Week 5 Flashcards
bent
(noun)
BENT
Definition: Personal inclination or tendency
Usage: He had a pedantic bent—he was just naturally inclined to correct people’s
grammar and otherwise act like an imperious schoolmaster. / Even a vow of silence
couldn’t dampen the nun’s garrulous bent—even her prayers were verbose!
Related Words: Predilection (preference or inclination), Propensity (natural
tendency or inclination)
More Info: In the expression “to the top of one’s bent,” the word bent has the
meaning of “the limits of one’s endurance,” as in “Although he didn’t win, he ran
the marathon to the top of his bent.”
besiege
(verb)
buh-SEED’j
Definition: Attack, overwhelm, crowd in on or surround
Usage: The regiment was besieged by attackers on all sides and finally
surrendered. / I cannot go out this weekend—I am besieged by homework!
Related Words: Harry (harass or annoy), Hound (harass or pursue relentlessly, as if
with hunting dogs), Beleaguer (surround, as with difficulties or attackers)
More Info: Besiege is equivalent to the expression “lay siege to” (although that
expression is used more in the military sense and less in the metaphorical sense).
bevy
(noun)
BEV-ee
Definition: Group of birds or other animals that stay close together; any large group
Usage: The bar owner cringed when a bevy of women in plastic tiaras came in
—“Another drunken bachelorette party,” he sighed.
Related Words: Covey (a group of birds, or any group), Brood (group of offspring
born or hatched at the same time, esp. birds)
More Info: Bevy is most commonly associated with birds, and often used to
describe groups of people who stick together like a flock of birds—it usually
implies a not-very-serious opinion about the group in question.
bifurcate
(verb, adj)
BYE-fur-cayt
Definition: To fork into two branches or divide into two halves
Usage: The medical student carefully bifurcated the cadaver brain, separating it
precisely into right and left hemispheres. / The bifurcate tree stood tall, its two
massive branches reaching for the sky.
Related Words: Cleave (split or cut, as in a “meat cleaver”)
More Info: In math, a midpoint bifurcates a line segment. Bifurcate comes from
the Latin “furca,” which also gives us “fork.”
bilk
(verb)
BILK
Definition: Cheat or defraud
Usage: The con artist bilked many elderly people out of their savings, promising to
cure illnesses from diabetes to cancer with only 36 monthly payments of $99.99—
for which the victims received nothing but useless placebo pills.
Related Words: Hoodwink, Swindle, Con, and Fleece are all verbs for cheating
others. Fleece is perhaps more severe, having the connotation of taking everything
from the victim, the way one sheers all of the fleece from a sheep.
More Info: Bilk can also be a noun for the person who cheats others (“I hope that
bilk goes to jail!”) More obscurely, bilk can mean to escape from, frustrate, or
thwart. The word comes from the card game cribbage, where it means to play a card
that keeps an opponent from scoring.
blight
(noun, verb)
BLITE
Definition: Disease that kills plants rapidly, or any cause of decay or destruction
(noun); ruin or cause to wither (verb)
Usage: Many potato farmers have fallen into poverty as a result of blight killing
their crops. / Gang violence is a blight on our school system, causing innocent
students to fear even attending classes. / Violence has blighted our town.
Related Words: Scourge (punishment, disease, or disaster; a whip or lash), Bane
(something that spoils or ruins, as in “Allergies are the bane of my life.”)
More Info: Blight is often used to describe unidentified plant diseases that
mysteriously cause all the plants to wither—as such, it makes a good metaphor, as
in “urban blight,” when everything decays and goes wrong at once.
blithe
(adj)
BLITHE
Definition: Joyous, merry; excessively carefree (so as to ignore more important
concerns)
Usage: Delighted about making the cheerleading team, she blithely skipped across
the street without looking, and just narrowly avoided being hit by a bus.
Related Words: Jovial (joyous, merry)
More Info: Blithe can be positive or negative—it’s nice to be merry, but not so
merry that we thoughtlessly trample over other people, disobey the rules, etc.
bombastic
(adj)
bom-BAST-ick
Also bombast (noun)
Definition: (Of speech or writing) far too showy or dramatic than is appropriate;
pretentious
Usage: Professor Knutsen’s friends joked that he became quite bombastic after a
few drinks, once asking a woman in a bar, “Is your daddy an aesthete? Because you
are the epitome of ineffable pulchritude.” She replied, “I’m not impressed by your
bombast.”
Related Words: Declamatory (pompous, merely oratorical), Magniloquent and
Grandiloquent (speaking in a lofty, grandiose style)
More Info: The origin of bombastic is related to the idea of being inflated, a
metaphor that also comes into play with the related words turgid and tumid,
synonyms that can mean literally inflated like a balloon, or using language much
too fancy for the sentiment or occasion.
bonhomie
(noun)
bah-num-EE or BAH-num-ee
Definition: Friendliness, open and simple good heartedness
Usage: By the end of the summer, the campers were overflowing with bonhomie,
vowing to remain Facebook friends forever.
Related Words: Amity (friendship, peaceful agreement)
More Info: Bonhomie is from French—bon homme means “good man.” In English,
bonhomie is pronounced “bon-uh-MEE” or “BON-uh-mee” (somewhat ironically,
there is no “homey” in bonhomie).
brandish
(verb)
BRAN-dish
Definition: Shake, wave, or flourish, as a weapon
Usage: The Renaissance Fair ended badly, with one drunken fellow brandishing a
sword and refusing to leave the ladies’ dressing tent.
More Info: Brandish comes from the Germanic “brand,” or sword.
balk
(verb)
BALK
Definition: Refuse to proceed or to do something
Usage: At the company retreat, he reluctantly agreed to participate in the ropes course, but balked at
walking over hot coals as a “trust exercise.”
Related Words: Demur (show reluctance or object, especially for moral reasons, as in, “His colleagues
wanted him to tell the client that their sales would double, but he demurred.”)
More Info: Balk comes from a word for a beam or ridge—when a horse or mule balks, it stops short and
refuses to proceed. Occasionally, balk is used as a noun for an impediment, much like a beam or ridge, or
a defeat.
base
(adj)
BASE
Definition: Morally low, mean, dishonorable; of little or no value; crude and unrefined; counterfeit
Usage: His philanthropy was underlied by truly base motives—he not only craved the fawning publicity
his donations brought, but he was actually funneling drug money through the Children’s Defense Fund! /
The supposed “gold bricks” were really base metals covered in a very thin layer of real gold.
Related Words: Debase (lower or reduce in quality or dignity)
belie
(verb)
bih-LIE
Definition: Contradict or misrepresent
Usage: The actress’s public persona as a perky “girl next door” belied her private penchant for abusing
her assistants and demanding that her trailer be filled with ridiculous luxury goods. / The data belie the
accepted theory—either we’ve made a mistake, or we have an amazing new discovery on our hands!
More Info: This word is extremely common in GRE questions that ask you to select the missing word for a
blank, as belie allows a sentence to “change directions,” as in the example above.
benign
(adj)
bih-NINE
Also benignant (adj)
Definition: Harmless; favorable; kindly, gentle, or beneficial; not cancerous
Usage: He was relieved when the biopsy results came back, informing him that the growth was benign. /
He’s a benign fellow. I’m sure having him assigned to your team at work will be perfectly pleasant,
without changing the way you do things.
Related Words: Innocuous (harmless, inoffensive)
More Info: Benign contains the root “bene,” meaning “good.” Its antonym is malign (“mal” means
“bad”), which as an adjective means “evil, harmful, or malicious” (as a verb, it can also mean “slander or
defame”). The variant benignant is used the same way as benign.
bogus
(adj)
BOH-guss
Definition: Fake, fraudulent
Usage: The back of this bodybuilding magazine is just full of ads for bogus products—this one promises
22-inch biceps just from wearing magnetic armbands!
Related Words: Spurious and Sham are synonyms
More Info: Bogus is of American origin, originally a device for making counterfeit money. “Bogus!” was
also a slang term of the ‘80s (prominent in the 1989 film Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure), meaning
“bad” or “unfair.” On the GRE, however, bogus means fake.
bolster
(verb)
BOHL-ster
Definition: Strengthen or support
Usage: The general requested reinforcements to bolster the defensive line set up at the border. / Many
people use alcohol to bolster their confidence before approaching an attractive person in a bar.
Related Words: Buttress means a support against a building but can also be a verb meaning “strengthen
or support.” Fortify is most associated with protecting against military attack but also means “strengthen
or support.”
More Info: Bolster comes from an Old Norse noun for a long, supportive pillow, and can still mean this.
Bolster has additional meanings in sailing, metalworking, and other fields, but in every case a bolster is
some kind of specialized support.
boor
(noun)
BOO-er
Also boorish (adj)
Definition: Rude, ill-mannered, or insensitive person; a peasant or country bumpkin
Usage: Milton was such a boor that, when Jane brought him home to meet her parents, he laughed at
their garden gnome and made fun of everyone’s hairstyles in old family photos. “Don’t be so boorish!”
said his mortified girlfriend.
Related Words: Churl is a synonym and can also be used in its adjective form, churlish. Bumpkin, Yokel,
and Rustic are all words for an awkward, uncultured, simple person, generally from the country.
More Info: Boor is from a German word for farmer that also gives us the “Boers” in South Africa.
buffer
(noun)
BUFF-er
Definition: Something that shields, protects, absorbs shock, or cushions
Usage: During the colonial era, England wanted Georgia as a buffer between its original colonies and
Spanish Florida. / A railroad car has a buffer (similar to a bumper on a car) to absorb shock in case of
contact with other cars. / When Joel came out to his family, he used his mother as a buffer—he knew she
would be supportive, so he allowed her to relay the news to everyone else, and to relay their responses
back to him.
More Info: A buffer can also be a device for polishing (cars, fingernails, etc.).
bureaucracy
(noun)
byur-ROCK-cruh-see
Also bureaucratic (adj), bureaucrat (noun)
Definition: Government characterized by many bureaus and petty administrators or by excessive,
seemingly meaningless requirements
Usage: Some nations have a worse reputation for bureaucracy than others—in order to get a visa, he had
to file papers with four different agencies, wait for hours in three different waiting rooms, and, weeks
later, follow up with some petty bureaucrat who complained that the original application should’ve been
filed in triplicate.
More Info: There is nothing wrong with bureaus (the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for instance), but
bureaucracy takes the idea much too far. While, technically, bureaucracy can simply mean a form of
government by bureaus, it is virtually always used in the negative sense of excessive “red tape.”
burgeon
(verb)
BER-juhn
Definition: Grow or flourish rapidly; put forth buds or shoots (of a plant)
Usage: The dictator was concerned about the people’s burgeoning discontent and redoubled his personal
security. / Spending an hour a day on vocabulary studies will soon cause your lexicon to burgeon.
More Info: From Old French “burjon,” a shoot or bud. Mushroom
