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1
Q

ascribe

A

(v.) to assign, credit, attribute to (Some ascribe the invention of fireworks and
dynamite to the Chinese.)

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2
Q

adulation

A

(n.) extreme praise (Though the book was pretty good, Marcy did not believe
it deserved the adulation it received.)

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3
Q

aloof

A

(adj.) reserved, distant (The scientist could sometimes seem aloof, as if he didn’t care about his friends or family, but really he was just thinking about quantum mechanics.)

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4
Q

avarice

A

(n.) excessive greed (The banker’s avarice led him to amass a tremendous
personal fortune.)

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5
Q

assail

A

(v.) to attack (At dawn, the war planes assailed the boats in the harbor.)

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6
Q

arrogate

A

(v.) to take without justification (The king arrogated the right to order
executions to himself exclusively.)

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7
Q

acerbic

A

(adj.) biting, bitter in tone or taste (Jill became extremely acerbic and began to
cruelly make fun of all her friends.)

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8
Q

anachronistic

A

(adj.) being out of correct chronological order (In this book you’re writing, you say that the Pyramids were built after the Titanic sank, which is
anachronistic.)

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9
Q

antithesis

A

(n.) the absolute opposite (Your values, which hold war and violence in the highest esteem, are the antithesis of my pacifist beliefs.)

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10
Q

amenable

A

(adj.) willing, compliant (Our father was amenable when we asked him to
drive us to the farm so we could go apple picking.)

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11
Q

apathetic

A

(adj.) lacking concern, emotion (Uninterested in politics, Bruno was
apathetic about whether he lived under a capitalist or communist regime.)

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12
Q

abet

A

(v.) to aid, help, encourage (The spy succeeded only because he had a friend on the
inside to abet him.)

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13
Q

abstruse

A

(adj.) hard to comprehend (Everyone else in the class understood geometry
easily, but John found the subject abstruse.)

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14
Q

ameliorate

A

(v.) to improve (The tense situation was ameliorated when Sam proposed a
solution everyone could agree upon.)

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15
Q

anathema

A

(n.) a cursed, detested person (I never want to see that murderer. He is an
anathema to me.)

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16
Q

aggrandize

A

(v.) to increase or make greater (Joseph always dropped the names of the
famous people his father knew as a way to aggrandize his personal stature.)

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17
Q

assuage

A

(v.) to ease, pacify (The mother held the baby to assuage its fears.)

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18
Q

adorn

A

(v.) to decorate (We adorned the tree with ornaments.)

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19
Q

ascertain

A

(v.) to perceive, learn (With a bit of research, the student ascertained that some plants can live for weeks without water.)

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20
Q

admonish

A

(v.) to caution, criticize, reprove (Joe’s mother admonished him not to ruin
his appetite by eating cookies before dinner.)

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21
Q

assiduous

A

(adj.) hard-working, diligent (The construction workers erected the
skyscraper during two years of assiduous labor.)

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22
Q

amicable

A

(adj.) friendly (Claudia and Jimmy got divorced, but amicably and without
hard feelings.)

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23
Q

abrogate

A

(v.) to abolish, usually by authority (The Bill of Rights assures that the
government cannot abrogate our right to a free press.)

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24
Q

aberration

A

(n.) something that differs from the norm (In 1918, the Boston Red Sox won
the World Series, but the success turned out to be an aberration, and the Red Sox
have not won a World Series since.

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25
Q

acumen

A

(n.) keen insight (Because of his mathematical acumen, Larry was able to figure
out in minutes problems that took other students hours.

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26
Q

abscond

A

(v.) to sneak away and hide (In the confusion, the super-spy absconded into the
night with the secret plans.)

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27
Q

arboreal

A

(adj.) of or relating to trees (Leaves, roots, and bark are a few arboreal traits.)

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28
Q

accentuate

A

(v.) to stress, highlight (Psychologists agree that those people who are
happiest accentuate the positive in life.

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29
Q

acquiesce

A

(v.) to agree without protesting (Though Mr. Correlli wanted to stay outside
and work in his garage, when his wife told him that he had better come in to dinner,
he acquiesced to her demands.)

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30
Q

approbation

A

(n.) praise (The crowd welcomed the heroes with approbation.)

31
Q

antecedent

A

(n.) something that came before (The great tradition of Western culture had its antecedent in the culture of Ancient Greece.)

32
Q

atone

A

(v.) to repent, make amends (The man atoned for forgetting his wife’s birthday by buying her five dozen roses.)

33
Q

amorphous

A

(adj.) without definite shape or type (The effort was doomed from the start,
because the reasons behind it were so amorphous and hard to pin down.)

34
Q

arable

A

(adj.) suitable for growing crops (The farmer purchased a plot of arable land on which he will grow corn and sprouts.)

35
Q

accost

A

(v.) to confront verbally (Though Antoinette was normally quite calm, when the
waiter spilled soup on her for the fourth time in 15 minutes she stood up and accosted
the man.)

36
Q

alias

A

(n.) a false name or identity (He snuck past the guards by using an alias and fake ID.)

37
Q

antiseptic

A

(adj.) clean, sterile (The antiseptic hospital was very bare, but its cleanliness
helped to keep patients healthy.)

38
Q

aversion

A

(n.) a particular dislike for something (Because he’s from Hawaii, Ben has an
aversion to autumn, winter, and cold climates in general.)

39
Q

antediluvian

A

(adj.) ancient (The antediluvian man still believed that Eisenhower was president of the United States and that hot dogs cost a nickel.)

40
Q

adumbrate

A

(v.) to sketch out in a vague way (The coach adumbrated a game plan, but
none of the players knew precisely what to do.)

41
Q

auspicious

A

(adj.) favorable, indicative of good things (The tennis player considered the sunny forecast an auspicious sign that she would win her match.)

42
Q

amalgamate

A

(v.) to bring together, unite (Because of his great charisma, the presidential candidate was able to amalgamate all democrats and republicans under his banner.)

43
Q

ascetic

A

(adj.) practicing restraint as a means of self-discipline, usually religious (The priest lives an ascetic life devoid of television, savory foods, and other pleasures.)

44
Q

adroit

A

(adj.) skillful, dexterous (The adroit thief could pick someone’s pocket without
attracting notice.)

45
Q

arbiter

A

(n.) one who can resolve a dispute, make a decision (The divorce court judge will serve as the arbiter between the estranged husband and wife.)

46
Q

accede

A

(v.) to agree (When the class asked the teacher whether they could play baseball
instead of learn grammar they expected him to refuse, but instead he acceded to
their request.)

47
Q

annul

A

(v.) to make void or invalid (After seeing its unforeseen and catastrophic effects, Congress sought to annul the law.)

48
Q

aspersion

A

(n.) a curse, expression of ill-will (The rival politicians repeatedly cast
aspersions on each others’ integrity.)

49
Q

allay

A

(v.) to soothe, ease (The chairman of the Federal Reserve gave a speech to try to
allay investors’ fears about an economic downturn.)

50
Q

adhere

A
  1. (n.) to stick to something (We adhered the poster to the wall with tape.) 2. (n.)
    to follow devoutly (He adhered to the dictates of his religion without question.)
51
Q

ambivalent

A

(adj.) having opposing feelings (My feelings about Calvin are ambivalent because on one hand he is a loyal friend, but on the other, he is a cruel and vicious thief.)

52
Q

abase

A

(v.) to humiliate, degrade (After being overthrown and abased, the deposed leader offered to bow down to his conqueror.)

53
Q

analogous

A

(adj.) similar to, so that an analogy can be drawn (Though they are unrelated
genetically, the bone structure of whales and fish is quite analogous.)

54
Q

atrophy

A

(v.) to wither away, decay (If muscles do not receive enough blood, they will
soon atrophy and die.)

55
Q

analgesic

A

(n.) something that reduces pain (Put this analgesic on the wound so that the
poor man at least feels a little better.)

56
Q

acrimony

A

(n.) bitterness, discord (Though they vowed that no girl would ever come
between them, Biff and Trevor could not keep acrimony from overwhelming their
friendship after they both fell in love with the lovely Teresa.)

57
Q

affable

A

(adj.) friendly, amiable (People like to be around George because he is so affable
and good-natured.)

58
Q

ambiguous

A

(adj.) uncertain, variably interpretable (Some people think Caesar married
Cleopatra for her power, others believe he was charmed by her beauty. His actual
reasons are ambiguous.)

59
Q

abate

A

(v.) to reduce, lessen (The rain poured down for a while, then abated.)

60
Q

anecdote

A

(n.) a short, humorous account (After dinner, Marlon told an anecdote about the time he got his nose stuck in a toaster.

61
Q

abhor

A

(v.) to hate, detest (Because he always wound up kicking himself in the head
when he tried to play soccer, Oswald began to abhor the sport.)

62
Q

adamant

A

(adj.) impervious, immovable, unyielding (Though public pressure was
intense, the President remained adamant about his proposal.)

63
Q

arcane

A

(adj.) obscure, secret, known only by a few (The professor is an expert in arcane
Lithuanian literature.)

64
Q

ardor

A

(n.) extreme vigor, energy, enthusiasm (The soldiers conveyed their ardor with
impassioned battle cries.)

65
Q

adept

A

(adj.) extremely skilled (Tarzan was adept at jumping from tree to tree like a
monkey.)

66
Q

archetypal

A

(adj.) the most representative or typical example of something (Some
believe George Washington, with his flowing white hair and commanding stature,
was the archetypal politician.)

67
Q

austere

A

(adj.) very bare, bleak (The austere furniture inside the abandoned house made the place feel haunted.)

68
Q

abnegation

A

(n.) denial of comfort to oneself (The holy man slept on the floor, took only
cold showers, and generally followed other practices of abnegation.

69
Q

alacrity

A

(n.) eagerness, speed (For some reason, Chuck loved to help his mother
whenever he could, so when his mother asked him to set the table he did so with
alacrity.)

70
Q

abjure

A

(v.) to reject, renounce (To prove his honesty, the President abjured the evil
policies of his wicked predecessor.)

71
Q

archaic

A

(adj.) of or relating to an earlier period in time, outdated (In a few select regions
of Western Mongolian, an archaic Chinese dialect is still spoken.)

72
Q

augment

A

(v.) to add to, expand (The eager student seeks to augment his knowledge of
French vocabulary by reading French literature.)

73
Q

apocryphal

A

(adj.) fictitious, false, wrong (Because I am standing before you, it seems obvious that the stories circulating about my demise were apocryphal.)

74
Q

amorous

A

(adj.) showing love, particularly sexual (Whenever Albert saw Mariah wear
her slinky red dress, he began to feel quite amorous.)

SAT stuff (21 decks)

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