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13 Questions to Ask?
WEEK 1

Acrimonious – bitter, rancorous, caustic

Indifferent – not caring one way or another, neutral, lacking preference

Apathy – lack of emotion or interest

Obscure – unclear; clouded; hard to understand

Impartial – unbiased

Acquiesce – to comply or go along with

Revere – to worship; honor

Denounce – to speak out against; to condemn

Innovate- -to be creative’ to introduce something

Candid – honest; frank

Abash – to embarrass

Discernment – insight; ability to see things clearly

Disdain – arrogant scorn; contempt

Abstract – theoretical; lacking substance

Temperate – moderate; restrained

Acumen – accuracy with good judgment

Enigma – Mystery

Manifest – visible; evident

Conventional – common; customary; unexceptional

Partisan – one who supports a particular person cause or idea

Contentious – argumentative; quarrelsome

Lament – to mourn

Allusion – an incorrect reference to something else, especially something in literature

Arbiter – one who decides; judge

Inherent – part the of the essential nature of something, intrinsic

Paradox – a true statement or phenomenon that nonetheless seems to contradict itself; an untrue statement or phenomenon that nonetheless seems logical

Cynic – one who deeply distrusts human nature; one who believes people are motivated only by selfishness

Altruism – selfless generosity

Exposition – expounded or explaining; explanatory treatise

Consensus – unanimity or near unanimity

Sagacious – wise; possessing wisdom derived from experience or learning

Precipitate – to cause to happen

Pervade – to spread throughout

Discourse – to converse; to formally discuss a subject

Conjure – to summon or bring into being as if by magic

Sanction – authorize or approve; ratify or confirm

Aesthete – lover of beauty

Congenial – cheerful and pleasant; friendly; helpful

Indulgent- lenient’ yielding to desire

Comely – attractive

Affinity – attraction to’ kinship with

Revelers – partying people

Aloof – being distant’ cold demeanor

Inert – inactive; sluggish; not reacting chemically

Levee – An embankment designed to prevent the flooding of a river

Erratic – unpredictable or wandering

Luminous – giving off light; glowing; bright

Placid – clam or peaceful

Exuberant – extremely joyful or vigorous; profuse in growth

Impede- to hinder; to obstruct; to slow something down


WEEK 2

Permeate – to spread or seep through; to penetrate

Audacity – boldness; reckless daring; impertinence

Indignant- angry, especially as a result of something unjust or unworthy

Implicit – implied rather than expressed for stated

Superfluous – extra; unnecessary

Litigate – to try in court; to engage in legal proceedings

Vex – to annoy; to pester; to confuse

Anomaly – an aberration; an irregularity; a deviation

Bereave – to deprive or leave desolate; especially through death

Connoisseur – an expert, particularly in matter of art or taste

Corroborate – to confirm

Frenetic – frantic, frenzied

Polemic – a powerful argument made in refutation of something

Synthesis – the combining of parts

Feasible- able to be done

Forbear – to refrain from; to abstain

Genre – an artistic class or category
Vindicate – to clear from all blame or suspicion

Conciliatory – making peace; attempting to resolve a dispute through goodwill

Squalid – filthy; repulsive; wretched; degraded

Inept- clumsy; incompetent

Disseminate – to scatter or spread widely

Eclectic – choosing the best from many sources;
drawn from many sources


WEEK 3

Idyllic – charming in a rustic; naturally peaceful

Pristine – original, unspoiled; spoiled

Prodigy – an extremely talented child; an extraordinary accomplishment or occurrence

Qualify – to modify or restrict

Decorous- in good taste; orderly

Infer – to conclude; deduce

Ostentatious – excessively conspicuous; showing off

Plumb – to measure the depth of something

Spurious – doubtful, bogus; false

Subjugate – to subdue and dominate; to enslave

Reciprocal – mutual; shared’ interchangeable

Antipathy – firm dislike; hatred


Dissonant – inharmonious; in disagreement

Palliate – to hide the seriousness of something with excuses and apologies

Surreptititious – sneaky; secret


Equivocal – ambiguous; intentionally confusing; capable of being interpreted more than one way

Flippant – frivolously shallow and disrespectful

Impervious – not allowing anything to pass through; impenetrable

Judicious – exercising sound judgment

Laconic – using few words, especially to the point of being rude

Piquant – pungent

Satiric – using irony; sarcasm

Tacit – implied; not spoken


Tractable – easily managed or controlled; obedient

Debauchery – corruption by sensuality; intemperance; wild living


WEEK 4

Deleterious – harmful

Fecund – fertile; productive

Hermetic – impervious to external influence; airtight

Salubrious – promoting health

Transitory – not staying for a long time; temporary

Cacophony – a harsh-sounding mixture of words; voices; or sounds

Goad- to urge forcefully; to taunt someone into doing something

Implement – to carry out

Ingenuous – unwarily simple; candid; naïve

Malleable – easy to shape or bend

Pungent – forceful; sharp or biting to the taste or smell

Correlate – to find or show the relationship of two things

Facetious – humorous; not serious; clumsily humorous

Petulant- rude; cranky; ill tempered

Rampart – a fortification, a bulwark or defense
Temerity – boldness; recklessness; audacity

Truculent- savagely brutal; aggressively hostile

Incisive – cutting right to the heart of the matter

Aberration – something not typical; a deviation from the standard

Abstemious – sparing or moderate, especially in eating and drinking

Allocate – to distribute; assign; allot

Arid – extremely dry, unimaginative; dull

Beget – to cause or produce; to engender

Conundrum – a puzzle; a riddle

Debacle – violent breakdown, sudden overthrow

Doggerel – comic, loose verse

Exorbitance- an exceedingly large amount

Garrulous – extremely talkative or chatty; wordy or diffuse
Intransigent- stubborn; uncompromising

Maverick – a rebel; non-conformist

Turpitude – shameful wickedness or depravity

Axiom – a self-evident rule or truth; a widely accepted saying

Beneficent – doing well

Capricious – unpredictable; likely to chance at any moment

Circumlocution – an indirect expression; use of wordy or evasive language

Impugn – to attack; especially to attack the truth or integrity of something

Incursion – a hostile invasion

Invective – insulting or abusive speech

Placate- to pacify; to appease; to soothe

Temperament – one’s disposition or character

Antiseptic – free from germs; exceptionally clean

Lax – not strict or firm; careless or negligent; loose or slack

Accolade- an award or honor; high praise

Assiduous – hardworking; busy; diligent

Brook – to bear or tolerate; to put up with something

Desiccate – to dry out

Erudite – scholarly; deeply learned

Flag – to weaken; to slow down

WEEK 5


Impudent – cold; impertinent

Baleful- - menacing; harmful

Divergent – differing in opinion; deviating

Effluvium – a disagreeable or noxious vapor; an escaping pas

Evanescent – vanishing or fading; scarcely perceptible

Exigent – demanding prompt action; urgent

Exonerate – to free completely of blame

Improvident – lacking in prudent foresight; carelessness

Ineluctable – sweetly flowing

Oscillate – to swing back and forth; to fluctuate

Ossify – to convert into bone; to become rigid

Probity – integrity; uprightness; honesty

Proselytize – to convert someone from one religion or doctrine to another; to recruit converts to another religion or doctrine

Pundit – a learned person; an expert in a particular field

Recondite – hard to understand; over one’s head

Spendthrift – extravagant or wasteful, especially with money

Vacuous – lacking ideas or intelligence

Coda – a passage concluding a composition (in music)

Penchant – strong taste or dislike

Abstruse – hard to understand or grasp

Cognizant – perceptive; observant

Gainsay – to deny; to speak or act against

Garner – to gather and store
Obdurate – stubborn; inflexible

Propinquity – nearness

Ribald – vulgar or indecent speech or language, as in a ribald joke

Sinuous – having many curves
Veracity – truthfulness

Chronology – an order of events from earliest to latest

Conjoin – to join or act together

Panegyric – lofty praise

Pedagogue – a tract, overly academic teacher

Reprobate – a wicked, sinful, depraved person

Untoward – unfavorable or unfortunate; improper

Welter – a confused mass; a commotion or turmoil

Inchoate – just beginning; not organized or orderly

Problematic – doubtful or questionable

Timbre – the quality of a sound independent of pitch and loudness

Disavow – to deny

Gerrymander – to divide a state or county into election districts to gain political advantage

Repugnant – distasteful or offensive

Taut – tightly drawn, as a rope; emotionally tense

Cajole – to deceptively persuade someone to do something he or she doesn’t want to do

Discomfit- to confuse, deject, frustrate, deceive

Accrete – to increase by growth or addition

Contumacious – stubbornly rebellious or disobedient
Fulsome – disgusting or repulsive

Homeostasis – the tendency of an organic system to maintain internal stability

Hone – to sharpen

 WEEK 6


Insolvent – unable to pay one’s bills

Ligneous- wood like

Motility – spontaneous movement

Munificent – very generous; lavish

Neophyte – a beginner

Rivet – to fix one’s attention on

Saturnine- a sluggish, gloomy temperament

Viscous – thick and sticky

Circuitous – not direct, roundabout

Insipid – dull

Loquacious – talkative

Abhor – extreme dislike; to find something repulsive

Convivial – full of life, lively

Imperious – arrogant or domineering

Fervently – ardently, passionately

Corporal – bodily

Urbane – suave sophisticated

Overt – in the open

Avarice – greed

Debase – to degrade

Pallid – pale

Demagogue – a leader who gets and maintains power by appealing to the prejudices and emotions of people

Provincial – limited in outlook to one’s own small corner of the world; narrow

Futile – without hope

Diverse – varied

Benevolent – kind, good-hearted; generous

Pious- reverent or devout; outwardly (and sometimes falsely) reverent or devout

Resignation – reluctant acceptance of a bad situation (secondary meaning)

Resolute – determined, firm; unwavering

Servile – submissive and subservient; like a servant

Acute – sharp; shrewd

Reticent – restrained; uncommunicative

Virulent – extremely poisonous; malignant’ full of hate

Scrutinize – to examine closely

Vociferous – producing a loud outcry

Discord – disagreement (the opposite of concord)

Repudiate – to reject; to deny

Lucid – clear; easy to understand

Aesthetic – having to do with artistic beauty

Prodigal – extravagant; wasteful

Augment – to add to; to increase; to make bigger

Complacent – smug; self satisfied, pleased with oneself; contented to a fault

Guile – cunning, duplicity

Squander – to waste

Incessant – unceasing, never ending

Laudable – worthy of praise

Redundant – repetitive, unnecessary; excessively wordy

Depravity – moral corruption

Gravity – seriousness


WEEK 7

Banal – unoriginal; ordinary

Extol – to praise

Euphony – pleasant sound

Deride – to ridicule; to laugh at contemptuously

Insipid – dull; banal

Austere – unadorned; stern; forbidding; without much money

Expedite – to make faster or easier

Heresy – an opinion violently opposed to established beliefs

Deference – submission to another’s will; respect; courtesy

Vacillate – to be indecisive; to waver back and forth

Fervor – passion

Pragmatic – practical; down to earth; based on experience rather than theory

Ascetic – practicing strict self denial, hermitlike

Dogmatic - arrogantly assertive of unproven ideas; arrogantly cleaning that something (often a set of beliefs) is beyond dispute

Dissent – disagreement

Volition – will; conscious choice

Didactic – instructive; intended to instruct

Disparage – to belittle, to say uncomplimentary things about, usually in a somewhat indirect way

Ephemeral – short-lived; fleeting; not lasting

Compliant – yielding, submissive

Prosaic – dull, unimaginative, like prose

Profuse – flowing freely; extravagant

Disparate – different; incompatible

Fastidious – meticulous; demanding

Astute – perceptive, intelligent

Languish – to become weak, listless or depressed

Censure – to condemn severely for doing something bad

Stagnation – motionless; inactivity

Mitigate – to lessen the severity of something

Reprehensible – worthy of blame or fault

Engender – to create or produce

Relegate – to banish, to send away

Anecdote- a brief; entertaining story

Fallacious – false

Reproach – to scold

Indolence – lazy
Preclude- to prevent; to make impossible; to shut out

Efface – to erase, to rub out the features of

Taciturn – untalkative by nature

Ameliorate – to make better or more tolerable

Atrophy – to waste away from lack of use

Dubious – doubtful, uncertain

Flagrant – obvious; shocking

Immutable – unchanged, permanent

Credulous – believing, gullible

Blasphemy – irreverence, an insult to something held sacred, profanity

Coalesce – come together as one; to unite

Levity – lightness, frivolity, unseriousness

Innate – inborn, inherit, existing since birth

Sycophant – one who sucks up to others


WEEK 8

Amiable – friendly

Esoteric – hard to understand; understood by only a few, peculiar

Caustic – like acid; corrosive

Incongruous – not harmonious; not consistent; not appropriate

Digress – to go off subject

Sage – wise; possessing wisdom derived from experience or learning

Pivotal – crucial

Scrupulous – strict; careful; hesitant for ethical reasons

Refute – to disprove; to prove to be false

Respite – a rest; a period of relief

Stoic – indifferent (at least outwardly) to pleasure or pain; to joy or grief, to fortune or misfortune

Peripheral – unimportant

Idiom- a peculiar expression

Brevity – briefness

Virtuoso- masterful musician, a masterful practitioner in some other field

Amity – friendship

Stringent- strict; restrictive

Auspicious – favorable, promising, pointing to a good result

Amass- -a accumulate

Bastion – stronghold; fortress; fortified place

Aimiable – friendly

Dilatory – late, trading, procrastinating

Cantankerous – grumpy

Carping – complaining

Amoral – lacking morals


Vehement – urgent; passionate

Assuage – too soothe; pacify; to ease the pain of; to relieve

Prodigious – extraordinary; enormous

Torpor – sluggishness, inactivity; apathy

Furtive – secretive

Supercilious – haughty, patronizing

Verbose – wordy; over talkative

Pedestrian – common; ordinary; banal

Innocuous – harmless; banal

Ambiguous – unclear in meaning; confusing

Paucity – scarcity

Rescind- repeal; take back formally

Emulate – strive to equal or excel, usually through imitation

Contrite – deeply apologetic

Recalcitrant – stubbornly defiant or authority or control

Diffident – timid; lacking self confidence

Parsimony – stinginess

Propriety – properness; good manners

Tenacious – tough; hard to defeat

Approbation – approval

Wily – cunning

Duplicitous – deceptive

Arduous – difficult

Omniscient – all knowing

Bellicose – belligerent, warlike; pugnacious, a fighter

ADDITIONAL SAT VOCABULARY

Malevolent – malicious, evil

Bucolic – rustic, pastoral, charming

Callous – insensitive, unfeeling

Capricious – whimsical, unpredictable, impulsive

Catharsis – release of emotions, purification

Cathartic – something that causes a release of emotions

Blithe – carefree; cheerful

Dearth – a lack of; scarcity

Hindrance – an obstruction, and annoying interference or delay

Irascible- irritable

Nostalgia – a sentimental longing for the past; homesick

Saccharine – sweet; excessively or disgustingly sweet

Venerate – to revere; to treat as something was holy, especially because of great age

Vilify – to say vile things about; to defame

Burgeon – growing profusely; rapid; expand

Hector – intimidate

Incipient – beginning

Tantamount – equivalent

Dichotomy – division into two parts

Epitomize – typify; symbolize; model of

Egregious – outstandingly bad

Choleric – short tempered

Trepidation – fear

Augury – omen; sign

Inscrutable- hard to understand

Mendacious – lying

Sublime – grand

Ardent – strongly committed, enthusiastic

Callow – innocent; immature

Garrulous – annoyingly talkative

Propitious – favorable

Heresy – an opinion violently opposed to established beliefs

Adroit – skillful

Parody – mockery

Jocose – given to jesting; playfully humorous

Juxtaposition – close or side-by-side position

Masticate – chew

Acrid – sharp in smell or taste

Ludicrous – exciting laughter

Noxious – harmful

Obsequious – showing excessive willingness to serve

Penitent- feeling regret for wrong doing

Perfidious- false to a trust; faithless

Pinnacle – highest point

Admonish – warn of fault

Precursor – forerunner

Predilection – inclination to like or choose something

Adulation – excessive praise

Pliable – easily bent or molded; capable of adaptation

Plaudit – applause; enthusiastic praise

Raze – demolition

Salubrious – healthful

Sordid – filthy

Tangential – merely touching

Temerity – insolence; effrontery

Tenable – capable of being maintained or defended

Traduce – malign, slander or vilify

Tepidly – unenthusiastic, lukewarm

Utopia – imaginary place of ideal perfection

Vanquish – conquer

Verity – truth

Vertigo – dizziness

Vivacity – liveliness of spirit

Voracious – greed in eating; incapable of being satisfied

Allegro – quick

Adagio – slow, in an easy, graceful manner

Profundity – intellectual depth

Compendious – short, brief

Thwart – hinder, delay

Harangue – scolding speech

Gregarious – sociable; enjoying the company of others

Opacity – hard to penetrate

Magnanimous – noble in spirit; generous; unresentful

Sedulous – diligent in application

Cursory – hasty; superficial

Curtail – shorten; cut short

Boorishness – rudeness
Vocabulary