GRE Vocabulary 3 Flashcards
Burnish (v)
Polish to a shine.
Highly burnished armour.
Buttress (v) (n)
Give support to.
The political police were the main buttress of the regime.
Equivocate (v)
To use ambiguous or unclear expression.
The government have equivocated too often in the past.
Paragon (n)
The highest, example of.
Your cook is a paragon.
Cacophany (n)
Loud jarring noise.
Mawkish (adj)
Sentimental.
A mawkish ode to parenthood.
Cajole (v)
Coax with flattery.
He hoped to cajole her into selling him her house.
Dogmatic (adj)
Adherence to dogma or theory.
She was not tempted to be dogmatic about what she believed.
Calibrate (v)
To divide or mark with gradations OR carefully assess or set.
The depth gauge is calibrated in centimeters..
Perdition (n)
Complete and utter ruin.
She used her last banknote to buy herself a square meal before perdition.
Beseech (v)
Seek earnestly.
They beseeched him to stay.
Canny (adj)
Careful, cautious, prudent.
Canny investors will switch banks if they think they are getting a raw deal
Seminal (adj)
Strongly influencing later work.
His seminal work on chaos theory.
Cantankerous (adj)
Disagreeable to deal with.
He can be a cantankerous old fossil at times.
Semantic (n)
Word meaning
Serrate (v)
Having a grooved edge.
Leaves with serrate margins.
Sever (v)
Cut off.
The head was severed from the body.
Sinuous (adj)
Having curves, bends.
The river follows a sinuous trail through the dale.
Solicitude (n)
An attitude of expressing concern.
I was touched by his solicitude.
Solidarity (n)
Express support or unity.
Factory workers voiced solidarity with the striking students.
Soluble (adj)
That which can be dissolved.
The poison is soluble in alcohol.
Solvent (n)
Having the properties of dissolving.
Osmotic, chemical, or solvent action.
Soporific (adj)
Sleep inducing.
Some medicine made her soporific.
Emulate (v)
Copy the behavior of.
Most rulers wished to emulate Alexander the Great.
Enamor (v)
To be captivated or charmed.
It is not difficult to see why Edward is enamoured of her.
Endemic (adj)
Natural or characteristic of a people.
Complacency is endemic in industry today.
Endow (v)
To furnish or provide with funds, talent etc.
He endowed the Church with lands.
Dour (adj)
[doour]
Severe, stern, or gloomy in manner
A hard, dour, humorless fanatic.
Enervate (adj) (v)
Lacking in energy or vitality.
Enervating heat.
Insouciance (n)
Free from worry or anxiety
I admired his youthful insouciance.
Evince (v)
To show interest or reveal the presence of.
The news stories evinced the usual mixture of sympathy and satisfaction.
Enfranchise (v)
To grant rights of voting or citizenship.
A proposal that foreigners should be enfranchised for local elections.
Filigree (n)
Ornamental work of fine (typically gold or silver) wire, lace like.
Filigree earrings.
Engender (v)
To cause to happen.
The issue engendered continuing controversy.
Apocryphal (adj)
Sham, fake.
An apocryphal story about a former president.
Enmity (n)
Hatred.
Decades of enmity between the two countries.
Aesthete (n)
A person who has refined sensitivity for arts and nature
Estimable (adj)
To be held in high esteem.
She was shown into that estimable woman’s presence.
Revile (v)
To speak abusively.
The judge was reviled for his opinions on rape.
Indefatigable (adj)
Persisting tirelessly.
An indefatigable defender of human rights.
Ensemble (n)
All parts of a thing taken together.
A Bulgarian folk ensemble.
Effervescent (adj)
Bubbling, sparkling.
Effervescent young people.
Entrall (v)
To captivate or charm
Entreat (v)
Beseech earnestly.
His friends entreated him not to go.
Extirpate (v)
To remove or destroy totally.
Timber wolves were extirpated from New England more than a century ago.
Enumerate (v)
Take a count of.
There is not space to enumerate all his works.
Internecine (adj)
Related to struggle within a group.
The party shrank from the trauma of more internecine strife.
Ephemeral (adj)
Short lived.
Fashions are ephemeral: new ones regularly drive out the old.
Variegated (adj)
Varied in appearance or
color.
Variegated yellow bricks.
Venerate (v)
To regard to treat with reverence,
Philip of Beverley was venerated as a saint.
Veracity (n)
Authenticity.
Officials expressed doubts concerning the veracity of the story.
Verbiage (n)
Overabundance of words, superfluous.
The basic idea here, despite all the verbiage, is simple.
Vestige (n)
The remnants of.
The last vestiges of colonialism.
Vex (v)
Causing trouble.
The memory of the conversation still vexed him.
Vigilant (adj)
Attentive.
The burglar was spotted by vigilant neighbors.
Vigor (adj)
Strength and vitality.
The springing curls were a sign of vigor and health.
Virtuoso (n)
Accomplished artist.
A celebrated clarinet virtuoso.
Viscous (adj)
Sticky thick consistency.
Viscous lava.
Vituperate (adj)
To use harsh abusive language.
Vivacious (adj)
Lively animated.
Her vivacious and elegant mother.
Meticulous (adj)
Painstaking, very precise.
The designs are hand-glazed with meticulous care.
Mimicry (n)
An imitation or copy in action.
The word was spoken with gently teasing mimicry.
Minuet (n)
A musical dance
Minute (n)
Very small.
Minute particles.
Mirth (n)
Laughter.
His six-foot frame shook with mirth.
Dissipate (v)
Waste or fritter away.
He inherited, but then dissipated, his father’s fortune.
Misanthrope (n)
Hatred for humanity.
Scrooge wasn’t the mean-spirited misanthrope most of us believe him to be.
Invidious (adj)
Causing ill will.
She’d put herself in an invidious position.
Misconstrue (v)
Misunderstand.
My advice was deliberately misconstrued
Remit (v)
To pardon
His prison sentence was remitted to two years.
Mitigate (v)
To lessen.
Drainage schemes have helped to mitigate this problem.
Opprobrium (n)
Intense shame, regret.
the opprobrium of being closely associated with gangsters.
Mollify (v)
To mitigate or lessen.
The government’s undertaking mollified the fears of the public.
Momentum (n)
Impetus of a moving object.
The vehicle gained momentum as the road dipped.
Prodigious (adj)
Abnormal, extraordinary.
The stove consumed a prodigious amount of fuel.
Asperity (n)
Severity.
The asperities of a cold winter.
Profligate (n)
Reckless prodigal or extravagant.
Profligate consumers of energy.
Profuse (adj)
Abundant.
I offered my profuse apologies.
Hapless (adj)
Unlucky, luckless.
The hapless victims of the disaster.
Prognostic (adj)
Predictive of something in the future.
The prognostic importance of the antibody.
Proliferate (v)
Spread indiscriminately.
The science fiction magazines which proliferated in the 1920s.
Puissant (adj)
Having great power or influence.
He would become a puissant man.
Prone (adj)
Inclined towards.
Farmed fish are prone to disease.
Propitiate (v)
Appease to win favor.
The pagans thought it was important to propitiate the gods with sacrifices.
Ineffable (adj)
That which cannot be described in words.
The ineffable mysteries of the soul.
Propitious (adj)
Favorable.
The timing for such a meeting seemed propitious.
Propound (v)
To put forward.
He began to propound the idea of a ‘social monarchy’.
Propriety (n)
Correct behavior.
He always behaved with the utmost propriety.
Precipitate (v)
To hasten the occurrence of.
The incident precipitated a political crisis.
Prosaic (adj)
Dull, uninteresting.
Prosaic language can’t convey the experience.
Prudent (adj)
Cautious, wise.
No prudent money manager would authorize a loan.
Advert (v)
To refer or direct attention to.
I have already adverted to the solar revolution.
Excoriate (v)
Berate severely.
He excoriated the government for censorship.
Insipid (adj)
Plain, without flavoring.
Mugs of insipid coffee.
Sublimate (v)
Move from solid to gas OR transform into a purer form.
Work can serve as a means of sublimating rage.
Expatiate (v)
To talk at length.
She expatiated on working-class novelists.
Precipitous (adj)
Extremely steep.
The track skirted a precipitous drop.
Necromancy (n)
Black magic, witchcraft.
Truculent (adj)
Cruel, savage, eager to fight.
The truculent attitude of farmers to cheaper imports.
Depravity (adj)
Wickedness, cruelty.
A tale of depravity hard to credit.
