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GRE SMW Set 2
Simple sounding words with less common secondary meanings
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Abjure (verb) | To renounce or reject solemnly; to recant; to avoid |
| Adumbrate (verb) | To foreshadow vaguely or intimate; to suggest or outline sketchily; to obscure or overshadow |
| Anathema (noun) | A solemn or ecclesiastical (religious) curse; accursed thoroughly loathed person or thing |
| Anodyne (adj.) / (noun) | Soothing; something that assuages or allays pain or comforts |
| Apogee (noun) | Farthest or highest point; culmination; zenith |
| Apostate (noun) | One who abandons long-held religious or political convictions |
| Apotheosis (noun) | Deification; glorification to godliness; an exalting example; a model of excellence or perfection |
| Asperity (noun) | Severity, rigor; roughness, harshness; acrimony, irritability |
| Asseverate (verb) | To aver, allege, or assert |
| Assiduous (adj.) | Diligent, hard-working; sedulous |
| Augury (noun) | Omen, portent |
| Bellicose (adj.) | Belligerent, pugnacious, warlike |
| Calumniated (verb) | To slander, to make a false assertion |
| Captious (adj.) | Disposed to point out a trivial faults; calculated to confuse or entrap in argument |
| Cavil (verb) | To find fault without good reason |
| Celerity (noun) | Speed, alacrity |
| Chimera (noun) | An illusion; originally, an imaginary fire-breathing she-monster |
| Contumacious (adj.) | Insubordinate, rebellious |
| Debacle (noun) | Rout; fiasco, complete failure |
| Denouement (noun) | An outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot |
| Descry (verb) | To discriminate or discern |
| Desuetude (noun) | Disuse |
| Desultory (adj.) | Random; aimless; marked by a lack of plan or purpose |
| Diaphanous (adj.) | Transparent, gauzy |
| Diffident (adj.) | Reserved, shy, unassuming; lacking in self-confidence |
| Dirge (noun) | A song of grief or lamentation |
| Encomium (noun) | Glowing and enthusiastic praise; panegyric, tribute, eulogy |
| Eschew (verb) | To shun or avoid |
| Excoriate (verb) | To censure scathingly, to upbraid |
| Execrate (verb) | To denounce, to fell loathing for, to curse, to declare to be evil |
| Exegesis (noun) | Critical examination, explication |
| Expiate (verb) | To atone or make amends for |
| Extirpate (verb) | To destroy, to exterminate, to cut out, to exscind |
| Fatuous (adj.) | Silly, inanely foolish |
| Fractious (adj.) | Quarrelsome, rebellious, unruly, refectory, irritable |
| Gainsay (verb) | To deny, to dispute, to contradict, to oppose |
| Heterodox (adj.) | Unorthodox, heretical, iconoclastic |
| Imbroglio (noun) | Difficult or embarrassing situation |
| Indefatigable (adj.) | Not easily exhaustible; tireless, dogged |
| Ineluctable (adj.) | Certain, inevitable |
| Inimitable (adj.) | One of a kind, peerless |
| Insouciant (adj.) | Unconcerned, carefree, heedless |
| Inveterate (adj.) | Deep, rooted, ingrained, habitual |
| Jejune (adj.) | Vapid, uninteresting, nugatory; childish, immature, puerile |
| Lubrication (adj.) | Lewd, wanton, greasy, slippery |
| Mendicant (noun) | A beggar, supplicant |
| Meretricious (adj.) | Cheap, gaudy, tawdry, flashy, showy; attracting by false show |
| Minatory (adj.) | Menacing, threatening |
| Nadir (noun) | Low point, perigee |
| Nonplussed (adj.) | Baffled, bewildered, at a loss for what to do or think |
| Obstreperous (adj.) | Noisily and stubbornly defiant, aggressively boisterous |
| Ossified (adj.) | Tending to become more ridged, conventional, sterile, and reactionary with age; literally turned into bone |
| Palliate (verb) | To make something seen less serious, to gloss over, to make less severe or intense |
| Panegyric (noun) | Formally praise, eulogy, encomium |
| Parsimonious (adj.) | Cheap, miserly |
| Pellucid (adj.) | Transparent, easy to understand, limpid |
| Peroration (noun) | The concluding part of a speech; flowery, rhetorical speech |
| Plangent (adj.) | Pounding, thundering, resounding |
| Prolix (adj.) | Long winded, verbose |
| Propitiate (verb) | To appease; to conciliate |
| Puerile (adj.) | Childish, immature, jejune, nugatory |
| Puissance (noun) | Power, strength |
| Pusillanimous (adj.) | Cowardly, craven |
| Remonstrate (verb) | To protest, to object |
| Sagacious (ad.) | Having sound judgment; perceptive, wise |
| Salacious (adj.) | Lustful, lascivious, bawdy |
| Salutary (adj.) | Remedial, wholesome, causing improvement |
| Sanguine (adj.) | Cheerful, confident, optimistic |
| Saturnine (adj.) | Gloomy, dark, sullen, morose |
Created by:
asharp34
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