Flout - blatently disregard

Fortuitous - just at the right time

G

Gauche - socially awkward

Genial - pleasant

Gesticulate - to use your hands while talking

Gratuitous - unnecessary with a negative tone

Gregarious - sociable

H

hackneyed - a cliché

harangue - to go on and on

heinous - exceptionally evil

Herculean - very big

hyperbole - deliberate exaggeration

I

Idiosyncracy - a strange personal habit

Immaterial - irrelevant

Impropriety - something that is improper

Incorrigible - impossible to correct

Invective - abusive language

J

Jaded - exhausted

Jingoism - extreme patriotism

Jocular - cheerful

Judicious - wise, sensible

Juncure - a point in time

K

Kaput - broken

Kismet - fate

Kitsch - cheap, showy

Kosher - food permitted by Judaism

Kudos - glory, prestige

L

Laborious - a boring task requiring a lot of effort

Languid - totally lacking in energy

Licentious - undisciplined behaviour

Litotes - deliberate understatement

Lugubrious - gloomy

M

Malleable - material that is easily bent into shapes

Maverick - someone who does their own thing

Miscreant - a bad person

Misogyny - hatred of women

Mollify - to appease somebody

N

Nefarious - wicked

Niggard - a miser

Nonpareil - not equal to

Narcissism - thinking you're beautiful

Nonchalant - laid back

O

Obdurate - hard hearted stubborness

Obsequious - very humble

Obstreperous - noisy, boisterous

Onerous - demanding

Ostensible - apparent

P

Panache - style, flair

Pariah - a social outcast

Premise - a statement set out and then debated

Prolific - a thing with a high rate of production

Puerile - childish, infantile

Q

Qualm - a reluctance to do something

Quash - to stop something

Quasi (+ hyphen) - sort of

Querulous - quick to question

Quip - a witty saying

R

Rebuff - to reject something

Refractory - deliberately stubborn

Rejoinder - a reply

Reprobrate - a delinquent

Resilient - determined

S

Sagacity - wisdom

Scathing - viciously scornful

Sensuous - relating to the senses

Solicitous - concerned about someone

Stoic - able to cope no matter what

T

Tawdry - tacky

Tenacious - firm

Tenuous - weak, fragile

Thwart - to stop

Truculent - aggressively stubborn

U

Umbrage - offence

Unbridled - unrestricted

Upbraid - to scold

Urbane - sophisticated

Uxorious - too dependent on one's wife

V

vacillate - to waver

verbose - something containing too many words

vitriolic - very bitter

volition - someones will, want

vulnerable - easily wounded, easily hurt

W

Wheedle - to persuade by flattery

Whim - sudden irrational idea

Winsome - charming

Wrangle - to dispute, argue

Wry - sarcastic humour

X

Xenephobia - fear of foreigners

 

 

 

 

Y

Yarmulke - a Jewish man's skullcap

 

 

 

 

Z

Zeal - a fervent devotion

Zenith - peak, pinnacle

Zest - enthusiasm, flavour