Thursday, July 24, 2014

Most used 60 GRE words - 2

sanguine - optimistic especially in hardship, similar to panglossian or pollyannaish.
Eg: He is sanguine about today's sensex.

martinet - a person who is strict and discipline.
Eg: The drill master is a martinet, one incorrect posture in the exercise makes him angry.

marionette - puppet worked by strings.
Eg: Salman's marionette show in Ohri's was hilarious.

curmudgeon - one (especially an old man) who is grouchy and always grumble about something or other,
                      bad tempered.
Eg: He is a curmudgeon, who always complains about the food.

virago - bad tempered woman.
Eg: In Indian films step mothers are portrayed as viragoes.

Prevaricate - speak or act in an evasive way, equivocate.
Eg: During the hearings, the witness prevaricated in order to protect his friend.

eccentric - etymologically out of center, different, slightly strange.
Eg: He is famous for his eccentric performance in the competition.

eclectic - heterogeneous, derived from various sources.
Eg: Harvard University offers an eclectic mix of courses for masters.

catholic - diverse, including wide variety of things.
Eg: His taste in music is pretty catholic.

vassal - slave, thrall, a person in the past who received protection and land from a lord in return for loyalty and service.

accomplice - a person part of a crime.
Eg: he is an accomplice in the murder.

cohort - a military unit, or a companion.
Eg: she and her cohorts are arrested for rave partying.

impassioned - showing great emotion.
Eg: she made an impassioned plea for help.

objective(adj) - impartial, unbiased
Eg: His objective decision satisfied everyone.

nonpartisan - [partisan - is someone who is supporting for a party], is neutral, not biased
Eg: nonpartisan observers who where there for a fair election.

sporadic - not frequent, irregular.
Eg: a sporadic disease is which present in only one area and not omnipresent like AIDS

endemic - regularly found in some area, or some people.
Eg: Kangaroos are endemic to Australia.

Epidemic - wide spread, out break.
Eg: A disease is epidemic if it is wide spread due to sudden out break like bird-flu.

pandemic - prevalent over the whole world.
Eg: AIDS is pandemic disease.

Pervasive - extensive, ubiquitous, omnipresent
Eg: Caste system is pervasive in India.

soporific - tending to sleep, drowsy
Eg: Soporific physics lecture.

spurious - false/fake
Eg: The spurious son of the king made a disastrous attempt to claim the throne.

fallacy - a misconception, mistaken belief, wrong belief.
Eg: The once-common fallacy that girls just weren't good at math.

imminent - about to happen, forthcoming.
Eg: There was an imminent danger.

immanent - innate, internal, inherent, within.
Eg: He always helps others, that is his immanent quality.

volatile - changes rapidly and unpredictably
Eg: His attitude is volatile, his friends can never predict his mood.

squander - to spend lavishly, extravagantly, wastefully.
Syn - splurge
Eg: he squandered all his father wealth after his sudden demise.

economize - spend less, reduce ones expenses.
Eg: He economized his budget for his upcoming tour.

skimpy - short or revealing Eg: she wore skimpy shorts.
               meagre, limited   Eg: I have a skimpy knowledge in martial arts.

discretion - quality of showing discernment and prudent. He carefully talks, circumspection.
Eg: Everyone relied on the guide's discretion on the trip to amazon in the jungle.

discern - to find out, detect with senses (vision, smell, touch...)
Eg: He discerned a strange odor.
      He discerned a figure approaching in the dark.

forestall - prevent or obstruct.
Eg: there would have a fight taken place between the teams, but the referee forestalled it.

reconcile - restore the friendly relations.
Eg: The two political rivals reconciled publicly.

conciliate - to pacify, alleviate, to soothe
Eg: He conciliated his friend and forestalled him to go into the fight.

dilapidated - in a state of huge repair, ramshackle.
Eg: old, dilapidated buildings should be rebuilt soon.

antithesis - the exact opposite, contrast
Eg: love is the antithesis of selfishness.

predilection(noun) - partial, bias, liking for something.
Eg: The old woman with a predilection of telling old tales.

precursor - a person or thing comes before of the same kind, parent, ancestor
Eg: Adam smith is the precursor of economics.

impediments - to impede is to obstruct, hindrance.
Eg: a serious impediments to scientific progress.

animosity - excessive hatred, hostility.
Eg: They kept their personal animosities aside, so that they can work together.

qualms - an uneasy feeling of worry, doubt.
Eg: Students had qualms due to the increased fee in their colleges.

persuasive - persuade someone to believe something, convince.
Eg: He persuasive speech won him award in the competition.

plummet - fall or drop down straight down at high speed, sink.
Eg: Unemployment and less jobs has plummeted the spirits of youth in India.

dauntless - fearless, courageous.
daunting - subdued, lower once spirits, intimidating.

morose - gloomy and bad tempered.
Eg: she was morose when she got home.

uncultivated - uneducated.
Eg: he is an uncultivated soldier.

hyperbole - exaggerating things, over-magnification.
Eg: Her stories are with full of hyperboles.

elegy - mournful poems remembering dead persons.

embellish - adorn, make more attractive with decorations.
Eg: she embellished her house with Christmas trees, bells for the Christmas.

waffle - nonsensical talk, vague talk.
Eg: He waffled on about his problems.

enunciatearticulate - speak clearly
Eg: She enunciated each word slowly.

brawnysubstantial-  strong and muscular.
Eg: Store manager always asked for the brawniest person for the weight lifting.

curtail - decrease, diminish
Eg: The news laws are an effort to curtail illegal drug use.





cumbersome - large and heavy and therefore difficult to carry and use

Eg : Cumbersome space suits.









advocate , championed = to support an argument or cause.
Eg: He advocated for working against sexual harassment of women.

corroborate - support with additional proof, confirm.
Eg: witnesses corroborated the policeman's testimony.

impugned - dispute or challenge the truth, question.
Eg: He impugned her behind screen motives.

coddled,  pampered - excessive care, attention.
Eg: Mother coddles her kids.
      Judge was accused of pampering the criminals.

cantankerous - bad tempered.
Eg: They feared his cantankerous attitude.

recalcitrant,  intractable - stubborn or resistant to authority or control.
Eg: The university suspended the most recalcitrant students.

amenable - easily persuaded or controlled. exact opposite to recalcitrant.
Eg: The tumor is not amenable to surgical treatment.

genial - affable, friendly.
Eg: He is a genial person.

reprove, reproach, reprimand = express the disapproval, criticize harshly.

repudiate, refute = refuse to accept, reject

reprobate - to condemn strongly, disapproval










Monday, July 21, 2014

Most used 60 GRE words..

Esoteric - understood by a small section of people.
syn- Arcane
Eg: yoga, ayurveda are the ancient esoteric sciences.

Obfuscate obscure, not clear, confuse

Dilatory - slow to act, delay, Procrastinate
eg: His dilatory driving made everyone to reach office an hour late.

Polemic - a strong verbal attack on someone.
eg: Everyone made a polemic against Brasil on its world cup defeat by Germany.

Cramming - study intensively over a short period of time, completely fill to the point of overflowing.
eg: students crammed for their semester exams.

Epiphany - a moment of sudden realization.
eg: I had a moment of epiphany that I did not close my pants zip.

Alacrity - excessive enthusiasm.
eg: Phil goes to the gym with high alacrity.

Prosaic - dull and unimaginative 
eg: This is another prosaic movie with routine stuff revolving around love.

Veracity - truthful
eg: Politicians are hardly known for their veracity.

Paucity - scarcity, insufficient quantities.
eg: Scientists have a paucity of information about the birth of the universe.

Contrite - feeling remorse (regret) of something doing wrong.
eg: I shouted on my mom, later I became contrite and called her.

Disparate - different in kind.
Eg: biology and history are two disparate ancient sciences.

Egregious - outstandingly bad
eg: Suarez committed a egregious mistake in this world cup biting the other player.

Innocuous - harmless
Eg: Most of the germs are innocuous in nature.

Inoculate - vaccinate, inject.
Eg: Microorganisms are inoculated into the laboratory animals.

Erratic - high's and low's.
Eg: Stock market is notoriously erratic.

Errand - a small chore (job).
Eg: he used to finish his errands before noon.

Arrant - extreme, worst kind.
Eg: an arrant liar, an arrant fool.

Bleak - Bleak weather - cold, piercing, harsh and freezing weather.
            Bleak landscape. - lacking vegetation, barren land
            Bleak room - charmless and inhospitable
            Bleak situation - the situation is not hopeful, encouraging, not positive.

lugubrious - sounding sad, dirge.
eg: His face face looked even more lugubrious than usual.

Profuse - abundant, excessive
Eg: I received profuse appreciation after the dance

Extant - still in existence, not extinct.
Eg: James bond is the extant character created by Ian Flemming 50 years ago.

Sedulous - showing dedication, diligence
Eg: I watched the film film with the most sedulous care.

Meticulous - showing great attention
Eg: They did a meticulous job of restoring the painting.

Conscientious - very careful in doing what you are supposed to do.
Eg: He is a conscientious man, he did his duty perfectly.

Imbibe - intake of knowledge/ideas.
Eg: I imbibed the teachings of Swami Vivekananda.

Benighted - having no knowledge or education, ignorant.
Eg: Many parts of the world are still in the benighted stage.

Inundate - overwhelmed with too many things, flooded, deluge.
Eg: She was inundated with flowers and deluged with calls on her birthday.

Histrionic - excessively dramatic
Eg: She was accustomed to her mother's histrionics.

Demur - to show reluctance

Demure - shy, modest, reserved.
Eg: call a man demure, then they will surely demur.

Perfunctory - when it is routine, you do without enthusiasm, carelessness.

Preemptive - to act before someone else does.
Eg: He was about take his ID, I preemptively took it.

Peremptory - bossy and dominating.
Eg: My sister peremptorily told me to wash the dishes, I did them perfunctorily.

Indigent - poor
Eg: a charity for the need of indigent artists.

Indignant - feeling anger or annoyed due to unfair treatment.
Eg: when we are waiting for a coffee in a queue, if someone cuts in front of us and places an order then we become indignant.

Expurgate - to remove objectionable material, 'beeps' in films.

Expunge - to wipe off.
Eg: I expunged that bad incident from my mind.

Gerrymander - manipulate the boundaries of a city to win in an election.

Pollyannaish - optimistic, and cheerful.
Eg: children are always pollyannaish in nature.

Chauvinist - a person who thinks his sex/nation etc..is great and superior.
       Male chauvinist is the person who thinks males are superior than females

Pyrrhic - won at too great cost,
Eg: A defeat is better than pyrrhic victory since that devastating cost is tantamount(equal) to defeat.

Quotidian - ordinary and regular.
Eg: quotidian traffic.

Kafkaesque - People experience a kafkaesque situation in the government offices in India.

Quixotic - not practical, dreamer, utopian.
Eg: This is a vast and quixotic project.

Maudlin - excessive emotion.
Eg: maudlin films were quite popular in India in 70's.

Panglossian - excessively optimistic even in unrelieved hardship.
Eg: Scolari, Brasil's coach was with a panglossian hope to win the match after giving 7 goals to germany.

Malapropism - mixing up of words with similar sounds.
Eg: It is Malapropism, if you use protein actor, instead of protean.

Aplomb - to be confident.
Eg: he showed great aplomb in passing the psychological test.

Quisling - traitor
Eg: police arrested the quisling manager of the factory.

Byzantine - intricate, complicate
Eg: Europe is filled with many byzantine structures related to 17th century.

Labyrinthine - complicated networks and paths, simply a maze


Galvanize - inspire someone into taking an action.
Eg: The coach galvanized the team during the break seeing their low performance.

Supercilious - behaving as if he is superior, didainful.
Eg: A supercilious old man.

Protean - versatile in nature
Eg: he's a protean actor.

Sartorial - relating to clothes.
Eg: He has a poor sartorial taste.

Mercurial - unpredictable change in mood, capricious, fickle, volatile.
Eg: His fellow students always complained about his mercurial temperament. 

Jaundice - to be biased against as a result of envy and prejudice.
Eg: jealousy has jaundiced his judgement.

Jejune - insipid, dull.
Eg: he had a jejune breakfast.

Lament - express grief.
Eg: he was lamenting the death of his infant daughter.

Monday, July 7, 2014

Popular GRE words

                CAREFUL

                   chary
               circumspect
               conscientious
               discreet
               fastidious
               gingerly
               heedful
               judicious
               meticulous
               provident (far-sighted)
               punctilious
               scrupulous
               wary
 
                                       

 CARELESS

          lackadaisical 
          lax
          perfunctory
          temerarious
          rash 
          remiss
          slack

COURAGEOUS

audacious
dauntless
gallant
intrepid
stalwart
undaunted
valiant
valorous


TIMID

diffident
timorous
reserved
laconic
reticent
subdued



























Vocabulary - 11

Adage - Proverb or a wise saying.
              "Behind every cloud there is a silver lining" - These type statements are called adages.
Synonyms -

Aphorism, Apothegm, Maxim, Saw, Epigram

-> With the help of a story if some one conveys wise saying then it is called a Parable or Fable.

               Eg: Story of a rabbit and a tortoise conveying a message that 'Slow and steady wins the race'.

Adamant - Rigid / inflexible / a person who refuses to change.
                Eg: He is adamant on his opinion.

This word can be used in both +ve and -ve way.

synonyms:


Intransigent - unwilling or refusing to change once views.

'in' - is a negative prefix and 'transition' - change

some words related to transition are

Transient or Transitory - anything through a process of change, ie..lasting for only short time.

                Eg: The period between the age 15 and 20 is considered as the transient or transitory period in
                      human beings because there will be enormous changes in the personalities, and our body
                      keeps on transforming.

Addendum - Adding at the end
                    [Additional documents attached to the book or some report]

Annexure - this word comes from root 'Nexus' which means link, just like the word connection.

                Eg:  There is a nexus between the businessman and this criminal.

So annexure is nothing but anything that is linked up to the main part of the book or something. There are annexure-1, annexure-2....etc

Addle - to confuse, to unable to think clearly,

synonyms:

Muddle, Fuddle, Befuddle, Obfuscate

                Eg: His behavior is obfuscating.
                      This is a bewildering incident.

Adjunct - add on, connecting to something.
Eg: Mr. A is an adjunct faculty of this university.

Adjure - to request/ plead/ appeal sincerely and seriously.
                     Eg: I adjure you to tell me the truth.

Synonyms:

Beseech, Implore, Entreat

                    Eg: My mother implored me to think seriously about my goals.
                          The citizens beseeched the president to reduce the tax rates.

- So if someone requests a lot!! or if someone begs for something...lets look in to those words.

Cadge - ask someone, but as if they expect to get it.

                     Eg: He cadged a dinner from me.

Mendicant - 1) a beggar
                   2) a religious person / monk.

Alms / charity - Money, food or something which is given to someone who begs.

Eleemosynary - relating to charity, supported by charity.

               Eg: He used his vast fortune for establishing and funding eleemosynary institutions.

Mendicant often confused with
 Mendacious (adj)
 Mendacity (n)        - not telling the truth, lying.
               Eg: This article is filled with mendacious stories about celebrities.

synonyms:

Prevaricate - evasive, to avoid telling truth by not directly answering the question.
               Eg: He seemed to prevaricate when journalists asked the questions.

               Root word: Verity / Veracity - truth

                            Verify - to check if something is true or not.

                            Veritable - true / real
                                      Eg: Las Vegas is considered as the veritable paradise for many.

Dissemble : expressing or showing false feelings while hiding the true feelings.
               Eg: He dissembled happiness at the news that his girl friend was getting married.