"Asked how the game had gone, Devon gave a laconic 'We lost' and went upstairs, leaving his mother to guess at the rest." What does laconic mean here?

"The landlord stayed obdurate through three meetings: every neighbor spoke, every argument was made, and he would not move an inch on the rent." What does obdurate mean here?

"The mayfly's adult life is ephemeral: it climbs out of the water at dusk, mates, and is gone before the next morning." What does ephemeral mean in this sentence?

"The library's new wing exists because of one munificent donor, who paid for the building, the shelves, and twenty years of salaries." Based on the sentence, what does munificent mean?

"By the third hour the negotiator had turned truculent, snapping at every offer and daring the other side to walk out." What does truculent mean here?

"In 1995 a cell phone was a rarity; now the things are ubiquitous, in every pocket, on every table, and clipped to the dashboard of every car." What does ubiquitous mean here?

"The principal walked into the cafeteria and quelled the shouting within seconds; by the time she reached the far wall the room was silent." What does quelled mean here?

"Their meetings were clandestine: held after midnight, in a basement, with no names written down anywhere." What does clandestine mean in this sentence?

"Dr. Ames's account of the immune system was so lucid that students who had been lost all semester followed every step of it." What does lucid mean here?

"After the backlash the board voted to rescind the new dress code, so a rule that had taken effect in September was gone by October." What does rescind mean here?

"Only a few inches of rain fall on the arid basin each year, and the ranchers there truck in water from June through September." What does arid mean in this sentence?

"The manager tried to placate the furious customer with a refund and an apology, and by the end of it the man was no longer shouting." What does placate mean here?

"In the village they venerate the old teacher: people stand when she enters a room, and no one begins a meal until she has been served." What does venerate mean here?

"Marisol takes copious notes: three full pages for a class in which most students fill half of one." Which of these is the best meaning of copious here?

"After the story aired, letters inundated the small office: two months later the staff were still opening mail from the first week." What does inundated mean here?

"The vociferous group at the meeting shouted down every speaker they disagreed with, and the chair gave up trying to be heard over them." What does vociferous mean here?

"A second witness corroborated the driver's account: she had seen the same red truck run the same light at the same hour." What does corroborated mean here?

"The monastery's rooms are austere: a bed, a chair, a wooden cross, and nothing at all on the walls." What does austere mean in this sentence?

"A myriad of small decisions goes into one scene: where the camera stands, what the lamp does, how long a silence runs, and hundreds more." What does myriad mean here?

"The wind did not abate until dawn; gusts that had bent the pines at midnight were only a breeze by the time the sun came up." What does abate mean here?

"Her uncle Ray is taciturn, but her uncle Paul narrates every mile of the drive, every meal, and every stranger he has ever met." How does the sentence point to what taciturn means?

"The tree kangaroo is arboreal, meaning that it lives up in the branches and comes down to the ground only rarely." What kind of clue does this sentence supply for arboreal?

"The tour guide was loquacious, talkative from the first stop to the last, and the group heard about every building twice." How does the sentence help a reader work out loquacious?

"Nobody would sit near the bellicose delegate, and the chairman kept two guards by the door whenever he had the floor." How does the sentence point to what bellicose means?

"My grandmother is frugal; for instance, she darns socks, saves rubber bands, and gets two cups of tea out of one bag." What kind of clue does the sentence supply for frugal?

"The blob in the lava lamp is amorphous, that is, it has no fixed shape at all and pulls into something new as it drifts." How does the sentence point to what amorphous means?

"Unlike the rest of us, who stayed on the bank and watched, intrepid Hana waded straight into the current with the rope over her shoulder." How does the sentence point to what intrepid means?

"The new coach is affable, friendly with everyone from the starters to the kids who never get off the bench." What kind of clue does the sentence supply for affable?

"The cacophony from the loading dock, all air brakes, backup alarms, a dropped pallet and a radio at full volume, carried into the classroom." How does the sentence point to what cacophony means?

"He took a surreptitious look at his phone, holding it under the desk while the teacher was turned toward the board." How does the sentence point to what surreptitious means?

"The valley is verdant in April, which means it is green and thick with growing plants from one wall of it to the other." What kind of clue does the sentence supply for verdant?

"The first witness told the truth about every detail; the second was mendacious from her opening sentence to her last one." How does the sentence point to what mendacious means?

"The narrator's voice was sonorous: deep and full, it filled the hall without a microphone." Which words tell you what sonorous means?

"The herders were nomadic for centuries, moving north with the animals in summer and south again before the snow, settling nowhere." Which words tell you what nomadic means?

"Only the tap by the office is potable; water from the other lines is fine for washing the floors but must never be swallowed." Which words tell you what potable means?

"The water at the river's mouth is brackish, part fresh and part salt, so neither the sea fish nor the river fish stay there long." Which words tell you what brackish means?

"The volcano has been dormant for three centuries: no smoke, no tremor and no ash since the eruption its last witnesses wrote about." Which words tell you what dormant means?

"The rescued horse was emaciated, its ribs standing out under the hide after a winter with almost nothing to eat." Which words tell you what emaciated means?

"Years of loud shop work had a deleterious effect on his hearing: by fifty he could not follow a conversation across the dinner table." Which words tell you what deleterious means?

"Our garrulous neighbor kept us at the fence for forty minutes, and we heard about the dog, the roof and his brother-in-law twice each." Which words tell you what garrulous means?

Which sentence gives a reader enough context to work out what capricious means?

Which sentence gives a reader enough context to work out what prudent means?

Which sentence gives a reader enough context to work out what innocuous means?

Which sentence gives a reader enough context to work out what meticulous means?

Which sentence gives a reader enough context to work out what arduous means?

Which sentence gives a reader enough context to work out what bolster means?

"The judge tempered the sentence with a year of counseling, cutting the jail time in half because it was a first offense." Which meaning does tempered carry here?

"Nobody who saw the principal's face in the doorway doubted the gravity of what had happened in the gym." Which meaning does gravity carry here?

"The lab's approach was novel: nobody had tried growing the crystals in salt water before, and no paper described the method." Which meaning does novel carry here?

"She harbored a suspicion about the missing key for weeks, turning it over at night and never once saying it out loud." Which meaning does harbored carry here?