Rare & Beautiful Words — Set 2: Quick Drills flashcards
10 of 25 cards free to study here · 8 topics · the whole deck is built into Willys
Meaning to word: 25 of the Set 2 words, from a fresh one-line definition back to the word itself, with one new example of it in use.
Drills 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.
Study the free sample
10 cards from the deck as they are. Flip, rate yourself, filter by topic; your progress stays in this browser.
Tap the card or press Space to flip
The 10 sample cards as a list
-
Which word means so bright that light seems to stream out of it and flood everything nearby?effulgentLight & Color
Even through her dark visor, the effulgent welding arc made Ruta squint. -
Which word means a compulsive gush of words, spoken or written, far more than anyone needs or can follow?logorrheaSound & Speech
The holiday letter was pure logorrhea: eleven pages about the new garden shed. -
Which word means the friendly ribbing a person gets for a known foible, meant to be laughed at, not to wound?raillerySound & Speech
Bettina's burnt pancakes became a summer-long target of her cabin mates' raillery. -
Which word means what a gale strips off breaking waves and flings downwind as stinging spray; also snow or sand so powdery that the wind blows it along?spindriftWeather & Nature
Spindrift curled off the drifts and dusted the parked snowplows. -
Which word means what dry ground smells of when rain comes, from plant oils and soil compounds that the first drops set free?petrichorWeather & Nature
The other players ran for cover, but Dmitri stayed to breathe in the petrichor rising off the hot clay court. -
Which word means wearing a look of plain misery; of a place or thing, battered and forlorn?woebegoneMood & Feeling
A woebegone snowman slumped on the lawn by March. -
Which word means a pleasure-seeker who chases soft beds, rich food and every indulgence?sybaritePeople & Manner
Our cat is a sybarite who naps only on freshly washed laundry. -
Which word means the moment one era or way of life starts to give way to a fresh one; in archaic use, first light?dayspringTime & Change
With the first rain after five dry years, farmers spoke of a dayspring for the valley. -
Which word means curling round and round in a spiral, or, in a plant, with leaves set in rings at points along the stem?whorledForm & Texture
The ram's whorled horns curled past his ears. -
Which word means a presumptuous kid or newcomer who talks back to elders as if already in charge?whippersnapperPlayful Words
Two weeks on the team, the whippersnapper was already lecturing the veteran coach.
Unlock the whole deck
You are studying a free 10-card sample. All 25 cards of Rare & Beautiful Words — Set 2: Quick Drills, the other 7 Rare & Beautiful Words decks, and spaced-repetition scheduling are built into Willys. 14-day free trial, then $14.99 a year.
In Willys, tap Exam Library at the top of your Decks (or Browse Exam Library… under the + button), find the exam on its shelf or by search, tick it and tap Add.
More Rare & Beautiful Words decks
← All Rare & Beautiful Words decks, with the study guide and topic outline.
About these cards
Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.
Checked against:
- Senses and parts of speech 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.
- Facts on hoarfrost and starling flocks checked against the NOAA National Weather Service glossary, the National Audubon Society and the RSPB.
- 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.
These are independent study notes written for Willys. They are not official exam material, may contain mistakes, and are no substitute for your course, your teacher or the exam owner's own publications. Found an error? Tell us — corrections ship as a new version of the deck.
Use of these pages is covered by our Terms of Use.