| Decoy: To lure |
| Lavish lifestyle, glittering jewels were all a mere decoy to make her accept the assignment. |
| Deficiency: Lack or insufficiency |
| Deficiency of Vitamin D leads to weak bones. |
| Fraudulent: Deceitful |
| Such fraudulent dealings may get you some money, but will make you lose a lot of sleep. |
| Plight: Sad situation |
| You can just imagine his plight: No family, no friends, no home and no money. |
| Proximity: Nearness, closeness |
| It is difficult to understand why the police could not hear his screams despite the fact that the police post and his house are in physical proximity of each other. |
| Quarrelsome: inclined or ready to quarrel |
| You can’t call someone quarrelsome just because they give reasons to support themselves |
| Rehabilitate: To restore |
| The army takes upon itself the task of rehabilitating its retired soldiers so that they continue to be useful, productive citizens for the country and themselves also. |
| Terminal: Final |
| A terminal test, unlike a house test, is quite important because the marks you obtain in it count a lot. |
| Vocation: Career |
| The parents wanted their son to become an engineer, but the son was more inclined towards taking up the vocation of a doctor. |
| Brevity: Conciseness |
| Since the time available to you for making the speech is short, you will have to exercise brevity. |
| Compendium: Brief, comprehensive summary |
| The compendium of results, published by the agency, gave us fair indication of the detailed results to be expected in future. |
| Elusive: Hard to catch |
| The ever-elusive officer was hard to track; whenever I went to him, he was either busy with some meeting, or was having lunch or was out of station. |
| Gait: Pace |
| Sidha's beautiful gait during the catwalk on the stage was made even more so by the slight pauses she took in between. |
| Kismet: Fate |
| “All this is kismet, my dear son. And you can do hardly anything to erase what God has written for you,” the old man advised the restless young man. |
| Opulent: Rich |
| Such opulent lifestyle of a professedly simple and poor person is beyond explanation. |
| Pseudonym: An assumed name |
| To hide his real identity, Samuel Clemens adopted the pseudonym of Mark Twain, the name which appears in all his works. |
| Rue: To regret |
| He always rued the fact that due to family circumstances, he could not complete his education. |
| Sparse: Meager |
| As you move up the atmosphere, the oxygen available becomes increasingly sparse until you reach a point where it becomes practically impossible to breathe. |
| Toilsome: Laborious |
| Do not hate toilsome labor, or farm work, which were created by the God |
| Transient: Temporary |
| The current economic slowdown, the expert noted, was a transient phenomenon and was not bound to last forever. |
| Woeful: Pitiful |
| There is a woeful shortage of electricity supply against demand, which is zooming every day. |
| Crescendo: Increase in loudness |
| The song starts on low notes, slowly increases in intensity until it reaches a crescendo, at which point all the singers sing at the top of their voices. |
| Deadbeat: A lazy person |
| Such swiftness of action cannot be expected of a deadbeat like him. |
| Dissonance: Discord, opposite of harmony |
| The dissonance between Tarun’s and his wife Sandhya’s opinions over how to raise the kids often led to serious fight. |
| Enfeeble: To debilitate |
| India came out of the war not enfeebled, but strengthened. |
| Jettison: Throw away |
| The captain of the sinking boat decided to jettison some less desirable cargo to deal with the overload. |
| Nestle: To press close to |
| She nestled her head on her father’s shoulder and started weeping. |
| Nettle: To irritate, annoy, or provoke. |
| Her loud singing of television commercials soon began to nettle him. |
| Obstinate: Stubborn |
| Roni is such an obstinate girl that once she takes a particular stand, it is well nigh impossible to make her budge even an inch from it. |
| Pejorative: Derogatory |
| The defence minister's remark “such clothes are bound to invite lascivious eyes" was interpreted as pejorative to women by the women's organizations, who protested it strongly. |
| Proclivity: Natural tendency |
| Zulfi has a natural proclivity towards painting right from childhood given that the atmosphere at home revolved only and only around paintings. |
| Prognosticate: Predict |
| On the basis of these dismal financial results, even a layman can prognosticate the disaster this company is going to land up in. |
| Proscribe: To condemn or forbid as harmful and unlawful, prohibit |
| Himachal Pradesh has proscribed the use of polythene bags altogether to preserve environment. |
| Subsistence: Means of support |
| Though many people do business for a living in this region, most of them derive subsistence from agriculture |
| Swelter: Oppressively hot |
| By God! 15 cups of coffee a day and that too in such sweltering heat! |
| Trenchant: Vigorously effective and articulate, sharply perceptive, keen |
| His trenchant writing style, full of invectives and incisive remarks, never spared anyone. |
| Vagabond: A bum |
| Hounded out of his own country, Rousseau led the life of a vagabond, wandering here and there, in search of a place to live. |
| Venerate: Revere |
| Those venerating a particular God must remember that the other Gods, even if from other religions, are equally respectable. |
| Waft: Blow gently |
| One could smell the wafts of cookies let out by the soot rising from the chimneys. |
| Wistful: Longing |
| The widow's wistful remembrance of her shared past with her husband brought copious tears to her eyes. |
