vocabulary.com

the definitions for words on vocabulary.com is really helpful for English vocab learners.

Conversational Adjective

terrible - really bad - terror
terror - extreme fear
hororr - intense fear - terror, disgust, or shock
hororr latin - bristling, roughness, rudeness, shaking, or trembling
panic - freaking out - opposite of relaxing
bugs - bugs bug you - an insect - annoy
decent - nice

Basic noun and verb

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Laptop is short for laptop computer. The big computer on your desk is a desktop, and the small one on your lap is a laptop. See what they did there? Now shoo that lapdog and get to work!

There are other kinds of portable computers, but a laptop usually has a screen that folds over the keyboard when you’re not using it. The earliest versions of laptops were made in the 1970s, and they’ve become lighter, thinner, more portable, and much more popular since then. The word laptop was coined in 1984, based on — you guessed it — desktop, which describes the heavier, non-portable computer.
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When you see sudden bright flashes of light in the sky, you’re seeing lightning, the release of electricity between clouds or the ground.

Lightning can be scary, and if it strikes a person, it can kill. You can tell how close the lightning is by how long the delay is between the light and the sound of the rolling roar or crack of thunder that accompanies it. If they’re close together, get inside, quick! Because lighting strikes so fast, we use its name for other speedy things, like the lightning-fast service at a good coffee shop.
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An iceberg is a huge chunk of ice that breaks off of a glacier and floats around the ocean. Most of an iceberg is under water and can’t be seen; that’s how a sneaky iceberg managed to sink the Titanic.

Icebergs exist in the coldest waters on the planet — the largest icebergs ever observed have been in Antarctica. An iceberg is blamed in the famous sinking of the Titanic in 1912, and the disaster inspired a new system for tracking and measuring icebergs. Another kind of iceberg is the lettuce, which is crisp and nearly as pale as an actual iceberg. The colloquial “tip of the iceberg” means the smallest hint of a much larger problem.
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Monsters are imaginary scary creatures that lurk in dark places and horror movies. If it’s got 3 heads, shark teeth and lives under your bed, then it’s probably a monster.

Monsters are big. Monsters are hairy. And monsters are certainly scary. Think of the Abominable Snow Man, that Loch Ness creature, or even Shrek — even though he’s technically an ogre. This word isn’t only for the imaginary, though: you could call anything freakish, frightening, or particularly evil a monster, like a cruel murderer or even a really big, violent storm.
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Your health is the condition of your body. If you barely get any sleep and only eat frozen pizza and jellybeans, you probably have poor health.

Health comes from the old English word for “whole,” and you can think of it as the state of your whole being — both body and mind. We use health to talk about bodies and people, but also to talk about whole systems. If you lost your job, you might be worried about the health of your finances. If a bad manager provokes employees to be unproductive, investors might be worried about the health of a business.
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Something that’s possible is something that can happen, something that can be done, or something capable of existing.

You can use possible to talk about anything that might happen. If you work really hard for a test, and you show you know the material, it’s possible that you’ll get an A. For a really hard problem like inventing a car that doesn’t use gas, you’ll need to pursue many possible solutions. If you write science fiction, you like to imagine possible worlds. Anything is possible, if you just put your mind to it!
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To indent is to begin text with a blank space between it and the margin. When you’re writing an essay, you can indent the first sentence of each paragraph.

There are different styles of arranging type on a page, but it’s fairly common to indent the beginning of a paragraph or section, which you can do with the tab key on a keyboard. Another way to indent is to cause a hollow, depression, or notch — in other words, to dent. This meaning is closest to the original, “to notch or give a serrated edge to,” from Medieval Latin, indentare, “furnish with teeth.”
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Natural describes something that comes from nature, rather than being man-made. Your healthy friend who only eats natural food will probably choose carrots instead of potato chips for a snack.

The adjective natural is a common word with a lot of meanings. It describes anything that comes from nature, but it also means “inborn” when you describe your basketball-star friend as a natural athlete. You can also use it to talk about someone being at ease (“he tried to act natural when the police passed by”) or to mean “inevitable,” as when you say, “It’s only natural that those two ended up getting married.”
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To produce is to create, manufacture, or cultivate. We rely on agriculture to produce food and artists to produce art.

As a noun, produce (accented first syllable) is the product of gardening: fruits and vegetables. The verb form of this word (accented last syllable) has several meanings, all related to making, creating, bringing forth, or raising. At the airport, you might be asked to produce (show) some identification. To produce results is to get a job done or to have something to show for your work. To produce children is to give birth to them or raise them.
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To inform is to tell someone news, pass on wisdom, leak gossip, or give instruction. You’ve been informed that you won the raffle at the county fair. What are you going to do with all that cheese?

The Latin verb infōrmāre means “to form or shape.” The idea of passing on knowledge came about in the 14th Century, with the meaning of “teaching or instructing” coming later. Thomas Jefferson, who believed democracy to be impossible without informed citizens, said, “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
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Everyone can agree that certain things are necessary for survival: food, water, shelter. Some people might add chocolate to that list. Necessary refers to anything you can’t do without.

Necessary, cede, and cease all come from the same root, cedere, which is Latin for “to go away” or “to give something up.” When something’s necessary, you won’t give it up. That fudge-covered brownie sundae from your favorite ice-cream shop? It might seem like a decadent treat, but if you’re a true chocolate lover you’ll insist that it’s as necessary as a warm jacket in winter.
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Essential means very basic or necessary. A good frying pan is one of a short list of kitchen essentials every cook must have. To prevent fires, it’s essential to turn off appliances before leaving the house.

The adjective essential is often followed by to or that: It is essential to wash your hands. It is essential that you dry them after. This adjective is from Middle English essencial, from Late Latin essentialis, from Latin essentia “the basic nature of a thing, its essence” plus the Latin suffix -alis “relating to.”
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When Martin Luther King, Jr. said he looked forward to the day when all Americans would be judged solely “by the content of their character,” he was talking about a person’s essential qualities.

“Just because you are a character doesn’t mean you have character,” a guy called The Wolf advises a young woman named Raquel in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. The line illustrates three different senses of the word, which can mean “moral strength or reputation” (what Raquel lacks), “a person in a work of fiction” (what The Wolf and Raquel literally are), or, by extension, “a colorful personality” (what Raquel has). A fourth usage is “the distinctive nature of a person or thing,” a meaning reflected in the word’s origins. In Greek, a kharaktēr was a stamping tool, used to give something a distinctive mark.
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Everyone can agree that certain things are necessary for survival: food, water, shelter. Some people might add chocolate to that list. Necessary refers to anything you can’t do without.

Necessary, cede, and cease all come from the same root, cedere, which is Latin for “to go away” or “to give something up.” When something’s necessary, you won’t give it up. That fudge-covered brownie sundae from your favorite ice-cream shop? It might seem like a decadent treat, but if you’re a true chocolate lover you’ll insist that it’s as necessary as a warm jacket in winter.
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If you’re immodest, you tend to brag about your abilities — you’re not at all humble. It would be immodest to boast about your experience making movies, especially if all you’ve actually done is take videos of your dog in the back yard.

There are two ways to be immodest: the first is to gloat and show off, essentially being the very opposite of modest. The other way is to lack good taste and restraint. Years ago, it would have been considered immodest to wear a bikini to the beach — while today, it’s only immodest if you wear one to school or a restaurant. The “arrogant” meaning came before the “improper” one, both from the Latin modestia, “moderation,” and “correctness of conduct.”
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An undertone is literally a muted tone of voice, but it can also refer to an unspoken, implied meaning or emotion: “I thought there were undertones of hostility in her supposed apology.”

An undertone is a muted color or sound, like the blue undertones in your new gray wallpaper or the undertones of murmured conversations in a busy restaurant. When someone speaks in an undertone, it means that they whisper or talk very softly. You might tell you sister about your dad’s surprise party in an undertone, so he doesn’t overhear. These days, the word is most commonly used to refer to a subtle or implied meaning in an utterance.
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When you throw a ball, you toss it using your hand. When you throw a party, you buy some food and drinks, then invite your friends over.

Throw means many things. You can throw a baseball game, even if you’re not the pitcher, by deliberately trying to lose it. You can throw a baby off its schedule — that is, confuse the baby’s waking and sleeping times. In basketball, when you get fouled and throw the ball from the free-throw line, you’re taking a free throw. You can throw garbage out. Also, a throw is a small blanket you toss over a chair, much like a throw pillow.
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Passive is the opposite of active. In English class, you might be advised to avoid the passive voice. In chemistry, a passive substance doesn’t react. Passive resistance is a way to protest peacefully.

When you’re passive, you don’t participate much and you’re not very emotional. In chemistry, passive means to be “unreactive except under special or extreme conditions; inert.” Gandhi used the term passive resistance in the mid-twentieth century to describe the nonviolent approach Indians should use in their quest to become an independent nation.
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Common Second Meanings

affect
afford
appreciate
appropraite
arrest
assume
austerity
badger
bent
capacity
chance
check
coin
compromise
constitution
conviction
couch
currency
discriminating
dispatch
doctor
economy
embroider
execute
exploit
facility
foil
grave
gravity
grill
hamper
harbor
hobble
mint
pedestrain
plastic
plasticity
provoke
qualify
realize
reconcile
relate
relay
reservations
reserve
ruffled
sap
scrap
shelve
table
sound
spare
severe
static
store
sustain
temper
train
uniform
unqualified
upset
want
yield
coin
seasoned
exploit

Catlin Tucker SAT Vocabulary List

CTSATVL1

render - provide or give
ludicrous - so foolish, unreasonable, out of place as to be amusing
dodging - a sudden quick movement to avoid, escape
resemble - look or seem like
zest - energy
vivacity - especially in a woman, the quality of being attractively lively and animated
abundance - a very large quantity of something
rowdy - noisy and disorderly
giddy - moody - given to unpredictable changes of mood, especially sudden bouts of gloominess or sullenness
substandard - below the usual or required standard
mocked - tease or laugh at in a scornful or contemptuous manner
dejected - sad and depressed - dispirited
inhospitable - harsh and difficult to live in
harsh - cruel or severe
unceremonious - spoof - imitate (something) while exaggerating its characteristic features for comic effect
resemblance

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A stereotype is a preconceived notion, especially about a group of people. Many stereotypes are rooted in prejudice — so you should be wary of them.

You have probably heard stereotypes: commonly held ideas or preconceptions about specific groups. You most often hear about negative stereotypes, but some are positive — the stereotype that tall people are good at basketball, for example. One of many problems with any stereotype is that even if it’s true in some cases, it’s certainly not true in all cases.
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Boisterous is a word used to describe someone spirited, loud, and slightly out of control — like someone with a spring in their step and a song in their heart singing to strangers on the street.

Boisterous means “loud, clamorous, and unrestrained.” Think of children on a playground or a lively party or a litter of puppies as boisterous. This word, which comes from Middle English, can also refer to very intense storms. You could call a hurricane boisterous, but you will most likely hear this word used to describe people.
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To be listless is to be lethargic, low spirited, and limp. If a fever has made you feel listless, you might also feel like you are melting into the sofa.

If you went to the supermarket without your shopping list, that doesn’t mean you’re listless. The word originates from the Middle English word liste which meant desire (and is related to our word lust). Oddly enough, listen comes from the same origin. If you’re too lethargic and out of it to listen, you’re listless. It’s not just laziness, it’s not just fatigue; an utter indifference to whatever is going on around you makes you listless.
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Incoherent thoughts don’t follow each other logically. Incoherent speech is mumbled or jumbled. Incoherent means that something is difficult to understand because it’s not holding together.

A lot of people use incoherent to mean unintelligible, which is a perfectly fine usage. But it specifically means unintelligible due to a lack of cohesion, or sticking together. An incoherent argument may sound something like this. “I deserve to go to the dance because it is the second Tuesday of the month and my feet are a size ten.” The reasons do not follow each other logically and to not even relate. It’s an incoherent mess.
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Deficient means not enough or not adequate. Maybe you were deficient in caffeine that day. Maybe you were lacking in study time. But no doubt about it: you came up with a deficient number of correct answers on the physics test.

If your new car fund remains deficient, you don’t have enough money to buy a new car. This presents a problem if your current car is deficient in some way––say, it no longer has enough engine power to drive up a hill. You may not feel you have what it takes to get a job, but the reality is you will have to chose between indulging your own deficiencies in this area or the car’s.
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Evasion is the act of physically escaping from something, like your evasion of your ex-girlfriend at the prom — you kept dancing. Now that’s fancy footwork.

Evasion also means “dodging something you are supposed to do” like your evasion of your chores by pretending to be sick. Evasion can also mean “the deliberate act of failing to pay money,” like tax evasion, not paying your taxes. Though evasion comes from the Latin word evadere, “to escape,” if you owe the government money, you’ll surely be caught eventually.
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Genocide refers to the systematic destruction of a race or cultural group. In the Rwandan genocide of 1994, members of one ethnic group, the Hutus, killed some 850,000 Tutsis in an attempt to wipe them out completely.

Genocide was coined in 1944 by a Polish-Jewish scholar named Raphael Lemkin in response to the Holocaust. In 1948, the United Nations defined genocide as any of several acts (including murder) “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…”
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The noun holocaust means “total destruction.” However, this word has become inextricably connected with World War II and the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis (in this usage, Holocaust is capitalized).

When holocaust entered the English language in the thirteenth century, it referred to burnt offerings described in the Old Testament. The original Greek word meant “burnt whole” (note the relationship to the word caustic). Since at least 1942, though, the word is most often used to describe the extermination of Jews by the Nazis. Some people object to the religious connotations of the word, though, preferring to use the Hebrew Shoah (catastrophe) instead.
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When inspiration hits you out of the blue, call it an epiphany.

In the Christian tradition, Epiphany (ə-PIF-ə-nee) is a festival celebrating Christ’s appearance to the Gentiles, observed every year on January 6. From the Christian sense we get an additional religious sense, “the appearance of a god or deity” and the more common modern usage, a noun meaning “a sudden revelation.” There’s nothing religious about most epiphanies these days — your “Eureka!” moment could come when you realize that you’re in the wrong line of work and you need to quit your job to join the circus.
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If you’re a straight-A student and still you worry about failing all of your classes, you’re being irrational. Your fears are not based on fact and not likely to come true.

Usually you use irrational to describe ideas and thoughts that are not based on reason, although emotions and behavior can be irrational too if they don’t seem reasonable. Do you jump onto a chair and scream when you see a mouse? If so, you have an irrational fear of mice, or musophobia. If someone takes a swing at you for failing to say excuse me when you burp, both their anger and their actions could be called irrational.
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Luminescent things glow with light. The illuminated screens of your laptop and TV are both luminescent.

Things that glow in the dark, like the reflective safety strip on your dog’s leash or the numbers on your alarm clock, are luminescent. Other luminescent things include light bulbs, the stars in the night sky, glow worms, and certain glowing jellyfish and other sea creatures. When a living thing is luminescent, it’s a phenomenon called bioluminescence. The Latin root of both words is lumen, meaning “light.”
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Persecution is unfair or abusive treatment toward a person or group of people, such as the persecution of someone who is different by calling him or her rude names and making threats.

The noun persecution is related to persecute, which comes from Latin persecut-, meaning “followed with hostility.” Persecution means hassling or singling out a person or group because of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, or social status. In many schools, the persecution of students by bullies has resulted in a zero-tolerance policy for such despicable behavior.
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A parody is a humorous or mocking imitation of something, using the same form as the original. To parody a poem, you have to write another poem.

A parody is a form of humor that spoofs — or satirizes — something using the same form. For example, shows like “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show” parody newscasts by doing fake newscasts that look like the real thing. Comedians and comedy writers love to parody the President. Anything in the public eye could be the object of a parody.
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The verb accustom means to become used to or familiar with something; to make something a habit. If there is a new baby in your family, you will most likely become accustomed to changing diapers.

Although the verb accustom looks like it should be related to the word custom, it actually comes through costume, through the Old French acostumer, with à, meaning “to,” and costume, meaning “fashion or habit.” Now it retains the meaning to make something a habit. You can accustom yourself to loud sirens if you live in a city or to the sound of crickets if you live in the country. Parents often cannot become accustomed to the musical taste of their kids.
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To abase something or someone is to humiliate them — no, more than just humiliate them. If you abase another person you are bringing them low, humbling them in a mean, base manner. Not nice at all.

Abase means to bring someone down, often either in their job or their self-esteem. The early Latin bassus, which meant “thick, low,” evolved into the Old French abaissier, meaning “to make lower in value or status.” The important clue to the word is “base.” Consider that the base of anything is the bottom, and you get an idea as to the meaning of the word abase, which means to make someone feel low.
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Genocide refers to the systematic destruction of a race or cultural group. In the Rwandan genocide of 1994, members of one ethnic group, the Hutus, killed some 850,000 Tutsis in an attempt to wipe them out completely.

Genocide was coined in 1944 by a Polish-Jewish scholar named Raphael Lemkin in response to the Holocaust. In 1948, the United Nations defined genocide as any of several acts (including murder) “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…”
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Incoherent thoughts don’t follow each other logically. Incoherent speech is mumbled or jumbled. Incoherent means that something is difficult to understand because it’s not holding together.

A lot of people use incoherent to mean unintelligible, which is a perfectly fine usage. But it specifically means unintelligible due to a lack of cohesion, or sticking together. An incoherent argument may sound something like this. “I deserve to go to the dance because it is the second Tuesday of the month and my feet are a size ten.” The reasons do not follow each other logically and to not even relate. It’s an incoherent mess.
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Boisterous is a word used to describe someone spirited, loud, and slightly out of control — like someone with a spring in their step and a song in their heart singing to strangers on the street.

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Propaganda is the spreading of information in support of a cause. It’s not so important whether the information is true or false or if the cause is just or not — it’s all propaganda.

The word propaganda is often used in a negative sense, especially for politicians who make false claims to get elected or spread rumors to get their way. In fact, any campaign that is used to persuade can be called propaganda.
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A monologue is a speech delivered by one person, or a long one-sided conversation that makes you want to pull your hair out from boredom.

The Greek root word monologos translates to “speaking alone,” and that’s a monologue: one person doing all the talking. In theatre, sometimes a character has a monologue that they perform. You might have an internal monologue where you talk to yourself to better understand some dilemma. Some people talk forever in a constant monologue, never letting you speak. If two people talk back and forth, it’s a dialogue, which is different and probably more fun for everyone.
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If you stay on your current trajectory of constant shopping, dining out, and yacht rentals, you’ll end up broke. A trajectory is the path of an object through space, or the path of life that a person chooses.

Trajectory comes from the Latin trajectoria, which means “throw across.” The prefix tra- is short for trans-, which means “across” (think transport and transit) and the ject comes from jacere, which means “throw” and is also the root of the word jet. If you wanted to describe the path of a jet through the sky, you could refer to the jet’s trajectory.
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A delusion is a belief that has no evidence in fact — a complete illusion. The cook at the hot dog stand who thinks he is the best chef in the world? That opinion is definitely a delusion.

The noun delusion is often used in the phrase delusions of grandeur, which expresses the belief that unattainable goals are well within reach, like a terrible actress’s delusions of grandeur that she won’t just land her first role in a movie, it also will make her an Academy Award winner. Delusions like that can be amusing for onlookers, but other kinds of delusions are not, like those suffered by the mentally ill. Their delusions can remove them from reality, making it hard to function.
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Can’t finish a simple task? Having a hard time figuring something out? Lack the ability to get things done? Then you might be suffering from incompetence.

Have you ever noticed how bad a lot of people are at their jobs, even though they do them every day? Or how often famous people screw things up, even very important things? Then you’ve already noticed that incompetence is a very common thing. Incompetence is a word for people and things that are ineffective, shoddy, or just terrible at what they’re supposed to do. Incompetence is the opposite of excellence.
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Subconscious describes something that is just below your awareness, like at a subconscious level hoping your friend’s boyfriend breaks up with her — you didn’t even realize you felt that way until it happened.

If you are aware of something, you are conscious of it, like being conscious of your tendency to talk too much when you are nervous: you watch for it and try to control it. Most words that start with the prefix sub- are something “under” the root word: something subconscious is under or below your awareness. Maybe in time, it will surface — you might get to the root of why you get so nervous in the first place.
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Sometimes someone in power might decide to give up that power and step down from his or her position. When they do that, they abdicate their authority, giving up all duties and perks of the job.

The original meaning of the verb abdicate came from the combination of the Latin ab- “away” and dicare “proclaim.” (Note that in the charming relationships between languages with common roots, the Spanish word for “he says” is dice, which comes directly from dicare.) The word came to refer to disowning one’s children, and it wasn’t until the 17th century that the first use of the word relating to giving up power or public office was recorded.
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If you’re robbed, much of what is stolen can be replaced. All you need is the cash value of what was lost. But some things––family photos, heirloom jewelry––are invaluable, meaning extremely valuable, or priceless.

At first glance, you would think that invaluable means “not valuable.” But to understand its meaning, you’d have to know that it was formed from the prefix in- “not” plus the verb value, plus the suffix –able “able to be.” So something invaluable has such great value that its value can’t be calculated.