SAT Vocabulary Chapters 1-5

Vocabulary Building

• Abase: to humiliate or degrade
  • Example: After being overthrown, the deposed leader offered to bow down to his conqueror.
• Abate: to reduce or lessen
  • Example: The rain poured down for a while, then abated.
• Abdicate: to give up a position, usually one of leadership
  • Example: When he realized the revolutionaries would win, the king abdicated his throne.
• Abduct: to kidnap or take by force
  • Example: The evildoers abducted the fairy princess from her happy home.
• Aberration: something that differs from the norm
  • Example: In 1918, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, but the success turned out to be an aberration.

More Vocabulary

• Abet: to aid, help, or encourage
  • Example: The spy succeeded only because he had a friend on the inside to abet him.
• Abhor: to hate or detest
  • Example: Because he always wound up kicking himself in the head when he tried to play soccer, Oswald began to abhor the sport.
• Abide: to put up with or remain
  • Example: Though he did not agree with the decision, Chuck decided to abide by it.
• Abject: wretched, pitiful
  • Example: After losing all her money, falling into a puddle, and breaking her ankle, Eloise was abject.
• Abjure: to reject or renounce
  • Example: To prove his honesty, the President abjured the evil policies of his wicked predecessor.

Even More Vocabulary

• Abnegation: denial of comfort to oneself
  • Example: The holy man slept on the floor, took only cold showers, and generally followed other practices of abnegation.
• Abort: to give up on a half-finished project or effort
  • Example: After they ran out of food, the men attempting to jump rope around the world had to abort and go home.
• Abridge: to cut down or shorten
  • Example: The publisher thought the dictionary was too long and abridged it.
• Abrogate: to abolish, usually by authority
  • Example: The Bill of Rights assures that the government cannot abrogate our right to a free press.
• Abscond: to sneak away and hide
  • Example: In the confusion, the super-spy absconded into the night with the secret plans.

And Even More Vocabulary

• Absolution: freedom from blame, guilt, or sin
  • Example: Once all the facts were known, the jury gave Angela absolution by giving a verdict of not guilty.
• Abstain: to freely choose not to commit an action
  • Example: Everyone demanded that Angus put on the kilt, but he did not want to do it and abstained.
• Abstruse: hard to comprehend
  • Example: John found geometry abstruse.
• Accede: to agree
  • Example: When the class asked the teacher whether they could play baseball instead of learn grammar, he acceded to their request.
• Accentuate: to stress or highlight
  • Example: Psychologists agree that those who are happiest accentuate the positive in life.

Accessible to Adumbrate

• Accessible: obtainable, reachable
  • Example: After studying with SparkNotes and getting a great score on the SAT, Marlena happily realized that her goal of getting into an Ivy-League college was accessible.
• Acclaim: high praise
  • Example: Greg's excellent poem won the acclaim of his friends.
• Accolade: high praise, special distinction
  • Example: Everyone offered accolades to Sam after he won the Noble Prize.
• Accommodating: helpful, obliging, polite
  • Example: Though the apartment was not big enough for three people, Arnold, Mark, and Zebulon were all friends and were accommodating to each other.
• Accord: an agreement
  • Example: After much negotiating, England and Iceland finally came to a mutually beneficial accord about fishing rights off the coast of Greenland.

Adumbrate to Aisle

• Adumbrate: to sketch out in a vague way
  • Example: The coach adumbrated a game plan, but none of the players knew precisely what to do.
• Adverse: antagonistic, unfavorable, dangerous
  • Example: Because of adverse conditions, the hikers decided to give up trying to climb the mountain.
• Advocate: to argue in favor of something
  • Example: Arnold advocated turning left at every stop sign, even though everyone else thought they should turn right.
• Aerial: related to the air
  • Example: We watched as the fighter planes conducted aerial maneuvers.
• Aesthetic: artistic, related to the appreciation of beauty
  • Example: We hired Susan as our interior decorator because she has such a fine aesthetic sense.
• Affable: friendly, amiable
  • Example: People like to be around George because he is so affable and good-natured.

Aggrandize to Aisle

• Aggrandize: to increase or make greater

  • Example: Joseph always dropped the names of the famous people his father knew as a way to aggrandize his personal stature.

• Aggregate: a whole or total

  • Example: The three branches of the U.S. Government form an aggregate much more powerful than its individual parts.

• Aggrieved: distressed, wronged, injured

  • Example: The foreman mercilessly overworked his aggrieved employees.

• Agile: quick, nimble

  • Example: The dogs were too slow to catch the agile rabbit.

• Agnostic: believing that the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven

  • Example: Joey's parents are very religious, but he is agnostic.

• Agriculture: farming

  • Example: It was a huge step in the progress of civilization when tribes left hunting and gathering and began to develop more sustainable methods of obtaining food, such as agriculture.

• Aisle: a passageway between rows of seats

  • Example: Once we got inside the stadium, we walked down the aisle to our seats.### SAT Vocabulary

• Apprehend: to perceive, understand, or grasp something (e.g., the student has trouble apprehending concepts in math and science)

• Approbation: praise or approval (e.g., the crowd welcomed the heroes with approbation)

• Appropriate: to take or make use of something (e.g., the government appropriated the farmer's land without justification)

• Aquatic: relating to water (e.g., the marine biologist studies starfish and other aquatic creatures)

• Arable: suitable for growing crops (e.g., the farmer purchased a plot of arable land on which he will grow corn and sprouts)

• Arbiter: one who can resolve a dispute or make a decision (e.g., the divorce court judge will serve as the arbiter between the estranged husband and wife)

• Arbitrary: based on factors that appear random (e.g., the boy's decision to choose one college over another seems arbitrary)

• Arbitration: the process or act of resolving a dispute (e.g., the employee sought official arbitration when he could not resolve a disagreement with his supervisor)

More SAT Vocabulary

• Arboreal: of or relating to trees (e.g., leaves, roots, and bark are a few arboreal traits)

• Arcane: obscure, secret, or known only by a few (e.g., the professor is an expert in arcane Lithuanian literature)

• Archaic: of or relating to an earlier period in time, outdated (e.g., in a few select regions of Western Mongolian, an archaic Chinese dialect is still spoken)

• Archetypal: the most representative or typical example of something (e.g., some believe George Washington, with his flowing white hair and commanding stature, was the archetypal politician)

• Ardor: extreme vigor, energy, or enthusiasm (e.g., the soldiers conveyed their ardor with impassioned battle cries)

• Arid: excessively dry (e.g., little other than palm trees and cacti grow successfully in arid environments)

SAT Vocabulary Continues

• Arrogate: to take without justification (e.g., the king arrogated the right to order executions to himself exclusively)

• Artifact: a remaining piece from an extinct culture or place (e.g., the scientists spent all day searching the cave for artifacts from the ancient Mayan civilization)

• Artisan: a craftsman (e.g., the artisan uses wood to make walking sticks)

• Ascertained: to perceive or learn something (e.g., with a bit of research, the student ascertained that some plants can live for weeks without water)

• Ascetic: practicing restraint as a means of self-discipline, usually religious (e.g., the priest lives an ascetic life devoid of television, savory foods, and other pleasures)

And More SAT Vocabulary

• Ascribe: to assign, credit, or attribute something to (e.g., some ascribe the invention of fireworks and dynamite to the Chinese)

• Aspersion: a curse or expression of ill-will (e.g., the rival politicians repeatedly cast aspersions on each other's integrity)

• Aspire: to long for or aim toward something (e.g., the young poet aspires to publish a book of verse someday)

• Assail: to attack (e.g., at dawn, the war planes assailed the boats in the harbor)

• Assess: to evaluate (e.g., a crew arrived to assess the damage after the crash)

• Assiduous: hard-working, diligent (e.g., the construction workers erected the skyscraper during two years of assiduous labor)

• Assuage: to ease or pacify (e.g., the mother held the baby to assuage its fears)

More SAT Vocabulary

• Astute: very clever, crafty (e.g., much of Roger's success in politics results from his ability to provide astute answers to reporters' questions)

• Asylum: 1) a place of refuge or protection, a sanctuary (e.g., for Thoreau, the forest served as an asylum from the pressures of urban life), 2) an institution in which the insane are kept (e.g., once diagnosed by a certified psychiatrist, the man was put in an asylum)

• Atonement: to repent or make amends (e.g., the man atoned for forgetting his wife's birthday by buying her five dozen roses)

• Atrophy: to wither away or decay (e.g., if muscles do not receive enough blood, they will soon atrophy and die)

• Attain: to achieve or arrive at (e.g., the athletes strived to attain their best times in competition)

• Attribute: 1) to credit or assign (e.g., he attributes all of his success to his mother's undying encouragement), 2) a facet or trait (e.g., among the beetle's most peculiar attributes is its thorny protruding eyes)

And More SAT Vocabulary

• Atypical: not typical, unusual (e.g., screaming and crying is atypical adult behavior)

• Audacious: excessively bold (e.g., the security guard was shocked by the fan's audacious attempt to offer him a bribe)

• Audible: able to be heard (e.g., the missing person's shouts were unfortunately not audible)

• Augment: to add to or expand (e.g., the eager student seeks to augment his knowledge of French vocabulary by reading French literature)

• Auspicious: favorable, indicative of good things (e.g., the tennis player considered the sunny forecast an auspicious sign that she would win her match)

• Austere: very bare, bleak (e.g., the austere furniture inside the abandoned house made the place feel haunted)

• Avarice: excessive greed (e.g., the banker's avarice led him to amass a tremendous personal fortune)

More SAT Vocabulary

• Avenge: to seek revenge (e.g., the victims will take justice into their own hands and strive to avenge themselves against the men who robbed them)

• Aversion: a particular dislike for something (e.g., because he's from Hawaii, Ben has an aversion to autumn, winter, and cold climates in general)

• Balk: to stop or block abruptly (e.g., Edna's boss balked at her request for another raise)

• Ballad: a love song (e.g., Greta's boyfriend played her a ballad on the guitar during their walk through the dark woods)

• Banal: dull, commonplace (e.g., the client rejected our proposal because they found our presentation banal and unimpressive)

• Bane: a burden (e.g., advanced physics is the bane of many students' academic lives)

• Bard: a poet, often a singer as well (e.g., Shakespeare is often considered the greatest bard in the history of the English language)

And More SAT Vocabulary

• Bashful: shy, excessively timid (e.g., Frankie's mother told him not to be bashful when he refused to attend the birthday party)

• Battery: 1) a device that supplies power (e.g., most cars run on a combination of power from a battery and gasoline), 2) assault, beating (e.g., her husband was accused of assault and battery after he attacked a man on the sidewalk)

• Beguile: to trick, deceive (e.g., the thief beguiled his partners into surrendering all of their money to him)

• Behemoth: something of tremendous power or size (e.g., the new aircraft carrier is among several behemoths that the Air Force has added to its fleet)

• Benevolent: marked by goodness or doing good (e.g., police officers should be commended for their benevolent service to the community)

• Benign: favorable, not threatening, mild (e.g., we were all relieved to hear that the medical tests determined her tumor to be benign)

• Bequeath: to pass on or give (e.g., Jon's father bequeathed his entire estate to his mother)

And More SAT Vocabulary

• Berate: to scold vehemently (e.g., the angry boss berated his employees for failing to meet their deadline)

• Bereft: devoid of, without (e.g., his family was bereft of food and shelter following the tornado)

• Beseech: to beg, plead, implore (e.g., the servant beseeched the king for food to feed his starving family)

• Bias: a tendency, inclination, prejudice (e.g., the judge's hidden bias against smokers led him to make an unfair decision)

• Bilk: to cheat, defraud (e.g., the lawyer discovered that this firm had bilked several clients out of thousands of dollars)

More SAT Vocabulary

• Blandish: to coax by using flattery (e.g., Rachel's assistant tried to blandish her into accepting the deal)

• Blemish: an imperfection, flaw (e.g., the dealer agreed to lower the price because of the many blemishes on the surface of the wooden furniture)

• Blight: 1) a plague, disease (e.g., the potato blight destroyed the harvest and bankrupted many families), 2) something that destroys hope (e.g., his bad morale is### Vocabulary Study Notes

• secondary (adj.): related to a subordinate or auxiliary role

  • Example: Divorcing my wife had the collateral effect of making me poor, as she was the only one of us with a job or money.

• colloquial (adj.): characteristic of informal conversation

  • Example: Adam's essay on sexual response in primates was marked down because it contained too many colloquial expressions.

• collusion (n.): secret agreement, conspiracy

  • Example: The three law students worked in collusion to steal the final exam.

• colossus (n.): a gigantic statue or thing

  • Example: For 56 years, the ancient city of Rhodes featured a colossus standing astride its harbor.

• combustion (n.): the act or process of burning

  • Example: The unexpected combustion of the prosecution's evidence forced the judge to dismiss the case against Ramirez.

• commendation (n.): a notice of approval or recognition

  • Example: Jared received a commendation from Linda, his supervisor, for his stellar performance.

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