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GRE Word List 2
adulation-amend
| Word | Definition |
|---|---|
| adulation | n. flattery; admiration. The rock star thrived on the adulation of his groupies and yes-men. |
| adulterate | v. make impure by adding inferior or tainted substances. It is a crime to adulterate foods without informing the buyer; when consumers learned that Beechnut had adulterated its apple juice by mixing the juice with water, they protested vigorously. |
| advent | n. arrival. Most Americans were unaware of the advent of the Nuclear Age until the news of Hiroshima reached them. |
| adventitious | adj. accidental; casual. She found this adventitious meeting with her friend extremely fortunate. |
| adversary | n. opponent; enemy. Batman struggled to save Gotham City from the machinations of his wicked adversary. |
| adverse | adj. unfavorable, hostile. The recession had a highly adverse effect on Father's investment portfolio: he lost so much money that he could no longer afford the butler and the upstairs maid. |
| adversity | n. poverty; misfortune. We must learn to meet adversity gracefully. |
| advert | v. refer (to). Since you advert to this matter to frequently you must regard it as important. |
| advocacy | n. support; active pleading on behalf of someone or something. No threats could dissuade Bishop Desmond Tutu from his advocacy of the human rights of black South Africans. |
| advocate | v. urge; plead for. The abolitionists advocated freedom for the slaves. |
| aegis | n. shield; defense. Under the aegis of the Bill of Rights, we enjoy our most treasured freedoms. |
| aerie | n. nest of a large bird of prey (eagle, hawk). The mother eagle swooped down on the rabbit and bore it off to her aerie high in the Rocky Mountains. |
| aesthetic | adj. artistic; dealing with or capable of appreciate the beautiful. The beauty of Tiffany's stained glass appealed to Alice's aesthetic sense. |
| affable | adj. easily approachable; warmly friendly. Accustomed to cold, aloof supervisors, Nicholas was amazed at how affable his new employer was. |
| affected | adj. artificial; pretended; assumed in order to impress. His affected mannerisms - his "Harvard" accent, his air of boredom, his use of obscure foreign words--bugged us: he acted as if he brought he was too good for his old high school friends. |
| affidavit | n. written statement made under oath. The court refused to accept her statement unless she presented it in the form of an affidavit. |
| affiliation | n. joining; association with. His affiliation with the political party was of short duration for he soon disagreed with his colleagues. |
| affinity | n. kinship. She felt an affinity with all who suffered; their pains were her pains. |
| affirmation | n. positive assertion; confirmation; solemn pledge by one who refuses to take an oath. Despite Tom's affirmations of innocence, Aunt Polly still suspected he had eaten the pie. |
| affix | v. attach or add on; fasten. First the registrar had to affix his signature to the license; then he had to affix his official seal. |
| affliction | n. state of distress; cause of suffering. Even in the midst of her affliction, Elizabeth tried to keep up the spirits of those around her. |
| affluence | n. abundance; wealth. Foreigners are amazed by the affluence and luxury of the American way of life. |
| affront | n. insult; offense; intentional act of disrespect. When Mrs. Proudie was not seated beside the Archdeacon at the head table, she took it as a personal affront and refused to speak to her hosts for a week. |
| agape | ajd. openmouthed. She stared, agaped, at the many strange animals in the zoo. |
| agenda | n. items of business at a meeting. We had so much difficulty agreeing upon an agenda that there was very little time for the meeting. |
| agglomeration | n. collection; heap. It took weeks to assort the agglomeration of miscellaneous items she had colleted on her trip. |
| aggrandize | v. increase or intensity; raise in power, wealth, rank or honor. The history of the past quarter century illustrates how a President may aggrandize his power to act aggressively in international affairs without considering the wishes of Congress. |
| aggregate | v. gather; accumulate. Before the Wall Street scandals, dealers in so-called junk bonds mananged to aggregate great wealth in short periods of time. |
| aggressor | n. attacker. Before you punish both boys for fighting, see whether you can determine which one was the aggressor. |
| aghast | adj. horrified; dumbfounded. Miss Manners was aghast at the crude behavior of the fraternity brothers at the annual toga party. |
| agility | n. nimbleness. The agility of the acrobat amazed and thrilled the audience. |
| agnostic | n. one who is skeptical of the existence of a god or any ultimate reality. Agnostics say we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God; we simply have no way to know. |
| agog | ajd. highly excited; intensely curious. We were all agog at the news that the celebrated movie star was giving up his career in order to enter a monastery. |
| agrarian | adj. pertaining to land or its cultivation. As a result of its recent industrialization, the country is gradually losing its agrarian traditions. |
| alacrity | n. cheerful promptness; eagerness. Phil and Dave were raring to get off to the mountains; they packed up their ski gear and climbed into the van with alacrity. |
| alchemy | n. medieval form of speculative thought that aimed to transform base metals (lead or copper) into silver or gold and to discover a means of prolonging life. |
| alcove | n. nook; recess. Though their apartment lacked a full-scaled dining room, an alcove adjacent to the living room made an adequate breafkast nook for the young couple. |
| alias | n. an assumed name. John Smith's alias was Bob Johns. |
| alienate | v. make hostile; seperate. her attempts to alienate the two friends failed because they had complete faith in each other. |
| alimentary | adj. supplying nourishment. The alimentary canal in our bodies is so named because digestion of food occurs there. |
| alimony | n. payments made to an ex-spouse after divorce |
| allay | v. calm; pacify. The crew tried to allay the fears of the passengers by announcing that the fire had been controlled. |
| allege | v. state without proof. Although it is alleged that she was worked for the enemy, she denies the allegation and, legally, we can take no action against her without proof. |
| allegiance | n. loyalty. Noe even a term in prison could shake Lech Walesa's allegiance to Solidarity, the Polish trade union he had helped to found. |
| allegory | n. story in which characters are used as symbols; fable. Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory of the tempptations and victories of the human soul. |
| alleviate | v. relieve. This should alleviate the pain; if it does not, we shall have to use stronger drugs. |
| alliteration | n. repetition of beginning sound in poetry. |
| allocate | v. assign. Even though the Red Cross had allocated a larged sum for the relief of the sufferers of the disaster, many people perished. |
| alloy | n. a mixture as of metals. Alloys of gold are used more frequently than the pure metal. |
| alloy | v. mix; make less pure; lessen or moderate. Our delight at the Mets' victory was alloyed by our concern for Al Laites, who injured his pitching arm in the game. |
| allude | v. refer indirectly. Try not to mention divcorce in Jack's presence because he will think you are alluding to his marital problems with Jill. |
| allure | v. entice; attract. Allured by the song of the sirens, the helmsman steered the ship toward the reef. |
| allusion | n. indirect reference. When Amanda said to the ticker scalper, "$100? What do you want, a pound of flesh?" she was making an allusion to Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. |
| alluvial | adj. pertaining to soil deposits left by running water. The farmers found the alluvial deposits at the mouth of the river very fertile. |
| aloof | adj. apart; reserved. Shy by nature, she remained aloof while all the rest conversed. |
| aloft | adj. upward. The sailor climed aloft into the rigging. |
| altercation | n. noisy quarrel; heated dispute. In that hot-tempered household, no meal ever came to a peaceful conclusion; the inevitable altercation sometimes even ended in blows. |
| altruistic | adj. unselfishly generous; concernced for others. In providing tutorial assistance and college scholarships for hundred of economically disadvantaged youths, Eugene Lang performed a truly altruistic deed. |
| amalgamate | v. combine; unite in one body. The unions will attempt to amalgamate their groups into one national body. |
| amass | v. collect. This miser's aim is to amass and hoard as much gold as possible. |
| amazon | n. female warrior. Ever since the days of Greek mythology we refer to strong and aggressive women as amazons. |
| ambidextrous | adj. capable of using either hand with equal ease. A switch-hitter in baseball should be naturally ambidextrous. |
| ambience | n. environment; atmosphere. She went to the restaurant not for the food but for the ambiance. |
| ambivalence | n. the state of having contradictory or conflicting emptional attitudes. Torn between loving her parents one minute and hating them the next, she was confused by the ambivalence of her feelings. |
| amble | n. moving at an easy pace. When she first mounted the horse, she was afraid to urge the animal to go faster than a gentle amble. |
| ambrosia | n. food of the gods. Ambrosia was supposed to give immortality to any human who ate it. |
| ambulatory | adj. able to walk; not bedridden. Calvin was a highly ambulatory patient; not only did he refuse to be confined to bed, but he also insisted on riding his skateboard up and down the halls. |
| ameliorate | v. improve. Many social workers have attempted to ameliorate the conditions of people living in the slums. |
| amenable | adj. readily managed or willing to be led; answerable or accountable legally. Although the ambassador was usually amenable to friendly suggestions, he balked when we hinted he should pay his parking tickets. |
| amend | v. correct; change, generally for the better. Hoping to amend his condition, he left Vietnam for the United States. |
Created by:
ms6arcia
Popular English Vocabulary sets