Word Meaning Sentence Source

Paradoxical Contradictory to Throws light on this a

common sense most paradoxical of
men
Pygmy an unusually small giant and
person moral pygmy
Verve the spirit and 'McLynn writes with
enthusiasm animating considerable verve:
artistic composition or his pithy
performance characterisations of
Napoleon's
subordinates,
Pithy marked by the use of
few words to convey
much information or
meaning
Debunking to expose the sham or 'McLynn offers an
falseness of admirably clear
narrative, neither
adulatory nor
debunking
Adulation to expose the sham or
falseness of
multitudinous being of a large but all the sources dealing
indefinite number with the
multitudinous aspects
of such a complex
life
enigmatic being beyond one's Napoleon becomes
powers to know, more elusive and
understand, or explain more
enigmatic the more
one knows about him
Elusive hard to find, capture, or
isolate
banal lacking originality, Such a bald, even
freshness, banal statement is
or novelty : TRITE necessary when we
consider
provenance ORIGIN, SOURCE claim an Arab,
Berber or Moorish
strain in his
provenance;
antipathy a strong feeling of
dislike an antipathy to
taxes
scurrilous using or given to coarse most unlikely parents
language to the footman and
vulgar and evil goat girl, proposed by
his most scurrilous

dotal of or relating to a
woman's marriage dowry
trimmers
Hedonist a person who is devoted
to the pursuit of
pleasure : someone who
practices hedonism
Sensualist persistent or excessive
pursuit
of sensual pleasures and
interests
Austere stern and cold in
appearance or manner
petite having a small trim
figure —usually used of a
woman
Cohabitation to live together as or as if
a married couple
Indigence a level of poverty in
which real hardship and
deprivation are suffered
and comforts of life are
wholly lacking
Pretension an aspiration or intention
that may or may not
reach fulfillment
Pale a territory or district
within certain bounds or
under a particular
jurisdiction
a state of moral
degradation or spiritual
dejection
enemies
.
the signature of a
dotal contract, and the
act of consummation.
Carlo, a tall young
man with a prominent
nose, sensual lips and
almond-shaped eyes,
was a hedonist and
sensualist.
whose nose was
4
too long and whose
face was too austere
for a claim to real
beauty
It was true that she
was petite (s'r"), with
rich dark-brown hair
and slender white
hands
Carlo's time in Rome
seems to have been
spent in cohabitation
with a married woman
Another prevalent
myth about
Napoleon's
background was that
he was
born into indigence
Economic conditions
in
Corsica and their own
pretensions worked
against them
were
essentially beyond the
aristocratic pale
but no human being
can
slough off early
environmental and
geographical
influences just by say-
so.