100 GRE words and their synonyms
On a chilly Friday morning, I forcefully hit one key after the other on my laptop keyboard, hoping the strokes would be loud enough to prevent my eyelids from drooping. It was my daily commute to work on the Caltrain. I closed the laptop as my destination approached and looked up to notice a student seated across from me. He was intently trying to memorize flashcards for GRE.
“Are you preparing for the GRE?”, I asked.
“Yeah.”, he replied.
“You know what, I have a word list I compiled of difficult words along with their synonyms. I can send it to you.”
“Oh yeah, that’d be great!”
“Yeah, maybe I should just upload it online for others to use too. Good luck!”
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Apologies for you having to go through a short story before getting to the meat of the article — the word list. Somehow it didn’t feel right to just give the word list without any context. So here are 100 words along with their synonyms to use for your GRE (and potentially other standardized tests) preparation. I’ve tried to include at least one commonly used word as a synonym for each of the words. Hope this helps. Good luck! :)
1. Astute — shrewd
2. Abeyance — temporary suspension
3. Abstemious — temperance in indulgence, ascetic
4. Abstruse — difficult to understand, inscrutable, enigmatic, obfuscated, recondite
5. Alacrity — liveliness, eagerness
6. Ameliorate — make better
7. Apocryphal — of questionable authority
8. Apprise — inform
9. Approbation — official approval
10. Awe-inspiring — redoubtable
11. Banal — familiar by overuse, trite, vapid, hackneyed
12. Belittle — disparage
13. Betray — perdify
14. Calumny — make false statement to injure reputation, denigrate, polemic (attack), vilify
15. Canonical — traditional, probity
16. Cautious — chary
17. Circumscribed — limited
18. Condone — make exception
19. Contrite — feeling/expressing pain
20. Cogent — compelling, convincing
21. Complaisant — willing to help others
22. Conscientious — meticulous, sedulous
23. Cowardly — craven
24. Credulous — gullible, imprudent, amenable, tractable
25. Curio — small article of interest, is unusual
26. Debauchery — hedonistic, self-indulgence
27. Deceive — chicanery, subterfuge
28. Demur — object, show reluctance
29. Denouement — finale, climax, outcome
30. Disaffected — discontented
31. Egregious — stand out negatively, shockingly bad
32. Elegy — dirge
33. Enervate — sap energy from, pine, torpor(inactivity), weaken, undermine, tenuous, phlegmatic
34. Engender — give rise to
35. Exacerbate — worsen
36. Exculpate — absolve, vindicate, disabuse, exonerate
37. Extant — existent
38. Fearless — intrepid, not timorous
39. Favourable — propitious, efficacious (intended)
40. Felicitous — apt, pleasing, bucolic(of country)
41. Florid — fancy, rosy
42. Fortuitous — by happy chance, no apparent cause
43. Gainsay — deny, speak against
44. Germane — apt
45. Gossamer — light, delicate
46. Guilt — contrition
47. Habitual — inveterate
48. Harangue — tirade, diatribe, long pompous speech
49. Hate — odious
50. Hostile- inimical, virulent
51. Humorous — facetious
52. Impertinent — disrespectful, gall, impudent, presumptuous, effrontery
53. Impulsive — capricious
54. Incisive — able to draw fine distinctions, trenchant
55. Ingenuous — naïve, innocent
56. Ingratiate — gain favour deliberately, obsequious, inveigle (obtain by)
57. Insidious — subtly destructive, pernicious
58. Mislead — dissemble
59. Mockery — travesty
60. Mollify — appease, assuage, emollient
61. Moribund — stagnant, dying
62. Opprobrium- harsh censure, public disgrace from shameful conduct, ignominious (person)
63. Parochial — narrow in outlook
64. Parsimonious — extremely frugal, miserly, penurious
65. Perfunctory — cursory
66. Pertinacious — obstinate, headstrong, perverse, tenacious, refractory, intransigent, recalcitrant
67. Petulance — bad-tempered, pique
68. Pithy — terse, laconic
69. Plebiscite — referendum, poll
70. Poor — impecunious
71. Precipitous — hastily
72. Preclude — make impossible
73. Prevaricate — speak evasively
74. Prevent — frustrate, stymie, occlude
75. Prodigal — rashly/wastefully extravagant
76. Provincial — not sophisticated, gauche, quixotic
77. Pugnacious — belligerent, truculent, contentious
78. Qualify — limit, make less severe, mitigate, abate, attenuate
79. Querulous — habitually complaining
80. Rapacious — ravenous, greedy, avaricious
81. Recidivism — tendency to relapse
82. Reproach — upbraid, chastise, castigate, lambaste, admonish, pejorative, askance, astringent, vituperate
83. Renegade — one who abandons a group
84. Reserved — taciturn
85. Rest — quiescent, halcyon, phlegmatic
86. Rudimentary — inchoate
87. Solicitous — attentive, eager
88. Spurious — specious, plausible but false, mendacious (tendency)
89. Superficial — glib
90. Unaffected — inure, impunity (immunity from), phlegmatic
91. Unavoidable — inexorable
92. Underscore — give extra weight
93. Underwrite — financially support, solvent
94. Unnecessary — obviate
95. Urgent- exigent
96. Vaunt — exult, boast
97. Venal — corruption-susceptible
98. Volubility — talk/write easily, loquacious
99. Widespread — ubiquitous
100. Zealot — fanatic
