| asperity |
harshness or roughness, especially of tone or manner. |
| austerity |
a tightened or stringent economy, as when there are high taxes, frozen wages, and shortages of consumer goods. |
| baleful |
threatening harm; full of malice; ominous. |
| cachet |
prestige. |
| cantankerous |
irritable, stubborn, and quarrelsome. |
| eidetic |
pertaining to or designating the ability to recall images in almost perfect detail. |
| gloaming |
late evening; dusk; twilight. |
| idyllic |
charmingly simple and natural, as a scene or experience; suggestive of peaceful countryside. |
| impinge |
to encroach. |
| minatory |
presenting a threat; menacing. |
| nostrum |
a favorite but unproven scheme or theory, offered as a remedy for social or political problems; panacea. |
| parvenu |
a person who has suddenly acquired wealth or status, without acquiring the tastes, manners, customs, or the like of his or her new station. |
| peroration |
the concluding part of a speech in which there is a summing up of the principal points. |
| reconnoiter |
to go through or over (an area) so as to gain information about it, as for military or engineering purposes. |
| uxorious |
excessively or foolishly devoted to one's wife, and often thereby submissive to her. |