Vocabulary #3

Apostate: a person who renounces a religious or political belief or principle.
 -The herald was denouncing a statement from the church in which a new belief was set in place.
Effusive: expressing feelings of gratitude, pleasure, or approval in an unrestrained or heartfelt manner.
 -The dog owner brought upon an effusive attitude towards the man who found his puppy.
Impasse: a situation in which no progress is possible, esp. because of disagreement; a deadlock.
 -The current political impasse.
Euphoria: a feeling of great happiness or well-being.
 -She felt a sense of panic, as if she were being watched, but upon walking away felt a sudden euphoria.
Lugubrious: looking or sounding sad and dismal.
 -The lugubrious expression on my mothers face after she heard of the news that my uncle was in the hospital was immensely heart breaking.
Bravado: a bold manner or a show of boldness intended to impress or intimidate.
 -His bravado eventually led to his downfall.
Consensus: a general agreement.
 -We came up with a consensus on whether or not to eat the cake.
Dichotomy: a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different.
 -A rigid dichotomy between science and mysticism.
Constrict: make narrower, esp. by encircling pressure.
 -Snakes constrict their enemy by using its long body to defeat them.
Gothic: 1) of or relating to the Goths or their extinct East Germanic language, which provides the earliest manuscript evidence of any Germanic language (4th–6th centuries AD).
            2) of or in the style of architecture prevalent in western Europe in the 12th–16th centuries, characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, and flying buttresses, together with large windows and elaborate tracery.
 -The primary Gothic art mediums were sculpture, panel painting, and stained glass.
Punctilio:  fine or petty point of conduct or procedure.
 -No mission should be ever compromised by diplomatic punctilio.
Metamorphisis: A transformation
 -A caterpillar goes through metamorphisis which leads to the transformation into a butterfly.
Raconteur: a person who tells anecdotes in a skillful and amusing way.
 -The man was a great Raconteur, a great communicator.
Sine qua non: an essential condition; a thing that is absolutely necessary.
 -Grammar and usage are the sine qua non of language teaching and learning
Quixotic: exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical.
 -A vast and perhaps quixotic project
Vendetta: a blood feud in which the family of a murdered person seeks vengeance on the murderer or the murderer's family.
 -The man seeks vendetta to the person who killed his wife and child.
Non Sequitur: a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
 -Once again your making a non sequitur interjection.
Mystique: a fascinating aura of mystery, awe, and power surrounding someone or something.
 -The West is lately rethinking of its cowboy mystique.
Quagmire: a soft boggy area of land that gives way underfoot.
 -Torrential rain turned the building site into a quagmire.
Parlous: full of danger or uncertainty; precarious.
 -The parlous state of the economy.