Barron's words List 2

Question 1

vivisection

noun

Answer 1

dissection, surgery, or painful experiments performed on a living animal for the purpose of scientific research

The book Animal Rights by the philosopher Tom Regan contains a long discussion of vivisection.

Question 2

petulant

adjective

Answer 2

rude; peevish

The boy’s father worried that his disobedient and petulant child would grow up to be a bitter and annoying man.

Question 3

visage

noun

Answer 3

countenance; appearance; aspect

The infant studied its mother’s visage intently.

Question 4

vogue

noun

Answer 4

prevailing fashion or practice

Although protectionist policies are not in vogue today, great capitalist democracies, such as Great Britain and the United States, flourished for long periods of their histories under protectionist trade policies that were nearly mercantilist–policies that imposed high tariffs on many foreign goods to promote domestic production.

Question 5

itinerant

adjective

Answer 5

wandering from place to place; unsettled

According to state law, companies hiring itinerant workers must provide adequate housing for them.

Question 6

profound

adjective

Answer 6

deep; not superficial

There is an adage in philosophy that everyone is born either a Platonist or an *Aristotelian, meaning that everyone has a predisposition to believing either that reality is completely “here and now,” or that there exists a more profound, hidden reality.

The noun profundity means the quality of being profound.

Question 7

tenet

noun

Answer 7

belief; doctrine

In his novel Walden II, the psychologist B. F. Skinner depicts a brave new world based on the tenets of a behavioral psychology that frees human beings from the inhibitions and preconceptions of traditional society.

Question 8

cornucopia

noun

Answer 8

horn overflowing with fruit and grain; state of abundance

The U.S. economy has produced a cornucopia of employment opportunities.

Question 9

stricture

noun

Answer 9

something that restrains; negative criticism

As professionals, lawyers are expected to abide by a set of ethical strictures in their practice of the law.

Question 10

primordial

adjective

Answer 10

original; existing from the beginning

Scholars are divided as to whether polytheism represents a degeneration from a primordial monotheism, or was a precursor to a more sophisticated view, monotheism.

Question 11

complement

noun

Answer 11

something that completes or makes up a whole

Some people envision chess developing into a game played at the highest levels between teams of humans and computers, each complementing the other and providing investigators with insight into the cognitive processes of each.

Question 12

qualm

noun

Answer 12

sudden feeling of faintness or nausea; uneasy feeling about the rightness of actions

The judge had no qualms about sentencing the thief to five years imprisonment.

Question 13

dearth

noun

Answer 13

scarcity

In his book The Affluent Society, published in 1958, the economist J. K. Galbraith pointed out that in America affluence is located disproportionately in the private sector, leaving a dearth of resources available for the public sector.

Question 14

raconteur

noun

Answer 14

witty, skillful storyteller

Former president Bill Clinton is known as an accomplished raconteur who can entertain guests with amusing anecdotes about politics all evening.

Question 15

behemoth

noun

Answer 15

huge creature; anything very large and powerful

In the 1980s and 1990s, the trend in American business was toward increased privatization of government industries (such as power generation), partly because it was believed that private industry is more efficient and partly because foreign private companies were becoming commercial behemoths, outstripping government- owned companies in competitiveness.

Question 16

deterrent

noun

Answer 16

something that discourages or hinders

During the Cold War, the United States maintained a large number of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to aggression by the Soviet Union and its allies.

Question 17

concoct

verb

Answer 17

to invent

The various human cultures have concocted a great many explanations to describe the beginning of the Earth, life, and humanity.

Question 18

stultify

verb

Answer 18

to impair or reduce to uselessness

The professor of education believes that over reliance on rote learning stultifies students’ creativity.

Question 19

fissure

noun

Answer 19

crevice

Geologists measure the width of the fissure regularly to monitor movement of the Earth’s plates in the area.

Question 20

converge

verb

Answer 20

to approach; come together; tend to meet

Although the People’s Republic of China and India are rivals in many ways, in certain areas their interests converge.

Question 21

incarnate

adjective

Answer 21

having bodily form

Question 22

pellucid

adjective

Answer 22

transparent; translucent; easily understood

Two writers often mentioned as having an admirably pellucid style are Bertrand Russell and George Orwell.

Question 23

servile

adjective

Answer 23

submissive; obedient

None of the dictator’s servile citizens dared question his decree.

Question 24

olfactory

adjective

Answer 24

concerning the sense of smell

Wine connoisseurs say that the olfactory senses play as important a part in appreciating good wine as the sense of taste.

Question 25

torque

noun

Answer 25

a turning or twisting force; the moment of a force; the measure of a force’s tendency to produce twisting or turning and rotation around an axis

Internal combustion engines produce useful torque over a rather circumscribed range of rotational speeds (normally from about 1,000 rpm to 6,000 rpm.)

Question 26

daunt

verb

Answer 26

to discourage; intimidate; dishearten

Do not let the difficulty of learning the 800 words in Essential Words for the GRE daunt you.

Daunting is an adjective that means discouraging or disheartening.

Earning a Ph.D. is a daunting task, but it can be done.

The adjective dauntless means fearless.

Question 27

execrable

adjective

Answer 27

detestable; abhorrent

When folk artists such as Bob Dylan began to use rock instruments, many folk music traditionalists considered it an execrable travesty.

Question 28

equable

adjective

Answer 28

steady; unvarying; serene

Throughout the crisis the president remained equable.

Do not confuse equable with equitable, which means fair, or just, or impartial.

Much of modern economic history can be seen as a dialectic between advocates of laissez-faire policies, who want to leave the market free to create wealth untrammeled by restrictions (believing it will “trickle down” to all members of the society), and exponents of redistribution of wealth, who want to ensure that the fruits of capitalism are shared equitably.

Question 29

harrowing

adjective

Answer 29

extremely distressing; terrifying

The journey “inward” to explore the unconscious mind has been described as more harrowing than the most dangerous voyage to explore the Earth.

Question 30

copious

adjective

Answer 30

abundant; plentiful

The copious rainfall was welcomed by farmers in the parched land.

Question 31

idolatry

noun

Answer 31

idol worship; blind or excessive devotion

During the Protestant Reformation images in churches were felt to be a form of idolatry and were banned and destroyed.

Question 32

ineluctable

adjective

Answer 32

not to be avoided or escaped; inevitable

No one can escape the ineluctable truth that every creature that is born will one day die.

Question 33

subversive

adjective

Answer 33

intended to undermine or overthrow, especially an established government

The verb is also subvert.

Anything that subverts the market mechanism is believed to cause anomalies in prices, making the economy less efficient.

Subversive is also a noun meaning a person intending to undermine something.

Question 34

imbroglio

noun

Answer 34

complicated situation; an entanglement

The plot of many of Somerset Maugham’s stories consists of an unraveling of an imbroglio in which the main character finds himself.

Question 35

sylvan

adjective

Answer 35

related to the woods or forest

The house’s sylvan setting provides the family with beauty and tranquility.

Question 36

travesty

noun

Answer 36

parody; exaggerated imitation; caricature

The playwright complained that the musical comedy version of his play was a travesty of his work.

Question 37

convex

adjective

Answer 37

curved outward

The term for a lens with one convex and one concave side is “convex-concave.”

Question 38

malign

verb

Answer 38

to speak evil of

Lawyers are sometimes maligned as greedy and dishonest.

Question 39

savor

verb

Answer 39

to enjoy; have a distinctive flavor or smell

The coach gave his team a day off practice to savor their big victory.

Question 40

chasten

verb

Answer 40

to correct by punishment or reproof; to restrain or subdue

The child’s behavior improved after she had been chastened by punishment.

Question 41

factotum

noun

Answer 41

a person who does all sorts of work; a handyman

In Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, the character Malvolio aspires to become more than merely a factotum in the house of Lady Olivia.

Question 42

kudos

noun

Answer 42

fame; glory; honor

Kudos won by Bob Dylan include an honorary doctorate in music from Princeton University.

Question 43

atavism

noun

Answer 43

In biology, the reappearance of a characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence; individual or a part that exhibits atavism; return of a trait after a period of absence

Some modern political theorists reject nationalism as a tribal atavism.

Question 44

substantive

adjective

Answer 44

essential; pertaining to the substance

The judge cautioned the attorney to present only information that was substantive to the case at hand.

Question 45

errant

adjective

Answer 45

mistaken; straying from the proper course

The pitcher’s errant fastball struck the batter on the shoulder.

Question 46

minatory

adjective

Answer 46

threatening; menacing

Intelligence information suggests minatory troop concentrations on the border.

Question 48

obsequy

noun

Answer 48

funeral ceremony (often used in the plural, obsequies)

Solemn obsequies were held for President John F. Kennedy following his assassination on November 22, 1963.

Question 49

banter

noun

Answer 49

playful conversation

The governor engaged in some banter with reporters before getting to the serious business of the news conference.

Question 50

precept

noun

Answer 50

principle; law

A good precept to follow in writing is to avoid redundancies such as “track record” (unless the record was set on a racecourse), “revert back,” “free gift,” and “general consensus.”

Question 50

appellation

noun
name

Answer 50

The discovery of the bones of a person with the appellation Kennewick Man in the state of Washington in 1996 has raised important questions about who the earliest people to populate America were.