SAT WORDS 1

Question 1

abase

Answer 1

(v.) to humiliate, degrade (After being overthrown and abased, the deposed
leader offered to bow down to his conqueror.)

Question 2

abate

Answer 2

(v.) to reduce, lessen (The rain poured down for a while, then abated.)

Question 3

abdicate

Answer 3

(v.) to give up a position, usually one of leadership (When he realized that the
revolutionaries would surely win, the king abdicated his throne.)

Question 4

abduct

Answer 4

(v.) to kidnap, take by force (The evildoers abducted the fairy princess from her
happy home.)

Question 5

aberration

Answer 5

(n.)something that differs from the norm (In 1918, the Boston Red Sox won
the World Series, but the success turned out to be an aberration, and the Red Sox
have not won a World Series since.)

Question 6

abet

Answer 6

(v.) to aid, help, encourage (The spy succeeded only because he had a friend on the
inside to abet him.)

Question 7

abhor

Answer 7

(v.) to hate, detest (Because he always wound up kicking himself in the head
when he tried to play soccer, Oswald began to abhor the sport.)

Question 8

abide

Answer 8

1. (v.) to put up with (Though he did not agree with the decision, Chuck decided
   to abide by it.) 2. (v.) to remain (Despite the beating they’ve taken from the weather
   throughout the millennia, the mountains abide.)

Question 9

abject

Answer 9

(adj.) wretched, pitiful (After losing all her money, falling into a puddle, and
breaking her ankle, Eloise was abject.)

Question 10

abjure

Answer 10

(v.) to reject, renounce (To prove his honesty, the President abjured the evil
policies of his wicked predecessor.)

Question 11

abnegation

Answer 11

(n.) denial of comfort to oneself (The holy man slept on the floor, took only
cold showers, and generally followed other practices of abnegation.)

Question 12

abort

Answer 12

(v.) to give up on a half-finished project or effort (After they ran out of food, the
men, attempting to jump rope around the world, had to abort and go home.)

Question 13

abridge

Answer 13

1. (v.) to cut down, shorten (The publisher thought the dictionary was too long
   and abridged it.) 2. (adj.) shortened (Moby-Dick is such a long book that even the
   abridged version is longer than most normal books.)

Question 14

abrogate

Answer 14

(v.) to abolish, usually by authority (The Bill of Rights assures that the
government cannot abrogate our right to a free press.)

Question 15

abscond

Answer 15

(v.) to sneak away and hide (In the confusion, the super-spy absconded into the
night with the secret plans.)

Question 16

absolution

Answer 16

(n.) freedom from blame, guilt, sin (Once all the facts were known, the jury
gave Angela absolution by giving a verdict of not guilty.)

Question 17

abstain

Answer 17

(v.) to freely choose not to commit an action (Everyone demanded that Angus
put on the kilt, but he did not want to do it and abstained.)

Question 18

abstruse

Answer 18

e (adj.) hard to comprehend (Everyone else in the class understood geometry 
easily, but John found the subject abstruse.)

Question 19

accede

Answer 19

(v.) to agree (When the class asked the teacher whether they could play baseball
instead of learn grammar they expected him to refuse, but instead he acceded to
their request.)

Question 20

accentuate

Answer 20

(v.) to stress, highlight (Psychologists agree that those people who are
happiest accentuate the positive in life.)

Question 21

accessible

Answer 21

(adj.) obtainable, reachable (After studying with SparkNotes and getting a
great score on the SAT, Marlena happily realized that her goal of getting into an
Ivy-League college was accessible.)

Question 22

acclaim

Answer 22

(n.) high praise (Greg’s excellent poem won the acclaim of his friends.)

Question 23

accolade

Answer 23

(n.) high praise, special distinction (Everyone offered accolades to Sam after
he won the Noble Prize.)

Question 24

accommodating

Answer 24

(adj.) helpful, obliging, polite (Though the apartment was not big
enough for three people, Arnold, Mark, and Zebulon were all friends and were
accommodating to each other.)

Question 25

accord

Answer 25

(n.) an agreement (After much negotiating, England and Iceland finally came to
a mutually beneficial accord about fishing rights off the cost of Greenland.)

Question 26

accost

Answer 26

(v.)to confront verbally (Though Antoinette was normally quite calm, when the
waiter spilled soup on her for the fourth time in 15 minutes she stood up and accosted
the man.)

Question 27

accretion

Answer 27

(n.) slow growth in size or amount (Stalactites are formed by the accretion of
minerals from the roofs of caves.)

Question 28

acerbic

Answer 28

(adj.) biting, bitter in tone or taste (Jill became extremely acerbic and began to
cruelly make fun of all her friends.)

Question 29

acquiesce

Answer 29

(v.) to agree without protesting (Though Mr. Correlli wanted to stay outside
and work in his garage, when his wife told him that he had better come in to dinner,
he acquiesced to her demands.)

Question 30

acrimony

Answer 30

(n.) bitterness, discord (Though they vowed that no girl would ever come
between them, Biff and Trevor could not keep acrimony from overwhelming their
friendship after they both fell in love with the lovely Teresa.)