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SAT HOT vocab
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| abate | v. subside; decrease, lessen. Rather than leaving immediately, they waited for the storm to abate. abatement (n.) |
| abstemious | adj. sparing in eating and drinking; temperate. Concerned whether her vegetarian son's abstemious diet provided him with sufficient protein, the worried mother pressed food on him. |
| abstruse | adj. obscure; profound; difficult to understand. Baffled by the abstuse philosophical texts assigned in class, Dave asked Lexy to explain Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. |
| accessible | adj. easy to approach; obtainable. We asked our guide whether the ruins were accessible on foot. |
| acclimate | v. adjust to climate. One of the difficulties of our present air age is the need of travelers to acclimate themselves to their new and often strange environments. |
| accolade | n. award of merit. In Hollywood, an "Oscar" is the highest accolade. |
| acknowledge | v. recognize; admit. Although Iris acknowledged that the Beatles' tunes sounded pretty dated nowadays, she still preferred them to the hip-hop songs her brothers played. |
| acquiesce | v. assent; agree without protesting. Although she appeared to acquiesce to her employer's suggestions, I could tell she had reservations about the changes he wanted made. acquiescence (n.) acquiescent (adj.) |
| acrid | adj. sharp; bitterly pungent. The acrid odor of burnt gunpowder filled the room after the pistol had been fired. |
| acrimonious | adj. bitter in words or manner. The candidate attacked his opponnet in highly acrimonious tersm. acrimony (n.) |
| affable | adj. easily approachable; warmly friendly. Accustomed to cold, aloof supervisors, Nicholas was amazed at how affable his new employer was. |
| aggregate | v. gather; accumulate. Before the Wall Street scandals, dealers in so-called junk bonds managed to aggregate great wealth in short periods of time. aggregation (n.) |
| aloof | adj. apart; reserved. Shy by nature, she remained aloof while all the rest conversed. |
| amorphous | adj. formless; lacking shape or definition. As soon as we have decided on our itinerary, we shall send you a copy; right now, our plans are still amorphous. |
| anachronistic | adj. having an error involving time in a story. The reference to clocks in Juilius Caesar is anachronistic: clocks did not exist in Caesar's time. anachronism (n.) |
| analogous | adj. comparable. She called our attention to the things that had been done in an analogous situation and recommended that we do the same. |
| anecdote | n. short account of an amusing or interesting event. Rather than make concrete proposals for welfare reform, President Reagan told anecdotes about poor people who became wealthy despite their impoverished backgrounds. |
| animosity | n. active enmity (anger). He incurred the animosity of the ruling class because he advocated limitations of their power. |
| anomaly | n. irregularity. A bird that cannot fly is an anomaly. |
| antagonism | n. hostility; active resistance. Barry showed his antagonism toward his new stepmother by ignoring her whenever she tried talking to him. antagonistic (adj.) |
| antediluvian | adj. antiquated; extremely ancient. Looking at his great-aunt's antique furniture, which must have been cluttering up her attic since the time of Noah's flood, the young heir exclaimed, "Heavens! How positively antediluvian!" |
| antidote | n. medicine to counteract a poison or disease. When Marge's child accidentally swallowed some cleaning fluid, the local poison control hotline instructed Marge how to administer the antidote. |
| antipathy | n. aversion; dislike. Tom's extreme antipathy for disputes keeps him from getting into arguments with his tempermental wife. Noise in any form is antipathetic to him. Among his other antipathies are honking cars, boom boxes, and heavy metal rock. |
| antiquated | adj. old-fashioned; obsolete. Philip had grown so accustomed to editing his papers on word processors that he thought typewriters were to antiquated for him to use. |
| apocryphal | adj. untrue; made up. To impress his friends, Tom invented apocryphal tales of his adventure in the big city. |
| appease | v. pacify or soothe; relieve. Tom and Jody tried to appease the crying baby by offering him one toy after another, but he would not calm down until they appeased his hunger by giving him a bottle. |
| apprehension | n. fear. His nervous glances at the passerby on the deserted street revealed his apprehension. |
| arable | adj. fit for growing crops. The first settlers wrote home glowing reports of the New World, praising its vast acres of arable land ready for the plow. |
| archaic | adj. antiquated. "Methinks," "thee," and "thou" are archaic words that are no longer part of our normal vocabulary. |
| ardent | adj. intense; passionate; zealous. Katya's ardor was contagious; soon all her fellow demonstrators were busily making posters and handing out flyers, inspired by her ardent enthusiasm for the cause. ardor (n.) |
| arrogance | n. pride; haughtiness. Convinced that Emma thought she was better than anyone else in the class, Ed rebuked her fore her arrogance. |
| artifact | n. object made by human beings, either handmade or mass-produced. Archaeologiests debated the significance of the artifiacts discovered in the ruins of Asia Minor but came to no conclusion about the culture they represented. |
| artisan | n. manually skilled worker; craftsman, as opposed to artist. A ntoed artisan, Arturo was known for the fine craftsmanship of his inlaid cabinets. |
| aspire | v. seek to attain; long for. Becasue he aspire to a career in professional sports, Philip entrolled in a graduate program in sports management. aspiration (n.) |
| assiduous | adj. diligent. He was assiduous, working at this task for weeks before he felt satisfies with his results. assiduity (n.) |
| assuage | v. ease or lessen (pain); satistfy (hunger); soothe (anger). Jilted by Jane, Dick tried to assuage his heartache by indulging in ice cream. One gallon later, he had assuaged his appetite but not his grief. |
| atrophy | v. waste away. After three months in a cast, your calf muscles are bound to atrophy; you'll need physical therapy to get back in shape. also (n.) |
| attribute | v. ascribe; explain. I attribute her success in science to the encouragement she receive from her parents. |
| audacious | adj. daring; bold. Audiences cheered as Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia made their audacious, deathdefying leap to freedom, escaping Darth Vader's tropps. audacity (n.) |
| augment | v. increase; add to. Armies augment their forces by calling up reinforcements; teachers augment their salaries by taking odd jobs. |
| authoritarian | adj. subordination the individual to the state; completly dominating another's will. The leaders of the authoritarian regime ordered the suppression of the democratic protest movement. |
| avarice | n. greediness for wealth. King Midas is a perfect example of avarice, for he was so greedy that he wished everything he touched would turn to gold. |
| aversion | n. firm dislike. Bert had an aversion to yuppies; Alex had an aversion to punks. Their mutual aversion was so great that they refused to speak to one another. |
| avert | v. prevent; turn away. She averted her eyes from the dead cat on the highway. |
| beguile | v. mislead or delude; pass time. With flattery and big talk of easy money, the con men beguiled Kyle into betting his allowance on the shell game. Broke, he beuiled himself during the long hours by playing solitare. |
| bequeath | v. leave to someone by a will; hand down. Though Maud had intended to bequeath the family home to her nephew, she died before changing her will. bequest (n.) |
| bleak | adj. cold or cheerless; unlikely to be favorable. The frigid, inhospitable Aleutian Ilands are bleak military outposets. It's no wonder that soldiers assigned there have a bleak attitude toward their posting. |
| blighted | adj. suffering from a disease; destroyed. The extent of the blighted areas could be seen only when viewed from the air. |
| bolster | v. support; reinforce. The debaters amassed file boxes full of evidence to bolster their arguments. |
| braggart | n. boaster. Modest by nature, she was no braggart, preferring to let her accomplishments speak for themselves. |
| buttress | v./n. support; prop up. The attorney came up with several far-fetched arguments in a vain attempt to buttress his weak case. |
| cacophonous | adj. discordant; inharmonious. Do the students in the orchestra enjoy the cacophonous sould they make when they're tuning up? I don't know how they can stand the racket. cacophony, n. |
| calculated | adj. deliberately planned; likely. Lexy's choi |
| candor | n. frankness; open honesty. Jack can carry candor too far: when he told Jill his honest opinion of her, she nearly slapped his face. candid (adj.) |
| carping | adj. finding fault. A carping critic is a nit-picker: he loves to point out flaws. If you don't like this definition, feel free to carp. (v.) |
| certitude | n. certainty. Though there was no certitude of his getting the job, Lou thought he had a good chance of doing so. |
| charlatan | n. quack; pretender to knowledge. When they realized that the Wizard didn't know how to get them back to Kansas, Dorothy and her companions were indignant that they'd been duped by a charlatan. |
| circumlocution | n. indirect or roundabout expression. He was aftraid to call a spade a spade and resorted to circumlocutions to avoid direct reference to his subject. |
| cliché | n. phrase dulled in meaning by repetition. High school composition are often marred by such clichés such as "strong as an ox". |
| coalesce | v. combine; fuse. The brooks coalesce into one lard river. When minor political partis coalesce, their coalescence may create a major coalition. |
| colloquial | adj. pertaining to conversational or common speech. Some of the new, less formal reading passages on the SAT have a colloquial tone that is intended to make them more appealing to students. |
| combustile | adj. easily burned. After the recent outbreak of fires in private homes, the fire commissioner ordered that all combustible materials be kept in safe containers. also n. |
| compile | v. assemple; gather; accumulate. We planned to comple a list of the words most frequently used on SAT examinations. |
| complacency | n. self-satisfaction; smugness. Full of complacency about his latest victories, he looked smugly at the row of trophies on his mantelpiece. complacent (adj.) |
| complementary | adj. serving to complete something. John and Lisa's skills are complementary: he's good at following a daily routine, while sh'e great at improvising and handling emergencies. Together they make a great team. |
| composure | n. mental calmness. Even the latest work crisis failed to shake her composure. |
| comprehensive | adj. thorough; inclusive. This book provides a comprehensive review of verbal and math skills for the SAT. |
| concede | v. admit; yield. Despite all the evidence Monica had assembled, Mark refused to concede that she was right. |
| concur | v. agree. Did you concur with the decision of the court or did you find it unfair? |
| confluence | n. flowing together; crowd. They built the city at the confluence of two rivers. |
| confound | v. confuse; puzzle. No mystery could confound Sherlock Holmes for long. |
| conjecture | v. surmise; guess. Althought there was no official count, the organizers conjectured that more than 10,000 marchers took part in the March for Peace. also n. |
| contend | v. struggle; compete; assert earnestly. Sociologist Harry Edwards contends that young black athletes are exploited by some college recruiters. |
| contract | v. compress or shrink; make a pledge; catch a disease. Warm metal expands; cold metal contracts. |
| converge | v. approach; tend to meet; come together. African-American men from allover the US converged on Washington to take part in the historic Million Men march. |
| cordial | adj. gracious; heartfelt; friendly. Our hosts greeted us at the airport with a cordial welcome and a hearty hug. |
| corrode | v. destroy by chemical action. The girders supporting the bridge corroded so gradually that no one suspected any danger until the bridge suddenly collapsed. corrosion (n.) |
| corrugated | adj. wrinkled; ridged. She wished she could smooth away the wrinkles from his corrugated brow. |
| culpable | adj. deserving blame. Corrupt politicians who condone the activities of the gamblers are equally culpable. |
| curtail | v. shorten; reduce. When Herb asked Diane for a date, she said she was really sorry she couldn't go out with him, but her dad had ordered her to curtail her social life. |
| debilitate | v. weaken; enfeeble. Michael's severe bout of the flu debilitated him so much that he was too tired to go to work for a week. |
| debunk | v. expose as false, exaggerated, worthless, etc; ridicule. Pointing out that he consistently had voted against strengthening anti-pollution legislation, reporters debunked the candidate's claim that he was a fervent environmentalist. |
| deference | n. courteous regard for another's wish. In deference to the minister's request, please do not take photographs during the wedding service. |
| degradation | n. humiliation; debasement; degeneration. Some secretaries object to fetching the boss a cup of coffee because they resent the degradation of being made to do such lowly tasks. degrade (v.) |
| dehydrate | v. remvove water from; dry out. Running under a hot sun quickly dehydrates the body; joggers soon learn to carry water bottles and to drink from them frequently. |
| deleterious | adj. harmful. If you believe that smoking is deleterious to your health (and the Surgeon General certainly does), then quit! |
| deplore | v. regret; disapprove of. Although I deplore the vulgarity of your language, I defend your right to express yourself freely. |
| depose | v. dethrone; remove from office. The army attempted to depose the king and set up a military government. |
| deride | v. ridicule; make fun of. The critics derided his pretentious dialogue and refused to consider his play seriously. derision (n.) |
| derivative | adj. unoriginal; derived from another source. Although her early poetry was clearly derivative in nature, the critics thought she had promise and eventually would find her own voice. |
| desiccate | v. dry up. A tour of this smokehouse will give you an idea of how the pioneers used to desiccate food in order to preserve it. |
| detached | adj. emotionally removed; calm and objective; physically unconnected. A psychoanalyst must maintain a detached point of view and stay uninvolved with his or her patients' personal lives. |
| detrimental | adj. harmful; damaging. The candidate's acceptance of major financial contributions from a well-known racist ultimately proved detrimental to his campaign, for he lost the backing of many of his early grassroots supporters. detriment (n.) |
| devious | adj. roundabout; erratic; not straightforward. The Joker's plan was so devious that it was only with great difficulty we could follow its shifts and dodges. |
| devise | v. think up; invent; plan. How clever he must be to have devised such a devious plan! What ingenious inventions might he have devised if he had turned his mind to science and not to crime. |
| diffidence | n. shyness. You must overcome your diffidence if you intend to become a salesperson. |
| diffuse | adj. wordy; rambling; spread out (like a gas). If you pay authors by the word, you tempt them to produce diffuse manuscripts rather than brief ones. diffusion n. |
| dilatory | adj. delaying. If you are dilatory in paying bills, your credit rating may suffer. |
| diligence | n. steadiness of effort; persistent hard work. Her employers were greatly impressed by her diligence and offered her a partnership in the firm. diligent (adj.) |
| disclose | v. reveal. Although competitor offered him bribes, he refused to disclose any information about his company's forthcoming product. disclosure (n.) |
| discount | v. disregard; dismiss. Be prepared to discount what he has to say about his ex-wife. |
| discourse | n. formal discussion; conversation. The young Plato was drawn to the Agora to hear the philosophical discourse of Socrates and his followers. also v. |
| discriminating | adj. able to see differences; prejudiced. A superb interpreter of Picasso, she was sufficiently discriminating to judge the most complex works of moder art. (secondary meaning) discrimination (n.) |
| disputatious | adj. argumentative; fond of arguing. Convinced he knew more than his lawyers, Alan was disputatious client, ready to argue about the best way to conduct the case. disputant (n.) |
| dissent | v. disagree. In the recent Supreme Court decision, Justice O'Connor dissented from the majority opinion. also (n.) |
| distend | v. expand; swell out. I can tell when he is under stress by the way the veins distend on his forehead. |
| doctrine | n. teachings, in general; particular principle (religious, legal, etc.) taught. He was so committed to the doctrines of his faith that he was unable to evaluate them impartially. |
| document | v. provide written evidence. She kept all hte reciepts from her business trip in order to document her expenses for the firm. also (n.) |
| dubious | adj. questionable; filled with doubt. Many critics of the SAT contend the test is of dubious worth. Jay claimed he could get a perfect 2400 on thenew SAT, but Ellen was dubious: she knew he hadn't cracked a book in three years. |
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