ETS words Flashcards
(40 cards)
inimical
Not friendly
Censorship is inimical to freedom. So, most teenagers would argue, are curfews. To be inimical is to be harmful, antagonistic, or opposed to — like smoking two packs a day is to healthy lungs.
Venal
Someone with venal motives is corrupt and maybe a little evil. Nobody wants to be thought of as venal.
Venal actions include taking bribes, giving jobs to your friends, and cheating. Venal means about the same thing as “corrupt” or “corruptible.” Venal people are considered sleazy and untrustworthy. They’re often criminals. No one is perfect, and most of us have venal motives at some point.
temperance
Temperance means restraint and moderation, but if you’re talking about alcohol, temperance means not just drinking in moderation, it means not having it at all.
Providential
If your best friend pulls up beside you in her convertible just as your bike gets a flat tire, you could call it providential, or magically lucky.
The Latin root of providential is providentia, “foresight or precaution.” Providence changed over the years; it usually referred specifically to the care of God, and it was spelled with a capital P. Providential, likewise, has another meaning that’s purely religious, “resulting from God’s intervention.” Whether you’re talking about God or not, if something is providential, it feels a little miraculous.
fastidious
If you want to describe a person who insists on perfection or pays much attention to food, clothing and cleanliness, the right word is fastidious.
Fastidious is a funny-sounding adjective from the Latin fastidium “loathing” that has several equally strange-sounding synonyms — persnickety, fussbudgety, finicky and punctilious. Fussy and hard to please will also do the trick. Fastidious is occasionally used as a compliment to describe someone whose attention to detail gives them good organizing abilities, but it is usually used as a disapproving term.
Polemical
The adjective polemical describes something related to an argument or controversy. To keep the peace, avoid discussing politics at Thanksgiving, which usually deteriorates into a polemical argument with Uncle Bob. Better stick to football or apple versus pumpkin pie.
Polemical is the adjective form of the noun polemic, which itself comes from the Greek word, polemos, meaning “war.” Use polemical to describe a controversy or argument that could end up as a huge conflict, because polemical refers to a major disagreement. The word is often used to describe speech and writing — a polemical discussion or a polemical essay — that usually starts a war of words.
injudicious
A decision that’s not very smart or well thought out can be called injudicious. It would be injudicious to spend your last five dollars on a fancy coffee drink.
When you regret something you’ve done, you might decide in retrospect that it was injudicious. It’s injudicious to spread rumors about a friend, because it’s not thoughtful. It’s also injudicious to ride in a fast-moving car without a seat belt, because it’s dangerous. Judicious means “showing good judgment,” from the Latin root iudicium, or “judgment.”
didacticism
communication that is suitable for or intended to be instructive
belie
To belie means to contradict. If you are 93 but look like you are 53, then your young looks belie your age.
We get belie from the Old English beleogan, which meant “to deceive by lying.” It suggests characteristics or behavior that inadvertently or deliberately hide the truth. To remember it, just think “be lying.” Snow White’s decision to barge into the Seven Dwarfs’ home without invitation belied her gentle nature.
vociferous
Vociferous describes loudmouths, such as the vociferous mob at the soccer game.
Vociferous is from the Latin vociferari meaning “to shout, yell.” If you break it down to the first part, take vox meaning “voice” and add it to ferre meaning “to carry,” then vociferous describes voices that carry; you can hear a vociferous person from across the room at a dance party. Vociferous isn’t just loud, but annoying, too, like when the vociferous fans of the opposing team chant insults in unison. Try yanking a cookie out of a little kid’s hand if you want to hear a vociferous reaction.
circumscribed
Limited
syntactical
of or relating to or conforming to the rules of syntax
synoptic
If you’ve heard of a movie synopsis, which gives an overview of the plot, you can guess what synoptic means: summarizing. At the end of your 900-page treatise on morals, try to give a synoptic conclusion to drive your ideas home.
Synoptic can be broken down to syn-, meaning together, and -optic, meaning view or sight. So something that is synoptic pulls everything together. At the end of a long day touring your great aunt’s ancestral home, hearing endless stories about every dinner party she ever gave and all the people that ever stayed there, you might synoptically comment, “Basically she cooks well and has lots of fancy friends.”
sartorial
If it’s the day before a big event and you have no idea what to wear and nothing in your closet is going to cut it, you are facing a sartorial dilemma — one that pertains to clothing, fashion, or dressing.
Sartorial comes from the Modern Latin word sartor which means “tailor,” literally “one who patches and mends.” In English the adjectives sartorial and sartorially are used to refer to any matter pertaining to the consideration of clothing or fashion. The root word sartor has also made its way into the field of biology. The sartorius — a muscle in the leg and the longest muscle in the human body — gets its name because it is used when crossing the legs, also known as the “tailor’s position.”
Panache
To have panache is to have a stylish flair. You might wear your giant polka-dotted scarf with great panache.
Panache comes from the Latin word pinnaculum, which means “small wing” or “tuft of feathers.” When you decorate yourself with a flourish, have an elegant appearance, or do something with style, you are said to have panache. You might wear your beret with new-found panache. Your aunt Milly may throw a party with unmatched panache. Or you brother’s ability to turn a phrase may show an uncommon panache.
quixotic
Use quixotic for someone or something that is romantic and unrealistic, or possessed by almost impossible hopes. Your quixotic task is easy to understand, if difficult to achieve: establish world peace.
What a wonderful word quixotic is! While it is most often used to mean equally impractical and idealistic, it also has the sense of romantic nobility. Its source is from the great Spanish novel “Don Quixote,” whose title character is given to unrealistic schemes and great chivalry. In the middle of a recession and high unemployment, it would be quixotic to imagine that you could quit your job and find another easily.
Exacting
Use the adjective exacting to describe something or someone very precise or strict in its requirements. If your teacher has exacting standards about spelling and punctuation, you better carefully check your final paper.
profundity
Profundity describes being thoughtful, deep, and wise. Your profundity might inspire friends to come to you for advice.
Profundity comes from the word profound and it means a quality of depth or wisdom that is meaningful or even transformational. The profundity of a piece of music might move you to tears, and the profundity of certain philosophies can be deep — and a bit confusing. Profundity can describe something that’s intense, like the profundity of the silence in the room following the announcement of bad news.
virulence
Virulence is a harmful quality possessed by microorganisms that can cause disease. You can also use the noun virulence to describe someone’s malicious actions.
A virus spreads disease, and virulence is a quality possessed by viruses that are on the loose and spreading. This could be as common as the flu or as unusual as chemical warfare. You can also speak of the virulence of hostile, harmful words and actions. Publicly insulting and discrediting someone is an example of virulence. With either meaning, virulence indicates danger and harm. The Latin root is virulentus, “poisonous.”
immure
When you immure someone or something, you put it behind a wall, as in a jail or some other kind of confining space.
You may recognize the -mur- in immure as the root for “wall,” as in mural, which is a painting on a wall, or intramural, literally “inside the walls,” as, for instance, the walls of a school — intramural sports are played among teams from the same school. You don’t need a jail to immure someone. Rapunzel was immured in her tower. At the end of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the lovers are immured in the tomb.
indemnify
To pay compensation for a loss, damages, or similar expense is to indemnify. “The insurance company indemnified its customers for their claims after the severe storm — one customer lost three cars, a row boat, and a golf cart.”
The verb indemnify also means to secure against future loss. The farmers bought insurance to indemnify themselves and their animals against catastrophic loss. The word indemnify comes from the Latin word indemnis, which means “to unhurt.” The city wanted to shut down an old local landmark because they were afraid it no longer met modern safety standards, but local citizens wanted it to remain. In a compromise, the owners agreed to indemnify the city against possible loss and the landmark was allowed to remain.
manacled
If a police officer has to manacle your hands behind your back, you’re in big trouble. That’s just a fancy way of saying that you’ve been handcuffed.
Used as a noun, manacle is a synonym for shackle, meaning “a metal chain or band, used to fasten someone’s hands or ankles together.” You’re more likely to see the noun form of this word in its plural form manacles, since — like socks or mittens — a pair is usually required. (Quite unlike socks or mittens, manacles are not at all comfortable or pleasant to wear.) You can say that someone who has been restrained using manacles has been manacled.
Bridling
anger or take offense
“She bridled at his suggestion to elope”
Clerical
In older times clerical had an additional common meaning of referring to anything to do with the clergy — those ordained for religious work, usually in the Christian faith. Clerical comes from the old Latin term clericus, meaning a “churchman,” from which cleric later came, meaning a priest or religious leader. To have “a clerical air” means to be clearly identifiable either as an ink-stained office wretch or a member of the cloth.
