| acclivity |
a rising slope. |
| affidavit |
a written statement that is sworn in the presence of an authorized official to be true, used as legal evidence. |
| canny |
difficult to fool or take advantage of; shrewd; wary; clever. |
| dearth |
a shortage or scarcity of something; lack. |
| determinism |
the belief or teaching that every effect, including human thoughts and actions, is completely and predictably brought about by preceding causes and that, therefore, free will does not exist. |
| discomfit |
to upset or confuse. |
| disingenuous |
not candid or sincere. |
| espouse |
to take up, hold, or commit oneself to (a cause, idea, or belief); embrace. |
| inflection |
change that occurs in the form of words to show a grammatical characteristic such as the tense of a verb, the number of a noun, or the degree of an adjective or adverb. |
| innocuous |
not capable of causing damage; harmless. |
| inquest |
a legal investigation, usually involving a jury, especially a coroner's investigation of a suspicious death. |
| intelligentsia |
the elite class of highly learned people within a society, or those who consider themselves part of such a class. |
| penury |
severe poverty; pennilessness. |
| pneumatic |
of, using, or concerning air or other gases. |
| symbiosis |
a close association, usually a mutually beneficial relationship, between two dissimilar organisms. |