Art of the personal essay vocabulary
pummel - ANSWER: To beat or strike repeatedly, especially with the fist or hand.
hawking - ANSWER: To carry about from place to place and offer for sale; to cry in the
street.
nThe word can also mean an effort to clear one's throat of phlegm with great noise or
the phlegm that is coughed up in the process.
n"Then think of the various cries of the man selling drinks, and the one selling sausages
and the other selling pastries, and all the ones hawking for the catering shops, each
publicizing his wares with a distinctive cry of his own."
ferment - ANSWER: nAgitation or excitement; tumult. yeast or leaven, which agitates
the mixture into fermentation.
piqued - ANSWER: Offended, irritated, excited.
lit - ANSWER: Lighted; illuminated; dyed with coloring; slang for being "drunk."
exploit - ANSWER: To utilize for one's own end; to treat selfishly as mere workable
material; accomplish; achieve; execute; perform; to fight; to achieve the expulsion of; to
apply or exert oneself;
castigate - ANSWER: To chastise, correct, inflict corrective punishment; has come to
insinuate severe punishment or rebuke.
caprice - ANSWER: A sudden change of mind without apparent or adequate motive; a
whim; a mere fancy.
impious - ANSWER: Without piety or reverence towards God; presumptuously
irreligious, wicked, or profane.
prognostic - ANSWER: Foreshadows; gives ominous warning; preindication; token;
omen.
blitheness - ANSWER: State of joy; joyous; cheerfulness; merriness; happiness.
paramour - ANSWER: A person beloved by one of the opposite sex; a love, a
sweetheart; the lady-love of a knight, thus the one for whom he did battle; object of
chivalrous admiration and attachment; an illicit or clandestine lover, who takes the place
of a husband or wife, but without any rights of such a relationship.
, tumoltuous - ANSWER: Marked by confusion and uproar; disorderly and noisy; violent;
clamorous; turbulent.
lasciviousness - ANSWER: Inciting lust; wantonness; in a lighter sense, voluptuousness
or luxurious.
railing - ANSWER: To utter abusive language; act of abuse; to rally against.
sequestrated - ANSWER: Separated; cut off from congenial surroundings; eliminated.
fop - ANSWER: A foolish and conceited person; a pretender to wit, wisdom or
accomplishments; one who is foolishly attentive to appearance, dress or, manners.
ostentation - ANSWER: A display intended to attract notice or admiration; vulgar;
exaggerated exhibition; a spectacle; a mere or false show; a pretense.
penury - ANSWER: Being destitute; void of the necessities of life; want; poverty.
raillery - ANSWER: Good-humor ridicule; bantering.
imbibed - ANSWER: To take up; absorb; assimilate; saturate.
speculation - ANSWER: Faculty or power of seeing; sight; intelligent or comprehending
vision; to examine or to observe with understanding; contemplation, consideration or
profound study of some object.
mercurial - ANSWER: When pertaining to a person: lively, volatile, restlessness; liable
to sudden and unpredictable changes; quick-witted, imaginative.
fortune - ANSWER: The chance or luck (good or bad) that falls to anyone as his
particular lot in life or in any particular affair; a hap, accident; an event or incident
befalling anyone; an adventure.
perturbations - ANSWER: Disturbance; disorder; commotion; mental agitation or
disquietude; trouble.
recrimination - ANSWER: To bring a charge against one's accuser; to make a counter
accusation; to return or retort against or upon a person.
obstinacy - ANSWER: Quality of being stubborn, inflexible, persistent.
fantastical - ANSWER: Irrational; baseless; fabulous, imaginary, unreal; perversely or
irrationally imagined.
puling - ANSWER: Crying like a child; whining; feebly wailing; pining; ailing; weakly;
sickly.
pummel - ANSWER: To beat or strike repeatedly, especially with the fist or hand.
hawking - ANSWER: To carry about from place to place and offer for sale; to cry in the
street.
nThe word can also mean an effort to clear one's throat of phlegm with great noise or
the phlegm that is coughed up in the process.
n"Then think of the various cries of the man selling drinks, and the one selling sausages
and the other selling pastries, and all the ones hawking for the catering shops, each
publicizing his wares with a distinctive cry of his own."
ferment - ANSWER: nAgitation or excitement; tumult. yeast or leaven, which agitates
the mixture into fermentation.
piqued - ANSWER: Offended, irritated, excited.
lit - ANSWER: Lighted; illuminated; dyed with coloring; slang for being "drunk."
exploit - ANSWER: To utilize for one's own end; to treat selfishly as mere workable
material; accomplish; achieve; execute; perform; to fight; to achieve the expulsion of; to
apply or exert oneself;
castigate - ANSWER: To chastise, correct, inflict corrective punishment; has come to
insinuate severe punishment or rebuke.
caprice - ANSWER: A sudden change of mind without apparent or adequate motive; a
whim; a mere fancy.
impious - ANSWER: Without piety or reverence towards God; presumptuously
irreligious, wicked, or profane.
prognostic - ANSWER: Foreshadows; gives ominous warning; preindication; token;
omen.
blitheness - ANSWER: State of joy; joyous; cheerfulness; merriness; happiness.
paramour - ANSWER: A person beloved by one of the opposite sex; a love, a
sweetheart; the lady-love of a knight, thus the one for whom he did battle; object of
chivalrous admiration and attachment; an illicit or clandestine lover, who takes the place
of a husband or wife, but without any rights of such a relationship.
, tumoltuous - ANSWER: Marked by confusion and uproar; disorderly and noisy; violent;
clamorous; turbulent.
lasciviousness - ANSWER: Inciting lust; wantonness; in a lighter sense, voluptuousness
or luxurious.
railing - ANSWER: To utter abusive language; act of abuse; to rally against.
sequestrated - ANSWER: Separated; cut off from congenial surroundings; eliminated.
fop - ANSWER: A foolish and conceited person; a pretender to wit, wisdom or
accomplishments; one who is foolishly attentive to appearance, dress or, manners.
ostentation - ANSWER: A display intended to attract notice or admiration; vulgar;
exaggerated exhibition; a spectacle; a mere or false show; a pretense.
penury - ANSWER: Being destitute; void of the necessities of life; want; poverty.
raillery - ANSWER: Good-humor ridicule; bantering.
imbibed - ANSWER: To take up; absorb; assimilate; saturate.
speculation - ANSWER: Faculty or power of seeing; sight; intelligent or comprehending
vision; to examine or to observe with understanding; contemplation, consideration or
profound study of some object.
mercurial - ANSWER: When pertaining to a person: lively, volatile, restlessness; liable
to sudden and unpredictable changes; quick-witted, imaginative.
fortune - ANSWER: The chance or luck (good or bad) that falls to anyone as his
particular lot in life or in any particular affair; a hap, accident; an event or incident
befalling anyone; an adventure.
perturbations - ANSWER: Disturbance; disorder; commotion; mental agitation or
disquietude; trouble.
recrimination - ANSWER: To bring a charge against one's accuser; to make a counter
accusation; to return or retort against or upon a person.
obstinacy - ANSWER: Quality of being stubborn, inflexible, persistent.
fantastical - ANSWER: Irrational; baseless; fabulous, imaginary, unreal; perversely or
irrationally imagined.
puling - ANSWER: Crying like a child; whining; feebly wailing; pining; ailing; weakly;
sickly.
