GRE VOCAB GROUP 6

admonish

scold someone seriously OR give someone urgent advice

SYN: reprimand, urge

aesthetic

pertaining to beauty or the appreciation thereof

SYN: ornamental, decorative, stylish

affection

a pretense or show mean to impress others

SYN: artificiality, posturing, airs

alleviate

lessen the intensity or severity of something negative

SYN: relieve, allay, temper

analogous

comparable or similar to

SYN: parallel, kindred, equivalent

bolster

lend support or boost

SYN: reinforce, fortify, prop up

chauvinistic

excessively patriotic or biases in favor of a group or cause

SYN: nationalistic, jingoistic, prejudiced

connoisseur

a discovering expert in matters of taste

SYN: aficionado, savant, enthusiast

dissemble

hide or misrepresent one’s true feelings or beliefs

SYN: feign, masquerade, bluff

dogged

demonstrating tenacity and an unwillingness to give up

SYN: resolved, pertinacious, unflagged

dupe

trick or fool someone

SYN: hoodwink, deceive, swindle

empirical

based on observation or experience rather than conjecture

SYN: factual, verifiable, experimental

engender

produce or stimulate the development of something

SYN: induce or provoke

entitled

assuming oneself to be deserving of special rights or privileges

SYN: spoiled, arrogant, pompous

pertinacious

stubbornly holding onto a belief or course of action

SYN: assiduous, resolute, dogged

presumptuous

overstepping boundaries often in an overconfident way

SYN: brazen, arrogant, audacious

probity

the characteristic of having strong ethical standards

SYN: integrity, rectitude, virtue

proliferate

rapidly increase or multiple in number

SYN: snowball, skyrocket, burgeon

specious

seemingly reasonable but actually wrong

SYN: misleading, deceptive, fallacious

spurious

not genuine, bogus

SYN: specious, sham, contrived