Vocabulary

Dear Readers,

Vocabulary is an important part of English that helps you deal with all kinds of questions in objective as well as descriptive papers of various exams. You can learn new words daily from our Daily Word List. Learn the words and make your own sentences on the basis of the given word list. Here are a few lines from The Hindu.

Example: Showing no appetite for a bilateral rapprochement, the two acrimonious neighbours have limited their interactions to firing across the borders in Jammu and Kashmir and calling each other names in global forums.

1. Rapprochement [rap-rohsh-mahn; French ra-prawsh-mahn] 

• Noun: an establishment or reestablishment of harmonious relations.
• Synonyms: detente, détente, friendship, harmonization, harmony, reconciliation, agreement, cordiality, friendliness, reunion, softening, reconcilement.
• Antonyms: aloofness, disagreement, trouble, upset.

2. Acrimonious [ak-ruh-moh-nee-uh s] 

• Adjective: caustic, stinging, or bitter in nature, speech, behavior, etc.
• Synonyms: belligerent, bitter, caustic, petulant, rancorous, testy, acerbic, acid, angry, astringent, biting, censorious, churlish, crabby, cranky, cross, cutting, indignant, irascible, irate, ireful, mad, mordant, peevish, sarcastic, sharp, spiteful, splenetic.
• Antonyms: happy, helping, kind, mild.

Example: The regional security situation remains embattled, thanks to confused American policies in South Asia, continuing turmoil in Afghanistan, heightening India-China rivalry, and the India-Pakistan hostility.

3. Embattled [em-bat-ld] 

• Adjective: disposed or prepared for battle; engaged in or beset by conflict or struggle.
• Synonyms: beset, crenelated, fighting, fortified, prepared.

Example: One, the India-Pakistan escalation ladder has become far more precarious today it has ever been in the past one and a half decades, i.e. since the ceasefire was agreed to in 2003.

4. Precarious [pri-kair-ee-uh s] 

• Adjective: dependent on circumstances beyond one's control; uncertain; unstable; insecure; dependent on the will or pleasure of another; liable to be withdrawn or lost at the will of another; arbitrary administration; exposed to or involving danger; dangerous; perilous; risky.
• Synonyms: dangerous, delicate, dicey, hazardous, insecure, perilous, problematic, risky, rocky, shaky, slippery, ticklish, touchy, uncertain, unhealthy, unreliable, unsettled, unstable, unsteady, ambiguous, borderline.
• Antonyms: certain, definite, guarded, happy.

Example: While stealthy surgical strikes may not, strictly speaking, qualify as conventional escalation, they certainly reduce the psychological distance between sub-conventional violence and conventional escalation in the classical sense.

5. Stealthy [stel-thee] 

• Adjective: done, characterized, or acting by stealth(secret, clandestine, or surreptitious procedure); furtive.
• Synonyms: clandestine, covert, furtive, hush-hush, unauthorized, fraudulent, hidden, hole-and-corner, on the QT, on the sly, private, skulking, slinking, sly, sneaking, stealthy, sub-rosa, under wraps, under-the-table.
• Antonyms: aboveboard, forthright, honest, open.

Example: The perils of preventive strikes, in other words, are unpredictable.

6. Peril [per-uh l] 

• Noun: exposure to injury, loss, or destruction; grave risk; jeopardy; danger; something that causes or may cause injury, loss, or destruction.
• Verb: to expose to danger; imperil; risk.
• Synonyms: hazard, insecurity, jeopardy, menace, pitfall, uncertainty, vulnerability, endangerment, exposure, liability, openness, cause for alarm, double trouble, risky business.
• Antonyms: certainty, protection, safety, safeness, security.

Example: Put differently, preventive strikes in hyper-nationalist bilateral settings could defy our expectations and go out of control, with disastrous implications.

7. Defy [verb dih-fahy; noun dih-fahy, dee-fahy] 

• Verb: to challenge the power of; resist boldly or openly; to offer effective resistance to; to challenge (a person) to do something deemed impossible; to challenge to a combat or contest.
• Noun: a challenge; a defiance.
• Synonyms: confront, disregard, elude, flout, ignore, mock, oppose, provoke, resist, ridicule, spurn, thwart, violate, withstand, baffle, beard, brave, contemn, dare, defeat, deride, despise, face, foil.
• Antonyms: aid, assist, flatter, help.

Example: Second, and more importantly, Pakistan’s responses thereafter of supporting insurgency in Kashmir, aiding infiltration across the border, and allegedly supporting attacks on the Indian army convoys and bases continued without much reaction from New Delhi.

8. Insurgency [in-sur-juh n-see] 

• Noun: the state or condition of being insurgent; insurrection against an existing government, usually one's own, by a group not recognized as having the status of a belligerent; rebellion within a group, as by members against leaders.
• Synonyms: dissent, insurrection, mutiny, revolt, revolution, uprising, apostasy, defiance, disobedience, heresy, insubordination, insurgence, nonconformity, rising, schism, sedition.
• Antonyms: calm, obedience, peace, orthodoxy.

9. Convoy [verb kon-voi, kuh n-voi; noun kon-voi] 

• Verb: to accompany or escort, usually for protection.
• Noun: the act of convoying; the protection provided by an escort; a ship, fleet, group of vehicles, etc., accompanied by a protecting escort; an armed force, warship, etc., that escorts, especially for protection; any group of military vehicles traveling together under the same orders.
• Synonyms: attendance, attendant, companion, protection.

Example: With two hostile neighbours on either side, terror attacks against India on the rise, and the South Asian neighbourhood unsure of India’s leadership any more, New Delhi has a lot to be concerned about the continuation of its pivotal position in the region and the nature of its future engagement with it.

10. Hostile [hos-tl or, esp. British, -tahyl] 

• Adjective: of, relating to, or characteristic of an enemy; opposed in feeling, action, or character; antagonistic; characterized by antagonism; not friendly, warm, or generous; not hospitable.
• Noun: a person or thing that is antagonistic or unfriendly; Military. an enemy soldier, plane, ship, etc.
• Synonyms: adverse, belligerent, bitter, contentious, contrary, hateful, inhospitable, inimical, nasty, opposed, unfavorable, unfriendly, unsympathetic, alien, anti, catty, chill, cold, militant, opposite, sour, allergic, argumentative, bellicose, competitive.
• Antonyms: agreeable, aiding, favorable, friendly.