| alimony |
money that a court orders one member of a divorced couple to pay to the other. |
| brevity |
shortness of duration. |
| caprice |
a sudden, impulsive change of mind or direction, or an unpredictable action. |
| compatriot |
a fellow citizen. |
| habitable |
capable of being lived in. |
| juxtapose |
to bring together for the purpose of side-by-side comparison or contrast. |
| pessimism |
the belief that events will turn out badly; tendency to expect the worst. |
| petulance |
the state or quality of being easily or unreasonably irritated, impatient, or ill tempered. |
| possessive |
having a strong desire to own and keep things. |
| proscribe |
to make illegal or prohibit. |
| pundit |
an authoritative, or purportedly authoritative, commentator or critic. |
| referent |
anything in the real world or in the imagination that is symbolized or referred to by a word or other symbol. |
| refract |
to bend (rays or waves of light, heat, sound, or the like) in passing (them) obliquely from one medium into another which transmits them at a different speed. |
| retinue |
a group of attendants or other employees who accompany a prominent person. |
| synthesis |
the combining of discrete elements into a unified compound or entity, or the unified whole formed by such a combining. |