GRE Cards Deck G Flashcards
gainsay
verb
Definition: Declare false, deny; oppose
Usage: The professor is quite doctrinaire—she’s been known to lower the grade of any student who dares gainsay her.
Related Words: Dissent (disagree or take an opposing view, esp. in relation to a formal body such as a government)
More Info: In Old English, “gain” actually meant “against,” although most other words formed from this word part are now obsolete (as in “gainclap,” a counterstroke, such as in battle).
garrulous
adj
Definition: Talkative, wordy, rambling
Usage: Uncle Bill is so garrulous that our dinner conversation lasted three hours—and the only person who said more than ten words was Uncle Bill.
Related Words: Prolix, Verbose, and Loquacious all mean talkative or wordy. Garrulous adds the sense of going off-topic or being tiresome. For instance, a very long-winded but informative academic paper would be prolix or verbose, but not garrulous.
gauche
adj
Definition: Tactless, lacking social grace, awkward, crude
Usage: It is terribly gauche to put ketchup on your steak and then talk with your mouth full as you eat it. That’s the last time I ever bring you to a nice place.
Related Words: Boorish (rude, ill-mannered, insensitive), Meretricious (attractive in a vulgar way, specious), Uncouth (having bad manners, awkward)
More Info: Sadly, nearly all cultures are biased against left-handed people. Gauche is simply the French word for left (similarly, the word sinister comes from the Latin word for left). The French word for right gives us the English word adroit, which means “skilled.”
gawky
adj
Definition: Physically awkward (esp. of a tall, skinny person, often used to describe teenagers)
Usage: As a teenager, she thought of herself as gawky and often slouched so as not to seem so much taller than her peers; of course, now that she’s a supermodel, no one thinks of her as gawky at all.
Related Words: Coltish (playful, wild; resembling a young horse, esp. having disproportionately long legs), Ungainly (awkward, ungraceful)
More Info: To gawk is to stare at something in a blatant, often surprised way. The origin of gawk is related to an old word for left, or left-handed.
germane
adj
Definition: Relevant and appropriate, on-topic
Usage: This is a business meeting, not a social club—let’s keep our comments germane to the issue of the new campaign.
Related Words: Pertinent (relevant), Akin (related by blood; analogous or similar)
Memory Trick: When four of the Jackson 5 would get off track, it was always Jermaine who would direct the conversation back to the topic at hand.
gist
noun
Definition: Main idea, essence
Usage: I didn’t read the whole book, but I read enough to get the gist.
Related Words: Pith (central part, essence), Precis (summary of the essentials of a text)
More Info: If you read enough to get the pith of something, you really deeply understand it to the core; if you read enough to get the gist, you probably just skimmed, and might need to go back later to get more detail.
glib
adj
Definition: Fluent and easy in a way that suggests superficiality or insincerity
Usage: She was the worst teacher he had ever encountered, giving glib responses to every question. “Can you help me with this algebra problem?” he asked. “Oh, just solve for x,” she said, and walked away.
Related Words: Flippant (disrespectfully casual or light in manner), Impertinent (inappropriately bold), Saucy (disrespectful or irrepressible, esp. in an entertaining way)
More Info: Glib comes from a Germanic root for “slippery.” A glib comment “slips” right out of your mouth—when you should have spent more time thinking up something more meaningful.
goosebumps
noun
Definition: The “bumps” created by hairs standing up on the skin in response to cold, fear, etc.
Usage: That detective novel is hard to put down! I’ve got goosebumps just waiting to find out what happens next! / You’ve got goosebumps—why don’t you borrow my jacket?
More Info: When a goose’s feathers are plucked, bumps are left behind on the skin. “Goose flesh” or “goose pimples” are expressions that mean the same thing (goosebumps, however, is more often used metaphorically and has appeared in official GRE materials).
gradation
(noun)
Also grade (verb)
Definition: A progression, a process taking place gradually, in stages; one of these stages
Usage: The hill’s gradation was so gradual that even those on crutches were able to enjoy the nature trail. / The gradation of tempo in this piece of music is very subtle.
More Info: A grade is a step, stage, or rank, as in grades on papers, school years (“sixth grade”), or “Grade A” milk.
gregarious
adj
Definition: Sociable, pertaining to a flock or crowd
Usage: “We need to be a little more productive and a little less gregarious,” said the chemistry teacher when he saw that the two-person lab groups had devolved into clusters of five and six students standing around talking and laughing.
Related Words: Genial, Congenial, Convivial are all words for sociable, friendly.
More Info: Don’t confuse with garrulous, which means “talkative.” If it helps, think of a guy named Greg who’s the life of the party and a guy named Gary who never shuts up.
guile
(noun)
Also guileless (adj)
Definition: Clever deceit, cunning, craftiness
Usage: The President will need to use all her political guile to stay in power. He is a simple man, totally lacking in guile.
Related Words: Duplicity (deceit, double-dealing, acting in two different ways for the purpose of deception), Wily (crafty, cunning)
More Info: Beguile can mean to trick or mislead, but can also mean to charm or bewitch—that is, to trick in a pleasant, sometimes flirtatious way.
gambol
verb
Definition: Frolic; skip or leap (jump) playfully
Usage: Watching the children gambol in the park like frisky (playful) little lambs, she wondered how they could have so much energy.
Related Words: Caper (gambol; or, a prank, trick, or carefree activity), Cavort (prance, make merry), Lark (merry adventure)
More Info: Gambol comes from the Latin “gamba,” a horse’s leg.
garner
verb
Definition: Gather and store; amass, collect
Usage: The publisher sent copies of the soon-to-be-published manuscript to reviewers, hoping to garner acclaim and publicity for the book.
Related Words: Accrue (increase gradually), Augment (grow larger), Agglomerate (form into a mass or cluster, join together), Aggregate (gather together, amount to), Consolidate (unite, combine, firm up—you can consolidate loans or consolidate power)
More Info: Don’t confuse garner with garnish, which means either to decorate (such as with a radish carved into a flower next to your sushi) or to take a portion off the top, as in, “After he lost a lawsuit and failed to pay, the judge ordered that his wages be garnished and the money sent directly from his employer towards his debts.” Garner comes from granary, a place to store grain.
gestation
(noun)
Also gestate (verb)
Definition: Pregnancy; the period from conception until birth of an animal or (metaphorically) of an idea or plan
Usage: The gestation period of an elephant is 22 months, more than twice as long as that of humans! / The scheme had a very long gestation period.
More Info: Just as you can conceive of an idea, you can also gestate metaphorically—“I had the idea for this novel in 2001. After letting it gestate for a decade, I finally got started writing.”
glacial
adj
Definition: Pertaining to glaciers; cold, icy, slow, unsympathetic
Usage: He had wanted to appear in the singing reality competition his whole young life, but he was not encouraged by the judges’ glacial response to his audition.
Related Words: Frigid (very cold, without human warmth or emotion), Gelid (icy)
More Info: A very obvious metaphor—glaciers are cold, slow, and (naturally) don’t have feelings. A person who acts like a glacier is unpleasant indeed.
glower
verb
Definition: Stare in an angry, sullen way
Usage: He couldn’t figure out why his girlfriend was glowering at him throughout dinner. “Oh,” he finally realized, “Is it your birthday? Oh, and I forgot you hate seafood. Sorry about the fishsticks.”
Related Words: Lower as a verb means “look angry, appear threatening.” A person can lower (as in the girlfriend above), or, often, the sky lowers before a storm.
goad
verb
Definition: Urge on (as cattle) with a pointed or electrically charged stick; spur on, stimulate, encourage
Usage: Will the pressure applied by environmentalist be enough to goad the industrialised nations into using less fossil fuel. / He refused to be goaded by their insults.
Related Words: Prod is a synonym (a “cattle prod” is also a pointed or electrified stick). Cajole, Coax, and Wheedle are all much gentler, meaning “artfully persuade, such as by flattery.”
More Info: In common language, goad means “to peer-pressure.”
gouge
noun, verb
Definition: Scooping or digging tool, like a chisel, or a hole made with such a tool (noun); cut or scoop out; force out a person’s eye with one’s thumb; swindle, extort money from (verb)
Usage: I was happy with this new video game console for a day or two, until I saw it advertised all over town for half the price and realized I’d been gouged. / He loves gory horror films, where people’s eyes are gouged out and gross stuff like that.
Related Words: Rout (dig around, as with a snout; rummage; scoop out or gouge)
graft
verb, noun
Definition: Insert part of a plant into another plant, where it continues to grow; join living tissue (such as skin) to part of the body where it will continue to live and grow; attach as if by grafting (verb); the part so grafted (as in a graft of skin); the act of acquiring money or other benefits through illegal means, esp. by abusing one’s power (noun)
Usage: He had had a skin graft on his badly burned arm. / The whole government was riddled with graft, bribery and corruption.
More Info: The “skin graft” sense of graft is related to the root “graph,” for a writing or carving tool. This root also appears in graffiti, cartography (mapmaking), epigraph (inscription on a building, statue, etc.), and even cacography (bad spelling or handwriting).
grandiloquent
adj
Definition: Relating to lofty speech, esp. to the point of being pompous, overblown, bombastic
Usage: Her speech was full of grandiloquent language, but it contained no new ideas.
Related Words: Magniloquent (synonym), Declamatory (pompous, merely oratorical)
More Info: The root “loq” refers to speech; thus, grandiloquent has the sense of “grand speech.”
grandstand
verb
Definition: Perform showily in an attempt to impress onlookers, seek to attract applause and favourable attraction from spectators
Usage: They accused him of political grandstanding.
Related Words: Declaim (speak in an impassioned, pompous, or oratorical manner; give a formal speech)
More Info: As a noun, a grandstand is essentially “the bleachers,” so to grandstand is to perform as though for bleachers full of onlookers. In a memorable episode of 30 Rock, Queen Latifah’s character, a Senator, grandstands by making animated nonsense speeches in which she just shouts “America” and “the future” and “the troops” so passionately that everyone applauds.
grating
adj
Definition: Irritating; harsh or discordant (of a noise); scraping
Usage: After a while her voice really started to grate on me.
Related Words: Rasping is a synonym in all senses—irritating, relating to harsh noise, or scraping, as in “The bottom of the boat rasped the rocky ocean floor.” A person with a sore throat often has a raspy voice.
More Info: A grate, of course, can also be a frame of bars, such as to secure a window. A cheese grater shreds cheese. A grating voice is kind of like applying a cheese grater to your ears.
grievous
adj
Definition: Causing grief or suffering; very serious, grave; flagrant, outrageous
Usage: While people certainly do injure themselves on hot stoves, such burns rarely compare to the grievous injuries sustained by people who do not observe safety procedures with twelve-gallon deep fryers.
Related Words: Dire (causing suffering or fear; ominous; urgent or desperate, as in “a dire emergency requiring immediate response”)
More Info: “Grievous bodily harm” is a term in English law. General Grievous is a fictional villain in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
grouse
verb, noun
Definition: Complain or grumble (verb); a reason for complaint (noun)
Usage: By the end of the trip, everyone was annoyed by Lena’s grousing—the bus ride was too bumpy, the food was too spicy, the air conditioning was too dehydrating, etc…. / Don’t be offended, but I’ve got a grouse about the way you’re handling this project.
More Info: A grouse is also a type of bird, although this usage is of an unrelated origin. The “complain” meaning of grouse comes from the Old French “grouchier” and shares a root with grudge.
