Vocabulary Set – 19

1. Ravage – cause severe and extensive damage to.

Synonyms: devastate, pillage, plunder, raze,  dismantle, prostrate

Antonyms: preserve, surrender, construct

Usage: If diabetes is not controlled, it can ravage many organs in the human body.

 

2. Gull – to deceive, trick, or cheat.

Synonyms: bamboozle, deceive, defraud, dupe, gyp, hoodwink

Antonyms: honest

Usage: Trusting investors can easily be gulled by scams designed to relieve them of their savings.

 

3. Elusive – difficult to find, catch, or achieve.

Synonyms: ambiguous, fleeting, illusory, incomprehensible, subtle

Antonyms: definite, honest, intelligible, stable

Usage: The police are finding it difficult to catch the elusive bank robber.

 

4. Prosaic – commonplace or dull; matter-of-fact or unimaginative

Synonyms: banal, humdrum, mundane, diddly, monotonous

Antonyms: exciting, unusual, creative, imaginative

Usage: As a whole, prosaic writers tend to write very dull stories which most people never remember.

 

5. Freewheel – act or proceed in a relaxed or casual way, without making much effort.

Synonyms: cruise, drift, sail, skate, float, slide

Antonyms: struggle, combat, endeavor

Usage: He is not the sort of person who would freewheel his way to the end of a contract.

 

6. Meddle – interfere in something that is not one’s concern.

Synonyms: hinder, impede, infringe, tamper, encroach, interpose

Antonyms: facilitate, dodge, yield, forward

Usage: The government should never meddle with religious affairs.

 

7. Shackle – to restrain in action, thought, etc., as by restrictions; restrict the freedom of.

Synonyms: handcuff, manacle, trammel

Antonyms: free, unbind, unfasten

Usage: My lack of funds is the shackle that prevents me from travelling.

 

8. Frenetic – fast and energetic in a rather wild and uncontrolled way.

Synonyms: frantic, furious, obsessive, corybantic, delirious, demented

Antonyms: calm, peaceful, balanced

Usage: Yesterday the sales floor was even more frenetic than usual because of the big clearance sale.

 

9. Obstreperous – noisy and difficult to control.

Synonyms: blusterous, boisterous, booming, clamorous, disorderly

Antonyms: obedient, salubrious, amenable, tractable

Usage: The teenagers became obstreperous when their school team lost the football game.

 

10. Stupendous – extremely impressive.

Synonyms: astonishing, breathtaking, colossal, dynamite, enormous

Antonyms: terrible, unimportant, unimpressive

Usage: The store did not expect a stupendous crowd of customers to line up around the building.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *