Vocabulary Building

1. Brusque (adj.) abrupt in manner; blunt
1. [brʌsk]
2. The tall man brusquely swept into the marriage ceremony and announced his love for the bride.
1. The man made a brusque pass at the end of the first date, which deterred the woman from returning his phone calls.
2. Obviate (v.) to eliminate with effective measures
1. [ɒbviet]
2. The groomsmen tackled the tall man and covered his mouth with duct tape, obviating the possibility of another outburst.  
3. The medicine obviated any future need for a doctor.
3. Picayune (adj.) of little value or small account; petty; trivial; small-minded; diminutive 
1. [pɪkiyun]
2. Although to most of the celebrants at the wedding, the tall man's outburst seemed driven by a picayune sentiment to ruin an otherwise beautiful ceremony, the bride thought it to be a colossal gesture of love.   
3. The picayune settlement in the divorce was incompatible with the collosal emotional damage each partner inflicted upon the other.  
4. A picayune idea is an idea with no implications or consequences.
4. Rustic (adj.) having the appearance of rough, unkempt texture
1. [rʌstɪk]
2. The wedding itself was held in a rustic church 50 miles outside of the city.
5. Bucolic (ad.) of or pertaining to shepherds or pastoral life; suggesting an idyllic rural life
1. [byukɒlɪk]
2. The groom had chosen the bucolic destination in hopes that the bride's former lover, having never left the city, would stay away from the ceremony.
6. Parsimony (n.) extreme or excessive frugality or economy; stingy 
1. The parsimonious parents of the groom were unwilling to pitch in even a penny for the matrimony.  
7. Detritus (n.) any dis-integrated material; small rock broken away from glacial or mountain through the act of water erosion; rubble 
1. The tall man believed the bride was capable of reassembling his heart's detritus.
2. The groom's heart was crushed to detritus.  
8. Apex (n.) the top, point or summit; zenith; the highest point
1. Bored with the plateau of formality, an old man laughed hysterically when the emotional upheaval reached an apex.  
9. Probity (n.) integrity and upright honesty; rectitude; rightness in principles or conduct; moral virtue 
1. The priest was prone to examine the character of the tall man to determine his probity before proceeding with the vows of the couple; a legitimate usurping of ritual deserved to be heard," he thought.
1. I rarely use abstract nouns in sentences.  
1. For instance, I have a difficult time writing sentences with nouns that aren't people.  
2. Probity is rarely upheld by the power hungry.  
10. Chicanery (n.) trickery by quibbling or sophistry; double-dealing; skullduggery 
1. It was possible that the bride averred her acceptance of the proposal based on the groom's chicanery and not her sincere love.  
2. It was also possible that the bride had been engaged in chicanery herself, stringing along the tall man with sweet sayings, while indulging in a lustrous affair with her groom.
3. The possibilities were endless, and the priest knew that to assess the level of chicanery going on in the relationships now on display, he would need to interrogate each one individually.  
11. Inchoate (adj.) not yet completed or fully developed; not organized; embryonic; immature; nascent 
1. With an inchoate plan, the priest brusquely stopped the wedding and requested a meeting with the tall man.  
12. Paltry (adj.) insultingly small; picayune 
1. The bridge-groom couple suddenly felt paltry in their own ceremony; both had realized that the ritual was much larger than their desire for attention.
13. Lucid (adj) readily understood; shining; pellucid; comprehension; limpid 
1. The actions of the priest were lucidly perceived by the laughing old man who delighted in the specatcle, and knew that that the priest needed to assess the meaning of the outburst.  
14. Avaricious (adj.) pathological greediness accompanied by miserliness; rapacious; greedy; covetous; selfishness
1. Avariciously demanding that the crowds attention be repaid in full to their daughter, the bride's parents stood up from their pew and began to shout at the priest.
2. Seizing an opportunity, an avaricious boy surreptitiously left the ceremony to steal from the church's coffer.  
1. "Avarice", a painting by the German artist Albrecht Dürer, depicts a grotesque old woman with a sagging exposed breast clutching a bag of coins.  Apparently, Dürer wanted to warn his viewers of the dangers of avariciousness.  
15. Mien (n.) air, bearing or demeanor showing character; countenance; display 
1. The calm mien of the tall man as he explained his story to the priest was interrupted by brusque knock at the office door.  
1. The stolid mien of employees gave the impression that they disliked the dull work. 
16. Ambrosial (adj.) especially pleasing to taste or smell; worthy of the gods
1. The ambrosial bride stepped into the office.  
17. Unctuous (adj.) excessively pious with pretense
1. Begging pardon for her intrusion and imploring the priest to return to the ceremony, the unctuous mien of the bridge gave pause to the priest who knew from experience that she was hiding something far more obsequious.    
1. This word actually went through some changes in history.  At one point, it indicated the "act of anointing", I suppose in ritual that transformed the laity into the priestly caste, but it came to have pejorative sense, most likely by teasing people that they were acting "holier than thou".  "Don't be so unctuous.  We might describe Ted Cruz's actions, insofar as he is feigning care for the American people and is instead simply interested in his own power moves, as unctuous.  
18. Obsequious (adj.) showing or characterized by servile compliance; obedient or dutiful
1. The priest questioned the relationship of the bridge-groom in front of the tall man; and the tall man admitted to believing that the acceptance of the bride was borne from her obsequious need to please everyone.  
1. The word comes from the L. ob meaning "after" and the L. sequi meaning "to follow".  So, we can infer the meaning of obsequious to be "to follow after", but since it's an adjective formed from a noun by adding -ous, we can infer that it means something like "being like something that follows after".  In that sense, we can say that someone that is obsequious is also someone who is a follower.  That's about as far as I want to go with that...
19. Obdurate (adj.) unmoved by feeling, persuasion, pity or tender feelings; bullheaded; adamant; inexorable
1. Believing in free-spirited decisions, the obdurate priest demanded that the bride explain her love of the groom for the tall man.
2. The suffix -ate turns an adjective into a noun.  But, obdurate is not a noun.  So, what gives?  Well, it's not going to help me to sit here and research why it is the case that certain words are not being formed via strict derivational rules according to the linguists.  I can say that obdurate is related to endure.  They both have that middle part "dur", which comes from the Latin durare, which means "harden".  Now, I wish Latin was easily than just saying, oh, above you said "ob" means something like "after" in Latin, but it's not that simple.  "Ob" means several things, including ""toward, against, across, down," also... "toward, to, over against, in the way of, by reason of, about, before, in front of"....so it's not quite that easy.  It never is.  Shit.  That's a crappy attitude.  But, if we can just remember that obdurate has that part in the middle that mans "harden", than depending on the context of the sentence, I should be able to remember it.  
3. The obdurate pain would not leave the poor man's heart.  
20. Reprobate (n.) depraved or wicked person; person rejected by god and beyond hope of absolution  
1. In tears, the bride explained to the priest that the groom was in fact a reprobate; he had used his chicanery to prey on her parsimonious parents and her obsequious nature; the bucolic appearance of their relationship was due solely to her ambrosial and unctuous mien.  
21.  Impetus (n.) a moving force or cause; impulse; stimulant 
1. The teary-eyed explanation was the impetus for a reunion of the tall man and the bride.  The priest was pleased with his own probity; he had stood on a moral apex as he watched the young couple escape from the church window.  How exactly he would obviate the people from the crowded church without a stir was no paltry sentence.