More Info: A buffer can also be a device for polishing cars, fingernails, etc. More Info: There is nothing wrong with bureaus the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for instance , but bureaucracy takes the idea much too far.
More Info: In chemistry, a catalyst causes or accelerates a chemical reaction but is not, itself, affected the opposite is an inhibitor. Metaphorically, a catalyst is a person or event that causes a reaction. You need safety gloves and goggles before performing this experiment, or else you risk not only getting your skin burned off, but also some seriously caustic remarks from our chemistry teacher.
President to ever be censured by the Senate. Since , nine Senators have been censured; this act of formal disapproval does not remove them from office.
Chronometer is just a fancy word for clock. More Info: In sports, to clinch a championship is to gain so great a lead that it is impossible not to win. To clinch a contract is to lock it down. To clinch a nail is to flatten the part that sticks out—that is, to finish your work.
Related Words: Agglomerate collect into a mass , Aggregate gather together , Consolidate unite, combine, firm up—you can consolidate loans or consolidate power More Info: A coalition is a group that has coalesced at least in theory. The resemblance of cogent to cognition, cognitive, cogitation, and excogitate—words about thinking—is merely a coincidence, but a helpful one. Related Words: Complaisant and Obliging are words describing people who comply with eagerness. To condone is to give mild, sometimes tacit, approval.
Related Words: Epicure person with discriminating tastes, esp. Related Words: Disputatious and quarrelsome are near-synonyms More Info: A contention is simply a claim, often a thesis or statement that will then be backed up with reasons. More Info: The antonym of converge is diverge. Related Words: Abreast keeping up with, staying aware of, or remaining equal in progress with More Info: Conversant does NOT mean talkative—it means having enough knowledge to be able to carry on an intelligent conversation about a topic.
Conversely, I am here to argue that poverty causes lack of education. I have a hard time believing that—is there anyone who can corroborate your story? Related Words: Substantiate and verify also mean to prove true or provide evidence in favor of.
Related Words: Urbane elegant, sophisticated, suave; suitable to social life in major cities More Info: The magazine Cosmopolitan was originally named to evoke the image of a wordly, sophisticated woman. Related Words: Clandestine, Surreptitious, and Furtive all mean secret, undercover. Related Words: Cunning, Guileful, and Wily are synonyms. More Info: The opposite of credulous is incredulous, which means skeptical. Higgins did love the symphony, but she was also coming down with a migraine—by the time the music reached its towering crescendo, her head was pounding.
Related Words: Ascension rising to the top , Culminate reach a high point or final stage , Surge strong forward movement, swelling wave More Info: Crescendo is originally a musical term; its antonym is decrescendo, although that word is less often used metaphorically.
Denouement means conclusion or ending, such as of a literary work, esp. Related Words: Misanthrope hater of humankind More Info: The original Cynics were ancient Greek philosophers who held that self-control was the only virtue.
They are rumored to have been quite contemptuous towards their philosophical opponents. Not even a dented rim on mile 19 could daunt him—he dauntlessly completed the race anyway. More Info: Debunk is an Americanism, deriving from bunkum, an old-fashioned word for nonsense or meaningless talk. Related Words: Adumbrate give a rough outline of More Info: Delineate, of course, shares a root with linear.
Related Words: Disparage is a synonym. More Info: A denotation is the literal meaning of a word; a connotation is the feeling that accompanies that word. Related Words: Arid means very dry, like a desert. The same root appears in the Spanish word for dry seco and in the name of the Italian dry sparkling wine prosecco. Related Words: Standoffish cold, unfriendly More Info: A detached house is one that does not have a wall in common with another building.
Related Words: Balk an impediment; refuse to proceed or to do something More Info: As a military policy, deterrence is building military strength or ability to retaliate especially by stockpiling nuclear weapons, as in the Cold War sufficient to deter enemies from attacking. Related Words: Tirade, Harangue, and Fulmination are all words for bitter, angry speeches or attacks.
Any teacher is didactic, but a person who is lecturing or moralizing in an unwanted manner can also be called didactic. That digression could take awhile. Related Words: Divagate is a synonym. Diffuse as an adjective can mean off-topic a diffuse speech. Any physicist would be happy to disabuse you of that silly notion. Related Words: Keen, Perceptive, and Perspicacious are all related to having good judgment or perception.
Descry means to discover or see by looking carefully. Related Words: Incongruity standing out , Discord or Discordance harshness or inharmoniousness; disagreement More Info: Unlike a mere incongruity, which could be as innocent as one guy with a mohawk at an otherwise straight-laced gathering, a discrepancy usually indicates that someone has done something wrong.
The chef was astounded. More Info: Many people automatically think of discriminating as bad, because they are thinking of racial discrimination.
However, discriminating is simply telling things apart and can be an important skill—it is important to discriminate legitimate colleges from fraudulent diploma mills, for instance. Related Words: Dispassionate unbiased, not having a selfish or personal motivation , Nonpartisan impartial, not controlled by a political party More Info: Disinterested and uninterested have a confusing history.
Related Words: Expediency promoting a goal; advantageous, sometimes at the expense of morals or justice More Info: A dispatch can also be a report from a journalist or something delivered by messenger, or the act of sending a messenger. To dispatch a person can also mean to execute him or her— presumably, in a speedy manner.
Related Words: Disseminate scatter, spread about, broadcast , Diffuse spread widely, disseminate; dispersed; or wordy and going off-topic More Info: Use disperse for something that spreads out and disappears the crowd dispersed and went their separate ways ; use disseminate for something that spreads out and remains significant writers want to disseminate their ideas; disseminating seeds grows new plants. Related Words: Discomfiting disconcerting, confusing, frustrating More Info: Think of disquiet not as the opposite of quiet, but more as an opposite to quiescent, meaning peaceful and calm.
Related Words: Gainsay deny, refute, oppose , Sedition incitement of dissent against a government; promoting rebellion by speech or writing More Info: The variant dissidence tends to be a strong, longstanding, determined practice of dissenting. Related Words: Din loud, confused noise , Clamor noisy uproar, as from a crowd , Hubbub loud noise, confusion More Info: An opposite to dissonance is assonance, primarily a poetry term, meaning sound resemblance or vowel rhyme.
Related Words: Corroborate, substantiate and verify can all mean to prove true or provide evidence in favor of. More Info: Of course, document can also be a noun a factual printed item ; this card focuses on the less common definition. Related Words: Doctrinaire person who applies doctrine in an impractical or close-minded way More Info: Dogmatic is always meant in a negative way.
Related Words: Abeyance temporary suspension, inactivity , Hiatus break or gap in an activity , Deferment or Deferral postponement More Info: If you speak Spanish or French, dormant will certainly remind you of the verb dormir, to sleep. Related Words: i. Related Words: Idiosyncrasy a peculiarity specific to a particular person More Info: Some have observed that only the rich are called eccentric; regular people are just weird.
Something efficacious gets the job done; something efficient gets the job done without wasting time or effort. Efficacity is a variant on efficacy and is identical in meaning. Related Words: Lofty in a high position, esp. Related Words: Rhetorical and oratorical are words related to the art of public speaking. While a lawyer needs good rhetorical skills, sometimes rhetorical and oratorical mean only related to style and effect, and lacking substance.
The part with the grizzly bear was added later. What makes you such an expert? More Info: In Ancient Greece, practitioners of medicine who relied on experience rather than theory were of the Empiric School; in contrast, the Dogmatic school followed the teachings of Hippocrates above all.
In philosophy, a priori knowledge is that which can be deduced from logic alone, and a posteriori knowledge is empirical. More Info: Imitate merely means to copy; emulate means to copy in a positive, admiring way. Usage: The cosmetics industry stays in business because so many people want to enhance their appearances.
We may never know. Do you buy them in six-packs? However, sometimes the person is just building a top-secret invention in the garage! Related Words: Learned is a synonym. Related Words: Arcane and Recondite are synonyms. Related Words: Encomium warm, glowing praise, esp. Related Words: Aggravate is a synonym. Related Words: Meticulous taking extreme care with details; fussy , Fastidious excessively particular, hard to please More Info: Exaction is a word for extortion, or demanding money under threat.
Murphy to have been in a casino the entire night turned out to be just the evidence needed to exculpate him of robbing a bank fifty miles away. Related Words: Vindicate and Exonerate are synonyms. Related Words: Proponent person who proposes or argues in favor of something More Info: Of course, an exponent is also the number to which another number is raised. More Info: In math and science, to extrapolate is to infer values in an unobserved interval from values in an observed interval.
For instance, from the points 1, 4 and 3, 8 , you could extrapolate the point 5, 12 , since it would be on the same line. The antonym of extrapolate is interpolate, to estimate between two known values, such as by using 1, 4 and 3, 8 to assume 2, 6. I would like my nightgown back now. Related Words: That which is fallacious definitely embodies a logical mistake, while that which is fallible is capable of being wrong but may not actually be.
More Info: Among the logical fallacies are the Ad Hominem Attack attacking the person rather than the argument and the Post Hoc fallacy confusing correlation with causation. Related Words: Whimsical fanciful, eccentric is a near-synonym. Capricious acting on impulse, erratic is also close, but is sometimes used negatively. Related Words: Sound and Plumb used as verbs are synonyms. More Info: A sounding line or plumb line is a length of rope with a weight at the bottom; dropping it into water will allow the weight to sink and water to be measured in fathoms six-foot increments —fathom comes from a word for outstretched arms, which on an adult male tend to measure about six feet.
Related Words: The opposite of figurative is literal, although in regular speech, people often use literal to mean figurative. People who say I was literally ready to kill someone rarely mean that, which is why we are not alarmed when they say that. We understand that they are really speaking figuratively.
Related Words: Tact sensitivity to what is proper and inoffensive More Info: Finesse is also a brand of shampoo. The commercials typically feature a person getting into—and then out of—a tough situation. Related Words: Ephemeral, Evanescent and Fugacious are synonyms.
More Info: A fleet is a group of ships controlled together. The similiar-sound ferment to undergo fermentation as in yogurt, kimchi, etc.
Related Words: Prefigure is a synonym. Forerun means run before or foreshadow. Sorry, everybody, no game today! A forfeit, as a noun, simply means the property, right, etc. Related Words: Penumbra partial shadow in an eclipse; outer area, periphery More Info: Fringe is also, of course, a clothing decoration of hanging cords, strings, etc.
The connection is that fringe is on the border or edge of clothes, just as fringe ideas are on the border or edge of society. Related Words: Dissent disagree or take an opposing view, esp. Related Words: Prolix, Verbose, and Loquacious all mean talkative or wordy.
Garrulous adds the sense of going off-topic or being tiresome. For instance, a very long-winded but informative academic paper would be prolix or verbose, but not garrulous. Related Words: Boorish rude, ill-mannered, insensitive , Meretricious attractive in a vulgar way, specious , Uncouth having bad manners, awkward More Info: Sadly, nearly all cultures are biased against left-handed people.
Gauche is simply the French word for left similarly, the word sinister comes from the Latin word for left. Related Words: Coltish playful, wild; resembling a young horse, esp. The origin of gawk is related to an old word for left, or left-handed. Related Words: Pertinent relevant , Akin related by blood; analogous or similar Memory Trick: When four of the Jackson 5 would get off track, it was always Jermaine who would direct the conversation back to the topic at hand.
Related Words: Pith central part, essence , Precis summary of the essentials of a text More Info: If you read enough to get the pith of something, you really deeply understand it to the core; if you read enough to get the gist, you probably just skimmed, and might need to go back later to get more detail. Related Words: Flippant disrespectfully casual or light in manner , Impertinent inappropriately bold , Saucy disrespectful or irrepressible, esp.
Usage: That detective novel is hard to put down! Related Words: Genial, Congenial, Convivial are all words for sociable, friendly. Related Words: Duplicity deceit, double-dealing, acting in two different ways for the purpose of deception , Wily crafty, cunning More Info: Beguile can mean to trick or mislead, but can also mean to charm or bewitch—that is, to trick in a pleasant, sometimes flirtatious way.
Related Words: Succor relief, aid , Asylum refuge or sanctuary; refuge granted by a country to a foreigner persecuted in her or her own country. Asylum was once used to mean a care facility for the mentally ill, orphans, etc. More Info: Hark is a variant of hearken and has the same meaning. The expression hearken back or hark back is much more common in modern usage than hearken alone, and means to turn back to something earlier or return to a source.
Related Words: Sybarite synonym. Voluptuary is also very similar, but adds the idea of seeking luxury. Licentious sexually unrestrained; immoral; ignoring the rules , Libertine morally or sexually unrestrained person; freethinker More Info: The original Hedonists were Greek philosophers who held that pleasure is the highest moral good, so whatever policy causes the most pleasure and least pain to the most people is the most moral policy.
Related Words: Homogeneous of the same kind is the opposite of heterogeneous. Related Words: Echelon a level, rank or grade; the people at that level , Stratum a layer, esp. More Info: Hodgepodge comes from hotchpotch, a stew of meat and vegetables. Related Words: Heterogeneous different in type, incongruous; composed of different types of elements is the antonym of homogeneous. I strongly doubt that you actually vomited during or following The Back-Up Plan. Related Words: Overstatement is similar in meaning.
After he made his first billion, he began traveling with a pet iguana, sleeping in an oxygen chamber, and, oddly, speaking with a slight Dutch accent. Related Words: Eccentric peculiar, odd, deviating from the norm esp. Related Words: Chauvinism fanatical patriotism or blind enthusiasm for military glory; undue or biased devotion to any group, cause, etc.
Related Words: Disinterested, Dispassionate, and Nonpartisan are all related to being fair and not having a bias or personal stake. Related Words: Hinder and Hamper are synonyms. Impede thus has the sense of shackling the feet, preventing movement. Related Words: Tacit also means implied, unspoken. More Info: The antonym of implicit is explicit direct, clear, fully revealed, or clearly depicting sex or nudity.
More Info: Implode is, of course, the opposite of explode. Related Words: Fortuitous happening by chance; lucky , Fluke stroke of luck, something accidentally successful More Info: To advert is to turn attention to as in an advertisement. Thus, inadvertent indicates a lack of attention paid. Good for you for doing that! Related Words: Guileless and Artless are near-synonyns.
An Ingenue is a young—presumably innocent—actress or other female performer. None of the lyrics are even intelligible! Lucid means clear and applies to people as well as ideas. Then we can test whether her handwriting is intelligible, which will help pinpoint any loss of functioning.
Last week, we talked about the importance of staying in your seat during the lesson—this week, she not only got up mid-class, but she actually scrambled on top of a bookcase and refused to come down!
Related Words: Intransigent, Obdurate, and Obstreperous are also used to describe people who are stubborn and hard to control. Related Words: Hardy bold, brave, capable of withstanding hardship, fatigue, cold, etc. Related Words: Argot and Cant also refer to specialized vocabularies more often used to describe the underworld—lawyers have jargon, mobsters have argot or cant.
Cant can also mean lofty but insincere talk e. A lexicon is a dictionary or specialized vocabulary. Related Words: Jocund and jocose come from the same root and mean the same thing.
Related Words: Dovetail join or fit together , Diverge differ, deviate; branch off or turn aside, as from a path More Info: Junction is the act of joining, or a place where two things meet, esp. So this is a game changer for me, especially with the addition of Spaced Repetition. Edit: Would love to have a feature where I can see how many cards are in learning phase, what they are and a search function.
Basically some more features that makes it a little more tweakable like Anki. Happy to have saved your life ; and thanks for letting me know about the streak issue. We will fix that soon. EDIT: streak bug is fixed. EDIT: We added a search function! I keep having to check with other dictionaries because I would not get on well only using the definitions as they appear. The definitions are not intended to replace those from a dictionary, but rather are designed to be efficient and effective for GRE prep and work well in my experience to get ETS questions right.
The artistry and time invested into designing visual aids for EACH of words is astounding. This really helps me remember the words as a visual learner. The mnemonic devices on each card are great too. For being 3 months old this app is incredible. A few ideas to establish yourself as the leader of the GRE prep pack: -add a shuffle feature to the card deck for cards I have yet to master.
This will allow folks to review cards in a different order, thus solidifying our memory of words. This is really just a minor tweak. Overall a great app, with unmatched content. You can make a free account and use various tools to study your own flashcard sets. However, while a level of rote familiarity with the words is important, knowing how the words are actually deployed in context will help you on the test.
This will help you see how lots of words are deployed in actual writing. So, once you know which words from the list you still need to know, you have two necessary prongs of attack. On one hand, you need to memorize the words and definitions with flash cards. On the other hand, you need to make sure you know how the words are used in context by finding articles where the words are deployed. Now that you have the goods, how do you get them to deliver for you?
Once you print out the flashcards, we advise using the waterfall method to study. Check out our best-in-class online GRE prep program. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your GRE score by 7 points or more. PrepScholar GRE is entirely online, and it customizes your prep program to your strengths and weaknesses.
We also feature 2, practice questions , official practice tests, hours of interactive lessons, and 1-on-1 scoring and feedback on your AWA essays. Go through those words. If you miss any, go through the entire pile again until you get all of them right.
Seems brutal, but it will guarantee that you learn those words! Continue this process until you get all the way back up the waterfall. This means you know all the words! For more details on the waterfall method and using flashcards to study, check out our complete guide to GRE vocab flashcards.
GRE words can make a real difference in your Verbal score: studying our GRE word list of these essential GRE vocab words will help you be fully prepared for success on the test!
0コメント