Verbal Advantage 100 Flashcards
PARAPHRASE
The verb paraphrase means to sum something up or clarify a statement by rephrasing it. So to paraphrase that explanation, it means to say something in other, simpler words.
OSTENSIBLE
When something is ostensible it appears to be the case but might not be. Research for a role is the ostensible reason for Nat’s drinking. But I think it’s because he just likes to drink.
DIGRESS
If we’re talking about science fiction, and you suddenly go off on a long tangent about the cost of grape soda, you digress. When a person digresses, they stray from the topic.
UNCANNY
If something is uncanny, it is so mysterious, strange, or unfamiliar that it seems supernatural.
You can also use uncanny to refer to something remarkable that is beyond what is normal: as in “uncanny abilities.”
CANDOR
Candor usually means the quality of being open, honest, and sincere. If someone tells you they think you are dumb, you might reply with, “While I appreciate your candor, I don’t think we need to be friends anymore.”
MOROSE
A morose person is sullen, gloomy, sad, glum, and depressed — not a happy camper. Whenever you see the word morose, think “really, really sad and gloomy.”
ADEPT
Are you looking for another word to describe a person who is highly skilled, very proficient or expert at something? Try the adjective adept!
SATURATED
Saturated means drenched and full. When you fish out a slice of bread that’s fallen into your water glass and find it’s disgustingly spongy and waterlogged, it’s saturated. In the twentieth century it developed marketing connotations, as in a saturated market — one without room for competition.
PRAGMATIC
To describe a person or a solution that takes a realistic approach, consider the adjective pragmatic. The four-year-old who wants a unicorn for her birthday isn’t being very pragmatic.
CONGENIAL
A congenial person is easy to get along with. If you’re trying to decide which of your friends to take on a road trip, choose the most congenial one.
CAPRICIOUS
Capricious is an adjective to describe a person or thing that’s impulsive and unpredictable, like a bride who suddenly leaves her groom standing at the wedding altar.
BLATANT
Something blatant is very obvious and offensive. Don’t get caught in a blatant lie, because you won’t be able to weasel your way out of it.
OBLIGATORY
Obligatory describes something you do because you have to, not because you want to. When you buy a car, you have to fill out the obligatory forms. In many homes, saying please and thank you is obligatory.
NEGLIGIBLE
When something is meaningless or insignificant because it is so little, it’s negligible. The amount of interest you’ll get on your savings is negligible, so you might as well spend your money.
ADAMANT
If you stubbornly refuse to change your mind about something, you are adamant about it, no amount of persuasion is going to convince you otherwise.
SPORADIC
Sporadic is an adjective that you can use to refer to something that happens or appears often, but not constantly or regularly. The mailman comes every day but the plumber visits are sporadic––he comes as needed.
VANGUARD
If you are in the vanguard, you’re up front. It could be that you are in the vanguard of an advancing army, or in the vanguard of any movement, trend, or occupation.
CONCUR
To concur is to agree or approve of something. If someone says something you agree with, you can say “I concur!”
PRECOCIOUS
That high school hoops phenom who plays like an NBA pro? The sixth grader who’s already asking questions about organic chemistry? They’re both precocious — meaning they’re way beyond their years in skill or knowledge.
ALOOF
That emotionally cold and detached fellow who keeps to himself, smoking clove cigarettes and reading French philosophy, would best be described as aloof.
CREED
Without reading the long document about the group’s beliefs — its creed — he knew he didn’t fit in, because he just couldn’t bow to the 12-foot statue of a rabbit, no matter what it symbolized.
TAWDRY
Tawdry means cheap, shoddy, or tasteless. It can be used to describe almost anything from clothes to people to even events or affairs.
PEEVISH
When you’re peevish, you’re easily irritated and grumpy. Everything seems to get under your skin.
ARDUOUS
Use the adjective, arduous, to describe an activity that takes a lot of effort. Writing all those college essays and filling out the applications is an arduous process!
PERSONABLE
If you’re personable, you’re friendly and get along well with other people. Being personable is part of what makes you the star of the sales team — people just seem to like you.
RESOLUTE
Use the adjective resolute to describe a purposeful and determined person, someone who wants to do something very much, and won’t let anything get in the way.
SUPPOSITION
A supposition is a guess or a hypothesis. Your supposition that your kids will automatically wash their hands before dinner is probably false. You’d best remind them to do it or risk dirty hands at dinner.
ARBITRARY
Something that’s arbitrary seems like it’s chosen at random instead of following a consistent rule. Team members would dislike their coach using a totally arbitrary method to pick starting players.
MONOTONOUS
When something goes on and on and on and on and on, the same way, for a long time, that’s monotonous. Monotonous things are boring and repetitive, like that long story you’ve heard your brother tell a hundred times before.
LEGACY
Use the word, legacy, for something handed down from one generation to the next. A retiring company president might leave a legacy of honesty and integrity.
MANIFOLD
Manifold is a smarty-pants way to say “varied,” “many,” or “multiple.” There are many good reasons to expand your vocabulary, so you could say the benefits of learning new words are manifold.
PLIANT
The adjective pliant describes something that is capable of being bent. “The teenager showed off her pliant spine every time she draped herself over a piece of furniture. Why hanging upside down off the sofa didn’t give her a headache, her mother would never know.”
RETORT
What’s a retort? It’s a reply that’s short. “Why did the monkey fall out of the tree; please give me a report?” I said “The monkey’s dead,” with a dry retort.
OBSTINATE
When someone is beyond stubborn, use the word obstinate instead: “You obstinate old mule! Get out of my way!”
LACERATE
The verb lacerate means to cut or tear. So the envelope that gave you that nasty paper cut? It lacerated your finger.
OMNIPOTENT
If you want to describe someone who can do absolutely anything, reach for the adjective omnipotent.
UNSCRUPULOUS
Use the adjective unscrupulous to describe someone who behaves in a dishonest or unethical way.
GENESIS
When you talk about the genesis of something, you’re talking about where it began. The genesis of hip-hop music was the party scene in New York City’s South Bronx in the 1970s.
WARRANT
As a verb, it means to make something seem reasonable or necessary, such when the ticking suitcase warrants bringing in the bomb squad, or when the teenager’s sneaking in late again warrants a stricter curfew.
CANTANKEROUS
If someone is cantankerous he has a difficult disposition. Take care not to throw your ball into the yard of the cantankerous old man down the street — he’ll cuss you out and keep your ball.
FLIPPANT
When a parent scolds a teenager for missing a curfew or blowing off a test and the teen snaps back, “Whatever,” you could say the teen is being flippant. His reply was casual to the point of sarcasm and disrespect.
SUBJUGATE
If you say you won’t be kept down by the man, you are saying that you won’t let the man subjugate you. To subjugate is to repress someone, or to make them subservient to you.
WRY
A wry sense of humor is a sarcastic one. You were late for work, stepped into a mud puddle, and you forgot your lunch. If your co-worker asks how your morning is going, you can reply with a wry tone, “Perfectly perfect.”
URBANE
Urbane people are sophisticated, polished, cultured, refined. Spend enough time in an urban setting–-going to concerts, museums, spending time in crowds––and you’ll be urbane too.
JARGON
Jargon usually means the specialized language used by people in the same work or profession. Internet advertising jargon includes the new words “click throughs” and “page views.”
PRUDENT
Describe an action as prudent if it is the wise thing to do under the existing circumstances. If you’re getting in trouble, it is probably prudent to keep your mouth closed and just listen.
INVIOLABLE
Wedding vows and vault combinations that can’t be broken are considered inviolable. (Of course, divorce lawyers and bank robbers consider this a challenge.)
COMMODIOUS
If your house has a big and comfortable living room, you could say that you have a commodious space for entertaining. Commodious means roomy.
PROXIMITY
The word proximity means “nearness,” and it is often qualified by the word close. “It was hard not to see him cheating, when our desks are in such close proximity to one another.”
ADVOCATE
You can refer to a person who’s a public supporter of a cause as an advocate.
DELEGATE
Delegate lends an official air to passing off your work. If you don’t like cleaning the bathroom, you can try to delegate that task to your little brother.
UNPRECEDENTED
Something that is unprecedented is not known, experienced, or done before. If you’ve never gone on a family beach vacation but you’re planning one now, you could refer to it as an unprecedented decision.
POIGNANT
Something that is poignant touches you deeply. Watching a poignant YouTube video about baby penguins chasing their mothers, for example, might give you a lump in your throat.
NEBULOUS
Use the adjective nebulous for situations that are “hazy, indistinct” and also “cloudy” or “fuzzy.”
CLANDESTINE
Pick the adjective, clandestine, to describe something that is done in secret, like your clandestine attempts to steal your brother’s Halloween candy.
TIRADE
A tirade is a speech, usually consisting of a long string of violent, emotionally charged words. Borrow and lose your roommate’s clothes one too many times, and you can bet you’ll be treated to a heated tirade.
RECUR
Have you ever had the same crazy dream night after night? If so, you know that dreams can recur, meaning they repeat, or happen again.
TACIT
Something tacit is implied or understood without question. Holding hands might be a tacit acknowledgment that a boy and girl are dating.
ALLEGATION
An allegation is an accusation, which is sometimes true and sometimes not. If you say your sister stole a candy bar but you don’t have any proof that she did it, you have made an allegation.
GULLIBLE
If you are gullible, the joke is on you because you are easily fooled.
BENIGN
Someone or something that is benign is gentle, kind, mild, or unharmful: a benign soul wouldn’t hurt a fly.
PERIPHERAL
Scanners, printers, and speakers are peripheral devices for a computer because they aren’t central to the working of the computer itself. Anything peripheral is on the margin, or outside, while main things, like a computer’s processor, are not peripheral.
REBUFF
If you rebuff someone’s advances, it means they’re trying to get in with you, and you’re sending them signals that you are not interested. A rebuff can be quite rude, like pretending you don’t hear
ANIMOSITY
Animosity is hatred. If your (supposed) best buddy embarrasses you in front of a big crowd, your friendship could turn into animosity.
TENUOUS
If something is tenuous it’s thin, either literally or metaphorically. If you try to learn a complicated mathematical concept by cramming for 45 minutes, you will have a tenuous grasp of that concept, at best.
COMPLACENT
Someone who is complacent has become overly content — the junk-food-eating couch potato might be feeling complacent about his health.
ACME
When something is at the very peak of perfection, reach for this noun from Greek: acme. A brilliant violinist might reach the acme of her career, but eventually she might become unstrung.
DEFUNCT
Defunct describes something that used to exist, but is now gone. A magazine that no longer publishes, like Sassy, the girl-power mag from the ’90s, is defunct, for example
ABET
To abet is to help someone do something, usually something wrong. If you were the lookout while your older sister swiped cookies from the cookie jar, you abetted her mischief.
HAGGARD
Someone who is haggard looks exhausted and worn out, exactly how you’d expect someone who’s been lost at sea for days to look.
WAIVE
To waive is to give up one’s right to do something. If you waive your right to help name your family’s new puppy, you can’t complain if he ends up being called “Mr. Tinkerbell Sweetheart Lovey-Face.”
CARNAL
Carnal is an adjective meaning “of the flesh.” This makes carnal relations a subject that kids want to know more about, but one that both kids and parents may be embarrassed to talk about with each other.
SANCTION
Sanction has two nearly opposite meanings: to sanction can be to approve of something, but it can also mean to punish, or speak harshly to. Likewise, a sanction can be a punishment or approval. Very confusing––the person who invented this word should be publicly sanctioned!
AMBIGUOUS
Look to the adjective ambiguous when you need to describe something that’s open to more than one interpretation, like the headline “Squad helps dog bite victim.”
SPENDTHRIFT
A spendthrift person is reckless and wasteful with his money. Spendthrifts who like to take you out to nice lunches are good people to be friends with, but it’s generally a bad way to handle your own bank account.
MOLLIFY
To mollify is to calm someone down, talk them off the ledge, make amends, maybe even apologize.
UNEQUIVOCAL
If there is no doubt about it, it’s unequivocal. An unequivocal response to a marriage proposal? “Yes. Yes! A thousand times yes!”
MALLEABLE
A malleable personality is capable of being changed or trained, and a malleable metal is able to be pounded or pressed into various shapes. It’s easier to learn when you’re young and malleable.
VERBOSE
Verbose describes a person, speech, or piece of writing that uses many words, usually more words than necessary. If you talk too much, you can be described as verbose, and so can your history paper if you didn’t do the research and are just tried to take up space with words.
TRANSIENT
Use the adjective transient to describe something that always changes or moves around, like how a teenage girl can have a temporary crush on one boy one week and another boy the next week.
NETTLE
If you know what a nettle is—that is, a barbed seed that gets stuck in your clothes and hair—then you’ll have no trouble remembering the verb nettle: it means to annoy, bother, irritate, or bedevil.
REPUDIATE
To repudiate something is to reject it, or to refuse to accept or support it. If you grow up religious, but repudiate all organized religion as an adult, you might start spending holidays at the movies, or just going to work.
IMPETUOUS
Someone impetuous acts too hastily or carelessly. Hotheaded, impulsive folks are impetuous.
FRUGAL
A person who lives simply and economically can be called frugal. Buying clothes at a consignment shop would be considered frugal. Not getting your mom a gift for her birthday — that’s just cheap.
INCONGRUOUS
Something that’s incongruous is inconsistent or incompatible with something else. Remember that Sesame Street song “One of these things is not like the other”? They were talking about that one thing being incongruous.
ASSUAGE
If you assuage an unpleasant feeling, you make it go away. Assuaging your hunger by eating a bag of marshmallows may cause you other unpleasant feelings.
CORROBORATE
To corroborate is to back someone else’s story. If you swear to your teacher that you didn’t throw the spitball, and your friends corroborate your story by promising that you were concentrating on math homework, she might actually believe you.
EMBELLISH
The word “bell” shows up in the middle of embellish, and bells are something that decorate, or embellish something, making it more attractive. If you embellish speech, though, it can get ugly if you add a lot of details that aren’t true.
AVARICIOUS
Someone who is avaricious is greedy or grasping, concerned with gaining wealth. The suggestion is that an avaricious person will do anything to achieve material gain, and it is, in general, not a pleasant attribute
CURSORY
No reason to get excited — cursory has nothing to do with bad language. Instead, it means not paying attention to details, like friends who are so busy studying for a test that they only give your new haircut a cursory glance.
VACILLATE
Vacillate means to waver back and forth, unable to decide. You might vacillate between ordering waffles and pancakes at your favorite diner — it’s hard to pick just one when both are so tasty!
LUCRATIVE
Use lucrative to refer to a business or investment that makes money. The drug trade has proved very lucrative, if dangerous, for people willing to risk their lives to take part in it.
ALLOCATE
To allocate is to set aside a certain amount of money for an expense. You usually hear about the government allocating funds for education or the military, but you may personally allocate some of your allowance to buying comic books.
RECONCILE
Reach for the verb reconcile to make different things come together or resolve a matter.
PARAGON
Paragon applies to someone who is a model of perfection in some quality or trait. We link paragon with other words that follow it, such as “paragon of virtue” or “paragon of patience.”
ANALOGOUS
Use the adjective analogous to describe something that is similar to something else and can be compared to another.
DIURNAL
If it’s 9:00 at night and your mom wants you to do the dishes, you could try to put it off until the next day by politely pointing out that you are a diurnal animal. That means you get most of your activities done during the day.
PRETEXT
Pretext is a false reason given for doing something. If you catch your mother going through your drawers, and she says she was just tidying up, cleaning was her pretext for snooping.
DEFRAY
If your mother says she will defray the cost of your next move, say thank you. She means she will take on some of the expenses for you.
TACITURN
Someone who is taciturn is reserved, not loud and talkative. The word itself refers to the trait of reticence, of seeming aloof and uncommunicative. A taciturn person might be snobby, naturally quiet, or just shy.
TERSE
Terse means brief, or using very few words. If your teacher tells you to make your writing in your essay style terse and to the point, he’s saying use as few words as you can and be simple and clear.
