SAT Vocabulary: College Panda's 400 Must-Know Words

Vocabulary Words

• Erratic: unpredictable, inconsistent, and irregular
• Secluded: hard to reach, hidden away
• Fluctuate: to rise and fall irregularly
• Exalt: to praise, to worship
• Admonish: to warn or scold someone
• Abrupt: sudden, unexpected, without warning
• Content: satisfied
• Eccentric: uncommon, strange
• Mired: stuck in mud
• Colloquial: used in casual conversation
• Reconcile: settle one's differences, make compatible, bring back to peace
• Alienate: to cause someone to feel isolated or lonely
• Distinguish: to tell the difference between
• Adequate: sufficient, enough, acceptable
• Contend: to deal with someone or something, to claim or state a belief confidently
• Skeptical: having doubts
• Enfranchise: to give the right to vote
• Sophisticated: having a lot of worldly experience and knowledge, complicated
• Radical: thorough, complete, extensive, fundamental, essential, revolutionary, extreme
• Formulate: to create or think up
• Attest: to confirm or verify
• Vexing: annoying, irritating
• Unassuming: humble, low-key
• Coerce: to pressure or force someone to do something
• Adept: very skilled at something
• Eloquent: fluent or persuasive in speaking or writing
• Austere: plain and without decoration, comforts, or anything extra
• Dread: to fear, be afraid of
• Inevitable: unavoidable
• Stress: to emphasize
• Spawn: to produce, generate, or create
• Renounce: to give up, deny, or surrender something
• Unprecedented: never done or known before

More Vocabulary Words

• Broach: to bring up a difficult subject for discussion
• Proxy: a person authorized to act on behalf of another; substitute
• Detrimental: harmful, damaging
• Secular: having no religious or spiritual basis
• Innovative: new and different
• Tangible: real and able to be shown or touched
• Disseminate: to spread widely (particularly information)
• Delegate: to assign a task to another person
• Apparent: clearly visible or understood; obvious
• Postulate: to suggest or propose something
• Speculate: to guess, to form a theory without firm evidence
• Bazaar: a market selling a large variety of goods
• Sporadic: scattered, irregular, unpredictable
• Suffrage: the right to vote
• Incredulous: unwilling or unable to believe something
• Idealistic: unrealistically aiming for perfection
• Conflate: to mix or combine into one (typically ideas)
• Paucity: poverty, scarcity
• Ephemeral: temporary, short-lived
• Prompt: to cause (someone) to take a course of action
• Reverence: deep respect for someone or something
• Disparity: a great difference
• Dispassionate: not influenced by strong emotion, fair-minded
• Phenomenon: a noteworthy occurrence or situation
• Boast: to brag, to show off
• Irksome: irritating, annoying
• Allude: to suggest or call attention to indirectly, to make a reference to something
• Omnipotence: having unlimited or great power
• Provoke: to cause a reaction or emotion (usually anger); to trigger
• Indulge: to allow oneself to enjoy the pleasure of
• Entrenched: firmly established and unlikely to change
• Inherent: built-in, existing in something as a permanent or essential characteristic
• Vernacular: everyday informal language, local dialect

Even More Vocabulary Words

• Inquisition: interrogation, questioning
• Anecdote: a short personal story
• Malign: evil in nature, harmful
• Anomaly: oddity, something that is not normal
• Inhibit: to hold someone or something back, to suppress, to prevent
• Mutable: changeable
• Petty: of little importance, caring too much about trivial matters
• Avid: passionate about something
• Invoke: to call on or refer to something
• Imprudent: foolish, reckless
• Tenacity: persistence, determination
• Venerable: respected
• Authoritarian: enforcing strict obedience to authority