Vocab 11-12

Vocabulary List 11-10

1. alienate; verb - to turn away the normal feelings of fondness toward anyone; to estrange.

Unwilling to alienate our old neighbors, we put up with their boisterous friends.

2. celestial; adjective - having to do with the heavens; divine. The new astronauts will be the

celestial pioneers of the 21st century.

3. desecrate; verb - to treat with disrespect. The young troublemakers planned to desecrate the

cemetery by overturning headstones.

4. enervate; verb - to weaken; to lessen the strength of. Strenuous dieting will enervate most

people.

5. furtive: adjective - done quickly and with stealth to avoid being noticed; secret. Cynthia's

furtive gesture and cryptic remark did not go unnoticed.

6. incisive; adjective - keen; penetrating. Incisive criticism by the newspaper's film reviewer had

led us to a renewal of the movie.

7. lucid; adjective - easily understood; rational; clear; clear-minded. The lecturer's lucid

explanation left no questions unanswered.

8. peruse; verb - to study; to read . Margaret tried to peruse the letter when she thought she was

not being observed.

9. rejuvenate; verb - to make young or fresh again. The half time pep talk rejuvenated the team.

10. scapegoat; noun - one taking the blame for the mistake and crimes of others. Billy

maliciously made his brother the scapegoat for his setting fire to the gauge.

11. tawdry; adjective - gaudy and cheap; vulgarly ornamental. Isabella needed but one glance

to rule out the wedding dress as too tawdry for her.

12. unethical; adjective - not conforming to approved standards of behavior, a socially accepted

code, or professionally endorsed principles and practices. It is no longer considered unethical for

lawyers to advertise their services.

13. verbose; adjective - wordy; tedious. Craig mistakenly believed that being urbane meant

being verbose.

14. wither; verb - to dry; to shrivel; to cause to lose courage or to be ashamed. A prolonged

drought could wither the crops and throw the economy into a tailspin.

15. zealot; noun- a person who shows great enthusiasm for a cause. A zealot for political reform

will go to almost any lengths to further his cause.

SAT Vocabulary List 12-10

1. alleviate; verb - to make easier to endure; to relieve; to diminish. Nothing tends to alleviate my

headaches better than simple aspirin.

2. censure; verb - to blame; to criticize adversely. Congress agreed to censure the outspoken

senator.

3. despot; noun - monarch with unlimited power. My boss calls himself a benevolent despot, but

we question the validity of that adjective.

4. engender; verb - to cause; produce; bring into being. Those sneaky actions are sure to

engender suspicion.

5. incongruous; adjective - inappropriate; out of place. Seeing the little boy in a room filled with

basketball giants struck me as totally incongruous.

6. philistine; adjective - narrow-minded; smugly conventional. Philistine stubbornness should

not prevent us from advancing ourselves intellectually.

7. relegate; verb - to put in a less important position; to assign; to banish. The usual procedure is

for the chairperson to relegate the work to special committees.

8. scoff; verb - to mock or jeer at; to make fun of. The fable of the fox and the grapes teaches that

we tend to scoff at what we cannot attain.

9. tedious; adjective - long or verbose and wearisome; tiresome; boring. I prefer the fast-paced

games of football and basketball to baseball with its tedious stretches of waiting for something to

happen.

10. ungainly; adjective - clumsy; awkward; hard to handle. Hulk Hogan’s sensitivity about his

threadbare garments made him ungainly.

11. viable; adjective - able to live or exist; practicable. Professor Fields agreed to accept a diary

as a viable substitute for a short story.

12. writhe; verb - to twist or squirm, as in pain; to suffer from shame or shyness. When the

parents saw the child writhe in pain, they decided to rush him to the hospital.

13. zenith; noun - the point in the sky directly above one; the highest point. At noon the sun is at

its zenith.

14. aloof; adjective - indifferent; unsympathetic; not interested; apart. She was adamant about

remaining aloof from family problems.

15. chastise; verb - to criticize severely. If you chastise Jason, he immediately begins to weep.