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GRE Vocab > Word List Of S > Flashcards

Word List Of S Flashcards

(63 cards)

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0
Q

Sacrilege (SAK ruh lij)

A

Noun
A violation of something sacred; blasphemy
The members of the fundamentalist believed that dancing and going to the movies were sacrileges

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1
Q

Saccharine (SAK uh rin)

A

Adjective
Sweet; excessively or disgustingly sweet
The love story was so saccharine that I vowed never to see another sappy, predictable movie again

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2
Q

Sacrosanct ( SAK roh sangkt)

A

Adjective
Sacred; held to be inviolable
A church or a temple is sacrosanct

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3
Q

Sagacious (suh GAY shus)

A

Adjective
Discerning; shrewd; keen in judgement
Sagacious, sagacity and sage

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4
Q

Salient (SAYL yunt)

A

Adjective
Sticking out; conspicuous; leaping
A salient characteristic is one that leaps right out at you

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5
Q

Salutary (SAL yuh ter ee)

A

Adjective
Healthy; remedial; curative
Lowered blood pressure is among the salutary effects of exercise

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6
Q

Sanctimonious (sang tuh MOH née us)

A

Adjective
Pretending to be devout; affecting religious feeling
Simon is an egoist who speaks about almost nothing but caring for one’s fellow man. His altruism is sanctimonious

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7
Q

Sanguine (SANG gwin)

A

Adjective
Cheerful; optimistic; hopeful
Don’t confuse sanguine ( a nice word) with sanguinary (not a nice word). Sanguinary means bloodthirsty

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8
Q

Sardonic (sahr DAHN ik)

A

Adjective
Mocking; scornful
Isabella’s weak attempts at humor were met by nothing but a few scattered pockets of sardonic laughter

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9
Q

Scintillate (SIN tuh layt)

A

Verb
To sparkle, either literally or figuratively
Stars and diamonds scintillate

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10
Q

Scrupulous ( SKROO pyuh lus)

A

Adjective
Strict; careful; hesitant for ethical reasons
Leela was scrupulous in keeping her accounts; she know where every penny came from and where every penny went

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11
Q

Scrutinize ( SKROOT uh nyze)

A

Verb
To examine very carefully
Antonym
Inscrutable

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12
Q

Secular ( SEK yuh lur)

A

Adjective

Having nothing to do with religion or spiritual concerns

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13
Q

Sedition (si DISH un)

A

Noun

Treason ; the incitement of public disorder or rebellion

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14
Q

Segregate ( SEG ruh gayt)

A

Verb
To separate
Rico kept his prize winning poodle, Fluffy, segregated from males until her 13th birthday

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15
Q

Sensory (SEN suh ree)

A

Adjective
Having to do with the senses or sensation
Babies enjoy bright colors, moving objects, pleasant sounds, and other forms of sensory stimulation

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16
Q

Sentient (SEN shunt)

A

Adjective

Able to perceive by the senses; conscious Human beings are sentient. Rocks are not

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17
Q

Sequester ( si KWES tur)

A

Verb
To set or keep apart
The struggling writer sequestered himself in his study for several months, trying to produce the great American novel

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18
Q

Serendipity ( ser un DIP uh tee)

A

Noun

Accidental good fortune; discovering good things without looking for them

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19
Q

Servile

A

Adjective

Submissive and subservient; like a servant

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20
Q

Singular (SING gyuh lur)

A

Adjective

Unique; superior; exceptional; strange

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21
Q

Sinister ( SIN ih stur)

A

Adjective

Evil, wicked, foreshadowing evil, trouble or wickedness

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22
Q

Slander

A

Verb

To speak badly about someone publicly; to defame ; to spread malicious rumor

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23
Q

Sloth ( slawth)

A

Noun

Laziness; sluggishness

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24
Sobriety ( suh BRYE uh tee)
Noun | The state of being sober; seriousness
25
Solicitous ( suh LIS uh tus)
Adjective Eager and attentive, often to the point of hovering; anxiously caring or attentive Noun is solicitude
26
Solvent ( SAHL vunt)
Adjective Not broke or bankrupt; able to pay one's bills I don't want to be a millionaire all I want to be a solvent
27
Soporific ( saph uh RIF ik)
Adjective Sleep inducing; boring; sleepy The doctor calmed his hysterical patient by injecting him with some sort of soporific medication.
28
Sordid ( SOR did)
Adjective Vile; filthy; squalid The college roommates led a sordid existence, surrounded by dirty laundry, rotting garbage, and body odor
29
Spawn ( spawn)
Verb To bring forth; to produce a large number A best selling book or blockbuster movie will spawn dozens of imitators.
30
Specious ( SPEE shus)
Adjective Deceptively plausible or attractive The river's beauty turned to be specious; what had looked like churning rapids from a distance was, on closer inspection, some sort of foamy industrial waste
31
Sporadic (spuh RAD ik)
Adjective Stopping and starting, scattered, occurring in busts every once in a while Sporadic warfare between India and Pakistan
32
Spurious ( SPYOOR ee us)
Adjective False; fake An apocryphal story is one who truth is uncertain, and spurious story is false out and out.
33
Squalor ( SKWAHL ur)
Noun Filth; wretched, degraded, or repulsive living conditions If people live in squalor for too long, the ruling elite can count on an insurgency
34
Squander
Verb To waste Squandered money in useless stuff
35
Stagnation
Noun | Motionless; inactivity
36
Static
Adjective Stationary; not changing or moving Sales of the new book soared for a few weeks then became static
37
Staunch
Adjective | Firmly committed; firmly in favor; steadfast
38
Steadfast
Adjective | Loyal; faithful
39
Stigmatize
Verb | To brand with disgrace; to set a mark of disgrace upon
40
Stipulate ( STIP yuh layt)
Verb To require something as part of an agreement You are well advised to stipulate certain conditions that must be met if guarantee is to be valid
41
Stoic (STOH ik)
Adjective | Indifferent ( at least outwardly) to pleasure or pain to joy or grief, to fortune or misfortune
42
Stratum ( STRAT um)
Noun A layer; a level The middle class is one stratum of society
43
Stricture (STRIK chur)
Noun A restriction; a limitation; a negative criticism The unfavorable lease placed many strictures on how the building could be used
44
Strife
Noun | Bitter conflict; discord; a struggle or clash
45
Stringent ( STRIN junt)
Adjective Strict; restrictive Stringent dress code of official dinner
46
Stymie ( STYE mee)
Verb To thwart; to get in the way of; to hinder Boss stymied Ali's efforts to make his name
47
Subjugate
Verb To subdue and dominate; to enslave The tyrant subjugated all the peasants living in the kingdom; once free, they were now forced to do his bidding
48
Sublime
Adjective Awesome; extremely exalted; majestic Don't confuse sublime with subliminal which means subconscious, or sublimate, which means to suppress one's subconscious mind
49
Subordinate ( suh BOR duh nit)
Adjective | Lower in importance
50
Substantive ( SUB Stan stiv)
Adjective | Having substance; real; essential; solid; substantial
51
Subtle ( SUT ul)
Adjective Not obvious; able to make distinctions; ingenious; crafty Jim's subtle mind enables him to see past problems that confuses the rest of us
52
Subversive (sub VUR siv)
Adjective Corrupting; overthrowing; undermining; insurgent Madeline's efforts to teach her first grade students to read were thwarted by that most subversive of inventions, the television set
53
Succinct ( suk SINGKT)
Adjective Brief and to the point; concise We were given so little room in which to write on the examination that we had no choice but to keep our essays succinct
54
Succumb ( suh KUM)
Verb To yield or submit; to die The Martians in The War of the Worlds survived every military weapon known to man but succumbed to the common cold
55
Supercilious ( soo pur SIL ee us)
Adjective Haughty; patronizing The supercilious Rolls Royce salesman treated us like peasants until we opened our suitcase full of one hundred dollars bills
56
Superficial ( soo Pur FISH ul)
Adjective One the surface only; shallow; not thorough Tom had indeed been shot, but the wound was superficial ; the bullet had merely creased the tip of his nose
57
Superfluous ( soo PUR floo us)
Adjective Extra; unnecessary; redundant Roughly 999 of the 1000 page book's pages were superfluous.
58
Surfeit ( SUR fit)
Noun Excess; an excessive amount; excess or overindulgence in eating or drinking Thanksgiving meals are usually a surfeit for everyone involved
59
Surreptitious (sur up TISH us)
Adjective Sneaky; secret The dinner guest surreptitiously slipped a few silver spoons into his jacket as he was leaving the dinning room
60
Surrogate ( SUR uh git)
Adjective Substitute A kind parent offered to go to prison as a surrogate for his son who had been convicted of extortion
61
Sycophant ( SIK uh funt)
Noun One who sucks up to others The French class seemed to be full of sycophants; the students were always bringing apples to the teacher telling her how nice she looked
62
Synthesis
Noun | The combining of parts to form a whole

GRE Vocab (23 decks)

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