GRE Vocabulary

Here I will post GRE Vocabulary words that could be helpful to study! These are taken from the Google Search results for the words and compiled here for your use. I will link to any other websites used to define these words as well. I am personally studying from Manhattan Prep flashcards and I will mark all defintions/sentences from these flashcards with a star *.

A good way to study GRE vocab words it to read literature. Reading literature will help you learn words in context as well as provide good practice for the reading comprehension portion of this exam. Novels written by classical writers are the best for this purpose, however you should read what you are interested in. Reading an article a day or more from these following sites will also help you improve you vocabulary. UPDATE: I am no longer studying for the GRE and will not be updating this page, however I hope some of the material below proves helpful to people still studying for it!

I have generated PDF's of some of the words/sentences below to help you study. The words in these practice problems can be any of the words below. Study the words/sentences before attemping these PDF's!
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The Atlantic
Economist
National Geographic
New Yorker
Scientific American
New York Times
Wall Street Journal
Washington Post
You should aim to study vocabulary at least 10 minutes a day. Using flashcards can be a very effective way to study these words.

*Abjure: Verb - Give up, renounce; repudiate, recant or shun (especially formally or under oath).
"To become a citizen of the United States, you must abjure loyalty to the nation of your birth. / Since enrolling in that nutrition class, she has abjured sugar and saturated fats."
Abstruse: Adjective - Difficult to understand;obscure.
"An abstruse philosophical inquiry."
Acrimony: Noun - Bitterness or ill feeling.
"After Dan got rear-ended by a sports mom driving a minivan, he felt intense acrimony towards her when she came out of her car screaming at him. He could tell this accident wouldn't be easy to resolve."
*Affable: Adjective - Warm and friendly, pleasant, approachable.
"The professional wrestler played at belligerence in the ring, but in real life, he was quite an affable fellow - sociable, easy-going, and always ready to lend a hand."
*Affectation: Noun - Fake behavior (such as in speech or dress) adopted to give a certain impression.
"I'm annoyed whenever Americans move to England and suddenly start speaking with an affected British accent."
*Aggrandize: Verb - Make greater; exaggerate.
"I can't stand when my coworker aggrandizes her role in our group projects."
"Stop it with your constant self-aggrandizing - we don't care how many automobiles you own!"
*Antipathy: Noun - Deep dislike, aversion, or repugnance, sometimes without reason.
"As an enviornmentalist, Mr. Subramanian had nothing but antipathy for the mining company drilling in and polluting his hometown"
*Apocryphal: Adjective - Of questionable authenticity; false
"I'm sorry, but this putative letter from George Washington that you found at a garage sale is clearly apocryphal - it is riddled with anachronisms (for instance, Washington was long dead by the time silent films were invented), and also, Washington most certainly didn't refer to Martha Washington as "hey baby.""
Apogee: Noun - The highest point of the development of something; the climax or culmination.
"The Roman Empire stretched far and wide across the land at its apogee. During this time period, trade and culture flourished and it was a Golden Age for Rome. However, such an empire was not sustainable and eventually it fell."
*Artless: Adjective - Free of deceit or craftiness, natural, genuine; lacking skill or knowledge, crude, uncultured.
"Children can be so artless that, when you try to explain war to them, they say things like "But isn't that mean?""
"His artless attempt at negotiating a raise began with "I need more money, please" and ended with "Okay, sorry I asked.""
*Austere: Adjective - Severe in manner or appearance; very self-disciplined, asectic; without luxury or easy; sober or serious.
"Her design sense was so minimalist as to be austere; all-white walls, hard, wooden furniture, not a single picture, throw pillow, or cozy comfort anywhere. / The graduation speaker delivered an austere message: the economy is bad, and academic success alone isn't enough to succeed in the job market."
*Aver: Verb - Declare or affirm with confidence.
"Despite your insistence that ethics are completely situational," said the philosophy professor, "I aver that the existence of natural rights inevitably leads to certain immutable ethical boundaries."
Balk: Verb - Refuse to proceed or to do something.
"At the company retreat, he reluctantly agreed to participate in the ropes course, but balked at working over hot coals as a "trust exercise""; Noun - An impediment, much like a beam or ridge, or a defeat.
"The balk held the makeshift bridge toghether."
"Saddened by his balk, the man went to the bar after his soccer game."
*Belie: Verb - Contradict or misrepresent.
"The actress's public persona as a perky "girl next door" belied her private penchant for abusing her assistants and demanding that her trailer be filled with ridiculous luxury goods."
"The data belies the accepted theory - either we've made a mistake, or we have an amazing new discovery on our hands."
Bellicose: Adjective - Demonstrating aggression and willingness to fight.
"The Spartans were trained from birth to be bellicose so that they could defeat their opponents in combat with ruthless ferocity."
*Bilious: Adjective - Affected by or associated with nausea or vomiting.
"After eating the questionable street food in Korea, I started to regret my decision as a bilious feeling took over me and I started to feel woozy."
Adjective - Spiteful; bad-tempered.
"He was so bilious a man that, feeling offended by the fact that the Starbucks employee mispronounced his name, he started berating the employee and the manager had to be called in to stop him."
*Blithe: Adjective - Showing a casual and cheerful indifference considered to be callous or improper.
"The man's blithe disregard about the rules of the road, combined with him getting distracted by his favorite song on the radio, caused him to lose focus of the road and get into a car accident."
Adjective - Happy or joyous.
"Spongebob's blithe disposition stands in stark contrast to his coworker Squidward's dreary view of life."
Cadaverous: Adjective - Resembling a corpse in being very pale, thin, or bony.
"After spending 10 days holed up in a bunker fighting the Japanese with very little to eat, Eddie returned to camp and looked in a mirror only to see how cadaverous and pale he had become."
*Caprice: Noun - A sudden and unaccountable change of mood or behavior.
"Who needs a plan? A date is more fun with a little caprice - let's just start driving and see what we find!"
*Capricious: Adjective - Acting on impulse, erratic.
"The headmaster's punishments were capricious - break the rules one day, you get a warning; break them another day you get expelled."
Cascade: Noun - A small waterfall, typically of several that fall down in stages down a steep rocky slope.
"The cascades at Buttermilk Falls are truly a sight a to behold as they gush down the rocky incline."
Noun - A process wherby something, typically information or knowledge, is sucesffively passed on.
"After the presentation was given to all of the managers at Twitter, Jack Dorsey encouraged everyone to relay the information to everyone below them thus creating a cascade effect."
Noun - A mass of something that falls or hangs in copious or luxuriant quantities.
"The desert caravan transporting a cascade of the finest silk to far off lands was heavily guarded."
Noun - A large number of something occuring or arriving in rapid succesion.
"The Vietnam War brought on a cascade of antiwar sentiment due to the fact that Americans could witness the true nature of war from their televisions for the first time."
Verb - (Of water) pour downward rapidly and in large quantities.
"The thundering boom of the cascading water combined with the awe of witnessing the sheer force being generated here makes Niagra Falls an unforgettable experience."
Verb - Arrange (a number of devices or objects) in a series or sequence.
"The library volunteer cascaded the books according to the Dewey Decimal System."
*Castigate: Verb - Reprimand (someone) severely.
"The insurgent was castigated for trying to incite a rebellion by being tarred and feathered in middle of the town square to be made an example of."
Cavort: Verb - jump or dance around excitedly.
"Spider monkeys leap and cavort in the branches"; Verb - apply oneself enthusiastically to sexual or disreputable pursuits.
"He spent his nights cavorting with the glitterati."
*Chauvinism: Noun - Fanatical patriotism or blind enthusiam for military glory; undue or biased devotion to any group, cause, etc.
"He's such a chauvinist that he denies that any other nation could be better than ours at anything - he insists our wine is better than Frnace's, our ski slopes are better than Norway's, and even taht we grow more rice than China! Absurd."
Choleric: Adjective - Bad-tempered or irritable.
""Don't talk to Carmine Falcone when he is in a bad mood. We all know how choleric he is and there's no telling what he'll do to a new recruit such as yourself. The last person to get on his a bad side wound up mysteriously dead by the docks, don't let that be you," warned Tony."
*Cogent: Adjective - Very convincing, logical
"Studying logic is an excellent way to improve at formulating cogent arguments. / Nurses who work in the Alzheimer's ward must develop skills for communicating with people who are often not cogent.
*Commensurate: Adjective - The same in size, extent, etc., equivalent; proportional.
"According to the course catalog, you may take Advanced Japanese following Japanese III or commensurate experience with the language."
Confiscatory: Adjective - Of, effecting, or virtually amounting to confiscation.
"The confiscatory nature of the tyrant made his subjects hide all of their valuable possessions, leading to the formation of a secret police whose sole job was to discover those possessions."
*Conversant: Adjective - Knowledgeable about or experience with.
"For an opera singer, she is unusually conversant in physics - she just explained to everyone the purpose of the Large Hadron Collider."
*Countenance: Noun - Facial expression of face.
"Her countenance said it all - the look on her face was pure terror."; Verb - Approve or tolerate.
"I saw you cheating off my paper, and I cant countenance cheating - either you turn yourself in or I'll report you."
*Craven: Adjective - Very cowardly, lacking courage.
"The nervous soldier feared he would turn craven in his first firefight, but he actually acted quite bravely."
Decadence: Noun - Moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury.
"The decadence of the Romans would be their undoing as they could not support such a way of life forever."
Noun - Luxurious, self-indulgence.
""French" connotes richness and decadence, and that's the idea of this ice cream."
*Deference: Noun - Respectful submission; yielding to the authority or opinion of another.
"In many cultures, young people are expected to show deference to older people at all times."
"I'm not an expert in databases - I'll defer to our programmers on that decision."
"Ingrid deferred her college admissions for a year so she could travel the world."
*Deleterious: Adjective - Harmful, unhealthful.
"The Resident Assitant told the first-year students, "I think you will find not only that drugs are illegal and will result in expulsion, but also that drug abuse will have a deleterious effect on anyone's grades."
*Denigrate: Verb - Belittle, attack the reputation of.
"Many jokes in the Meet the Parents trilogy come from Robert De Niro's character denigrating Ben Stiller's character for being a male nurse."
Deprecate: Verb - Express disapproval of.
"The pastor deprecated violence of any sorts and implored all churchgoers to abstain from joning any branch of the military."
Verb - Another term for depreciate.
"Twitter stock deprecated due to poor management and loss of investor faith, leaving many people holding a "dead" stock."
Depreciate: Verb - Diminish in value over a period of time.
"Analysts predicted that Brexit would cause the pound to depreciate due to the resulting political instability in the United Kingdom which could cause economic turmoil. Investing in the United Kingdom just wouldn't be appealing and as a result, the pound's value would drop."
*Desiccate: Verb - Thoroughly dried up, dehydrated.
"The key to maintaining odor-free shoes is to desiccate the insole by placing a drying agent, such as a small pouch of baking soda, inside the shoe between wears."
"Beef jerky is a dessicated meat product."
*Didactic: Adjective - Intended to instruct; teaching, or teaching a moral lesson.
"She might have Teacher of the Year at work, but at home, her husband wished she would turn off her didactic personality. "Honey," he said, "I really don't need you to use everything as a learning oppurtunity."
"The child was dissapointed when the storybook turned didactic in the end, with the teddy bears - and the reader - being admonished never to lie."
Dillapidated: Adjective - (Of a building or object) in a state of disrepair or ruin as a result of age or neglect.
"Walking through the streets of a once war-ravaged Cologne, I saw many dillapidated buildings that could not be repaired even after all these years."
*Din: Loud, confused noise, esp. for a long period of time.
"This hotel was described as "near all the hot spots," but I didn't realize that I wouldn't be able to sleep due to the all-night din from partygoers."
*Disabuse: Verb - Free someone from a mistake in thinking
"Do you really believe that toliets flush one way in the Northern hemisphere and another way in the Southern? Any physicist would be happy to disabuse you of that silly notion."
*Diatribe: Noun - Bitter, abusive attack or criticism; rant.
"I'd stay out of the living room for awhile - Grandpa's on another one of his diatribes about how it's un-American to call a large coffee a "venti." You can hear him ranting from here!"
*Discountenance: Verb - Refuse to approve of (something).
"The stern father discountenanced his daughter from staying out past eleven P.M. and enforced a strict curfew all for her protection in his eyes."
Verb - Disturb the composure of.
"Phoenix Wright tried his best to discountenance the key witness into revealing what he really knew about the situation, but the witness kept his cool and didn't talk."
*Disposition: Noun - A person's general or natural mood; tendency.
"She was possessed of a kind and helpful disposition - she wouldn't just help you move, she'd bring home-baked muffings to the affair. /I could really use some help in the kitchen, if you are so disposed."
Ebullience: Noun - The quality of being cheerful and full of energy, exuberance.
"Kate's ebullience was contagious and she brought a smile to everyone around her, brightening up their day."
*Eclectic: Adjective - Selecting the best of everything or from many diverse sources.
"Eclectic taste is helpful in being a DJ - crowds love to hear the latest hip-hop mixed with '80s classic and other unexpected genres of music."
"The restaurant features an eclectic menu - if you don't like artisanal pasta or steak fries, try the chow mein!"
*Efficacy: Noun - The quality of being able to produce the intended effect.
"Extensive trials will be necessary to determine whether the drug's efficacy outweighs the side effects."
"I am having trouble cutting my steak with this butter knife; I'm going to ask the waiter for a more efficacious implement."
*Egalitarian: Adjective - Related to belief in the equality of all people, esp. in political, economic, or social spheres.
"After moving to a more liberal part of the country, the couple was pleased to have neighbors who shared their views of egalitarian marraige - for instance, men and women could be found in equal proportions downshifting to part-time work to make time for childcare."
*Egregious: Adjective - Extraordinarily or conspicuously bad; glaring.
"Your conduct is an egregious violation of our Honor Code - not only did you steal your roomate's paper off his computer and turn it in as your own, you also sold his work to a plagarism website so other cheaters could purchase it!"
Endemic: Adjective - (of a disease or condition) regularly found among particular people or in a certain area.
"Areas where malaria is endemic."; Adjective - (of a plant or animal) native or restricted to a certain country or area.
"A marsupial endemic to northeastern Australia."
*Enervate: Verb - Weaken, tire
"After taking the SAT in the morning and playing in a soccer game in the afternoon, Trina was truly enervated before the program even began. "You dance like a grandmother with osteoporosis,"said her date."
*Engender: Verb - Cause or give rise to (a feeling, situation, or condition).
"Growing dissent among all those working under the project maanger engendered a sense of resentment towards him/a desire to have him replaced."
*Ephemeral: Adjective - Lasting only a short time, fleeting.
""Thank you for this jacket that says 'Eugenes Girl,'" said Marie, "but I fear that your love will prove to be ephemeral - over the last two years, I've seen four other girls in school with the same jacket. Do you buy them in six-packs?""
*Epigram: Noun - A pithy saying or remark expressing an idea in a clever and amusing way.
""I think I forgot my wallet at home. How are we going to pay for this restaurant bill?" exclaimed Clara.
"The best things in life are always free. We could just not pay," bemused Joey.
"I appreciate the epigram Joey, but we can't just dine and dash. I'll call my mom and she can come here to pay," Clara responded."
*Equitable: Adjective - Fair, equal, just.
"As the university president was heavily biased towards the sciences, faculty in the liberal arts felt that they had to fight to get an equitable share of funding for their departments."
*Eschew: Verb - Shun, avoid, abstain from
"As a vegan, he eschewed not only from meat and dairy but also anything made of leather."; Noun - An endemic plant or animal.
"The endemic was becoming a problem in our backyard so we called an exterminator."
Eulogy: Noun - A speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly, typically someone who has just died.
"Following the Comedian's death, his close friends gathered at his funeral to mourn his loss and Adrian gave a heartfelt eulogy about his life's acomplishments."
*Exculpate: Verb - Clear from guilt or blame.
"The security camera footage showing Mr. Murphy to have been in a casion the entire night turned out to be just the evidence needed to exculpate him of robbing a bank fifty miles away."
*Exponent: Noun - Person who expounds of explains; champion, advocate or representative."
"An exponent of clean fuel, he petitioned the state government to commit to replacing convential energy with solar and wind energy where possible."
*Extraneous: Adjective - Irrelevant; foreign, coming from without, not belonging.
"This essay would be stronger if you removed extraneous information; this paragraph about the author's life doesn't happen to be relevant to your thesis./ Maize, which originated in the New World, is extraneous to Europe."
*Fallacious: Adjective - Containing a fallacy, or mistake in logic; logically unsound; deceptive.
"The formal study of logic can enable a student to more easily identify fallacious reasoning and, furthermore, to point out its fallacies."
Flippant: Adjective - disrepectfully casual or light in manner.
"Joe got mad at the flippant remark regarding his bad hair day."
Fallacy: Noun - A mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument.
"The notion that the camera never lies is a fallacy."
Noun - A failure in reasoning that renders an argument invalid. Faulty reasoning; misleading or unsound argument.
"The potential for fallacy which lies behind the notion of self-esteem."
*Foment: Verb - Incite, instigate, stir up, promote the growth of; apply medicated liquid to a body party.
"The revolutionary group was quietly fomenting a rebellion, galvanizing student radicals, leading unions in revolutionary songs, and anonymously pasting incendiary psoters in every quarter of the city."
Frenetic: Adjective - Fast and energetic in a rather wild and uncontrolled way.
"The Salem witches danced around the bonfire frenetically, chanting demonic rituals and losing control of all of their inhibitions."
*Garrulous: Adjective - Talkative, wordy, rambling.
"Uncle Bill is so garrulous that our dinner conversation lasted three hours - and the only person who said more than ten words was Uncle Bill."
*Gainsay: Verb - Declare false, deny; oppose
"The professor is quite doctrinaire - she's been known to lower the grade of any student who dares gainsay her."
*Gauche: Adjective - Tactless, lacking social grace, akward, crude.
"It is terribly gauche to put ketchup on your steak and then talk with your mouth full as you eat it. That's the last time I ever bring you to a nice place."
*Germane: Adjective - Relevant and approriate, on-topic.
"This is a business meeting, not a social club - let's keep our comments germane to the issue of the new campaign."
*Glib: Adjective - Fluent and easy in a way that suggest superficiality or insincerity.
"She was the worst teacher he had ever encountered, giving glib responses to every question. "Can you help with this algebra problem?" he asked. "Oh, just solve for x," she said, and walked away."
Glitterati: Noun - the fashionable set of people engaged in show business or some other glamorous activity.
"He spent his nights cavorting with the glitterati."
*Gradation: Noun - A progression, a process taking place gradually, in stages; one of these stages
"The hill's gradation was so gradual that even those on crutches were able to enjoy the nature's trail."
Grade: Verb - arrange in or allocate to grades; class or sort.
"They are graded according to thickness."; Verb - pass gradually from one level, especially a shade of color, into another.
"The short story's language graded from the vernacular to the erudite so gradually that you practically didn't realize until the end that the speaker had become educated almost before your eyes."
*Gregarious: Adjective - Sociable pertaining to a flock or crowd.
""We need to be a little more productive and a little less gregarious" said the chemistry teacher when he saw that the two-person lab groups had devolved into clusters of five and six students standing around talking and laughing."
*Guile: Noun - Clever deceit, cunning, craftiness.
"The game of poker is all about guile, manipulating your own body language and patter to lead other players to erroneous conclusions about the cards you're holding."
*Hackneyed: Adjective - So commonplace as to be stale; not fresh or original
The screenplay is so hackneyed - the leading lady has a quirky, artsy job in the city and has a minor problem early in the movie from which the male lead rescues her, and they get together but then break up due to a misunderstanding, and then they end up together anyway, all while the female lead's "sassy" friend gives advice. Ugh. I'll bet they're auditioning Jennifer Aniston right now.
Harried: Adjective - Feeling strained as a result of having demands persistantly made on one; harrased.
"Harried reporters are frequently forced to invent what they cannot find out."
*Hodgepodge: Noun - Mixture of different kinds of things, jumble.
"The comedian's book wasn't a proper memoir, but more a hodgepodge of old bits, personal stories that went nowhere, random political opinions, and childhood photos."
*Idiosyncrasy: Noun - Characteristic or habit peculiar to an individual; peculiar quality, quirk
"Sometimes, the richer people get, the more idiosyncratic they become. After he made his first billion, he began traveling with a pet iguana, sleeping in an oxygen chamber, and, oddly, speaking with a slight Dutch accent.""
Idiosyncratic: Adjective - of or relating to idiosyncrasy; peculiar or individual.
"She emerged as one of the great idiosyncratic talents of the Nineties."
Ignoble: Adjective - Not honorable in cahracter or purpose.
"Be careful at night in London, the streets are filled with ignoble miscreants lurking in the shadows waiting for an unsuspecting victim to pass by."
Adjective - Of humble origin or social status.
"The ignoble CEO started off at the company working as a cashier, but through great force of will and sheer perseverance he rose to the top."
*Illiberality: Noun - Narrow-mindedness, bigotry; strictness or lack of generosity.
"Students protested the illiberality of an admissions policy that made no allowances for those from disadvantaged areas of backgrounds who may not have had access to advanced classes and tutors."
*Inchoate: Adjective - Just begun, undeveloped, unorganized.
"The first few weeks of language class went well, but her inchoate French was all but useless when she found herself at an academic conference in Quebec."
Inimical: Adjective - Tending to obstruct or harm.
"Actions inimical to our interests."; Adjective - Unfriendly/hostile.
"An inimical alien power."
Insouciant: Adjective - Showing a casual lack of concern, indifferent.
""Dad look at the television it says the Russians have invaded Afghanistan!" Billy exclaimed.
"It matters not to me son, I have more pressing matters to attend to," Billy's dad insouciantly responded."
Laconic: Adjective - (Of a person, speech, or style of writing) using very few words.
"As much as people tried to converse with him, Squad Commander Levi had a laconic nature that would not be changed and it was hard to hold a lengthy conversation with him."
*Languid: Noun - Drooping from exhaustion, sluggish, slow; lacking in spirit.
"We signed up for a fitness boot camp, but after a single hour of exercise in the heat, we all felt so overcome with languor that we refused to go on. Turns out the reason we need a fitness boot camp in the first place is taht we're pretty languid people."
*Lassitude: Noun - Tiredness, weariness; lazy indifference
"It's so difficult to get anything done in the dead heat of August! I can't seem to shake my lassitude enough to get out of this hammock, much less study for the GRE."
*Levity: Noun - Lightness (of mind,spirit, or mood) or lack of seriousness, sometimes in an inappropriate way.
"My late uncle Bill loved practical jokes and absolutely would have approved of the iPod mix my aunt played at the wake, which added a little levity by segueing from "Amazing Grace" to the party anthem "Let's Get It Started.""
*Libertine: Noun - Morally or secually unrestrained person; freethinker (regarding religion).
"A famed libertine, the sitcom star was constantly in the news for cavorting with women of dubious occupations and overdosing on drugs often enough to regularly hold up production of his popular televison show."
*Loquacious: Adjective - Talkative, wordy.
"The loquacious professor spoke at a million miles an hour and still regularly talked past the scheduled end time of the class."
Melancholic: Adjective - Characterized by or causing or expressing sadness.
"After losing his mother in a car crash, Joe found solace in the melancholic lament known as Clair de Lune."
*Mendacious: Adjective - Lying, habitually dishonest.
"She was so mendacious that, when she broke the television, she blamed it on her little brother, even though he was in a wheelchair and could hardly have tripped over a piece of furniture. Her mendacity knows no bounds!"
*Mollify: Verb - Calm or soothe (an agry person); lessen or soften.
"The cellular company's billing practices were so infuriating to customers that the customer service representatives spent every workday mollifying angry customers."
*Mores: Noun - Customs, manners, or morals of a particular group.
"An American in Saudi Arabia should study the culture beforehand so as to avoid violating deeply conservative cultural mores."
Moribund: Adjective - (Of a person) at the point of death.
""Always remember me," Will let out with a dying breath, grasping at the air in his mangy hospital bed yet only finding nothingness. The world started to fade into darkness around him, not unlike the darkness that exists in the hearts of all men including himself, until he was moribund."
Adjective - in a poor condition, shabby.
"After years of neglect, the mansion, which once had halls laden with silk curtains and extravagant furniture/exotic paintings as far as the eye could see, laid moribund and desolate, it's best years left in the distant past."
Neophyte: Noun - A person who is new to a subject, skill, or belief.
"Four-day cooking classes are offered to neophytes and experts."; Noun - A new convert to a religion.
"The neophyte found new meaning in his life aftering converting to Buddhism."; Noun - A novice in a religious order, or a newly ordained priest.
"The neophyte donned his robes for the first time and prepared for the ceremony."
*Obsequious: Adjective - Servile, very compliant, fawning.
"Sammy thought he could get ahead by being obsequious, but instead, his boss gave a promotion to someone he viewed as more of a peer; truthfully, he thought Sammy's sucking up was pretty pathetic."
*Obstinate: Adjective - Stubborn or hard to control.
"It's difficult to get an obstinate child to eat food he doesn't want to eat. When Toby realized taht his son would rather sit and starve than eat mahi-mahi, he gave in an made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
*Obviate: Verb - Prevent, eliminate, or make unncessary.
"Adding protective heel taps to your dress shoes can obviate the need to take them to the shoe repair store later, once the heels have worn down."
*Officious: Adjective - Excessively eager in giving unwated advice or intruding where one is not wanted; meddlesome, pushy.
"Lisa's dinner parties are exhausting. She's an officious host who butts in and runs everyone's conversations, keeps an eye onw hat everyone is eating and makes sure you finish your vegetables, and even knocks on the bathroom door to make sure you're "okay in there.""
*Onerous: Adjective - Burdensome, oppresive, hard to endure.
"Doctors are often faced wih the onerous taks of telling waiting families that their love one has died."
Opulently: Adverb - In a sumptuous and opulent manner.
"This government building is opulently appointed."
*Paucity: Noun - Scarcity, the state of being small in number.
"Our school has such a disgraceful paucity of textbooks that the students are sharing, and so cannot even count on being able to take the books home to do homework."
*Peccadillo: Noun - Small sin or fault.
"I'm going to propose to Melinda tomorrow - sure, she has her peccadillos, like anyone, but she's the perfect woman for me."
*Perfidious: Adjective - Disloyal, treacherous, violating one's trust.
"The perfidious soldier sold out his comrades, giving secrets to the enemy in exchange for money and protection."
Penury: Noun - Extreme poverty; destituion.
"After visiting the slums of India and witnessing the penury there, Rajiv was grateful for the fact that he made enough money to live comfortably and did not have to struggle to survive."
*Pith: Noun - Core, essence; significance or weight.
"I can only stay at this meeting for a minute - can you get to the pith of the issue now, and discuss the details after I leave?"
"This presentation has no pith - there's no central point and nothing I didn't already know."
*Plastic: Adjective - Able to be shaped or formed; easily influenced.
"A young child's mind is quite plastic, and exposure to violent movies and video games can have a much greater effect on children than they typically do on adults."
*Polity: Noun - A form or process of civil government or constitution.
""History has proven that the only polity that works is a democratic one. Socialist countries fall all the time while the democratically ruled ones remain," Jack boldly declared."
*Ponderous: Adjective - Heavy; bulky and unwieldy; dull, labored.
"The book assigned by her professor was a ponderous tome, more a reference book than something you could read straight through. She was so bored she thought she would die."
*Potentate: Noun - Ruler, person of great power.
"62-year old Prince Charles has certainly waited long enough to become potentate of England; his mother, Elizabeth II, has been ruling for his entire life."
*Probity: Noun - Honesty, integrity.
"After losing the last election when their candidate's stirng of mistresses came to light, this time, the party would only nominate a candidate whose probity was beyond any doubt."
*Prodigal: Adjective - Wasteful, extravagant; giving abundantly, lavish
"If you're going to leave a trust fund for your children, you should raise them not to be prodigal, or they'll blow through all the cash the minute they get their hands on it."
"The prodigal land produced larger crops than the people could even consume."
*Prodigious: Adjective - Extraordinarily large, impressive, etc.
"The Great Wall of China consists of a prodigious series of fortifications stretching over 5,000 miles!"
"If we don't double our sales with this new product, we will have to declare bankruptcy - we have a prodigious task ahead."
*Profligate: Adjective - Completely and shamelessly immoral, or extremely wasteful.
"The billionare software developer was so digusted with his profligate daughter's spending that he cut her off - she bought champagne for an entire nightclub full of strangers one too many times."
*Profuse: Adjective - Abundant, extravagant, giving or given freely.
"It didn't mean anything at all to me, giving my old microwave to the family next door, but the woman's profuse thanks made me thik that maybe the family was having financial troubles."
"She came home on Valentine's Day to an apartment decorated with a profusion of flowers."
*Propriety: Noun - Conformig to good manners or approriate behavior; justness.
"The parent questioned the propriety of the punishment meted out to her son - sitting in a corner all day seemed a little harsh for using the pencil sharpener at the wrong time."
"Saying the accounting firm was complicit in "financial impropriety" was a rather polite way to refer to the fraud it commited against its investors."
*Proscribe: Verb - Prohibit, outlaw; denounce; exile or banish.
"Plagiarism is proscribed by every college's code of conduct."
*Prosaic: Adjective - Dull, ordinary.
"Finding his friends' bar mitzvahs at the local synagogue a bit prosaic, Justin instead asked his dad to rent out the local laser tag center."
*Prudent: Adjective - Wise in practical matters, carefully providing for the future.
"Katie's friends blew all kinds of money on spring break, but Katie prudently kept to her usual spending habits: she'd drink one of whatever was least expensive, and then watch her friends get stupid while she checked her bank balances on her phone and dreamed about the day she'd have a full-time job and a 401k."
Pulchitudinous: Adjective - Having great physical beauty.
"Faith was very pulchitudinous yet her magical garments masked this fact to all who gazed upon her making her seem unalluring."
*Pugnacious: Adjective - Inclined to fight, combative.
"Amy had hoped to avoid inviting Uncle Ed to the wedding, as he was a pugnacious fellow - and, sure enough, he managed to start a fistfight with the best man."
Putative: Adjective - Generally considered or reputed to be.
"The putative father of a boy of two."
*Quibble: Verb - Make trivial arguements or criticisms, find faults in a petty way, esp. to evade something more important
"Look, I am telling you some of the serious consequences of global warming, as predicted by the scientfic establishment - I think you're just quibbling to complain I said "carbo monoxide" when I meant "carbon dioxide.""
*Quotidian: Adjective - Daily; everyday, ordinary.
"He was so involved in his quest for spiritual enlightenment that he regularly forgot more quotidian concerns - sure, he meditated for six hours today, but he hasn't done laundry in weeks."
*Reproach: Noun - Blame, disgrace.
Verb - Criticize, express dissapoint in.
"I'm not really enjoiyng my foreign study program. My host mom reproached me in Spanish - it sounded really harsh, but I couldn't really understand her and I have no idea what I did wrong!"
*Repudiate: Verb - Reject, cast off, deny that something has authority.
"If you receive an erroneous notice from a collections agency, you have 30 days to repudiate the debt by mail."
"As part of becoming an American citizen, Mr. Lee repudiated his former citizenship."
*Restive: Adjective - Impatient or uneasy under the control of another; resisting being controlled.
"The company was purchased by a larger competitor, and the employees grew restive as the new bosses curtailed their freedoms and put a hold on their projects."
*Reticent: Adjective - Not talking much; private (of a person), restrained, reserved.
"She figured that, to rise to the top, it was best to be reticent about her personal life; thus, even her closest colleagues were left speculating at the water cooler about whether her growing belly actually indicated a pregnancy she simply declined to mention to anyone."
*Rife: Adjective - Happening frequently, abundant, currently being reported.
"Reports of financial corruption are rife."
Riposte: Noun - A quick clever reply to an insult or criticism.
"An indignant riposte."; Noun - A quick return thrust following a parry.
"Alistar was taken aback by Fiora's riposte."; Verb - Make a quick clever reply to an insult or criticism.
""I'd have made lamb chops had I known you're a vegetarian," Kris riposted."; Verb - Make a quick return thrust in fencing.
"Fiora riposted the enemy duelist's attack."
*Sacrosanct: Adjective - Sacred, inviolable, not to be trespassed on or violated; above any criticism.
"In our house, family dinners were sacrosanct - if being in the school play meant you would miss dinner, then you just couldn't be in the school play."
*Sagacious: Adjective - Wise; showing good judgment and foresight.
"It's important to choose a mentor who is not only successful, but also sagacious - plenty of people are succesful through luck and have little insight about how to attack someone else's situation."
*Salubrious: Adjective - Healthful, promoting health.
"After spending her twenties smoking and drinking, Jessica recognized the necessity of adopting a more salubrious lifestyle, but found it difficult to cut back."
*Sanguine: Adjective - Cheerfully optimistic, hopefuly; reddish, ruddy (as in rosy-red cheeks indicting health or vitality)
"She had three papers due in three days, but she maintained her typically sanguine attitude. "Things always just work out for me," she said, happily."
""It's nice to see the sanguine color in your face has returned. This disease was starting to take a toll on you, but the treatment seems to be working," Dr. Greene said to the flu patient.
Sectarian: Adjective - Denoting or concerning a sect or sects.
"Ethnic and sectarian differences."; Noun - A member of a sect.
"The Illuminati member was a sectarian."
*Sedulous: Adjective - Perservering, persistent, diligent in one's efforts.
"Sedulous effort is necessary to improve your GRE verabl score - you need to study vocab in a serious way, nearly every day."
Sinecure: Noun - A position requiring little or no work, but giving the holder status or financial benefit.
"Due to the government's rampant corruption, most jobs were sinecures where the employees could slack off all day and do a negligible amount of work yet still keep their jobs."
*Sojourn: Noun - A temporary stay.
"After a brief sojourn in France, the private plane traveled to India carrying precious jewels that would soon enter the black market."
Verb - Stay somewhere temporarily.
"Seeking a great challenge, Aria sojourned in the Himalayas to see how long she could survive. Her trip didn't last very long and she was sent home packing after just five days due to the harsh climate."
*Soporific: Adjective - Causing sleep; sleepy, drowsy.
"I was excited to take a class with Professor Baria because I had enjoyed her books, but sadly, she is a better writer than speaker - her lectures are soporific."
Noun - Something that causes sleep.
"I was so distressed after the crash that the doctor gave me a soporific - and, sure enough, I was able to think more clearly after sleeping."
*Spartan: Adjective - Very disciplines and stern; frugal, living simply, austere; suggestive of the ancient Spartans.
"A young soldier in the spartan enviornment of boot camp can really long for a home-cooked meal or even just a comfortable couch to sit on."
"He apartment was so spartan that she couldn't even serve us both soup - she only had one bowl and one spoon. Instead, we sat in hard-backed chairs and drank water."
*Spate: Noun - Sudden outpouring or rush; flood.
"After a brief spate of post-exam partying, Lola is ready for classes to begin again."
"He was so furious that a spate of expletives just flew out of his mouth."
*Specious: Adjective - Seemingly true but actualyl false; deceptively attractive.
"All squares are rectangles, all candy bars are rectangles, therefore all squares are candy bars" is clearly a specious argument."
*Sportive: Adjective - Playful, merry, joking around, done "in sport" (rather than inteded seriously).
"After Will shot a ball entirely off the pool table, knocking a woman's purse off a bar stool, her friends laughed hysterically and called him "purse-snatcher" all night, but he took it as sportive and bought the next round of drinks."
*Stolid: Adjective - Unemotional, showing little emotion, not easily moved.
"Dad is so stolid that we can't get a rise out of him no matter what we do - Jody got a tattoo, Max declared himself a communist, and Helen won a Rhodes Scholarship. No response! Dad just nods and says "Alright, then.""
*Supplicate: Verb - Pray humbly; ask, beg, or seek in a humble way.
"She had been estranged from her wealthy father for years, but when she needed money for her daughter's medical care, she supplicated the old man for assitance."
*Surfeit: Noun - Excess, excessive amount, overindulgence.
"The soup kitchen would like to announce that it has a serious surfeit of those cans of jellied cranberries that no one seems to want, but it could still use at least ten Thanksgiving turkeys."
*Surmise: Verb - Guess, infer, think or make an opinion with incomplete information.
"Based on your rather sad attempt to figure out the tip on our restaurant bill, I would surmise that you actually have no idea how percents work."
*Taciturn: Adjective - Not talking much, reserved; silent, holding back in conversation.
"Because he felt self-conscious about his stutter, Mike had always been taciturn, but after some very good speech therapy, soon he was much more voluble."
*Tacit: Adjective - Understood without being said; implied, not stated directly; silent.
"Her parents never told her she could smoke, but they gave their tacit consent when they didn't say anything about the obvious smell coming from her bedroom."
*Torrid: Adjective - Very hot, parching, burning; passionate.
"They had a torrid love affair in the '80s, but split up because a royal was not permitted to marry a commoner."
"The wandering refugees were in serious danger in the torrid Sahara."
*Trite: Adjective - Lacking freshness and originality, lacking effectiveness due to overuse, cliche
"The topic of your speech is "Children are the Future?" That's pretty trite. Mabye you should think harder and come up with something original."
*Vaccilate: Verb - Waver in one's mind or opinions, be indecisive.
"In need of a good used car, I was vacillating between the Ford and the Hyundai until a recommendation from a friend helped me decide."
*Venerate: Verb - Revere, regard with deep respect and awe.
"The boys were utterly crushed when the baseball player they venerated saw them waiting and refused to sign an autograph."
*Veracity: Noun - Truthfulness, accuracy; habitual adherance to the truth.
"I question the veracity of your story - I just don't think you've been to outer space."
"She was known for her veracity only because she had no choice - she was a terrible liar."
*Vituperate: Verb - Verbally abuse, rebuke, or criticize harshly.
"All couples fight, but your girlfriend vituperates you so severely that I'm not sure she loves you at all. Verbal abuse is actually a pretty good reason to break up."