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When does a tory delay things?
When he's dilatory.
When does a tory have no definite plan?
When he's desultory.

Here, finally is the no-sweat way to a larger vocabulary. Through matching games, fill-in-the-blank games, scrambled-word games, and more, you are introduced to 600 well-used but often misunderstood words taken directly from the popular press and found on all vocabulary skills exams. By meeting and reusing each word at least four times in the book's word games, its meaning is painlessly reinforced and retested. At the end of the book, a dictionary-style index of all the vocabulary words provides pronunciations and definitions.

What the reviewers said:

"The Vocabulary Builder could be a valuable supplement for students who are above average in vocabulary knowledge."
—James D. Riley, Journal of Reading

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An excerpt from The Vocabulary Builder:

DOUBLE TROUBLE

Here are definitions for 85 words, every one of which includes double letters, ss, ll, ee, dd, etc. They are all located horizontally in order of definition in the jumble of letters below—but beware, for there are nonsense letters between many words. And to make it a bit tougher, some of the defined words overlap.

1. a long hostile feud
2. changing boundaries to put a suburb within city limits
3. not showing a clear-cut attitude on a particular subject
4. pretend to know something
5. to produce without restraint
6. producing a strong effect
7. vulgarly flashy
8. the money lacking to meet a predetermined goal
9. an animal track
10. to avenge or repair a wrong
11. beside the point
12. pleasurable excitement
13. unattractive
14. to plan well
15. irregular or not easy to predict
16. helping to substantiate
17. fictional story that demonstrates a factual point
18. to pick and choose from a group
19. a happy escapade
20. slip fluidly through a small opening
21. not in good humor
22. to continually annoy
23. a noisy quarrel over nothing of great importance
24. effectiveness of, for instance, a sedative
25. an American technical expert in London's U.S. Embassy
26. it came from Mars, so it's called     
27. make a bad condition somewhat better
28. unless you want to quibble, this is          how it is
29. chatter
30. since we disapprove of your policy, we'll         your next meeting
31. illegally passing a boundary line
32. to arouse sharp feelings of annoyance
33. much more than enough
34. having real-world knowhow
35. flitting along in the breeze
36. big, unpleasant, crude
37. give in
38. in a mood to start trouble
39. a Brownie point given by an admirer
40. search until you find something that's been concealed
41. to pass off a counterfeit as the real thing (2 words)
42. not successful at all
43. try to wreck
44. not likely to be offensive
45. wander away from the rest
46. holding down or back
47. to decide a value for taxation
48. when someone uses the wrong fork
49. someone who disagrees with an established philosophy
50. to talk somebody out of doing something
51. taking charge of somebody else's life whether they like it or not
52. the ability to just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk
53. decision to be cordial with one another
54. a sense of being of immediate importance
55. said of a person who's bad and likely to stay that way
56. when something is going to happen any day now
57. something that doesn't have the desired effect is _____
58. an implied or subtle slur on somebody's character
59. an all-out attack
60. unrealistically optimistic about everything
61. to drain of all emotional and intellectual energies
62. had as a condition since birth
63. to zig and zag out of control
64. what it is when you grab something before others can get it
65. publicity exaggeration
66. thinking about other things
67. this person held the job just before you
68. enough to see or measure
69. satisfy him so he'll keep quiet
70. hostile
71. informal kind of talk
72. a quick and big growth
73. almost without exception
74. a lack of responsibility
75. 1000 years
76. sticking one's nose in where not wanted
77. got no respect
78. senile or foolish
79. ask questions formally and systematically
80. perfect, or mighty close to it
81. not capable of being broken up
82. praise from an official
83. get rid of entirely
84. recognized as having come from someone in particular
85. tell the difference between two things