George Washington: Farewell Address

Glossary

• actuate to stir to action
• amicable friendly
• amity friendliness
• baneful harmful
• caprice whim; impulse
• diffidence reserve; hesitancy
• envenomed poisonous
• expedients opportunistic ways of working
• felicity happiness
• incongruous inappropriate in a particular context
• inestimable immeasurable
• intractable resistant to influence or persuasion
• inviolate pure; not violated
• maxims general truths
• neutrality nonalignment with one or the other side in a dispute
• odious deserving contempt or strong dislike
• palladium a defense or protection
• progenitors ancestors
• recompense compensation; payment
• requisite necessary; required
• salutary beneficial
• scrupulously painstakingly or conscientiously
• solicitude conscientious care
• specious deceptively alluring or attractive
• umbrage offense; affront
• usurp to seize and hold without entitlement or justification
• vicissitudes changeable affairs
• weal welfare