Page 255 - WEBSTER Essential vocabulary

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Essential Vocabulary
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aggrandize (uh GRAN dyz) vt. 1. to make greater, richer, more powerful; 2. to
make seem richer
• By certifying the landfill as a suitable building site, the county helped to
further aggrandize its owner.
• Although not earning a dollar from the transaction, its very happening
aggrandized Otto’s reputation.
[-d, aggrandizing] [Syn. enrich]
agronomy (uh GRAHN uh mee) n. management of farmland; the science of
producing crops
• For a farmer to get the most from his land, he needs to have some under-
standing of agronomy.
• Agronomy teaches that rotating crops allows the land to replenish its essen-
tial nutrients after they’ve been used.
allegory (AL ig AWR ee) n. a story in which people, things, and ideas have hid-
den meanings, often used as a way of teaching values
• Aesop’s fables are probably the best-known allegories in all literature.
• An allegory always has a message apart from its obvious one, which in
Aesop’s case is provided in the moral at the end.
[allegories pl.]
alleviate (uh LEEV ee AYT) vt. 1. to lighten; make less hard to bear; 2. to reduce
or lessen pain
• Lloyd took one of the boxes of books from Arlene to alleviate the load that
she was carrying.
• Tears often alleviate the burden of emotional stress.
[-d, alleviating] [Syn. reduce]
allocate (AL uh KAYT) vt. 1. to earmark or set aside for a specific purpose; 2. to
distribute; mete out
• The city allocated $200 million to improve mass-transit facilities.
• Having collected hundreds of donated winter coats, it was now up to the
lodge to allocate them among the less fortunate.
[-d, allocating] [Syn. allot]
alloy (uh LOY for vt., A loy for n.) vt. 1. to fuse two or more metals to form one
that possesses new properties; 2. to reduce the pureness of a rare metal by fusing it
with a less precious one —n. a metallic substance derived from the chemical fusion
of two or more metals
• Wrapping a strip of copper arround tin does not make an alloy; the tin and
copper must be smelted at high heat to form the new metal, bronze.
• Iron is alloyed with carbon and several other metals to produce steel.
• Fourteen-karat gold is produced by alloying 24-karat pure gold with other
metals.
[-ed, -ing]