| adulteration |
the act or process of making worse or impure by adding unnecessary or inferior ingredients. |
| askance |
with distrust or suspicion. |
| avow |
to assert or affirm. |
| baneful |
causing or leading to death, destruction, or ruin; harmful or deadly. |
| crass |
lacking in sensitivity or refinement; crude. |
| determinism |
the belief or teaching that every effect, including human thoughts and actions, is completely and predictably brought about by preceding causes and that, therefore, free will does not exist. |
| expound |
to discuss or explain in detail (usually followed by "on" or "upon"). |
| glean |
to gather or discover (facts, information, or the like) a little at a time. |
| gloaming |
late evening; dusk; twilight. |
| harbinger |
someone or something that signals or foreshadows a later arrival or occurrence; herald; forerunner. |
| intersperse |
to place or scatter among other things. |
| jeremiad |
a long complaint about life or one's situation; lamentation. |
| periphrasis |
an indirect or roundabout way of phrasing something; circumlocution. |
| pungency |
sharpness or bite in taste or smell. |
| recidivism |
chronic return to bad habits, especially criminal relapse. |