Barron's Gre Vocab 10Th 40

Front 1

inconsequential

Back 1

insignificant, unimportant
The meeting of the two women seemed inconsequential at the time, but in retrospect it led to one of the literature's great collaborations.

Front 2

innocuous

Back 2

harmless
The bodyguard looked innocuous enough but under his jacket were several weapons that could kill and attacker in seconds.

Front 3

interpolate

Back 3

to insert; change by adding new words or material
The book of the Five Gospels was produced by having leading bible scholars vote on which sayings of Jesus they believe to be authentic and which they believed to have been interpolated by other writers.

Front 4

inveigle

Back 4

to win over by flattery or coaxing
The students inveigled their professor into postponing the test for a week.

Front 5

Juggernaut

Back 5

huge force destroying everything in its path
Some people in Britain regard American English as a juggernaut sweeping through the British Isles, destroying British English.

Front 6

laud

Back 6

to praise
The literary critic lauded Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, calling it a novel that explores the tension between a person's life as a social being and his or her individual consciousness.

Front 7

machiavellian

Back 7

crafty; double-dealing
One theory of the evolution of high intelligence in primates is that it evolved largely as a result of Machiavellian calculations on the part of apes.

Front 8

mendacious

Back 8

dishonest
The judge ruled the testimony inadmissible because he considered it mendacious.

Front 9

microcosm

Back 9

a small system having analogies to a larger system; small world
For many years the atom was seen as a sort of microcosm of the larger universe.

Front 10

mnemonic

Back 10

related to memory; assisting memory
The more absurd, exaggerated, grotesque the image used as a mnemonic device to help remember a poem, the easier it will be to recall

Front 11

linguistic

Back 11

pertaining to language

Front 12

neologism

Back 12

new word or expression
The word "anesthesia" was neologism of the American physician and poet OWH.

Front 13

Obviate

Back 13

To make unnecessary; the anticipate and prevent
An experience physician can often discern if a patient's symptoms are psychosomatic, thus obviating the need for expensive medical tests.

Front 14

ornithologist

Back 14

scientist who studies birds
Ornithologists believed that there currently exit only about 20 individuals of a bird called the Balinese sparrow.

Front 15

pathological

Back 15

departing from normal condition.

Front 16

perfidious

Back 16

faithless; disloyal; untrustworthy
The novel tells a story of the hero's perfidious lover.

Front 17

piety

Back 17

devoutness
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was a medieval French monk revered for his piety.

Front 18

plumb

Back 18

to determine the depth; to examine deeply
A person plumbs the depths of despair before finding a transcendent reality that brings the person closer to what he or she regards as God.

Front 19

percept

Back 19

principle; law
A good percept to follow in writing is to avoid redundancies such as "track record".

Front 20

prevaricate

Back 20

to quibble; to evade the truth
Journalists accused government leaders of prevaricating about the process of the war.

Front 21

propitiate

Back 21

to win over; appease
The best blood of North and South poured itself out a libation to propitiate the deities of Truth and Justice.

Front 22

quail

Back 22

to cower; to lose heart
The defendant quailed when the judge entered the room to announce the sentence.

Front 23

ramification

Back 23

implication; outgrowth; consequence
The full ramification of the invention of the laser did not become apparent for many years.

Front 24

refulgent

Back 24

brightly shinning; resplendent
On the queen's neck was a necklace of jewels, in the middle of which was a large, refulgent diamond.

Front 25

reprobate

Back 25

morally unprincipled person
The social worker refused to give up hope of reforming the criminal who was generally regarded as a reprobate.

Front 26

rue

Back 26

to regret
The judge told the convicted man that he would come to rue his decision to commit the crime.

Front 27

saturate

Back 27

to soak thoroughly; imbue throughout
The writer's recollection of her childhood is saturated with sunshine and laughter.

Front 28

senuous

Back 28

relating to the senses; operating through the senses
The American painter GOK is known especially for her sensuous paintings of plants and flowers.

Front 29

sinuous

Back 29

winding; intricate; complex
The students had trouble following the philosopher's sinuous line of reasoning.

Front 30

specious

Back 30

seeming to be logical and sound; but not really so
The article systematically rebuts the specious argument advanced by the so-called expert in the field.

Front 31

stipulate

Back 31

to specify as an essential condition
The president's lawyer stipulated that he would appear before the investigative committee, but would answer only questions directly relevant to the issue at hand.

Front 32

subpoena

Back 32

notice ordering someone to appear in court
The judge issued a subpoena for the man but the prosecutor had little hope that he would appear because he was living abroad.

Front 33

supine

Back 33

lying on the back; marked by lethargy
The captured robbery suspects were held supine on the floor.

Front 34

tautology

Back 34

unnecessary repetition
Unless the phrase "repeat again" is being used to refer to something that has occurred more than twice, it is a tautology.

Front 35

tome

Back 35

book, usually large and academic
The shorter Oxford dictionay consists of two tomes that define over half a million words.

Front 36

travesty

Back 36

parody; exaggerated imitation; caricature
The playwright complained that the musical comedy version of his play was a travesty of his work.

Front 37

uncanny

Back 37

mysterious, strange
Some people believe that the psychic has an uncanny ability to accurately predict the future.

Front 38

variegated

Back 38

varied; marked with different colors
Botanists are still working to catalog the variegated species of the tropical rain forest.

Front 39

vindicative

Back 39

spiteful; vengeful; unforgiving
The Treaty of Versilles, which concluded WW I was deliberately vindictive, imposing tremendous penalties on the defeated nation.

Front 40

warranted

Back 40

justified
The book argues that a new investigation into MM's death is warranted by new evidence released by the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act.