GRE Vocabulary and Word Roots Guide

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering high-yield GRE words, essential Latin and Greek word roots, prefixes, and suffixes from the lecture notes.

Abate

Reduce or diminish.

Aberration

Something that stands out or is abnormal; an anomaly.

Acquisitiveness

Desire to acquire more, especially an excessive desire.

Adherent

A person who sticks to a belief or cause.

Ad-lib

Make something up on the spot, give an unprepared speech; freely, as needed, according to desire.

Advent

Arrival.

Adverse

Unfavorable, opposed.

Agency

The ability to use power or influence.

Amortize

Gradually pay off a debt, or gradually write off an asset.

Analogous

Corresponding in a particular way, making a good analogy.

Annul

Make void or null, cancel, abolish (usually of laws or other established rules).

Anoint

Rub or sprinkle oil on as part of a ceremony to make something sacred; used metaphorically to refer to power or praise given to someone thought very highly of.

Antithetical to

Totally opposed to; opposite.

Arbiter

Judge, umpire, person empowered to decide matters at hand.

Archaic

Characteristic of an earlier period, ancient, primitive.

Ascribe to

To give credit to.

Assimilation

The process by which a minority group adopts the customs and way of life of a larger group, or the process by which any new thing being introduced begins to blend in.

Belie

Contradict or misrepresent.

Blight

A disease that kills plants rapidly, or any cause of decay or destruction (noun); to ruin or cause to wither (verb).

Brook

Suffer or tolerate (often used with the word no).

Buffer

Something that separates two groups, people, etc., who potentially do not get along.

Canon

Body of accepted rules, standards, or artistic works.

Coalesce

Come together, unite; fuse together.

Cogent

Very convincing, logical.

Collude

Conspire; cooperate for illegal or fraudulent purposes.

Concede

Give in, admit, yield; acknowledge reluctantly; grant or give up (such as land after losing a war).

Condone

Overlook, tolerate, regard as harmless.

Confer

Consult, compare views; bestow or give.

Countenance

Approve or tolerate; can also literally mean face.

Counterpoint

Contrasting item, opposite; a complement; the use of contrast or interplay in a work of art.

Debase

Degrade; lower in quality, value, rank, etc.; lower in moral quality.

Debunk

Expose, ridicule, or disprove false or exaggerated claims.

Decry

Condemn openly.

Dichotomy

Division into two parts or into two contradictory groups.

Discrete

Separate, distinct, detached, existing as individual parts.

Disinterested

Unbiased, impartial; not taking a side.

Disparate

Distinct, different.

Disseminate

Scatter, spread about, broadcast.

Divest

Deprive or strip of a rank, title, etc., or of clothing or gear; to sell off holdings.

Echelon

A level, rank, or grade; the people at that level.

Eclectic

Selecting the best of everything or from many diverse sources.

Efficacy

The quality of being able to produce the intended effect.

Egregious

Extraordinarily or conspicuously bad; glaring.

Empirical

Coming from, based on, or able to be verified by experience or experimentation; not purely based on theory.

Equivocate

Use unclear language to deceive or avoid committing to a position.

Estimable

Worthy of esteem, admirable; able to be estimated.

Exacerbate

Make worse (more violent, severe, etc.), inflame.

Exacting

Very severe in making demands; requiring precise attention.

Expedient

Suitable, proper; effective (sometimes while sacrificing ethics).

Extraneous

Irrelevant; foreign, coming from without, not belonging.

Extrapolate

Conjecture about an unknown by projecting information about something known; predict by projecting past experience.

Forestall

Delay, hinder, prevent by taking action beforehand.

Guile

Clever deceit, cunning, craftiness.

Hegemony

Domination, authority; influence by one country over others socially, culturally, economically, etc.

Iconoclast

Attacker of cherished beliefs or institutions.

Impasse

Position or road from which there is no escape; deadlock, gridlock.

Impute

To credit to, to attribute to; lay blame or responsibility for.

Inert

Inactive; having little or no power to move.

Intractable

Difficult to control, manage, or manipulate; hard to cure; stubborn.

Intrepid

Fearless, brave, enduring in the face of adversity.

Juxtapose

Place side-by-side (either physically or in a metaphorical way, such as to make a comparison).

Malleable

Able to be bent, shaped, or adapted; easily influenced or shaped by others.

Mercurial

Quickly and unpredictably changing moods; fickle, flighty.

Normative

Implying or attempting to establish a norm; expressing value judgments or telling people what to do (rather than merely describing that which is happening).

Penumbra

Outer part of a shadow from an eclipse; any surrounding region, fringe, periphery; any area where something only partially exists.

Polemic

Controversial argument, especially one attacking a specific idea.

Pristine

In an original, pure state; uncorrupted.

Recalcitrant

Not obedient, resisting authority, hard to manage.

Recapitulate

Summarize, repeat in a concise way.

Redress

Compensation or relief for injury or wrongdoing (noun); correct, set right, remedy (verb).

Reticent

Not talking much; private (of a person), restrained, reserved.

Sanction

Permission or approval, or to give permission or approval; alternatively, a legal action by one or more countries against another country to get it to comply.

Stratum

One of many layers (such as in a rock formation or in the classes of a society).

Table (verb, American English)

To postpone discussion of something until later.

Temperance

Moderation, self-control, especially regarding alcohol or other desires or pleasures; total abstinence from alcohol.

Untenable

Not defendable (as an argument), not able to be lived in (as a house).

Winnow

Sift, analyze critically, separate the useful part from the worthless part.

Yoke

A frame for attaching animals to each other and to a plow, or a bar across shoulders to help carry buckets; metaphorically, a burden or something that oppresses.

Root: ac / acer / acri / acro

Sharp, point, or high.

Root: anim

Spirit or breath.

Root: ced / cess / ceed

Go or yield.

Root: clud / clus / claus

Close.

Root: flu / flux / fluct

Flow or wave.

Root: greg

Flock or herd.

Root: loqu / locu

Speak.

Root: luc / lus

Light, shine, or clear.

Prefix: ab- / abs-

Away from.

Prefix: circum-

Around.

Prefix: contra- / contro- / counter-

Against.

Suffix: -tion / -ation / -ion

Process or result of doing X (forms an action noun from a verb).