An eponym is any word that is derived from a person’s name. In the past I’ve mentioned how English is the most promiscuous of languages, absorbing languages as unrelated as Sanskrit and Finnish into its bulging lexicon. By extension, I’ve also mentioned how relying on Latin/Greek roots can oftentimes cripple your word detective skills. Thwarting [...]
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GRE Vocab List: Religious Words
It’s not Sunday – but it is church day, at least as far as vocabulary is concerned. Below are words relating to the church or religion. A few of the words – such a cardinal – have a secondary definition that, while derived from the original church-based definition, is different enough from the original to [...]
GRE Vocabulary: Words Within Words
Today, I thought I’d do something a little bit more creative. Below, I’ve listed pairs of GRE words, in which one GRE word is either fully embedded in another GRE word., or the simple addition of a letter begets a different GRE word. Élan and Mélange Not only is élan totally ensconced in mélange, [...]
GRE Vocabulary: Around the Globe in Five Words
English is truly the global mutt of languages. Indeed, centuries of colonization and commerce has had the curious effect of both making English the global language and swelling the pages of English dictionaries with such loanwords as sauna and safari. (Sauna comes by way of Finland; safari comes via African-rooted Arabic and, somewhat inexplicably, means [...]
GRE Vocabulary: Animal Mnemonics
Many of us associate certain tendencies with animals. Cats are independent and aloof; dogs are loyal and loving. Owls apparently are wise, and elephants…well, they’re just big. Certain animals have actually changed into verbs (not literally, of course). Below are a few such vocabulary words that you should definitely know for the GRE. Badger [...]
Negation words: Misleading Roots
Though Halloween is now over, beware of these trick-or-treaters. They are disguised as something they are not. You’ll notice that, in each case, there is a prefix that typically negates the word (in-, im-, un-). In the cases below, these roots are misleading. Insufferable Think of somebody, or something, that you simply can’t tolerate. [...]
Commonly Confused GRE words
Sometimes, I think that ETS once walked around and took a survey of the most commonly confused words in the English language, and then put those words on the test. In truth, ETS actually did something very similar to that. Over the years, it gave experimental sections to figure out which words people tended to [...]
The Top 10 GRE Words Beginning with the Letter ‘A’
I have always told students that one sure way to induce dementia is to methodically study words in alphabetical order. The brain simply will fall asleep somewhere around the ar-, words blending into an amorphous mush, your soul yearning for any letter, as long as it is not ‘A’. While this is still sage advice, [...]
GRE Vocabulary List– From Deep Inside Us
I always tell my students that GRE vocabulary is all around us. A mean looking person is truculent. A friend who is running late is dilatory. And, if they are habitually late, they are potentially feckless. But don’t become truculent! In some cases, GRE vocabulary is not only around us, but actually lurks within us. [...]
GRE – Interesting Word Origins
Interesting Word Origins Many vocabulary words don’t come from exotic languages, but via Greek or Latin. Still, some very interesting back stories (etymologies) accompany these words, and, hopefully, make these words easier to remember. Supercilious Cilia are small, thick hairs. One area on our bodies that contain cilia are our eyebrows. Supercilious is derived from [...]
