| banal |
lacking originality or liveliness; disappointingly ordinary; commonplace; trite. |
| beatify |
to admire or exalt as superior. |
| centripetal |
forced or moving inward toward a center point or axis. |
| decedent |
in law, one who has died. |
| fealty |
faithfulness or loyalty. |
| figurehead |
a person whose title sounds important but who has no real power. |
| imbricate |
overlapping in an even sequence, as roof tiles or fish scales. |
| kismet |
destiny, fortune, or fate. |
| macrocosm |
a large unit or entity that represents on a large scale one of its smaller components. |
| obscurantism |
a deliberate lack of clarity or directness of expression, as in certain styles of art or literature. |
| preferment |
the act of promoting or being promoted to a higher position or office. |
| raffish |
carelessly unconventional or disreputable, sometimes appealingly so. |
| 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. |
| tort |
in law, any civil rather than criminal harm or injury that violates the implicit duty of each citizen not to harm others, and for which one may bring a civil suit and collect compensation. |
| transpose |
to exchange the position or order of (two things). |