Page 124 - WEBSTER Essential vocabulary

10_571656 ch06.qxd 11/10/04 12:35 PM Page 115
115
F: SAT Words
foolhardy (FOOL hahr dee) adj. rash; reckless; bold or daring in a foolish way
• Sid’s rushing into the burning building to rescue the cat was both heroic
and foolhardy.
• Sometimes foolhardy acts are rewarded by thankful people; most times
they’re rewarded by disaster.
foreboding (fawr BOH ding) n. a prescience or portent, especially of something
bad to come
• When Nan and Suzie stepped into the haunted house, they each had a
feeling of foreboding.
• Audrey’s foreboding caused her to exit the tunnel, just moments before it
collapsed.
forgery (FAWR joer ee) n. the act of imitating artworks, money, signatures, etc.
with the intent to deceive
• Elmyr de Hory sold hundreds of pieces of art forgery to the galleries and
museums of the world.
• His story was originally told in the book Fake, by Clifford Irving, who later
wrote the forgery of Howard Hughes’s autobiography.
• The Secret Service’s main task is to stop forgery of U.S. currency.
[forgeries pl.]
forlorn (fawr LAWRN) adj. 1. deserted or abandoned; 2. unhappy and lonely
• Being marooned on a desert island would tend to make one feel forlorn.
• Left standing at the altar, Harold heaved a forlorn sigh.
[-ly adv., -ness n.]
forsake (fawr SAYK) vt. 1. to give up; abandon (a habit, ideal, etc.); 2. to leave;
renounce
• Having decided to forsake his 1971 Chevy, Gerald left it by the side of the
road in Timbuktu.
• It behooves anyone who has started smoking cigarettes to forsake that prac-
tice forthwith.
• Janet vowed to forsake her life of crime and to become a doer of good
deeds.
[forsook, -n, forsaking]
fortitude (FAWR ti tood) n. the strength to withstand pain and misfortune
calmly and patiently
• Although the fire’s consumption of their home was a great loss to Malcom
and his family, they withstood it with fortitude.
• It is not easy to display fortitude in the face of tragedy, but by definition,
that’s the only way one can do it.
[Syn. grit, courage]