E's Flashcards
Echelon
A level, rank, or grade; the people at that level. A stratum is the same idea (strata is the plural as in rising through the upper strata/echelons of the firm).
Obtaining a job on Wall Street doesn’t guarantee access to the upper echelon of executives, where multi-million-dollar bonuses are the norm.
I’m not sure I’m cut out to analyze poetry; I find it hard to dig beyond the most accessible echelon of meaning.
Eclectic
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 classics and other unexpected genres of music.
Eclipse
One thing covering up another, such as the sun hiding the moon or a person losing attention to a more famous or talented person; to cover up, darken, or make less important.
Billy Ray Cyrus, who had a hit song, “Achy Breaky Heart,” in the ’90s, has long since found his fame eclipsed by that of his daughter, Miley.
Effectively
Effectively can mean in a successful manner, as in He did the job effectively. But it can also mean in effect, but not officially. For instance, when Woodrow Wilson was President of the United States, he was incapacitated by a stroke, and some people believe that Wilson’s wife, Edith, effectively served as President. That doesn’t mean she was necessarily effective. Rather, it means that she was doing the job of the President without officially being the President.
He went on a two-week vacation without asking for time off or even telling anyone he was leaving, thus effectively resigning from his position.
Efficacy
The quality quality of being able to produce the intended effect. Don’t confuse efficacy with efficiency. Something efficacious gets the job done; something efficient gets the gob done without wasting time or effort. Efficacy is frequently used in reference to medicines.
Extensive trials will be necessary to determine whether the drug’s efficacy outweighs the side effects.
Egalitarian
Related to belief in the equality of all people.
It is very rare that someone turns down an offer to be knighted by the Queen of England; however, he was egalitarian enough to feel uncomfortable with the entire idea of title and royalty.
Egregious
Extraordinarily or conspicuously bad; glaring.
Your conduct is an egregious violation of our Honor Code - not only did you steal your roommate’s paper and turn it in as your own, but you also sold his work to a plagiarism website so other cheaters could purchase it!
Emancipate
Free from slavery or oppression. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation legally ended slavery in the U.S. In law, to emancipate a minor is to declare the child (generally a teenager) no longer under the control of his or her parents.
Eminent
Prominent, distinguished, of high rank.
Emphasize
Give special force or attention to.
In GRE Reading Comprehension passages, the purpose of a particular sentence could be to emphasize a point that came before.
Empirical
Coming from , based, or able to be verified by experience or experimentation; not purely based on theory.
The Ancient Greeks philosophized about the nature of matter (concluding, for instance, that everything was made of earth, water, air, and fire) without any empirical evidence - the very idea of conducting experiments hadn’t been invented yet.
People always knew empirically that when you drop something, it falls to the ground; the theory of gravity later explained why.
Emulate
Copy in an attempt to equal or be better than.
The ardent Star Trek fan emulated Captain Kirk in every way possible - his brash and confident leadership might have gotten him somewhere, but the women he tried to impress weren’t so impressed.
Enigma
Puzzle, mystery, riddle; mysterious or contradictory person.
The enormous rock sculptures at Stonehenge are truly and enigma: were they created as part of a religious observance, in deference to a great ruler, or for some other reason?
Enjoy
Enjoy means to receive pleasure from, but it also means to benefit from. Thus, it is not true that only people and animals can enjoy. For instance:
The college has long enjoyed the support of wealthy alumni.
Ensure vs. Insure
If you buy insurance for something, you have insured it. If you guarantee something, you have ensured it.
If you go past this security checkpoint, I cannot ensure your safety.
Enumerate
Count or list; specify one-by-one.
The Bill of Rights enumerates the basic rights held by every citizen of the United States.
Equitable
Fair, equal, just.
As the university president was heavily biased towards the sciences, faculty in the liberal arts felt they had to fight to get an equitable share of funding for their departments.
Equivalence
The state of being equal or essentially equal.
Equivocal or Equivocate
Use unclear language to deceive or avoid committing to a position.
Not wanting to lose supporters, the politician equivocated on the issue, tossing out buzzwords related to each side while also claiming more study was needed.
Erratic
Inconsistent, wandering, having no fixed course.
When someone engages in erratic behavior, family members often suspect drug or mental illness. However, sometimes the person is just building a top-secret invention in the garage!
Erroneous
Mistaken, in error.
Hilda was completely unable to assemble her new desk chair after the instructions erroneously instructed her to screw the left armrest onto a small lever on the bottom of the seat.
Erstwhile
Former, previous.
A novelist and erstwhile insurance salesman, he told us his story of the long road to literary success, before he was able to quit his day job.
Escape velocity
The minimum velocity that an object must attain in order to completely escape a gravitational field.
Estimable
Worthy of esteem, admirable; able to be estimated.
He graduated first in his class, was editor of the Law Review, and clerked for a Supreme Court judge; his resume is estimable.
Riding a roller coaster is safer than driving on the highway, but there is still an estimable risk.
Ethos
The character, personality, or moral values specific to a person, group, time period, etc.
At the prep school, the young man happily settled into an ethos of hard work and rigorous athletic competition.
Exacerbate
Make worse (more violent, severe, etc.), inflame.
Allowing your band to practice in our garage has greatly exacerbated my headache.
Exacting
Very severe in making demands; requiring precise attention.
The boxing coach was exacting, analyzing Laila’s footwork down to the millimeter and forcing her to repeat movements hundreds of times until they were correct.
Execute
Put into effect, do, perform (to execute a process). Execute can also mean enforce, make legal, carry out the terms of a legal agreement. To execute a will is to sign it in the presence of witnesses. To execute the terms of a contract is to fulfill an obligation written in the contract.
Exhaustive
Comprehensive, thorough, exhausting a topic or subject, accounting for all possibilities; draining, tending to exhaust.
The consultant’s report was an exhaustive treatment of all possible options and their likely consequences. In fact, it was so exhaustive that the manager joked that he would need to hire another consultant to read the first consultant’s report.
Exotic
Foreign, intriguingly unusual or strange.
Expansionist
Wanting to expand, such as by conquering other countries.
Expedient
Suitable, proper; effective (sometimes while sacrificing ethics)
“I need this report by 2pm, and I don’t care what you have to do to make that happen,” said the boss. “I expect you to deal with it expediently.”
When invited to a wedding you cannot attend, it is expedient to send a gift.
Explicit
Direct, clear, fully revealed. Explicit in the context of movies, music, etc. means depicting or describing sex or nudity, but explicit can be used for anything (explicit instructions is a common phrase). the antonym of explicit is implicit or tacit, meaning “hinted at, implied.”
The goal of my motivational talk is to make explicit the connection between staying in school and avoiding a live of crime.
Extraneous
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.
Extrapolate
Conjecture about an unknown by projecting information about something known; predict by projecting past experience. In math and science, to extrapolate is to infer values in an unobserved interval from values in an observed interval. For instance, from the points (1, 4) and (3, 8), you could extrapolate the point (5, 12), since it would be on the same line.
No, I’ve never been to Bryn Mawr, but I’ve visited several other small, private women’s colleges in the Northeast, so I think I can extrapolate.
