GRE Cards Deck T Flashcards
table
verb
Definition: Lay aside to discuss later, often as a way to postpone discussion indefinitely
Usage: I see we’re not going to agree on whether to scrap our entire curriculum and develop a new one, so let’s table that discussion and move on to voting on the budget.
More Info: In American English, to table something means to postpone discussion of it until later, but in British English, to table a bill is the opposite—to submit it for consideration.
tacit
adj
Definition: Understood without being said; implied, not stated directly; silent
Usage: Her parents never told her she could smoke, but they gave their tacit consent when they didn’t say anything about the obvious smell coming from her bedroom.
Related Words: Implicit (implied, not stated directly; involved in the very essence of something, unquestionable)
More Info: Tacit is related to taciturn (not talking much, reserved).
taciturn
adj
Definition: Not talking much, reserved; silent, holding back in conversation
Usage: Because he felt self-conscious about his stutter, Mike had always been taciturn, but after some very good speech therapy, soon he was much more voluble.
Related Words: Reticent is a synonym. Laconic means “using few words, concise.”
More Info: Taciturn is related to tacit (understood without being said; implied, not stated directly; silent).
tangential
adj
Definition: Only slightly relevant, going off-topic
Usage: It’s hard to get a quick answer out of Noah—ask him any question, and you’ll get a wide range of tangential remarks before you can find a polite way to move on.
Related Words: Penumbra (outer part of a shadow from an eclipse; any surrounding region, fringe, periphery; any area where something “sort of” exists), Digress or Divagate (go off-topic when speaking or writing)
More Info: In math, a tangent line touches a curve and then continues on, forever—much like many people we wish would stop talking.
temperance
(noun)
Also temper (verb)
Definition: Moderation, self-control, esp. regarding alcohol or other desires or pleasures; total abstinence from alcohol
Usage: Temperance is good way to free oneself from drug addiction.
Related Words: Teetotaler (person who doesn’t drink alcohol at all), Abstain (hold back, refrain, esp. from something bad or unhealthy), Sobriety (temperance or the state of being sober; seriousness
More Info: To temper is to moderate, soften, or tone down, or to make less intense. Something untempered is not controlled or moderated. Of course, temper as a noun means a person’s state of mind or tendency to anger.
tenuous
adj
Definition: Long and thin, slender; flimsy, having little substance
Usage: Your argument is quite tenuous—we need more evidence to prove that it was murder not sucide.
More Info: The related attenuate means “weaken or thin out” (for instance, a general who sends too few troops over too large an area has attenuated his army). The related tensile means “relating to tension” or “capable of being stretched.”
timely
adj
Definition: Well-timed, happening at a suitable time
Usage: Your arrival is quite timely—we were just mulling over a question we’re sure you can answer! / His timely departure prevented him from having to do any work.
Related Words: Opportune can be a synonym for timely, or can mean “favorable, appropriate.”
More Info: While timely ends in –ly, it is NOT an adverb. You therefore cannot “do something timely”—you must instead “do it in a timely manner.”
timorous
adj
Definition: Fearful, timid
Usage: He is quiet timorous while going for morning walk before the sun rise.
Related Words: Intrepid means fearless and did, in fact, come from the rare word trepid, meaning fearful. Craven and pusillanimous mean cowardly
tirade
noun
Definition: Bitter, abusive criticism or verbal attack
Usage: I hate that television show where the commentator goes on angry tirades about the bureaucracy shown by politician.
Related Words: Diatribe, Tirade, Harangue, and Fulmination are all words for bitter, angry speeches or attacks.
torpor
(noun)
Also torpid (adj)
Definition: Sluggishness, lethargy, or apathy; a period of inactivity
Usage: Sam had hoped to be able to play in the game after having his wisdom teeth out, but the anesthesia left him in such torpor that he obviously couldn’t play soccer.
Related Words: Listless (spiritless, lacking interest or energy), Inertia (inactivity, lack of motion or progress), Loafing (idling away the time, lounging)
More Info: Don’t confuse torpid with turbid (turbulent), tepid (lukewarm), or turgid or tumid (swollen, bombastic).
torrid
adj
Definition: Very hot, parching, burning; passionate
Usage: They had a torrid love affair in the ‘80s, but split up because a royal was not permitted to marry a commoner. / The wandering refugees were in serious danger in the torrid Sahara.
Related Words: Arid (dry, parched, barren)
More Info: The “torrid zone” is the region of Earth between the tropics.
tractable
adj
Definition: Easily controlled or managed, docile; easily shaped or molded
Usage: He’s a tractable fellow—when I asked if we could see a different movie than the one we’d come to see, he shrugged and said “Cool.” / The clay had hardened overnight, but adding water made it tractable again.
Related Words: Malleable, Pliable, and Plastic can also mean physically bendable, or metaphorically bendable, as in “easily influenced or shaped by others.” Mutable means changeable. Complaisant means “obliging, eager to please.”
More Info: “Tract” in Latin means “manage, handle” and also occurs in treat and tractor.
transitory
adj
Definition: Temporary, short-lived, not lasting
Usage: While a few people marry their high school sweethearts, generally, our teenage years are full of transitory crushes.
Related Words: Ephemeral, Evanescent and Fugacious are synonyms. Transient can mean “lasting only a short time, temporary” or “staying only a short time,” or can be a noun referring to people who move from place to place.
trifling
(adj)
Also trifle (noun)
Definition: Trivial, not very important; so small as to be unimportant; frivolous, shallow
Usage: Luis broke up with Cara because she was always obsessed with some trifling matter—he tried to talk about foreign aid dependency, and she changed the subject to what the actress Katie Holmes dressed her daughter Suri in for a shopping trip. / The young heiress was so wealthy that she considered the salary from her internship a mere trifle, and didn’t even notice when her paycheck was days late.
Related Words: Frivolous (lacking seriousness, excessively carefree, as in The judge dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous—you can’t sue the government for failing to protect you from birds). Nugatory also means “of little or no importance.”
trite
adj
Definition: Lacking freshness and originality, lacking effectiveness due to overuse, cliché
Usage: The topic of your speech is “Children are the Future”? That’s pretty trite. Maybe you should think harder and come up with something original.
Related Words: Banal, Hackneyed, Inane, and Insipid all mean “lacking freshness and originality, shallow.” Shopworn also means this (or can also literally mean something marred from being handled in a store). Bromide and Platitude are nouns for a cliché or shopworn expression.
tawdry
adj
Definition: Gaudy, cheap or cheap-looking; indecent
Usage: Mary wore a tawdry dress that’s she bought from the local Shop.
Related Words: Showy means showing off and could be good or bad (a showy car). Garish refers to something much too bright, vivid, or fancy (makeup that looks okay in a nightclub looks garish in the office). Gaudy items stand out in a cheap, tasteless, or overly colorful way (wearing too much big jewelry looks gaudy). Meretricious means attractive in a vulgar or flashy way, tawdry; deceptive.
More Info: This etymology is ridiculous—tawdry comes from a mispronun-ciation of “St. Audrey,” as in “St. Audrey’s lace,” a lace necktie. The real St. Audrey died in 679 of throat cancer, supposedly because of her love of necklaces.
tendentious
adj
Definition: Marked by a strong point of view, biased
Usage: A tendentious person is always tending towards some particular thing.
Related Words: Partisan (partial to a particular party, group, etc., esp. in a biased, emotional way), Bigot (obstinately prejudiced person),
More Info: A tendentious person is always tending towards some particular thing.
terrestrial
adj
Definition: Relating to the Earth or to land; worldly
Usage: Mr. and Mrs. Daruza were certain they had seen a UFO, plus aliens running around in the night. What they really saw was an especially dense flock of birds in the air, and some mundane (dull) , terrestrial animals on the ground.
More Info: The root “terra” (Earth) also gives us extra-terrestrial (space alien), terrarium (closed container garden for plants and small animals), terrine (earthenware food dish), and terra firma (solid ground).
terse
adj
Definition: Concise, brief and to the point (sometimes to the point of rudeness)
Usage: Hoping to talk to her doctor at length about her condition, she was disappointed to be treated so tersely by a doctor who simply renewed her prescription and disappeared.
Related Words: Curt and brusque also mean rudely abrupt or brief. (Terse is often negative, but doesn’t have to be).
toady
noun
Definition: Someone who flatters or acts in a servile manner for self-serving reasons
Usage: Look at that toady, sucking up and offering to do the boss’s Christmas shopping for his kids.
Related Words: Lackey, Sycophant, and Myrmidon are synonyms. Fawn means to try to please in a submissive way. Obsequious means “servile, very compliant, fawning.” Truckle means to act subserviently.
More Info: Toady comes from “toad-eater,” after magicians’ assistants who would eat supposedly poisonous toads so the magician could show off his ability to magically expel the poison. Toadeat used to mean “do any degrading thing for your boss,” but today you can use toady as a verb (or toady up to someone) for this purpose.
token
(noun, adj)
Also tokenism (noun)
Definition: Sign, symbol, mark, badge; souvenir, memento; coin-like disk used as currency for subways, arcade games, etc.; sample, or person, thing, idea taken to represent an entire group (noun); of very little or merely symbolic value (adj)
Usage: I am starting to realize that this law firm hired me to be its token woman. There I am, smiling in all the ads—but I never actually get to work on important cases. / Hollywood movies are often guilty of tokenism—many have exactly one black character (the “token minority”), often present to give advice to the (usually white) main characters. / I am giving you this “Best Friends Forever” necklace as a token of our friendship.
Related Words: By the same token is an expression that means the speaker will then say something based on the same evidence he or she used for what was previously said. “As a libertarian, he wants to abolish the IRS. By the same token, he wants drugs legalized.”
tome
noun
Definition: Large or scholarly book; one of the volumes in a set of several books
Usage: When she discovered that the books she needed for her paper were in the university library, she ended up lugging some truly impressive tomes back from the library—she actually had to stop and rest twice on the way home.
Related Words: A magnum opus is an author’s greatest work (although it doesn’t have to be large).
tortuous
adj
Definition: Twisting, winding, complex; devious, not straightforward
Usage: I don’t understand your tortuous logic. / The children found the tortuous path of the roller coaster both terrifying and exciting.
Related Words: Convoluted (having many overlapping folds or coils, as certain kinds of seashells; intricate, complex)—also often used to describe “twisty” reasoning, as in the first sentence above.
More Info: Don’t confuse with torturous, meaning relating to torture or the type of pain caused by torture.
transgression
(noun)
Also transgress (verb)
Definition: Violation of a law, moral rule, order, etc.; sin
Usage: His transgression was so serious that his family disowned him: no one would be visiting him in prison.
Related Words: Contravene (violate, act counter to, oppose), Err (be mistaken, sin)
More Info: Transgress, from Latin, is literally “to step across,” similar to the expression “cross the line,” as in You’ve really crossed the line this time. The “line,” of course, is a rule, principle, etc.
