| adamantine |
firmly decided or fixed; unyielding. |
| alfresco |
in the open air; outdoors. |
| belie |
to give a false impression of. |
| doggerel |
trivial, crudely constructed verse. |
| erratic |
not expected or predicted; not regular. |
| figurehead |
a person whose title sounds important but who has no real power. |
| flout |
to show scorn or contempt for, especially by openly or deliberately disobeying. |
| gird |
to surround, bind, or encircle, as with a belt. |
| hackneyed |
made trite or commonplace by overuse, as an expression or phrase. |
| impute |
to ascribe or attribute to a source or cause. |
| kibbutz |
an Israeli farming settlement whose ownership is shared by those who live and work there. |
| maverick |
a person who thinks and behaves independently, especially one who refuses to adhere to the orthodoxy of the group to which he or she belongs. |
| obscurantism |
a deliberate lack of clarity or directness of expression, as in certain styles of art or literature. |
| prolix |
wordy and boringly long. |
| recidivism |
chronic return to bad habits, especially criminal relapse. |