| abstruse |
difficult to comprehend or understand; esoteric; arcane. |
| argot |
the vocabulary or jargon characteristic of a specific group or class, especially of criminals. |
| assail |
to attack with vigor or violence; assault. |
| austerity |
a tightened or stringent economy, as when there are high taxes, frozen wages, and shortages of consumer goods. |
| baneful |
causing or leading to death, destruction, or ruin; harmful or deadly. |
| doyen |
the senior or highest-ranking male member of a group. |
| exegesis |
a critical explanation or interpretive analysis, especially of religious texts. |
| harbinger |
someone or something that signals or foreshadows a later arrival or occurrence; herald; forerunner. |
| imprecation |
a curse, uttered or thought of. |
| innocuous |
not capable of causing damage; harmless. |
| invidious |
tending to arouse feelings of resentment or animosity, especially because of a slight; offensive or discriminatory. |
| maladroit |
not skillful; clumsy; tactless. |
| peroration |
the concluding part of a speech in which there is a summing up of the principal points. |
| recidivism |
chronic return to bad habits, especially criminal relapse. |
| relict |
a plant, animal, or geological feature that has survived in a considerably changed environment. |