GRE Beyond Vocab Set 2 (Princeton Review)

Question 1

Abjure

Answer 1

To renounce or reject solemnly; to recant; to avoid

Question 2

Adumbrate

Answer 2

To foreshadow vaguely or intimate; to suggest sketchily

Question 3

Anathema

Answer 3

A solemn or religious curse; a loathed person or thing

Question 4

Anodyne

Answer 4

Soothing; something that assuages or allays pain

Question 5

Apogee

Answer 5

Farthest or highest point; culmination; zenith

Question 6

Apostate

Answer 6

One who abandons long-held religious or political convictions

Question 7

Apotheosis

Answer 7

Deification; glorification to godliness

Question 8

Asperity

Answer 8

Severity, rigor; roughness, harshness; acrimony

Question 9

Asseverate

Answer 9

To aver, allege, or assert

Question 10

Assiduous

Answer 10

Diligent, hard-working, sedulous

Question 11

Augury

Answer 11

Omen, portent

Question 12

Bellicose

Answer 12

Belligerent, pugnacious, warlike

Question 13

Calumniate

Answer 13

To slander, to make a false accusation

Question 14

Captious

Answer 14

Disposed to point out trivial faults; calculated to confuse or entrap

Question 15

Cavil

Answer 15

To find fault without good reason

Question 16

Celerity

Answer 16

Speed, alacrity; think accelerate

Question 17

Chimera

Answer 17

An illusion; originally, an imaginary fire-breathing she-monster

Question 18

Contumacious

Answer 18

Insubordinate, rebellious; contumely means insult or scorn

Question 19

Debacle

Answer 19

Rout, fiasco, complete failure

Question 20

Denouement

Answer 20

An outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot

Question 21

Descry

Answer 21

To catch sight of

Question 22

Desuetude

Answer 22

Disuse

Question 23

Desultory

Answer 23

Random; aimless; marked by a lack of plan or purpose

Question 24

Diaphanous

Answer 24

Transparent, gauzy

Question 25

Diffident

Answer 25

Reserved, shy, unassuming; lacking in self-confidence

Question 26

Dirge

Answer 26

A song of grief or lamentation

Question 27

Encomium

Answer 27

Glowing and enthusiastic praise; panegyric, tribute, euology

Question 28

Eschew

Answer 28

To shun or avoid

Question 29

Excoriate

Answer 29

To censure scathingly, to upbraid

Question 30

Execrate

Answer 30

To denounce, to feel loathing for, to curse, to declare to be evil

Question 31

Exegesis

Answer 31

Critical examination, explication

Question 32

Expiate

Answer 32

To atone or make amends for

Question 33

Extirpate

Answer 33

To destroy, to exterminate, to cut out, to exscind

Question 34

Fatuous

Answer 34

Silly, inanely foolish

Question 35

Fractious

Answer 35

Quarrelsome, rebellious, unruly, refractory, irritable

Question 36

Gainsay

Answer 36

To deny, dispute, contradict, or oppose

Question 37

Heterodox

Answer 37

Unorthodox, heretical, iconoclastic

Question 38

Imbroglio

Answer 38

Difficult or embarrassing situation

Question 39

Indefatigable

Answer 39

Not easily exhaustible, tireless, dogged

Question 40

Ineluctable

Answer 40

Certain, inevitable

Question 41

Inimitable

Answer 41

One of a kind, peerless

Question 42

Insouciant

Answer 42

Unconcerned, carefree, heedless

Question 43

Inveterate

Answer 43

Deep rooted, ingrained, habitual

Question 44

Jejune

Answer 44

Vapid, uninteresting, nugatory, childish, immature

Question 45

Lubricious

Answer 45

Lewd, wanton, greasy, slippery

Question 46

Mendicant

Answer 46

A beggar, supplicant

Question 47

Meretricious

Answer 47

Cheap, gaudy, tawdry, flashy, showy; attracting by false show

Question 48

Minatory

Answer 48

Menacing, threatening

Question 49

Nadir

Answer 49

Low point, perigee

Question 50

Nonplussed

Answer 50

Baffled, bewildered, at a loss for what do do or think

Question 51

Obstreperous

Answer 51

Noisily and stubbornly defiant, aggressively boisterous

Question 52

Ossified

Answer 52

Tending to become more rigid, conventional, sterile with age; literally turned into bone

Question 53

Palliate

Answer 53

To make something seem less serious, to gloss over, to make less severe or intense

Question 54

Panegyric

Answer 54

Formal praise, eulogy, encomium; expressing elaborate praise

Question 55

Parsimoniuous

Answer 55

Cheap, miserly

Question 56

Pellucid

Answer 56

Transparent, easy to understand, limpid

Question 57

Peroration

Answer 57

The concluding part of a speech; flowery, rhetorical speech

Question 58

Plangent

Answer 58

Pounding, thundering, resounding

Question 59

Prolix

Answer 59

Long-winded, verbose; prolixity means verbosity

Question 60

Propitiate

Answer 60

To appease; to conciliate; propitious means auspicious, favorable

Question 61

Puerile

Answer 61

Childish, immature, jejune, nugatory

Question 62

Puissance

Answer 62

Power, strength, puissant means powerful and strong

Question 63

Pusillanimous

Answer 63

Cowardly, craven

Question 64

Remonstrate

Answer 64

To protest, to object

Question 65

Sagacious

Answer 65

Having sound judgement, perceptive, wise; like a sage

Question 66

Salacious

Answer 66

Lustful, lascivious, bawdy

Question 67

Salutary

Answer 67

Remedial, wholesome, causing improvement

Question 68

Sanguine

Answer 68

Cheerful, confident, optimistic

Question 69

Saturnine

Answer 69

Gloomy, dark, sullen, morose

Question 70

Sententious

Answer 70

Aphoristic or moralistic, epigrammatic, tending to moralize excessively

Question 71

Stentorian

Answer 71

Extremely loud and powerful

Question 72

Stygian

Answer 72

Gloomy, dark

Question 73

Sycophant

Answer 73

Toady; servile, self-seeking flatterer, parasite

Question 74

Tendentious

Answer 74

Biased, showing marked tendencies

Question 75

Timorous

Answer 75

Timid, fearful, diffident

Question 76

Tyro

Answer 76

Novice, greenhorn, rank amateur

Question 77

Vitiate

Answer 77

To corrupt, to debase, to spoil, to make ineffective

Question 78

Voluble

Answer 78

Fluent, verbal, having easy use of spoken language