The GRE Verbal Reasoning Test: Warm-up Words: Warm-up, List 7

This list of warm-up words features common words on the test that you're probably familiar with. Brush up on these words first to make sure that you start off strong while taking the GRE.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. abject
    of the most contemptible kind
    The scenes at the railroad camp are vicious and unsparing, and nearly overwhelm the movie with their abject savagery. New York Times (Dec 1, 2022)
  2. apathy
    an absence of emotion or enthusiasm
    You are so bored you sink into a state of apathy close to a coma. Life of Pi
  3. arduous
    characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion
    It was an arduous, backbreaking task: hours of work to gather mere handfuls of rice. A Single Shard
  4. audacious
    disposed to venture or take risks
    The administration didn't particularly care about space travel, or about the Moon itself, but it represented an audacious goal that would clearly put America first in terms of space and technology. Salon (Sep 6, 2022)
  5. brazen
    not held back by conventional ideas of behavior
    It was by far the most brazen thing Hitler had yet attempted, his biggest gamble, and a major step toward the catastrophe that was soon to envelop the world. The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
  6. calumny
    an abusive attack on a person's character or good name
    Yes, the presidency was a thankless job, “a most unpleasant seat, full of thorns, briars, thistles, murmuring, fault-finding, calumny, obloquy.” Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
  7. discomfit
    cause to lose one's composure
    That offer discomfited me with revised anxieties: what would we do during the visit? The Guardian (Jul 16, 2020)
  8. emulate
    strive to equal or match, especially by imitating
    This superior talent is recognized by other artists, who admire their work and seek to emulate it. History of Art, Volume 1
  9. incongruous
    lacking in harmony or compatibility or appropriateness
    He was wearing a combat helmet, which looked incongruous with his fine sports clothes and Italian shoes. The House of the Spirits: A Novel
  10. latent
    potentially existing but not presently evident or realized
    To me, sports drinks are one of capitalism's purest commodities, rebranding sugar water – or latent energy in a can – and selling it to us as our own potential. The Guardian (Jul 17, 2012)
  11. pallid
    pale, as of a person's complexion
    He’s pallid, and his face seems to sag, like his skin has grown tired of clinging to the bone. Dry
  12. peremptory
    putting an end to all debate or action
    The chaplain walked toward the exit gingerly, expecting at any instant to be ordered back by a peremptory voice or halted in his tracks by a heavy blow on the shoulder or the head. Catch-22
  13. placate
    cause to be more favorably inclined
    His foster mother at the time had tried to placate him with candy from the vending machine, but he had just cried under the table until she dragged him out and they went home. Far from the Tree
  14. precarious
    not secure; beset with difficulties
    “Who knew better than I on what a precarious, tottering house of cards my whole life rested?” Bomb
  15. prodigal
    recklessly wasteful
    In times of economic woe, when normal patterns of consumption and investment are frozen, prodigal government spending can sometimes be the only way to break the vicious circle of declining demand and shrinking employment. Economist (Aug 16, 2012)
  16. quail
    draw back, as with fear or pain
    There were Nine Riders at the water’s edge below, and Frodo’s spirit quailed before the threat of their uplifted faces. The Fellowship of the Ring
  17. servile
    submissive or fawning in attitude or behavior
    So the abolition of tipping, far from simply abolishing a servile practice, tips the whole table over into an ever-more subtle and complicated and embarrassing emotional, and transnational, transaction. The New Yorker (Oct 16, 2015)
  18. stint
    supply sparingly and with restricted quantities
    The attendants also hurried to show the hospitality of the great house, setting food and wine before him and stinting him in nothing. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
  19. vogue
    a current state of general acceptance and use
    With everyone homebound and exhausted by Zoom, letter writing experienced a brief vogue. New York Times (Oct 12, 2021)
  20. whimsical
    indulging in or influenced by the imagination
    There was a whimsical candy-colored sculpture on the lawn that looked like a bunch of child’s toys glued together without reason or order. Zeitoun
Created on Wed Nov 30 13:52:41 EST 2022 (updated Thu Jan 12 14:59:41 EST 2023)

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