Day 1

• veteran: someone who has had a lot of experience of a particular activity | veteran teacher of English, a veteran of countless political campaigns
• syllable: a word or a part of a word which contains a single vowel sound
• cut me dead
• zeitgeist:
• siesta: a short sleep in the afternoon
• restaurateur
• kimono: 和服
• agonizing: very painful
• tormenting: be in a state of physical or mental suffering
• academia
• perish [formal or literal]: to die, especially in a terrible or sudden way | publish or perish
• perishable: food that is perishable is likely to decay quickly
• autonomous regions: 自治區(qū)
• lingua franca: a language used between people whose main language are different
• municipality: 直轄市
• overhear: to accidentally hear what others are saying without their notice
• Cantonese: 粵語
• facilitate: to make it easier for a process or an activity to happen | Computers can be used to facilitate language learning
• The Story of the Stone
• Outlaws of the Marsh
• Romance of Three Kingdoms
• Journey to the West
• discern: to notice or understand something by thinking about it carefully | Officials were keen to discern how much public support there was.
• discerning: showing the ability to make good judgments, especially about art, music, style, etc. | an ideal tour for the discerning traveler
• serendipity [literal]: when interesting or valuable discoveries are made by accident | What a delightful find! - a true serendipity.
• laureate: someone who has been given an important or honorable prize, especially the Nobel prize | Nobel laureate
• collier: someone who works in a coal mine
• Oedipus complex: 戀母情結(jié)
• Electra complex: 戀父情結(jié)
• patricide: the crime of murdering your father
• filicide: the crime of murdering your children
• matricide: the crime of murdering your mother
• uxoricide: the crime of murdering your wife
• thwart: to prevent someone from doing something they are trying to do | Fierce oppositions thwarted the government's plans
• avert: to prevent something unpleasant from happening | The tragedy could have been averted if the crew had followed the safety procedure
• domineering: someone who is domineering tries to control other people without considering their feelings
• merit: an advantage or a good feature of something | The great merit of the project is its flexibility and low cost.

Day 2

• connotation: a quality or an idea that a word makes you to think of that is more than its basic meanings | The word 'professional' has connotations of skills and excellence.
• Dracula
• draconian: very strict and cruel | draconian measures to control population growth
• déjà vu: the feeling that what is happening now has happened before in exactly the same place | a sense of déjà vu
• oxymoron: (a figure of speech which means) a deliberate combination of two words that seem to mean the opposite of each other, such as "cruel kindness", "strange familiarilty"
• prologue
• predestined / preordained
• nostalgic
• nostalgia
• melancholy: <formal> a feeling of sadness for no particular reason
• wistful: thinking sadly about something you would like to have but cannot have, especially something you used to have in the past
• futile: actions that are futile are useless because they have no chance of being sucessful
• drastic: extreme and sudden
• countervailing: with an equally strong but opposite effect
• surname [SYN] last name, family name
• autodidact [SYN] self-taught
• categorical: a categorical statement is a clear statement that something is definitely true or false | Can you give us a categorical assurance that no jobs will be lost? | a categorical denial / rejection / refusal
• lucid: express in a way that is clear and easy to understand | You must write in a clear and lucid style.
• elucidate: <formal> [SYN] clarify
• limpid: clear or transparent | limpid blue eyes
• hermeneutics: 解釋學
• exegesis: 解釋學
• virulent: a poison, disease that is virulent is very dangerous and affects people very quickly [OPP] mild
• sinologist: 漢學家
• magnum opus: 扛鼎之作
• tour de force: <written> something that is done very skillfully and successfully, and is very impressive
• collocate: <technical> when words collocate, they are often used
• nourish: <formal> to keep a feeling, idea, or belief strong or help it to grow stronger | We need to nourish our hopes and dreams.
• celestial: relating to the sky or heaven
• ophthalmologist: 眼科醫(yī)生
• à la carte: （菜品）單點
• bon voyage: used to wish somebody a good journey
• gastronomy: the art and science of cooking and eating good food
• gourmet
• chic: very fashionable and expensive
• champange
• cul-de-sac: 死胡同 [SYN] dead end
• put off / delay / postpone / procrastinate
• hide / conceal / withhold / confidential
• stingy / miserly / parsimonious (unwilling to spend money)
• economical / frugal / thrifty
• four-letter words: 臟話
• idiom: 習語
• idiomatic expression / phrase" an idiom
• infidel: <literal not polite> an offensive word for someone who has a different religion with you
• traitor
• opaque
• murky: complicated and difficult to understand [SYN] obscure | The laws on intellectual property are murky.
• norm: the usual or normal situation, way of doing something etc.
• poetic license: 詩人的破格
• surface mail / airmail / registered mail / snail mail 平郵 / 航空信 / 掛號信 / 掛號信 / 蝸牛郵件
• clime: <literary> a place that has a particular type of climate
• unisex: intended both for men and women
• gender-inclusive: 不分性別
• ribald: ribald remarks or jokes are humorous, rude and about sex
• spoonerism: 首音誤置 (e.g. "sew you to a sheet" instead of "show you to a seat")
• ineluctable: <formal> impossible to avoid [SYN] unavoidable
• indefatigable: determined and never giving up