GRE Words
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127 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 exiguity | meager, small, slender |
| hackneyed | commonplace, banal |
| bacchanal | a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity |
| quorum | a gathering of the minimal number of members of an organization to conduct business |
| surfeit | eating until excessively full |
| coterie | an exclusive circle of people with a common purpose |
| scion | a descendent or heir |
| antediluvian | a very old (or old fashioned) person |
| compendious | briefly giving the gist of something |
| bucolic | used of idealized country life |
| lugubrious | excessively mournful |
| otiosity | uselessness, ineffectiveness |
| puerility | a property characteristic of a child |
| obduracy | resoluteness by virtue of being unyielding and inflexible |
| indolence | inactivity resulting from a dislike of work |
| efficacy | capacity or power to produce a desired effect |
| fetid | offensively malodorous |
| vitriolic | harsh or corrosive in tone |
| calumnious | (used of statements) harmful and often untrue |
| apocryphal | of questionable authenticity |
| enigmatic | resembling an oracle in obscurity of thought, not clear to the understanding |
| deferential | Respectful |
| tetchy | easily irritated or annoyed |
| ephemeral | enduring a very short time |
| volatile | changeable, flighty, tending to break out in violence |
| aberrant | markedly different from an accepted norm |
| vassal | servant or slave; subject, subordinate, follower or retainer |
| patsy | a person who is gullible and easy to take advantage of; easily deceived, scapegoat, object of a joke |
| licentiously | going beyond sexual, legal, or customary limits |
| elegiac | expressing sorrow often for something past |
| inculcate | teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions |
| inimitable | defying imitation |
| surreptitious | conducted with or marked by hidden aims or methods |
| palliation | relief; the act of making something less severe or intense |
| promulgation | to make known to the public, declare; to make widespread |
| churlish | rude and boorish |
| salubrious | favorable to health of mind or body |
| clement | Compassionate. |
| assiduously | with care and persistence |
| acerbic | harsh or corrosive in tone |
| nebulous | lacking definition or definite content |
| elucidation | an interpretation that removes obstacles to understanding |
| diatribe | thunderous verbal attack |
| expurgating | eliminating |
| edifying | enlightening or uplifting so as to encourage intellectual or moral improvement |
| inchoate | only partly in existence |
| exculpate | pronounce not guilty of criminal charges |
| craven | an abject coward |
| assuaging | to make less burdensome or painful; to satisfy |
| vituperative | marked by harshly abusive criticism |
| deciduous | (of plants and shrubs) shedding foliage at the end of the growing season |
| gregarious | seeking and enjoying the company of others |
| hapless | unlucky |
| erudition | profound scholarly knowledge |
| guileless | free of deceit |
| bungling | not skillful in physical movement especially with the hands |
| taciturn | habitually reserved and uncommunicative |
| indolent | disinclined to work or exertion |
| desultory | marked by lack of definite plan or regularity or purpose |
| decorum | propriety in manners and conduct |
| intrepidity | resolute courageousness |
| egregious | conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible |
| quiescent | being quiet or still or inactive |
| prodigious | so great in size or force or extent as to elicit awe |
| profligate | recklessly wasteful |
| bastion | a fortified place, stronghold |
| collusion | secret agreement |
| caustically | in a caustic vitriolic manner |
| diffidence | lack of self-confidence |
| ostentatious | intended to attract notice and impress others |
| perfunctory | hasty and without attention to detail |
| impunity | exemption from punishment or loss |
| salacious | characterized by lust |
| hyperbole | extravagant exaggeration |
| spurious | intended to deceive, plausible but false |
| pecuniary | relating to or involving money |
| pellucid | (of language) transparently clear |
| pulveros | To scatter dust; to bestrew with dust |
| affable | diffusing warmth and friendliness |
| languid | lacking spirit or liveliness |
| anomaly | deviation from the normal or common order or form or rule |
| histrionic | characteristic of acting or a stage performance |
| laudable | worthy of high praise |
| somniferous | sleep inducing |
| soporific | sleep inducing |
| extol | praise, glorify, or honor |
| demagogue | an orator who appeals to the passions and prejudices of his audience |
| bedraggle | make wet and dirty, as from rain |
| analogous | similar or correspondent in some respects though otherwise dissimilar |
| avocation | an auxiliary activity |
| canny | showing self-interest and shrewdness in dealing with others |
| efficacious | producing or capable of producing an intended result or having a striking effect |
| expurgate | edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate |
| myopic | unable to see distant objects clearly |
| opine | expect, believe, or suppose |
| perspicacity | the capacity to assess situations or circumstances shrewdly and to draw sound conclusions |
| quiescent | being quiet or still or inactive |
| sobriquet | a familiar name for a person (often a shortened version of a person's given name) |
| staid | sober, grave, sedate |
| tacit | done or made in silence, implied but not expressed |
| unction | anointing as part of a religious ceremony or healing ritual |
| urbane | polite, refined, elegant |
| vanguard | front group, leading edge |
| vilify | defame, slander, make vile, debase |
| writ | that which is written |
| assuage | provide physical relief, as from pain |
| fervid | extremely hot, characterized by intense emotion |
| audacious | disposed to venture or take risks |
| desiccate | remove water from |
| pedant | a person who pays more attention to formal rules and book learning than they merit |
| vacillate | be undecided about something |
| capricious | determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason |
| engender | to cause, to produce, to create |
| corroborate | establish or strengthen as with new evidence or facts |
| laconic | brief and to the point |
| inscrutability | the quality of being impossible to investigate |
| emendation | a correction by emending |
| metonym | a word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with |
| emetic | substance causing vomiting |
| doughty | resolute and without fear |
| intractability | the trait of being hard to influence or control |
| cloying | overly sweet |
| jocund | full of or showing high-spirited merriment |
| condign | fitting or appropriate and deserved |
| recondite | difficult to penetrate |
| agrarian | relating to rural matters |
| truculent | defiantly aggressive |
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