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55 Cards in this Set

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CONSEQUENTIAL
CONSEQUENTIAL (kahn suh KWEN shut) ad] pompous, self-important

Be careful; this is one of those words with multiple definitions. The primary definitions are: logically following; important, but on the GRE it is more likely to be used as we've defined it here.

• Although he thought himself a respected and well-liked man, his consequential air was intensely annoying to those around him. He seemed to think he was the best thing since sliced bread.
CONTEMN
CONTEMN (kun TEM) v to scorn or despise

• I contemn their attempts to curry favor; nothing is more contemptible than a sycophant.

Be careful not to confuse this with condemn, which seems very similar, but means to pronounce judgment against.
CONTENTIOUS
CONTENTIOUS (kun TEN shus) adj argumentative; quarrelsome; causing controversy or disagreement

• Sometimes Lydia's contentious nature really drove me crazy; it seemed as if she argued with everything I said simply out of habit or some sort of strange pleasure.

• The judges' contentious decision of the title bout led some to claim that undue influence had been exerted in deciding the outcome of the fight.
CONTIGUOUS
CONTIGUOUS (kun TIG yoo us) adj sharing a border; touching; adjacent

• The contiguous United States include all the states except Hawaii and Alaska, since they are the only ones that don't share at least one border with another state.

• The kitchen and dining room in our house are contiguous, making it easier to carry food and plates from one to the other.
CONVENTION
CONVENTION (kun VEN shun) n a generally agreed-upon practice or attitude

• The convention of wearing a bridal veil was apparently begun by the Romans, who thought the veil would protect the bride from evil spirits.

• The conventions of modem poetry are much less rigid than those of classical poetry; in fact, it is difficult to find any two poets or critics who could even agree on definitions, much less rules.
CORRIGIBLE
CORRIGIBLE (KOR uh juh bul) adj capable of being set right, correctable, reparable

• Stuttering is often a highly corrigible speech impediment, which can be corrected through speech therapy.

• The trend away from rehabilitative programming in prisons may indicate a decrease in the public's belief that inmates are corrigible.

Corrigibility, a noun, is the capacity to be set right.

• The corrigibility of the damage to the train could only be determined after extensive inspection and testing.

The opposite of corrigible is incorrigible, meaning not reformable, uncontrollable, recalcitrant.

• Julius was an incorrigible daydreamer; no matter how much his teachers scolded him, he would much rather be hanging out in his own imaginary world than paying attention to his lesson.
COZEN
COZEN (KUH zun) v to deceive, beguile, hoodwink

• The corrupt televangelist cozened millions of dollars out of his viewers by convincing them that he would perform miracles to make them all win the lottery.

For a related word, see guile.
CRAVEN
CRAVEN (KRAY vun) adj contemptibly fainthearted, pusillanimous, lacking any courage

• His craven cowardice in refusing to admit his mistake meant that a completely innocent person was punished.

• Steve lived in craven fear of being found out as a fraud.
CREDULOUS
CREDULOUS (KRE juh lus) adj tending to believe too readily; gullible

• That sculpture in the lobby was so obviously a fake that it would convince only the most credulous person; after all, the "gold" left something that looked suspiciously like paint on our fingers when we touched the sculpture.

• Nathan was so credulous that he believed us when we told him that naugahyde comes from horse-like creatures called naugas, who eat plastic grass.
DEMUR
DEMUR (di MUR) v to question or oppose

• I hesitated to demur from the professor, until he said something factually inaccurate, at which point I felt I had to speak up.

• Bob demurred at the suggestion that he clean the house while we swim.
DENIGRATE
DENIGRATE (DEN i grayt) v blacken, belittle, sully, defame, disparage

• Though some might have denigrated our efforts at cooking breakfast, which consisted of cold eggs, bitter coffee and burnt toast, our mother was very appreciative of our attempt and bravely ate all of it.

• Edna was notorious for denigrating everyone else's work, but never being willing to hear the slightest criticism of her own.

Denigration is the act of denigrating, or the act of making denigrating comments.

• William's confidence was so shaken by the months of denigration at the hands of his former boss, that he almost didn't believe the praise he was getting now.
DENOUEMENT
DENOUEMENT (day noo MA) n an outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot

• Receiving the Nobel Prize was a fitting denouement to his brilliant research.

• The denouement seemed completely contrived; the happy ending didn't fit with the tone of the entire rest of the movie.
DEPRECATE
DEPRECATE (DE pri kayt) v to disparage or belittle

• You can deprecate his work all you want but it won't affect my opinion; I don't care if his writing is sometimes amateurish, I still like it.

To be self-deprecating is to belittle yourself or your accomplishments.

• We worried that his self-deprecating humor wasn't as light-hearted as it seemed, but was instead a sign of deeper insecurity.
DEPREDATE
DEPREDATE (DE pruh dayt) v to plunder, pillage, ravage or destroy; to exploit in a predatory manner

• The pirates depredated every ship that came through the straits for two years, until no captain was willing to risk that route and the port town became deserted.

Depredations are attacks, or ravages.

• Ten years of the dictator's depredations had left the country a wasteland.

• The depredations of time and hard living have left his once handsome face a mass of wrinkles and broken blood vessels.
DESUETUDE
DESUETUDE (DES wi tood) n disuse

• After sitting abandoned for years, the house's desuetude came to an end when the county bought it and turned it into a teen center.
DETRACTION
DETRACTION (di TRAK shun) n slandering, verbal attack, aspersion

• Apparently the mayor's campaign of detraction backfired, since a record number of people voted for his opponent, many of them citing the vitriol of the mayor's attacks as the reason they voted against him.

• Terrence's detraction of Raul's performance only served to reveal how jealous he was of Raul's success.
DIE
DIE (dye) n a tool used for shaping

• When coins are made by hand, a die is usually used to press the design on each coin
DISCRETION
DISCRETION (dis KRE shun) n cautious reserve in speech; ability to make responsible decisions

• The matchmaker's discretion was the key to her remarkable success; her clients knew she would not reveal their identities inappropriately.

• The discretion required of the agent should not be underestimated; he will need to make critical decisions under severe time constraints and often at considerable risk to himself.
DISTRAIT
DISTRAIT (dis TRAY) v distracted; absent-minded, especially due to anxiety

• When he kept forgetting what he was talking about during dinner, it became clear that he was distrait, and was no doubt preoccupied with the meeting planned for the next day.

Be careful not to confuse this with the somewhat similar distraught, which means extremely agitated with emotion.
DOGGEREL
DOGGEREL (DAW guh rul) n trivial, poorly constructed verse

• For some reason, I could always remember the bit of doggerel I read on the bathroom wall, though I had long since forgotten all the exquisite poetry I read in my classes in college.
DULCET
DULCET (DUL sut) adj melodious, harmonious, mellifluous

• The dulcet tones of the dulcimer were exquisite and made the performance particularly memorable.

• The fact that I thought her voice a dulcet wonder shows you how infatuated I was; most people thought she sounded like a sick moose.
DUPE
DUPE (doop) n one who is deceived

• What do I look like—a dupe? No one with any sense could possibly believe the story you're trying to sell.

Dupe can also be a verb.

• No one will ever be able to dupe Sara into giving out her social security number again; that one case of identity theft was enough.
DYNAMO
DYNAMO (DY nuh moh) n generator; forceful, energetic person

The technical definition of a dynamo is a generator of current, which gives rise to the metaphorical use for describing a person as forceful or energetic.

• Courtney was truly the dynamo of the group; without her we'd probably still be sitting on the couch instead of being three days into our road trip.

It's no accident if this word reminds you of dynamite or dynamic; all three words have roots in the Greek word for power.
EBULLIENCE
EBULLIENCE (ih BOOL yunts) adj the quality of lively or enthusiastic expression of thoughts and feelings

• Vivian's ebullience was contagious, which is what made her such a great tour guide; her infectious enthusiasm for her subject always communicated itself to her listeners.

• Allen's love of birds was clear from the ebullience with which he described them.
ECCENTRIC
ECCENTRIC (ek SEN trik) adj departing from norms or conventions

• Although he was often described by colleagues as a bit eccentric, it was precisely the unconventionality of his bedside manner that made the doctor so beloved by his young patients.

Something or someone eccentric demonstrates eccentricity.

• The big purple flower tied to the antenna of Felicia's car is hardly a mark of eccentricity; it's there so she can easily find her car in a parking lot.
EFFICACY
EFFICACY (EF ih kuh see) n the ability to produce an intended result

• Though anecdotal stories abound regarding the efficacy of the herb, its effectiveness has not been studied scientifically in any major way.

• The efficacy of the ad campaign cannot be definitely measured at this stage in the game, but already the public response seems positive.

Efficacy shares a root with effectiveness, and means pretty much the same thing.
EMOLLIENT
EMOLLIENT (i MAHL yint) adj soothing, especially to the skin; making less harsh; mollifying

• Oatmeal's emollient qualities when added to bath water make it an effective aid in soothing the discomfort of poison oak.

• Her kind words had an emollient effect on us, soothing our bruised egos.
EMPIRICAL
EMPIRICAL (im PIR i kul) adj based on observation or experiment

• Skeptics demanded empirical evidence before accepting the psychic's claims that he was communicating with representatives from beyond the grave.

• The empirical data produced by the study was surprising to many; it contradicted the assumptions researchers had been operating under for decades.
ENNUI
ENNUI (ahn WEE) n dissatisfaction and restlessness resulting from boredom or apathy

• The end-of-summer ennui had set in, making Hannah and Jeremy almost look forward to the distraction of going back to school... almost.

• Serena's claim that a rousing game of Go Fish would cure us of our ennui left us somewhat skeptical.
ENORMITY
ENORMITY (i NOR mi tee) n excessive wickedness, evilness

Be very careful not to confuse this with enormousness. Enormousness means huge size; enormity does not. Thus, if we talk about the enormity of a crime we are never talking about its size; we're talking about its wickedness.

• The enormity of the terrorist act stunned and outraged the world.
EPHEMERAL
EPHEMERAL (i FEM uh rul) adj brief; fleeting, short-lived

• My ephemeral first romance lasted precisely as long as summer camp did.

• The effects of the treatment were powerful but ephemeral, so that patients had to return to the hospital to repeat the procedure as often as once a day.

• Oh, how ephemeral is fame! It lasts but fifteen minutes, it seems!
EPICURE
EPICURE (EP i kyur) n one devoted to sensual pleasure, particularly in food and drink; gourmand, sybarite

• After watching too many cooking shows, Larry became such an epicure that he lost his ability to appreciate the gustatory pleasures of a frozen pizza.

Epicurean means appropriate to an epicure's tastes.

• The exotic epicurean pleasures provided at the five star restaurant made it very popular despite its exorbitant prices.

• Because of the high levels of humidity in the region, equable temperatures are maintained almost year-round.
EQUIVOCATE
EQUIVOCATE (ee KWI vuh kayt) v to use ambiguous language with a deceptive intent

• She argued that the company was guilty of equivocating when it claimed it could "teach you to type in one hour or less" because it was unclear whether that meant they guaranteed you would be able to hit a single key or type fifty words a minute at the end of that hour.

• The equivocal language of the contract was designed to deceive gullible buyers—caveat emptor indeed!
ERRANT
ERRANT (ER unt) ad] traveling, itinerant, peripatetic
• A knight-errant was a guy in armor who wandered around looking for adventures to prove his general studliness.

• Travels with Charley is Steinbeck's account of his errant journey across America with his French poodle, Charley.

Be careful! Errant doesn't have anything to do with errors, despite its appearance and even though inerrant means infallible.
ERUDITE
ERUDITE (ER yuh dyt) adj very learned; scholarly

• All six volumes of Gibbon's erudite Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire have long been required reading in Professor Smith's course on the history of classical scholarship.

Erudition is profound learning or extensive knowledge, learned primarily through books.

• Although his dissertation was generally hailed as a masterpiece of erudition, some critics who acknowledged the virtuosity of its scholarship nonetheless took issue with its lack of reference to the lived experience of actual people.
ESSAY
ESSAY (e SAY) v to test or try; attempt, experiment

• It was incredible to watch Valerie essay her first steps after her long convalescence; we were so proud of how hard she had worked at her rehabilitation.

Essay can also be a noun, meaning the attempt itself.

• My frequent essays at organization were always successful for a few weeks but fell apart shortly thereafter.
EVANESCENT
EVANESCENT (e vahn E sunt) adj tending to disappear like vapor; vanishing

• All trace of the evanescent first snow vanished as soon as the midday sun appeared.

• Thankfully, the pain of my first heartbreak was as evanescent as the romance itself; we fell in love on the way to school one morning, broke up on the monkey bars during lunch, and I was sufficiently recovered to fall in love with someone else on the way home.
EVINCE
EVINCE (i VINTS) v to show clearly, to indicate

• The expression on Jane's face evinced what she thought of the proposal; it's amazing how clearly "you must be kidding" can be communicated without speaking a word.

• Although Victor's work evinced great potential, he had significantly more to do before his article would be ready for publication.

• Yolanda evinced great heroism during the fire, reentering the house twice to save the children trapped inside.
EXACT
EXACT (ig ZAKT) v to demand, call for, require, take

• Celebrities often complain that fame exacts a heavy price in loss of privacy, but their fans don't seem to care much, perhaps thinking that this is a reasonable exchange for the money and glory.

• In the Merchant of Venice, a pound of flesh is exacted in exchange for money.
EXCORIATE
EXCORIATE (ex KOR ee ayt) v to censure scathingly, to upbraid

• The editorial excoriated those artists who attended the event instead of observing the boycott called for by human rights groups.

• Even though the mayor was excoriated by many for his role in the scandal, he nonetheless chose to run for reelection and seemed to have a reasonable chance of winning, which many found appalling.
EXEMPLAR
EXEMPLAR (ig ZEM plar) n typical or standard specimen; paradigm, model

• We were excited to find the perfect exemplar of the species of beetle we had studied in school; it conformed to the description in the guidebook in every way.

• He was the exemplar of success; if you looked up "successful" in the dictionary, you would probably find his picture next to the definition. Exemplary means worthy of imitation, so an exemplar can be exemplary, but doesn't have to be.
EXHORT
EXHORT (ig ZORT) v to incite, to make urgent appeals

• At the last second I realized that he was waving his arms frantically to exhort me to look down before I fell off the cliff.

• Our coach exhorted us to greater and greater efforts, urging us not to give up even in the face of a twenty-point deficit.

• His exhortations failed to motivate us; we were just too tired from moving boxes all day.
EXIGENT
EXIGENT (EX i junt) ad] urgent; pressing; requiring immediate action or attention

• Exigent circumstances require extreme action; if we didn't act soon we would lose the scavenger hunt, so we just went to the store and bought the rest of the items. It may have been cheating, but we felt the situation required it.

Exigencies are urgent or pressing situations.

• The exigencies of the food shortage brought out a level of altruism and compassion in the townspeople that they didn't demonstrate under ordinary circumstances.
EXPATIATE
EXPATIATE (ex PAY shee ayt) v discuss or write about at length; to range freely

• My aunt and uncle expatiated on the subject of their Florida vacation for three hours, accompanied by slides, until we were all crazy with boredom.

• His ability to expatiate on such a variety of subjects without notes made watching him speak something like taking a trip without a map; the journey set its own course.
EXPIATE
EXPIATE (EX pee ayt) v to atone or make amends for

• He feared that nothing could expiate the insensitivity of his comments.

• Elvira tried to expiate her lateness by bringing flowers.

• In the Middle Ages, it became a common practice to expiate one's sins by buying indulgences.
FALLACY
FALLACY (FAL uh see) n an invalid or incorrect notion; a mistaken belief

• Penny refused to listen to any attempts to explain the Easter Bunny fallacy; every spring she went looking for a big pink fuzzy rabbit carrying baskets of chocolate eggs.

• Unfortunately, the fallacies of diet programs promising effortless weight loss continue to find plenty of people willing to be fooled.
FALLOW
FALLOW (FAL oh) adj untitled, inactive, dormant

• The farmer hoped that leaving the field fallow for a season would mean that next year he could grow a bumper crop of Brussels sprouts.

• Joe's experiment in applying agricultural principles to self-help was unsuccessful; it turns out that a mind left fallow for two months is not rejuvenated the way soil is.
FECKLESS
FECKLESS (FEK lus) adj ineffectual; irresponsible

• My feckless brother managed to get himself grounded again, proving one more time that I am the more responsible sibling.
FELICITOUS
FELICITOUS (fi LI suh tus) adj apt; suitably expressed, well chosen, apropos; delightful

• She can always be counted on for the most felicitous remark; she has something appropriate for every occasion.

• We found our favorite restaurant by a felicitous accident; we misread the directions to our planned destination and ended up someplace much better.

Felicity is the state of or something that causes happiness. Infelicitous, on the other hand, means unfortunate or inappropriate.

• It was an infelicitous mix-up when the clown and the exotic dancer got the addresses mixed up for the birthday parties at which they were supposed to perform.
FELL
FELL (fel) n a barren or stony hill; an animal's hide

• The cabin stood isolated on the wind-swept fell.

Fell has a wide variety of meanings. In addition to the past tense of "to fall," it can also be a verb meaning "to cut down," as in "The lumberjacks felled many trees that day." As an adjective it can mean cruel, savage, or lethal.
FERVENT
FERVENT (FUR vunt) adj greatly emotional or zealous

• It looks as if it is going to be a long night of polka, since the band rejected our fervent pleas for a change in musical selection.

• Her fervent support of environmental protection policies led her to write over a thousand letters to Congress last year alone.

Fervor is a related word that means passion or intense emotion.
FETID
FETID (FE tud) adj stinking, having a heavy bad smell

• We were never able to determine exactly what the fetid green substance we found in the refrigerator was; no one was willing to get close enough to that horrible smell to investigate.

• The fetid swamp that lay between the beach and us led us to reconsider our plans for the day; staying inside with all the doors closed started sounding—and smelling—pretty good.
FETTER
FETTER (FWE tur) v to shackle, put in chains, restrain

• Fran was fettered in her attempts to find the hotel by her inability to speak French.

Fetters are literally shackles that are used to bind someone's feet or ankles together, but the word can also be used figuratively to mean anything that restrains.

• The image of the freedom fighter tearing off the fetters that bound her became a worldwide symbol of liberation.

• Responsibilities to her family and caring for her younger brothers and sisters were the fetters that kept Connie from pursuing her dream of acting.

Unfettered means free or unhampered.
FILIBUSTER
FILIBUSTER (FIL uh bus tur) n intentional obstruction, usually using prolonged speechmaking to delay legislative action

• Strom Thurmond holds the record for the longest filibuster in the history of the U.S. Senate, speaking for more than twenty—four hours to block a bill.

Filibuster can also be used as a verb.

• The senator threatened to filibuster in order to stop the bill from reaching a vote.
FILIGREE
FILIGREE (FIL uh gree) n an ornamental work, especially of delicate lacelike patterns; resembling such a pattern

• The decorative filigree of its design disguised the wrought iron fence's practical purpose.

As a verb, to filigree means to adorn.

• The brooch was filigreed with a delicate pattern of vines and grapes.