Magoosh 3 Flashcards
Invective
The verb form of invective, at least in a loose sense, is inveigh. This word popped up a lot on the old GRE, because it was easily confused with inveigle, which means to coax. Both words are still good to know for the New GRE. Invective is used to describe harsh, critical language.
The Internet has unleashed the invectives in many of us; many people post stinging criticism on the comments section underneath newspaper articles or YouTube videos.
Diatribe
A diatribe is a strong verbal attack against someone or something. The victim of a diatribe is typically some organization, whether it be the FDA, the government, or, in this case, Wall Street. It is understood that the person unleashing the diatribe is angry.
Steve’s mom launched into a diatribe during the PTA meeting, contending that the school was little more than a daycare in which students stare at the wall and teachers stare at the chalkboard.
Screed
Screed takes on a more negative connotation, and suggests an abusive rant that has since become tedious and hackneyed. Currently, the Occupy movements have hardly devolved into screeds, and may even intensify, if protestors feel their various demands have not been met. However, if the protest fizzles out months from now, except for the lone dude in the park, gesticulating at a passel of pigeons
…well, he is very likely launching into a screed.
Joey had difficulty hanging out with his former best friend Perry, who, during his entire cup of coffee, would enumerate all of the government’s deficiencies, only to break ranks and launch into some screed against big business.
Tirade
A tirade is an angry speech, one that suggests the person giving the tirade has become a little too angry, and should probably dismount the soapbox.
In terms of political change, a tirade oftentimes does little more than make the person speaking red in the face.
Harangue
Harangue can be either a noun or a verb. It is a synonym of tirade and diatribe. Lest someone harangue you for botched phonetics, the pronunciation of this word can be a bit tricky. Harangue rhymes with twang, rang, and, for the dessert inclined, meringue.
Tired of his parents haranguing him about his laziness and lack of initiative, Tyler finally moved out of home at the age of thirty-five.
Vituperation
This word is fun to say. Vituperating someone is neither fun for the ‘vituperater’ nor the ‘vituperatee.’
When you vituperate somebody, or something, you violently launch into an invective or tirade. Spit shoots from your mouth, froth forming at your lips. Understandably, vituperate is only used in extreme cases.
Jason had dealt with disciplinarians before, but nothing prepared him for the first week of boot camp, as drill sergeants would vituperate him for forgetting to double knot the laces on his boots.
Precipitate
There aren’t too many words in the English language that, without any change in spelling, can be a noun, verb, or an adjective. Precipitate, one such word, conjures up the image of technicians in lab
coats, mixing test tubes.
The precipitate is part of the solution left inside a test tube (or any other container used in labs these days). This definition, though, is not important for the GRE. The verb and adjective definitions, however, are. To be precipitate is to be hasty or rash. To precipitate something, such as a government precipitating a crisis, means to make something happen suddenly.
Instead of conducting a thorough investigation after the city hall break-in, the governor acted precipitately, accusing his staff of aiding and abetting the criminals.
Amalgam
An amalgam, in the chemistry sense, is an alloy made of mercury and some other metal (formerly used, before the health scare, as part of our dental fillings). Generally speaking, an amalgam is a mixture of two or more things.
The band’s music was an amalgam of hip-hop and jazz.
(In)solvent
In chemistry, a solvent is any substance able to breakdown or dissolve another substance. Outside the lab, to be solvent is to be able to pay off one’s debts. To be insolvent, on the other hand, is not to be able to pay off one’s debts.
Many once-great athletes have become insolvent, as they are unable to pay off their debts or hold down jobs that would potentially free them from debt.
Catalyst
In chemistry, when one substance speeds up a chemical reaction, that substance is said to be a catalyst. Broadly speaking, anything that speeds up (or precipitates) an event is a catalyst.
Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her bus seat acted as a catalyst for the Civil Right’s Movement, setting into motion historic changes for African-Americans.
Mercurial
For those who have since forgotten this slippery word, to be mercurial means to change constantly in terms of personality or mood. Typically, we say a mercurial person is moody and unpredictable. When you think of actual mercury—you know, that strange liquid inside thermometers, not the planet—it too is slippery and constantly changing (do not put this to the test—mercury is highly toxic). This poisonous quality, though, did not make it into the definition of mercurial. Someone who is mercurial is just moody.
The fact that Ella’s moods were as mercurial as the weather was problematic for her relationships—it didn’t help that she lived in Chicago.
Slapdash
One word conjures up a relatively violent action, the other what one typically does if they want to escape a dangerous situation. Put them together and you get, voila, a word meaning careless. That’s right—slapdash means hastily put together.
The office building had been constructed in a slapdash manner, so it did not surprise officials when, during a small earthquake, a large crack emerged on the façade of the building.
Heyday
About two of the most ordinary words I can think of, and how someone who is generally apathetic might greet the morning. Put them together, and you get something far more exciting. Heyday is the pinnacle, or top, of a person, time period or career.
During the heyday of Prohibition, bootlegging had become such a lucrative business that many who had been opposed to the 18th Amendment began to fear it would be repealed.
Hodgepodge
Okay, I’m not really sure what a hodge is, or for that matter, a podge. But if you put them together, you get hodgepodge, a word that means a confusing mixture or jumble.
Long after his heyday as Germany’s pre-eminent visionary philosopher, Nietzsche began to populate his writing with a hodgepodge of aphorisms.
Aboveboard
I guess whatever is below the board is deceptive, because aboveboard means open an honest. It usually refers to government officials who are honest.
The mayor, despite his avuncular visage plastered about the city, was hardly aboveboard – some concluded that it was his ingratiating smile that allowed him to engage in corrupt behavior and get
away with it.
Thoroughgoing
If something is thorough it is complete. Therefore, thorough isn’t too far from the meaning of thoroughgoing, which means absolute.
As a thoroughgoing bibliophile, one who had turned his house into a veritable library, he shocked his friends when he bought a Kindle
Telltale
If I tell a tale, I am telling a story, one that is usually a fib. Telltale, however, simply means revealing.
The many telltale signs of chronic smoking include yellow teeth, and a persistent, hacking cough.
Cadaverous
If someone is so skinny or emaciated that they look like a dead person, then that person is cadaverous.
This word comes from cadaver, which is a corpse. Besides emaciated, a good synonym for cadaverous is gaunt.
Some actors take challenging roles in which they have to lose so much weight that they appear cadaverous.
Macabre
If a story, film, or, for that matter, any description is filled with gruesome details about death and horror, we say that it is macabre.
Edgar Allen Poe was considered the master of the macabre; his stories vividly describe the moment leading up to—and often those moments after—a grisly death.
Goosebumps
I would never have considered this a vocabulary word (let alone a GRE word), until, that is, the New GRE PowerPrep test included a Text Completion in which goosebumps was the answer.
Goosebumps describe that sensation on our skin when we become frightened. You know, those sudden pimple-like bumps that suddenly appear when you are watching the first half of a horror movie (the last part of horror movies are typically cheesy, once they show the monster). Well, this is now a good word
to remember for the GRE, lest you want to get goosebumps test day.
Some people believe that goosebumps result when a ghost brushes up against you.
Diabolical
This word comes from the Latin and Greek for devil (for those speak Spanish, you may notice that the word is very similar to diablo). To be diabolical is to be extremely wicked like the devil.
The conspirators, willing to dispatch anyone who stood in their way, hatched a diabolical plan to take over the city.
Phantasmagorical
This is a terrifying word, just from the standpoint of pronunciation: [fan-taz-muh-gawr-ik-al]. The definition is equally frightening: a series of images that seem as though they are out of a dream, whether those images are real or in one’s head.
Those suffering from malaria fall into a feverish sleep, their world a whirligig of phantasmagoria; if they recover, they are unsure of what actually took place and what was simply a product of their febrile imaginations.
Gregarious
If you are sociable, you are talkative, right? Well, not exactly. To be gregarious is to be likely to socialize with others. A good synonym is flocking, like what birds do. But, just as birds do not talk to one another outside of a Pixar flick, people can hang out with each other and not necessarily have to chat. Therefore, do not confuse gregarious with garrulous, which means talkative.
Often we think that great leaders are those who are gregarious, always in the middle of a large group of people; yet, as Mahatma Gandhi and many others have shown us, leaders can often be introverted.
Ingenuous
You may think you’ve heard someone exclaim, what an ingenuous plan! But, it’s actually an ingenious plan. To be ingenuous is to be naïve and innocent. So, if you are likely to go along with a devious plan, whether or not it is ingenious, you are ingenuous.
Two-years in college in Manhattan had changed Jenna from an ingenuous girl from the suburbs to a jaded urbanite, unlikely to fall for any ruse, regardless of how elaborate.
Peruse
Peruse means to read very carefully. Unfortunately, the colloquial usage not only ignores this definition, but goes so far as to flip this definition on its head. In light conversatoin, peruse means to read over quickly. The GRE constitutes anything but light conversation, so make sure to remember that peruse means to read over carefully (perusing the first part of this paragraph helps!).
Instead of perusing important documents, people all too often rush to the bottom of the page and plaster their signature at the bottom.
Disabuse
To disabuse is not the opposite of abuse (which would be a strange word to have an opposite for in the first place). To disabuse is to persuade somebody that his/her belief is not valid. Often, disabuse goes together with the word notion:
As a child, I was quickly disabused of the notion that Santa Claus was a rotund benefactor of infinite largess—one night I saw my mother diligently wrapping presents and storing them under our Christmas tree.
Mettlesome
When you poke your nose in somebody else’s business, you are being meddlesome. If you are mettlesome, on the other hand, you are filled with mettle (no, not the hard stuff). Mettle means courage or valor. A soldier on the battlefield is mettlesome when he runs into enemy fire to save a comrade.
For its raid on the Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Seal Team Six has become, for many Americans, the embodiment of mettle.
Amiable
Amiable means friendly. It is very similar to amicable, another common GRE word. Amicable, however, does not refer to a person the way that amiable does, but rather refers to relationships between people. You’ll notice that amicable is, therefore, the opposite of acrimonious (see below). Amy’s name was very apt: she was so amiable that she was twice voted class president.
