My Daily Vocabulary

Complete the gaps with the correct words

abate

adversity

bail

brisk

chamber pot

disabuse

flap

fling

horrendous

impede

incinerator

malice

nexus

ordeal

penance

pick at

promontory

self-flagellation

take a toll (on)

twinge

verdure

1. Combination used to make Mrs Wilkins wonder, for she had been told by Mellersh, on days when she had only been able to get plaice, that if one were efficient one wouldn't be depressed, and that if one does one's job well one becomes automatically bright and ___.
2. Between two great mountains of grey and green as the rock cropped out between the tufts of emerald ____, the valley, almost as narrow as a gorge, ran due west towards the sea.
3. We were rapidly descending the valley, and, as we got lower, the ____ seemed to take a bolder shape and was beginning to stand out as a round-topped hill of somewhat noble proportions.
4. ____ of every sort had there been her portion; aches, hurts, discouragement, and she the whole time being steadily unselfish.
5. She dodged the edge of the giltwood settee, ____ its pillow over her shoulder.
6. Even after she has laid the received in its cradle, Dede goes on elaborating the root system of her anacahuita tree, shading the branches, and then for the fun of it, opening and closing the ____ of the envelope to watch the tree come apart and then back together again.
7. He was the nexus of my world, a ____ of the world.
8. This is more fit for a king - to seize your ____ head on.
9. I knew that corpses decomposed and began to rot and smell, so I carefully placed the bag into the ___ barrel.
10. School had been ____.
11. Weekly shopping trips were always an ____.
12. Dad said there was not ____ in it.
13. I would buy what we needed for the week and get home again, nerves ____ as I turned into the lane.
14. Suppose that two men were booked on the same charge at the same time and that the same ___ was set for both of them.
15. We swapped duties as age ____ on him.
16. And then he stopped coming out of his room and he wrote his prescriptions with a shakier hand, and he only _____ food.
17. I fed it to him sometimes when his hands shook too much and I changed his bed linen on the days when he could not control himself and didn't make it into the ____ under his bed, which I emptied every morning and rinsed out with bleach.
18. Philosophy calls for simple living but not for _____ - it's quite possible to be simple without being crude.
19. There was no ____, no paying penance, no self-esteem issues from guilt or self-loathing.
20. While it's true that someone can ____ our actions, they can't impede our intentions and our attitudes, which have the power of being conditional and adaptable.
21. I had long since been ____ of the notion that I was a foundling child. 

Keys:

1. brisk; 2.verdure; 3.promontory; 4. twinge; 5. fling; 6. flap; 7. nexus;8. adversity; 9. incinerator; 10. horrendous; 11. ordeal; 12. malice; 13.abate; 14. bail; 15. take a toll; 16. pick at; 17. chamber pot; 18. penance; 19. self-flagellation; 20. impede; 21. disabused