____ adherence to outdated political ideas and defunct sects characterized the last years of a man who had, surprisingly, been one of the most flexible thinkers of the 1920s.

The ____ effects of constant noise drove Natasha to seek refuge in a more salubrious spot until she recovered her mental equilibrium.

Grandfather liked us children to learn self-discipline, and, unlike many others of his generation, seldom ____ us even for those actions that we felt deserved censure.

To the layman, a philosopher who attempts to elucidate a complex moral dilemma by reducing it to a simple yet apparently ridiculous test case seems rather to ____ the issue.

Fraser taught by example: he ____ long-windedness in his own lectures and berated his students for any tendency toward circumlocution.

If he had not had the ____ to follow his own iconoclastic theories in the face of the apparently unassailable conclusion of the accepted experts in the field, progress would have been inestimably slower in this area of knowledge.

With an abiding interest in Medieval poetry, Boris found it difficult to relate to his peers in school whose ____ ran to nothing even remotely literary.

The novel is admittedly not the finest example of its genre, but I object to the ____ preface written by a supposed expert on detective fiction from whom we might have expected at least one or two perceptive comments.

It is not only the poor and uneducated that fall prey to ____ ; desperate or unhappy individuals from any walk of life or social background can be duped.

The director, accustomed to unquestioning loyalty, was chagrined when she discovered that her directions had been ____ by the chief executive.