大概半年前开始，我follow了一个X上的账号Elite Prep，学到了不少我觉得对我英文水平有很大提升的单词——都是非常常用、非常好的单词。
每当我看到一个我觉得很“好”的单词，我会将它记录下来（单词、词性、例句）。今天一看，居然也有了97个了——也就是说，我的英文词汇量又得到了97次加固。
这97个单词中，有42个形容词、31个名词、23个动词和1个副词。
今天我介绍20个形容词。下面列出的是：单词、释义和例句——例句都非常经典，建议背下来。
- amiable
- friendly and agreeable; sociable
- Vince’s amiable attitude impressed the visitors he talked to, who had expected New Yorkers to be surly and uncommunicative.
- austere
- stern or severe in appearance; without luxury
- Despite his newly achieved wealth, Henry still practices the same austere lifestyle he developed when he was a poor, struggling writer.
- beleaguered
- harassed; besieged
- For five months in the fall and winter of 1942, the beleaguered city of Stalingrad held out against a ferocious German onset, a battle that cost the lives of over 1.5 million soldiers.
- capricious
- erratic; tending to change abruptly
- People ordinarily agonize for months over the purchase of a new house; it’s seldom a capricious decision.
- captious
- tending to notice and point out trivial mistakes or faults; intended to trap or confuse
- Veronica had a great knowledge of grammar, but she was so captious that people disliked talking to her since she was forever pointing out even the slightest grammatical error they made.
- choleric
- easily angered; bad tempered
- Two sleepless nights left Jill choleric and inclined to savage anyone she met.
- contingent
- dependent on conditions or circumstances; conditional; possible
- A continuation of Noma’s scholarship next year is contingent upon her maintaining at least a B average in her courses.
- cursory
- superficially done; performed rapidly
- I have not checked your work thoroughly yet, but a cursory glance tells me you have the right idea.
- derelict
- deserted, abandoned (of a building); neglectful of a duty (of a person)
- The many empty, derelict buildings near the water front attest to the decline that part of town has undergone in the last decade.
- desultory
- lacking a plan or purpose; unmethodical
- Jan planned his garden in a desultory manner, planting a shrub here and some flowers there and leaving areas in the middle unplanted until he was inspired.
- disingenuous
- not straightforward or candid; crafty; insincere or calculating
- The candidate was being disingenuous when he expressed outrage and labeled his opponent as a “tool of big business” since the candidate himself had taken millions from the tobacco and banking industries.
- ephemeral
- lasting for a short time; fleeting
- True love is eternal and not based on something ephemeral as good looks.
- ersatz
- artificial; not genuine; fake
- He thought the ersatz engagement ring would fool his fiancée, forgetting that her father was a professional jeweler.
- erstwhile
- former; of an earlier time
- After his retirement, Mr. Kim occasinally visited his erstwhile colleagues to see how they were doing in his absence.
- extant
- currently or actually existing
- Remaining artifacts from the region are beautiful, making it all the more regrettable that so few are extant.
- fetid
- having a bad odor
- Never one to engage in housekeeping, Ted became nonetheless alarmed when his refrigerator began to give off the fetid aroma of forgotten leftovers.
- forthright
- direct and without evasion; honest
- After several hours of evasive responses, the interrogators appreciated when the suspect began speaking in a forthright manner about his involvement in the crime.
- glib
- easy and fluent in conversation or writing, often suggesting insincerity or deceitfulness
- The skilled liar didn’t set off a single alarm on the polygraph as he offered his glib explanation for his whereabouts.
- holistic
- dealing with something as a whole rather than by its individual parts
- The judges decided which contestants would go on to the second round based on their holistic impression rather than on a detailed analysis.
- impeccable
- flawless
- I thought my essay was impeccable, but the teacher did find several areas where I could improve it.
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我喜欢看“英文单词”的“英文释义”，而不是看“中文释义”。中文释义往往会丢失一些单词原来的subtlety。
比如：glib这个单词，剑桥的解释是：“花言巧語的，油嘴滑舌的;（說話）不誠懇的，未經思考的”。而这里的解释是：“easy and fluent in conversation or writing, often suggesting insincerity or deceitfulness”。首先强调的是此人说话时反应很快、回答也很快，然后强调了此人往往带有不真诚、欺骗的嫌疑。中文的释义可以帮助我们理解，但可能还是不能完整地将其中的subtlety传达出来。
再看例句，一些细微的差别才能被体会到。
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有兴趣学习更多英文单词的，可以关注我的订阅号，并发送WOTD获得一个随机的单词。
