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GRE Vocab Words
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| aspersion | an attack on the reputation or integrity of someone or something; denigrate |
| calumny | the making of false and defamatory statements in order to damage someone's reputation; slander |
| excoriate | censure or criticize severely |
| gainsay | deny or contradict (a fact or statement); dispute speak against or oppose someone |
| inveigh | speak or write about something with great hostility; rail at |
| objurgate | rebuke severely; scold |
| obloquy | strong public criticism or verbal abuse disgrace, esp brought about by public abuse |
| opprobrium | harsh criticism or censure |
| pillory | (n) a wooden framework with holes for head and hands, in which an offender was imprisoned and exposed to public abuse (v) to put someone in the pillory; attack or ridicule publicly |
| remonstrate | make a forcefully reproachful protest; complain (don't confuse with demonstrate) |
| reprehend | reprimand (don't confuse with apprehend) |
| reprove | reprimand or censure someone; rebuke, reproach, admonish |
| vituperate | blame or insult someone in strong or violent language; scold |
| apocryphal | (adj) of a story or statement of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true |
| canard | an unfounded rumor or story (French "to quack") |
| chicanery | use of trickery to achieve a political, financial, or legal purpose; deception, duplicity |
| dissemble | (v) conceal one's true motives, feelings, or beliefs (dis - semblance) (don't confuse with disassemble) |
| ersatz | not real or genuine; made or used as a substitute, typically an inferior one; fake |
| guile | sly or cunning intelligence; cunning; craftiness |
| mendacious | not telling the truth; intentionally untrue; lying; dishonest antonym: veracious |
| prevaricate | speak or act in an evasive way; equivocate (Latin "straddle"); dodge |
| specious | superficially plausible, but actually wrong; misleading |
| spurious | not being what it purports to be; false or fake; sham, deceptive (of a line of reasoning) apparently but not actually valid (archaic) of offspring, illegitimate |
| panoptic | showing or seeing the whole at one view |
| panacea | a solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases; cure-all |
| venal | showing or motivated by susceptibility to bribery; corrupt/capable of being bought |
| aberration | departure from what is normal, usual, or expected; typically one that is unwelcome; negative connotation |
| anomaly | unusual occurrence; something that deviates from what is standard, normal or expected |
| equivocal | ambiguous; open to more than one interpretation uncertain; questionable in nature (similar to the act of equivocating, which has a negative connotation like prevaricate) |
| lucid | clear; easy to understand; sober bright or luminous |
| precipitate | (adj) made suddenly without careful consideration (v) cause to happen (n) substance precipitate from a solution |
| assuage | make an unpleasant feeling less intense; relieve, ease, alleviate satisfy an appetite or desire; fulfill, indulge, satisfy |
| erudite | learned, knowledgeable |
| opaque | can't be seen through; dense; solid; not transparent |
| prodigal | spending $ or resources freely and recklessly; wasteful, extravagant, lavish |
| enigma | mystery, puzzle |
| fervid | intensely enthusiastic or passionate, esp to an excessive degree; fervent, ardent burning hot or glowing |
| placate | make someone less angry or hostile; pacify, calm, appease, mollify |
| zeal | passion |
| audacious | daring; showing willingness to take bold risks showing an impudent lack of respect; presumptuous, impertinent |
| desiccate | to dry out |
| pedant | person excessively concerned with minor details and rules or with displaying academic learning; perfectionist (negative connotation) |
| vacillate | to going between choices; be indecisive; waver between different opinions or actions |
| adulterate | taint, make less pure; render something poorer in quality by adding another substance, typically an inferior one |
| capricious | given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior; fickle, volatile, unpredictable |
| engender | foster; cause or give rise to (a feeling or situation); generate, provoke, prompt, trigger |
| homogenous | of a similar kind (homogeneous technically is the correct word and spelling for this meaning, while homogenous originally was specifically used in biology, but now the latter word is most often used to mean the former's) |
| pragmatic | practical |
| volatile | ever-changing; liable to change rapidly and unpredictably, esp for the worse |
| ephemeral | short-lived; lasting for a short time; transient, fleeting |
| laconic | using very few words |
| mitigate | make less severe, serious, or painful; alleviate, attenuate, assuage lessen the gravity of (an offense or mistake) |
| propriety | act/condition of being proper, appropriate, fitting state or quality of conforming to conventionally accepted standards of behavior or morals; decorum, decency, modesty |
| belie | contradict; disguise; disprove; negate; betray |
| quixotic | exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic or impractical; romantic |
| derision | contemptuous ridicule or mockery; taunts |
| vicissitude | change of circumstances or fortune; typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant; downturn, shift, alteration |
| salubrious | healthy; beneficial (of a place) pleasant, not run-down; enjoyable |
| endemic | native to, naturally a part of |
| dearth | scarcity or lack of something; shortage, deficiency, inadequacy (opposite of surfeit) |
| seminal | (of a work, event, moment, or figure) strongly influencing later developments; formative, groundbreaking, pioneering, innovative |
| epigram | witticism; pithy saying or remark expressing an idea in a clever way |
| pithy | concise or forcefully expressive; succinct |
| expostulation | expression of strong disapproval or disagreement (expostulate: to reason earnestly with someone against something that person intends to do or has done; remonstrate) |
| epigraph | short quotation or remark in the beginning of a literary text; inscription on a building |
| epitaph | phrase or statement written in memory of a person who has died |
| natty | (of clothing or a person) fashionable; smart |
| surreptitious | kept secret, especially bc it would not be approved of |
| austere | stern or without decoration severe or strict in manner, attitude, or appearance having no comforts or luxuries having an extremely plain appearance; unadorned, simple |
| abstemious | not self-indulgent esp when eating or drinking; self-denying, abstinent (Latin root suggests specifically of drinks) |
| esoteric | confined to and only understandable by an enlightened inner circle or people with specialized knowledge; arcane |
| droll | curious or unusual in a way that provokes dry amusement; funny, comic; troll dolls: adorably strange, whimsically cute; funny and strange |
| perspicacious | shrewd; having a ready insight into and understanding of ; mentally acute and discerning |
| obfuscation | action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible (lawyers, eg.); intentional |
| perfunctory | action or gesture carried out with minimum effort, reflection, enthusiasm, or interest (everyday greetings, hello-howreyou) |
| noxious | toxic, harmful, poisonous or unpleasant |
| superfluous | unnecessary, more than enough |
| hummock | small hill, ridge |
| arcane | understood by few; mysterious or secret; esoteric |
| polyglot | a person who is multilingual |
| welter | (v) move in a turbulent fashion (n) a large number of items in no order, confused mass (v) be immersed in |
| precocious | having developed certain abilities at an early age; advanced |
| banal | overfamiliar through overuse; repeated too often; dull or unoriginal, commonplace; so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring |
| abstruse | difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible; deep and intellectually challenging; esoteric (don't confuse with obtuse) (from Latin root meaning hiding) |
| abjure | solemnly renounce (a belief, claim, cause); disavow, forgo, reject, relinquish |
| sanctimonious | making a show of being morally superior to other people; self-righteous, holier-than-thou, preachy |
| perfidious | deceitful and untrustworthy |
| chinwag | chat |
| raillery | good-humored teasing |
| beguile | charm or enchant someone, sometimes deceptively; hypnotize, mesmerize, bewitch dated meaning: help time pass pleasantly; amuse |
| acerbic | sharp and forthright; sour or bitter |
| acrid | having an irritatingly strong and unpleasant taste or smell |
| ennui | boredom, tedium, listlessness/dissatisfaction from lack of occupation or excitement |
| mordant | having or showing a sharp or critical quality (of humor); biting, sardonic |
| gastronome | gourmet |
| danseuse | a female ballet dancer |
| lugubrious | looking or sounding sad and dismal; mournful, gloomy |
| interstice | an intervening space, esp a very small one (interstitial); e.g. sunshine through trees |
| defilade | protection of a position, vehicle, or troops against enemy observation or gunfire (n or v) |
| reliquary | container for holy relics |
| habiliment | clothing |
| sestina | a poem with six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet |
| macarism | beatitude |
| tendentious | expressing or intending to promote a particular cause or pov, esp a controversial one |
| mellifluous | (of a voice or words) sweet or musical; pleasant to hear (Latin mel meaning honey + fluere meaning to flow) |
| euphonic | pleasing to the ear |
| detritus | waste or debris of any kind |
| bedlam | scene of uproar and confusion; mayhem, pandemonium |
| waggish | humorous in a playful, mischievous, or facetious manner |
| punctilious | showing great attention to detail or correct behavior; conscientious, scrupulous (related to punctual--observant of exact points in time) |
| mien | person's look or manner, esp one of a particular kind indicating character or mood; demeanor, air |
| convalesce | recover in health; recuperate |
| truculent | eager or quick to argue or fight; aggressively defiant |
| ebullient | cheerful or full of energy; exuberant |
| panegyric | public speech or published text in praise of someone or something; tribute |
| timorous | showing nervousness or lack of confidence; extremely cautious or shy? |
| eclectic | deriving from a broad or diverse range of sources |
| catholic | including a wide variety of things; wide-ranging; universal |
| apogee | highest point in the development of; climax or culmination; apex |
| eschew | deliberately avoid using; abstain; forgo |
| recapitulate | summarize and state again the main points of; (in biology: repeat an evolutionary or other process during development/growth) |
| facetious | treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; fippant; sardonic, glib |
| patent | obvious; evident; clear; easily recognizable |
| duplicity | deceitfulness; double-dealing; dishonesty (archaic: doubleness) |
| cunning | having or showing skill in achieving one's ends by deceit or evasion; crafty, wily, artful, scheming, devious |
| craft | skill in carrying out one's work |
| comprehensive | complete; including all or nearly all elements/aspects of something large content or scope; wide ranging |
| ubiquitous | present, appearing, or found everywhere; universal, pervasive |
| fastidious | very attentive to and concerned about accuracy and detail; punctilious, scrupulous, meticulous |
| taciturn | reserved or uncommunicative in speech; saying little; laconic, reticent |
| avarice | extreme greed for wealth or material gain |
| doctrinaire | seeking to impose a doctrine in all circumstances without regard to practical considerations; dogmatic, rigid, inflexible, uncompromising |
| judicious | having , showing, or done with good judgment or sense; sensible, prudent, shrewd, sagacious, discerning, percipient |
| debased | reduced in quality or value |
| sanguine | optimistic or positive, esp in an apparently bad or difficult situation; hopeful |
| remedial | giving or intended as a remedy or cure in education: provided or intended for students experiencing learning difficulties |
| discomfit | make (someone) feel uneasy or embarrassed; disconcert, unsettle, fluster, agitate, perturb |
| imminent | about to happen |
| injudicious | showing very poor judgment; unwise, imprudent, ill-advised, misguided |
| inveigle | persuade someone to do something by means of deception or flattery; beguile, seduce, entice, tempt, lure |
| evanescent | soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading or disappearing |
| recrudescent | breaking out afresh or into renewed activity; revival or reappearance in active existence |
| inimical | tending to obstruct or harm |
| brusque | abrupt or offhand in speech or manner; abrupt, blunt, short |
| orotund | full, round, or imposing (of voice); booming pompous, pretentious (of writing) |
| ostentatious | characterized by vulgar or pretentious display; designed to impress or attract notice; showy, pretentious, conspicuous |
| torrid | very hot and dry |
| sumptuous | splendid and expensive looking; luxurious, resplendent |
| august | respected and impressive; distinguished, illustrious |
| harbinger | a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of another; herald, sign, omen, indication |
| cosset | care for or protect in an overindulgent way; spoil |
| impetuous | acting or done quickly without thought or care; impulsive, heedless, rash moving forcefully or rapidly; torrential, forceful, relentless |
| paladin | knight renowned for heroism and chivalry |
| goassamer | something very light, thin, and insubstantial or delicate |
| quisling | traitor who collaborates with enemy force occupying their country |
| bawdy | dealing with sexual matters in a comical way; humorously indecent |
| turgid | swollen an distended or congested pompous or bombastic |
| beleaguer | lay siege to beset with difficulties |
| discreet | intentionally unobtrusive; subtle, low-key, inconspicuous careful and circumspect in speech or act, esp to avoid offense or gain advantage; cautious, guarded, prudent, judicious |
| jocular | fond or characterized by joking; playful |
| gauche | lacking ease or grace, unsophisticated and socially awkward |
| jaunty | having or expressing a lively, cheerful, and self-confident manner; perky |
| rakish | having or displaying a dashing, jaunty, or slightly disreputable quality or appearance; debonair, stylish |
| nascent | just coming into existence and beginning to display signs of future potential; budding, developing, growing |
Created by:
lizamarie1218
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