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GRE Vocab > Word List Of S > Flashcards

Word List Of S Flashcards

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0
Q

Sacrilege (SAK ruh lij)

A

Noun
A violation of something sacred; blasphemy
The members of the fundamentalist believed that dancing and going to the movies were sacrileges

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1
Q

Saccharine (SAK uh rin)

A

Adjective
Sweet; excessively or disgustingly sweet
The love story was so saccharine that I vowed never to see another sappy, predictable movie again

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2
Q

Sacrosanct ( SAK roh sangkt)

A

Adjective
Sacred; held to be inviolable
A church or a temple is sacrosanct

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3
Q

Sagacious (suh GAY shus)

A

Adjective
Discerning; shrewd; keen in judgement
Sagacious, sagacity and sage

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4
Q

Salient (SAYL yunt)

A

Adjective
Sticking out; conspicuous; leaping
A salient characteristic is one that leaps right out at you

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5
Q

Salutary (SAL yuh ter ee)

A

Adjective
Healthy; remedial; curative
Lowered blood pressure is among the salutary effects of exercise

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6
Q

Sanctimonious (sang tuh MOH née us)

A

Adjective
Pretending to be devout; affecting religious feeling
Simon is an egoist who speaks about almost nothing but caring for one’s fellow man. His altruism is sanctimonious

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7
Q

Sanguine (SANG gwin)

A

Adjective
Cheerful; optimistic; hopeful
Don’t confuse sanguine ( a nice word) with sanguinary (not a nice word). Sanguinary means bloodthirsty

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8
Q

Sardonic (sahr DAHN ik)

A

Adjective
Mocking; scornful
Isabella’s weak attempts at humor were met by nothing but a few scattered pockets of sardonic laughter

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9
Q

Scintillate (SIN tuh layt)

A

Verb
To sparkle, either literally or figuratively
Stars and diamonds scintillate

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10
Q

Scrupulous ( SKROO pyuh lus)

A

Adjective
Strict; careful; hesitant for ethical reasons
Leela was scrupulous in keeping her accounts; she know where every penny came from and where every penny went

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11
Q

Scrutinize ( SKROOT uh nyze)

A

Verb
To examine very carefully
Antonym
Inscrutable

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12
Q

Secular ( SEK yuh lur)

A

Adjective

Having nothing to do with religion or spiritual concerns

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13
Q

Sedition (si DISH un)

A

Noun

Treason ; the incitement of public disorder or rebellion

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14
Q

Segregate ( SEG ruh gayt)

A

Verb
To separate
Rico kept his prize winning poodle, Fluffy, segregated from males until her 13th birthday

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15
Q

Sensory (SEN suh ree)

A

Adjective
Having to do with the senses or sensation
Babies enjoy bright colors, moving objects, pleasant sounds, and other forms of sensory stimulation

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16
Q

Sentient (SEN shunt)

A

Adjective

Able to perceive by the senses; conscious Human beings are sentient. Rocks are not

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17
Q

Sequester ( si KWES tur)

A

Verb
To set or keep apart
The struggling writer sequestered himself in his study for several months, trying to produce the great American novel

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18
Q

Serendipity ( ser un DIP uh tee)

A

Noun

Accidental good fortune; discovering good things without looking for them

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19
Q

Servile

A

Adjective

Submissive and subservient; like a servant

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20
Q

Singular (SING gyuh lur)

A

Adjective

Unique; superior; exceptional; strange

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21
Q

Sinister ( SIN ih stur)

A

Adjective

Evil, wicked, foreshadowing evil, trouble or wickedness

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22
Q

Slander

A

Verb

To speak badly about someone publicly; to defame ; to spread malicious rumor

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23
Q

Sloth ( slawth)

A

Noun

Laziness; sluggishness

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24
Q

Sobriety ( suh BRYE uh tee)

A

Noun

The state of being sober; seriousness

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25
Q

Solicitous ( suh LIS uh tus)

A

Adjective
Eager and attentive, often to the point of hovering; anxiously caring or attentive
Noun is solicitude

26
Q

Solvent ( SAHL vunt)

A

Adjective
Not broke or bankrupt; able to pay one’s bills
I don’t want to be a millionaire all I want to be a solvent

27
Q

Soporific ( saph uh RIF ik)

A

Adjective
Sleep inducing; boring; sleepy
The doctor calmed his hysterical patient by injecting him with some sort of soporific medication.

28
Q

Sordid ( SOR did)

A

Adjective
Vile; filthy; squalid
The college roommates led a sordid existence, surrounded by dirty laundry, rotting garbage, and body odor

29
Q

Spawn ( spawn)

A

Verb
To bring forth; to produce a large number
A best selling book or blockbuster movie will spawn dozens of imitators.

30
Q

Specious ( SPEE shus)

A

Adjective
Deceptively plausible or attractive
The river’s beauty turned to be specious; what had looked like churning rapids from a distance was, on closer inspection, some sort of foamy industrial waste

31
Q

Sporadic (spuh RAD ik)

A

Adjective
Stopping and starting, scattered, occurring in busts every once in a while
Sporadic warfare between India and Pakistan

32
Q

Spurious ( SPYOOR ee us)

A

Adjective
False; fake
An apocryphal story is one who truth is uncertain, and spurious story is false out and out.

33
Q

Squalor ( SKWAHL ur)

A

Noun
Filth; wretched, degraded, or repulsive living conditions
If people live in squalor for too long, the ruling elite can count on an insurgency

34
Q

Squander

A

Verb
To waste
Squandered money in useless stuff

35
Q

Stagnation

A

Noun

Motionless; inactivity

36
Q

Static

A

Adjective
Stationary; not changing or moving
Sales of the new book soared for a few weeks then became static

37
Q

Staunch

A

Adjective

Firmly committed; firmly in favor; steadfast

38
Q

Steadfast

A

Adjective

Loyal; faithful

39
Q

Stigmatize

A

Verb

To brand with disgrace; to set a mark of disgrace upon

40
Q

Stipulate ( STIP yuh layt)

A

Verb
To require something as part of an agreement
You are well advised to stipulate certain conditions that must be met if guarantee is to be valid

41
Q

Stoic (STOH ik)

A

Adjective

Indifferent ( at least outwardly) to pleasure or pain to joy or grief, to fortune or misfortune

42
Q

Stratum ( STRAT um)

A

Noun
A layer; a level
The middle class is one stratum of society

43
Q

Stricture (STRIK chur)

A

Noun
A restriction; a limitation; a negative criticism
The unfavorable lease placed many strictures on how the building could be used

44
Q

Strife

A

Noun

Bitter conflict; discord; a struggle or clash

45
Q

Stringent ( STRIN junt)

A

Adjective
Strict; restrictive
Stringent dress code of official dinner

46
Q

Stymie ( STYE mee)

A

Verb
To thwart; to get in the way of; to hinder
Boss stymied Ali’s efforts to make his name

47
Q

Subjugate

A

Verb
To subdue and dominate; to enslave
The tyrant subjugated all the peasants living in the kingdom; once free, they were now forced to do his bidding

48
Q

Sublime

A

Adjective
Awesome; extremely exalted; majestic
Don’t confuse sublime with subliminal which means subconscious, or sublimate, which means to suppress one’s subconscious mind

49
Q

Subordinate ( suh BOR duh nit)

A

Adjective

Lower in importance

50
Q

Substantive ( SUB Stan stiv)

A

Adjective

Having substance; real; essential; solid; substantial

51
Q

Subtle ( SUT ul)

A

Adjective
Not obvious; able to make distinctions; ingenious; crafty
Jim’s subtle mind enables him to see past problems that confuses the rest of us

52
Q

Subversive (sub VUR siv)

A

Adjective
Corrupting; overthrowing; undermining; insurgent
Madeline’s efforts to teach her first grade students to read were thwarted by that most subversive of inventions, the television set

53
Q

Succinct ( suk SINGKT)

A

Adjective
Brief and to the point; concise
We were given so little room in which to write on the examination that we had no choice but to keep our essays succinct

54
Q

Succumb ( suh KUM)

A

Verb
To yield or submit; to die
The Martians in The War of the Worlds survived every military weapon known to man but succumbed to the common cold

55
Q

Supercilious ( soo pur SIL ee us)

A

Adjective
Haughty; patronizing
The supercilious Rolls Royce salesman treated us like peasants until we opened our suitcase full of one hundred dollars bills

56
Q

Superficial ( soo Pur FISH ul)

A

Adjective
One the surface only; shallow; not thorough
Tom had indeed been shot, but the wound was superficial ; the bullet had merely creased the tip of his nose

57
Q

Superfluous ( soo PUR floo us)

A

Adjective
Extra; unnecessary; redundant
Roughly 999 of the 1000 page book’s pages were superfluous.

58
Q

Surfeit ( SUR fit)

A

Noun
Excess; an excessive amount; excess or overindulgence in eating or drinking
Thanksgiving meals are usually a surfeit for everyone involved

59
Q

Surreptitious (sur up TISH us)

A

Adjective
Sneaky; secret
The dinner guest surreptitiously slipped a few silver spoons into his jacket as he was leaving the dinning room

60
Q

Surrogate ( SUR uh git)

A

Adjective
Substitute
A kind parent offered to go to prison as a surrogate for his son who had been convicted of extortion

61
Q

Sycophant ( SIK uh funt)

A

Noun
One who sucks up to others
The French class seemed to be full of sycophants; the students were always bringing apples to the teacher telling her how nice she looked

62
Q

Synthesis

A

Noun

The combining of parts to form a whole

GRE Vocab (23 decks)

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