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Greek Roots/prefix > GRE Power Vocab - S > Flashcards

GRE Power Vocab - S Flashcards

1
Q

Sagacious

A

adj. having sound judgment, perceptive, wise

Sagacious means like a sage, who is a person recognized as having great wisdom. Safe can also be an adjective, meaning wise

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2
Q

Salacious

A

adj. appealing to or causing sexual desire, bawdy

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3
Q

Salient

A

adj. prominent, protruding, conspicuous, highly relevant

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4
Q

Salubrious

A

adj. promoting health or well-being

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5
Q

Salutary

A

adj. remedial, whoelsome, causing improvement

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6
Q

Sanctimony

A

n. self-righteousness, pretended piety

Sanctimonious means hypocritcally pretending to be pious or being excessively pious

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7
Q

Sanction

A

n. authoritative permission or approval; a penalty intended to enforce compliance

this one can be confusing, since it has two, nearly opposite, meanings: approval and penalty

Sanction can also be used as a verb. Up until the last few decades it only meant to encourage or approve, but it has recently come to mean to punish as well

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8
Q

Sanguine

A

adj. cheerful, confident, optimistic

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9
Q

Sap

A

v. to enervate or weaken the vitality of

as a noun used informally, a spa is a gullible person, a fool

A sap can also be a blackjack (a short, leather-covered club) or to hit someonbody with such a weapon

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10
Q

Sartorial

A

adj. of or pertaining to clothing or style

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11
Q

Satiate

A

v. to overindulge, satisfy to excess

Sate is a synonym of satiate

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12
Q

Satire

A

n. a literary work that ridicules or criticizes human vice through humor or derision

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13
Q

Saturnine

A

adj. gloomy, dark, sullen, morose

Saturnine is similar in defintion to melancholy. Like mercurial, it draws its name from its name from astrology and the gods associated with certain planets

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14
Q

Scintillating

A

adj. animated, witty, brilliantly clever

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15
Q

Scurvy

A

adj. contemptible, despicable

Scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency that was familiar part of a sailor’s life before refrigeration

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16
Q

Sedulous

A

adj. diligent persistnet, hardworking

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17
Q

Seine

A

n. a large net hung out and dragged in to catch fish

Seine also means to fish using a seine, and the Seine is a river in the middle of Paris in which people might seine or something like that

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18
Q

Sere

A

adj. withered, arid

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19
Q

Seminal

A

adj. like a seed, constituting a source, originative

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20
Q

Serendipitous

A

adj. come upon or dound by accident; fortuitous

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21
Q

Shard

A

n. a piece of broken pottery or glass, any small piece or part

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22
Q

Simper

A

v. to smirk; to say something with a silly, coy smile

as a noun, simper is the silly smile itself

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23
Q

Sinecure

A

n. position requiring little or no work and usually providing an income

this word was first applied to priests without churches (or without parish duties of curing souls), who were said to have beneficium sine cura

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24
Q

Singular

A

adj. exceptional, unusual, odd

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25
Q

Sinuous

A

adj. winding, curving, moving lithely, devious

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26
Q

Slake

A

v. to satisfy, quench, lessen the intensity of

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27
Q

Sodden

A

adj soaked or drenched, unimaginative, dull

28
Q

Solder

A

v. to weld, fuse or join, as with a soldering gun

29
Q

Solicitous

A

adj. concerned and attentive, eager

30
Q

Solvent

A

adj. able to meet finanical obligations; able to dissolve other substances

n. the liquid in which a solute is dissolved to form a solution

31
Q

Sophistry

A

n. fallacious reasoning; plausible but faulty logic

Greek root soph gave rise to many English words about knowledge (either love of it, possession of it, or the lack of it). Philosophy is a love or pursuit of knowledge, and someone with great knowledge of the world might be called sophisticated

Sophistry is somewhat opposite as is sophomoric

32
Q

Sophomoric

A

adj. exhibiting immaturity, lack of judgment, pretentious

Sophomoric literally means of or pertaining to a sophomore

33
Q

Soporific

A

adj. causing drowsiness, tending to induce sleep

Soporific can also be used as a noun

34
Q

Sordid

A

adj. characterized by filth, grime, or squalor, foul

35
Q

Sparse

A

adj. thin, not dense, arranged at widely spaced intervals

36
Q

Specious

A

adj. seeming true, but actually false, misleadingly attractive

37
Q

Spendthrift

A

n. one who spends money wastefully

spendthrift can also be an adjective

38
Q

Splenetic

A

adj. bad-tempered, irritable

Splenetic also means relating to the spleen, which was the seat of ill temper in classical knowledge

39
Q

Sporadic

A

adj. occurring only occasionally, or in scattered instances

40
Q

Spurious

A

adj. lacking authenticity or validity, false, counterfeit

41
Q

Squalid

A

adj. Sordid, wretched and dirty as from neglect

Squalor is a wretched or filthy condition

42
Q

Squander

A

v. to waste by spending or using irresponsibly

43
Q

Stanch

A

v. to stop the flow of a fluid

don’t confuse with staunch, an adj., meaning firmly commited. sometimes stanch and staunch are spelt the same but can guess meaning based on context

44
Q

Static

A

adj. not moving, active, or in motion; at rest

45
Q

Steep

A

v. to saturate or completely soak

46
Q

Stentorian

A

adj. extremely loud and powerful

47
Q

Stint

A

v. to restrain, be sparing or frugal

stinting, and its opposite, unstinting are the adjectives that mean restraining and bestowed liberally, respectively

stint as a noun means a length of time spent in a specific way, as in a stint inthe military, in the White House, or as a roadie

48
Q

Stoic

A

adj. indifferent to or unaffected by pleasure or pain, steadfast

Stoicism is the noun

49
Q

Stolid

A

adj. calm, impassive

if you associate this word solid, stolid people show litle animation or emotion

50
Q

Striated

A

adj. striped, grooved, or banded

Striations are the bands themselves

51
Q

Strut

A

n. a structural support used to brace a framework

Strut can also be used as a verb to mean baffle or amaze

52
Q

Stymie

A

v. to block, thwart

53
Q

Subpoena

A

n. a court order requiring appearance and/or testimony

Subpoena can also be used as a verb

54
Q

Subtle

A

adj. not obvious, elusive, difficult to discern, crafty or sly

55
Q

Succinct

A

adj. brief, concise

56
Q

Succor

A

n. assistance, relief in time of distress

57
Q

Sundry

A

adj. various, miscellaneous, separate

If you’ve heard the phrase torn asunder, you are familiar with the etymology of this word. Sundry originally meant separate or distinct, but now also means various

58
Q

Supercilious

A

adj. disdainful, arrogant, haught, characterized by haughty scorn

59
Q

Superfluous

A

adj. exceeding what is sufficient or necessary

60
Q

Supine

A

adj. inactive, lying on one’s back, apathetic, mentally or morally slack

Supine means lying face up and prone means lying face down

61
Q

Supplant

A

v. to take the place of supersede

62
Q

Suppliant

A

adj. asking humbly, beseeching

as a noun, a suppliant is same thing as a supplicant

63
Q

Supplicant

A

n. beggar, who prays or begs for something

a supplicant is supplicating when he or she begs for something. Supplication is related to application, or the act of bringing yourself close to something. In supplication, though, there is the element of folding the leds under, or kneeling, that gives the sup- prefix

64
Q

Surfeit

A

v. to feed or supply in excess

surfeit is also a noun, meaning excess, overindulgence

65
Q

Sycophant

A

n. someone who tries to flatter or please for personal gain, parasite

66
Q

Synthesis

A

n. the combination of parts to make a whole

Greek Roots/prefix (24 decks)

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