Words to review for the GRE
Posted: - Modified: | communication| chary | cautious wary |
| cloture | closing device (in Parliament) to end a debate by voting |
| coeval | of the same period coexisting |
| countervail | counterbalance |
| desuetude | cessation of use disuse |
| edacious | voracious devouring |
| encomium | warm or glowing praise eulogy panegyric |
| epicurean | devoted to pleasure (sensuous enjoyment) |
| expatiate | to roam wander freely |
| expiation | ending expiring |
| exscind | to cut out cut away |
| facetious | humorous funny jocular |
| finical | too fussy about food clothing etc. |
| foment | put smth warm (to lessen the pain) (i always thought of this as fomenting rebellion) |
| froward | intractable not willing to yield or comply stubborn |
| fulmination | bitter protest |
| gaucherie | socially awkward tactless behavior |
| hermetic | sealed by fusion (don’t think of mages) |
| imbroglio | complicated and embarrassing situation |
| inchoate | not yet fully formed rudimentary elementary |
| limn | paint portray |
| lucubrate | write in scholarly fashion |
| luculent | easily understood lucid clear |
| macerate | make or become soft by soaking in water |
| maladroit | tactless clumsy |
| minatory | menacing threatening |
| nostrum | a quack remedy an untested cure |
| nugatory | trifling/worthless |
| obloquy | abusively detractive language sharp criticism vituperation |
| odium | contempt dislike aversion |
| opprobrious | showing scorn or reproach |
| paean | song of praise or triumph |
| palliate | lessen the severity of |
| panegyric | formal praise eulogy |
| peccadillo | small sin small weakness in one’s character |
| peregrination | traveling about wandering |
| picaresque | involving clever rogues or adventurers |
| piquant | agreeably pungent stimulating |
| probity | uprightness incorruptibility principle |
| prolix | tiring because too long |
| propinquity | nearness in time or place affinity of nature |
| provident | frugal looking to the future |
| puissance | strength |
| pusillanimous | cowardly craven |
| quotidian | banal everyday |
| raconteur | person who tells anecdotes |
| recidivism | relapse into antisocial or criminal behavior |
| recondite | little known abstruse |
| recreancy | cowardice a cowardly giving up |
| refractory | stubborn unmanageable untractable |
| repine | at be discontented with |
| restive | refusing to move reluctant to be controlled |
| salubrious | healthful |
| salutary | remedial wholesome causing improvement |
| saturnine | gloomy dark sullen morose |
| sedulous | persevering |
| sententious | short and pithy full of maxims/proverbs |
| sere | make hard and without feeling |
| somatic | of the body |
| turpitude | wickedness shamefulness |
| tyro | tiro beginner |
| virago | a loud domineering woman a scold or nag |
| vitiate | lower the quality weaken the strength |
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