| academicism |
in the arts, rigid adherence to accepted and traditional forms. |
| aleatory |
pertaining to or depending on luck, chance, or contingency. |
| canard |
a deliberately false story or rumor, usually defamatory to someone. |
| dawdle |
to waste time; be slow. |
| demotic |
of or relating to the common people; popular. |
| dissimulate |
to hide one's true feelings, intentions, or the like by pretense or hypocrisy. |
| duress |
intimidation or coercion. |
| harbinger |
someone or something that signals or foreshadows a later arrival or occurrence; herald; forerunner. |
| heinous |
extremely wicked or despicable; atrocious. |
| panegyric |
a formal speech or piece of writing devoted to publicly praising a person or thing. |
| pastiche |
a work of visual art, music, or literature that consists mostly of materials and techniques borrowed from other works, sometimes done as an exercise to learn the technique of others. |
| picayune |
having little value or significance; small; paltry. |
| pneumatic |
of, using, or concerning air or other gases. |
| pusillanimous |
shamefully timid; cowardly. |
| trabeated |
using horizontal beams or lintels as supports instead of arches. |