noun a partial excuse to mitigate censure; an attempt to represent an offense as less serious than it appears by showing mitigating circumstances
portent
noun a sign of something about to happen
pretentious
adj. making claim to or creating an appearance of importance or distinction; intended to attract notice and impress others
retentive
adj. having the power, capacity, or quality of retaining water; good at remembering; having the capacity to retain something
retinue
noun the group following and attending to some important person
sustenance
noun the act of sustaining life by food or providing a means of subsistence; a source of materials to nourish the body
tenable
adj. based on sound reasoning or evidence
tenacious
adj. sticking together; good at remembering; stubbornly unyielding
tenuous
adj. having thin consistency; having little substance or significance
tenure
noun the right to hold property; the term during which some position is held; verb give life-time employment to
adduce
verb advance evidence for
confound
verb mistake one thing for another; be confusing or perplexing to; cause to be unable to think clearly
construe
verb make sense of; assign a meaning to
conundrum
noun a difficult problem
cryptic
adj. having a puzzling terseness; of an obscure nature; having a secret or hidden meaning
equivocate
verb be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information
paradox
noun (logic) a statement that contradicts itself
patent
adj. affording free passage; clearly revealed to the mind or the senses or judgment; noun a document granting an inventor sole rights to an invention; verb make open to sight or notice; obtain a patent for; grant rights to; grant a patent for
perspicacity
noun the capacity to assess situations or circumstances shrewdly and to draw sound conclusions; intelligence manifested by being astute
rudimentary
adj. being in the earliest stages of development; not fully developed in mature animals; being or involving basic facts or principles
commodious
adj. large and roomy
finite
adj. bounded or limited in magnitude or spatial or temporal extent
gamut
noun a complete extent or range; the entire scale of musical notes
incalcuable
adj. not capable of being computed or enumerated
iota
noun the 9th letter of the Greek alphabet; a tiny or scarcely detectable amount
lofty
adj. of imposing height; especially standing out above others; of high moral value
magnitude
noun the property of relative size or extent (whether large or small); relative importance; a number assigned to the ratio of two quantities
miniscule
adj. very small
picayune
adj. (informal) small and of little importance
vestige
noun an indication that something has been present