SAT Vocab Week ??? Flashcards
circuitous
(adj.) roundabout (The bus’s circuitous route took us through numerous
outlying suburbs.)
circumscribed
(adj.) marked off, bounded (The children were permitted to play tag
only within a carefully circumscribed area of the lawn.)
circumlocution
(n.) indirect and wordy language (The professor’s habit of speaking in
circumlocutions made it difficult to follow his lectures.)
circumspect
(adj.) cautious (Though I promised Rachel’s father I would bring her home
promptly by midnight, it would have been more circumspect not to have specified a
time.)
circumvent
(v.) to get around (The school’s dress code forbidding navel-baring jeans
was circumvented by the determined students, who were careful to cover up with
long coats when administrators were nearby.)
clairvoyant
(adj.) able to perceive things that normal people cannot (Zelda’s uncanny
ability to detect my lies was nothing short of clairvoyant.)
clamor
- (n.) loud noise (Each morning the birds outside my window make such a
clamor that they wake me up.) 2. (v.)to loudly insist (Neville’s fans clamored for
him to appear on stage, but he had passed out on the floor of his dressing room.)
clandestine
(adj.) secret (Announcing to her boyfriend that she was going to the gym,
Sophie actually went to meet Joseph for a clandestine liaison.)
cleave
- (v.) to divide into parts (Following the scandalous disgrace of their leader, the
entire political party cleaved into warring factions.) 2. (v.) to stick together firmly
(After resolving their marital problems, Junior and Rosa cleaved to one another all
the more tightly.)
cloying
(adj.) sickeningly sweet (Though Ronald was physically attractive, Maud
found his constant compliments and solicitous remarks cloying.)
clemency
(n.) mercy (After he forgot their anniversary, Martin could only beg Maria
for clemency.)
collusion
(n.)secret agreement, conspiracy (The three law students worked in collusion
to steal the final exam.)
coagulate
(v.) to thicken, clot (The top layer of the pudding had coagulated into a thick
skin.)
coalesce
(v.) to fuse into a whole (Gordon’s ensemble of thrift-shop garments coalesced
into a surprisingly handsome outfit.)
collateral
- (adj.)secondary (Divorcing my wife had the collateral effect of making me
poor, as she was the only one of us with a job or money.) 2. (n.) security for a debt
(Jacob left his watch as collateral for the $500 loan.)
coerce
(v.) to make somebody do something by force or threat (The court decided that
Vanilla Ice did not have to honor the contract because he had been coerced into
signing it.)
cogent
(adj.)intellectually convincing (Irene’s arguments in favor of abstinence were so
cogent that I could not resist them.)
coherent
(adj.) logically consistent, intelligible (Renee could not figure out what
Monroe had seen because he was too distraught to deliver a coherent statement.)
cognizant
(adj.) aware, mindful (Jake avoided speaking to women in bars because he
was cognizant of the fact that drinking impairs his judgment.)
colloquial
(adj.) characteristic of informal conversation (Adam’s essay on sexual
response in primates was marked down because it contained too many colloquial
expressions.)
commendation
(n.) a notice of approval or recognition (Jared received a commendation
from Linda, his supervisor, for his stellar performance.)
commensurate
(adj.) corresponding in size or amount (Ahab selected a very long roll
and proceeded to prepare a tuna salad sandwich commensurate with his enormous
appetite.)
commodious
(adj.)roomy (Holden invited the three women to join him in the back seat
of the taxicab, assuring them that the car was quite commodious.)
complacency
(n.) self-satisfied ignorance of danger (Colin tried to shock his friends out
of their complacency by painting a frightening picture of what might happen to
them.)
compelling
(adj.) forceful, demanding attention (Eliot’s speech was so compelling that
Lenore accepted his proposal on the spot.)
complicit
(adj.) being an accomplice in a wrongful act (By keeping her daughter’s affair
a secret, Maddie became complicit in it.)
comprehensive
(adj.) including everything (She sent me a comprehensive list of the
ingredients needed to cook rabbit soufflé.)
compunction
(n.) distress caused by feeling guilty (He felt compunction for the shabby
way he’d treated her.)
concede
(v.) to accept as valid (Andrew had to concede that what his mother said about
Diana made sense.)
conciliatory
(adj.) friendly, agreeable (I took Amanda’s invitation to dinner as a very
conciliatory gesture.)
concoct
(v.) to fabricate, make up (She concocted the most ridiculous story to explain her
absence.)
concomitant
(adj.) accompanying in a subordinate fashion (His dislike of hard work
carried with it a concomitant lack of funds.)
condolence
(n.) an expression of sympathy in sorrow (Brian lamely offered his
condolences on the loss of his sister’s roommate’s cat.)
concord
(n.) harmonious agreement (Julie and Harold began the evening with a
disagreement, but ended it in a state of perfect concord.)
conduit
(n.) a pipe or channel through which something passes (The water flowed
through the conduit into the container.)
condone
confluence
(n.) a gathering together (A confluence of different factors made tonight the
perfect night.)
confidant
(n.) a person entrusted with secrets (Shortly after we met, she became my
chief confidant.)
conflagration
(n.) great fire (The conflagration consumed the entire building.)
congruity
(n.) the quality of being in agreement (Bill and Veronica achieved a perfect
congruity of opinion.)