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to question or oppose
"I hesitated to demur with the professor, until he said something factually inaccurate, at which point I felt I had to speak up." |
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an outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot
"Receiving the Nobel Prize was a fitting denouement to his brilliant research." |
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to disparage or belittle
"You can deprecate his work all you want but it wont affect my opinion." |
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to plunder, pillage, ravage or destroy; to exploit in a predatory manner
"The pirates depredated every ship that came through the straits for two years." |
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scorn, ridicule, contemptuous treatment
"Her derision was all the more painful because I suspected that her review of my performance was accurate." |
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disuse
"After sitting abandoned for years, the house's desuetude came to an end when the couny bought it and turned it in to a teen center." |
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slandering, verbal attack, aspersion
"Apparently the mayor's campaign of detraction backfired since a record number of people voted for his opponent." |
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a tool used for shaping
"WHen coins are made by hand, a die is usually used to press the design on each coin." |
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a loud, sustained noise
"The din of the faculty muffler drowned out all other noises that would have confirmed the very poor odds of my car making it another five miles." |
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to defeat, put down; embarass
"The enemy's superior planning and resources discomfited us." |
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disintegration, looseness in morals
"The dissolution of the warlord's power left a power vacuum in its wake that many minor chieftains competed to fill." |
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distracted; absent-minded, especially due to anxiety
"WHen he kept forgetting what he was talking about during dinner, it became clear tha the was distrait, and was no doubt preoccupied with the meeting planned for the next day." |
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to disclose something secret
"She believed she had been fired because she had threatened to divulge information about the company's mismanagement." |
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trivial, poorly constructed verse
"For some reason, I could always remember the bit of doggerel I read on the bathroom wall..." |
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generator; forceful, energetic person
"Courtnery was truly the dynamo of the group; withotu her we'd probably still be sitting on the couch." |
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failure to act
"When Jack failed to make the payments on his Jaguar, the dealership took back the car because he had defaulted on his debt." |
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wordy; rambling; spread out
"If you pay authors by the word, you tempt them to produce diffuse manuscripts rather than brief ones." |
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basically different; unrelated
"Unfortunately Tony and Tina have disparate notions of marriage." |
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disguise; pretend
"Even though John tried to dissemble his motive for taking modern dance, we all knew the truth." |
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disintegration; looseness in morals
"The profligacy and dissolution of life in Caligua's Rome appal some historians." |
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