| collateral |
property or other security put forward to guarantee repayment of a loan. |
| conversant |
familiar; acquainted; practiced (usually followed by "with" or "in"). |
| epicure |
a person who has cultivated tastes, as in food or wine; connoisseur. |
| harbinger |
someone or something that signals or foreshadows a later arrival or occurrence; herald; forerunner. |
| louche |
of questionable decency, morality, or taste; shady; disreputable. |
| mahatma |
(sometimes capitalized) in Buddhism and theosophy, any of a class of persons revered for their wisdom and love of humanity. |
| malingerer |
one who pretends to be ill or injured, especially in order to avoid work or duty. |
| oblique |
not direct or straightforward in intent, means, or achievement; indirect or devious. |
| ontogeny |
the process of biological growth and development of a particular living organism. |
| profligate |
totally given over to immoral and shameful pursuits; dissolute. |
| pungent |
sharp and strong in taste or smell. |
| reprise |
repetition of a musical phrase or theme in an identical or slightly altered way. |
| sere1 |
dried up or withered. |
| solipsism |
the self-centered habit of interpreting and judging all things exclusively according to one's own concepts of meaning and value. |
| triage |
a system of determining priority of medical treatment, on the basis of need, chances of survival, and the like, to victims on a battlefield or in a hospital emergency ward. |