| acumen |
superior insight; quickness and shrewdness of judgment, especially in practical matters. |
| affront |
something that is said or done on purpose to be rude or mean. |
| arduous |
entailing great difficulty, exertion, or endurance; laborious. |
| armistice |
an agreement by groups of people or countries at war to stop fighting; truce. |
| chasten |
to awaken conscience or bring about moral improvement through suffering, discipline, or punishment. |
| cynicism |
an attitude of doubt or mistrust toward human nature and the possibility of good or selfless motives. |
| distillation |
the process of heating a substance to produce a vapor, which is then cooled and condensed, in order to purify, concentrate, or extract components from the substance. |
| evanescent |
tending to disappear like vapor; vanishing; fleeting. |
| ingrain |
to impress (habits, ideas, values, or the like) deeply and firmly in one's nature or mind. |
| perpetrate |
to commit or carry out (a crime, act of mischief, or the like). |
| progenitor |
an ancestor or forebear. |
| remonstrance |
the act or an instance of protesting or objecting. |
| seclusion |
the act of isolating or hiding away, or the condition of being isolated in this way. |
| spurious |
not genuine, authentic, or valid; false. |
| sultry |
uncomfortably hot and humid. |