| abstruse |
difficult to comprehend or understand; esoteric; arcane. |
| appurtenance |
(plural) equipment or instruments used for a given purpose; gear. |
| belie |
to give a false impression of. |
| bilge |
the rounded part of a ship's hull between the bottom and the sides. |
| epicure |
a person who has cultivated tastes, as in food or wine; connoisseur. |
| espouse |
to take up, hold, or commit oneself to (a cause, idea, or belief); embrace. |
| imbricate |
overlapping in an even sequence, as roof tiles or fish scales. |
| kismet |
destiny, fortune, or fate. |
| 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. |
| mélange |
a mixture, usually of very dissimilar elements. |
| nonfeasance |
in law, failure to perform a required duty, as by a public official. |
| oligarchy |
a government or state in which only a relatively few people or members of a family have real power. |
| raffish |
carelessly unconventional or disreputable, sometimes appealingly so. |
| recidivism |
chronic return to bad habits, especially criminal relapse. |
| topography |
the shape of the earth's surface across an area or region. The topography of an area includes the size and location of hills and dips in the land. |