Question: acquisitive

Answer: able to get and retain ideas or information; concerned with acquiring wealth or property

Question: arrogate

Answer: to claim or take without right

Question: banal

Answer: hackneyed, trite, commonplace

Question: belabor

Answer: to work on excessively; to thrash soundly

Question: carping

Answer: tending to find fault, especially in a petty, nasty, or hairsplitting way; petty, nagging criticism

Question: coherent

Answer: holding or sticking together; making a logical whole; comprehensible, meaningful

Question: congeal

Answer: to change from liquid to solid, thicken; to make inflexible or rigid

Question: emulate

Answer: to imitate with the intent of aqualing or surpassing the model

Question: encomium

Answer: a formal expression of praise, a lavish tribute

Question: eschew

Answer: to avoid, shun, keep away from