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Rare & Beautiful Words — Set 2: Practice flashcards

6 of 15 questions free to study here · 6 topics · the whole deck is built into Willys

Fifteen sentence-completion questions on the Set 2 words: four choices from the pack, one blank, and why the most tempting wrong answer fails.

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Practice deck · part of Rare & Beautiful Words · written against: 200 uncommon words with their own Merriam-Webster entries, chosen for sound and precision. Updated 2026-10-10.

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  1. Old sailors took a hazy ______ around the sun as a warning that rain would probably arrive within a day or so.

    A) moonbow
    B) curlicue
    C) tendril
    D) aureole
    D) aureole

    A glowing ring of light around the sun in haze is an aureole. Moonbow is tempting, but a moonbow is the moon's version of a rainbow, and this ring circles the sun.
    Light & Color
  2. Late in September, the dry cornstalks ______ in the evening wind, a soft, mournful sigh that carried to the farmhouse.

    A) soughed
    B) caterwauled
    C) thrummed
    D) burbled
    A) soughed

    To sough is to sigh or moan softly, as wind does through leaves or stalks, so the cornstalks soughed. Caterwauled tempts because the sound is mournful, but a caterwaul is a long, screeching yowl, not a soft sigh.
    Sound & Speech
  3. The ______ umpire tossed three players in one inning, then barked spiteful insults at every fan who dared to boo his calls.

    A) orotund
    B) splenetic
    C) woebegone
    D) impish
    B) splenetic

    Given to spiteful, bad-tempered outbursts is splenetic. Orotund is tempting because the umpire is loud, but orotund means a full, booming voice or pompous speech, not spite.
    Mood & Feeling
  4. At the flea market, a smooth-talking ______ in a sequined vest drew a crowd with card tricks, then sold raffle tickets for a car that didn't exist.

    A) popinjay
    B) mountebank
    C) gadabout
    D) sybarite
    B) mountebank

    A showy swindler whose tricks and big talk draw a crowd is a mountebank. Popinjay is tempting because of the sequins, but a popinjay is a vain show-off, not a cheat selling tickets for a prize that isn't there.
    People & Manner
  5. At the twentieth reunion, the night's most serious speech came from our ______ class clown, a quiet tax accountant these days.

    A) sempiternal
    B) perdurable
    C) hoary
    D) quondam
    D) quondam

    Former, once but no longer, is quondam. Hoary is tempting for someone known twenty years back, but hoary means gray with age or stale from repetition, and nothing says the clown is old or the jokes are worn; the stem says only that the clowning has ended.
    Time & Change
  6. A chess rook is carved with a ______ top, its tiny raised blocks and gaps copied from the battlements of a castle tower.

    A) faceted
    B) crenellated
    C) whorled
    D) tessellated
    B) crenellated

    Having battlements, raised blocks with gaps between, is crenellated. Faceted is tempting for a carved piece, but faceted means cut with many small flat faces, like a gem, not notched along the top.
    Form & Texture

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More Rare & Beautiful Words decks

Set 1: MeaningsSet 1: Quick DrillsSet 1: In ContextSet 1: PracticeSet 2: MeaningsSet 2: Quick DrillsSet 2: In Context

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About these cards

Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.

Checked against:

  • Senses, parts of speech and pronunciations checked against Merriam-Webster.com, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Oxford Learner's, Longman and Cambridge learner's dictionaries; all definitions, notes and example sentences are original.
  • Word selection is our own, from general-reader news, textbooks and frequency data (wordfreq, CC BY-SA 4.0); no publisher's list is reproduced.

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