1000 Vocabulary Words

Top 1000 Vocabulary Words That Everyone Should Know

Page 10 - 901 to 1000 Words

The top 1,000 vocabulary words have been carefully chosen to represent difficult but common words that appear in everyday academic and business writing. These words are also the most likely to appear on the SAT, ACT, GRE, and ToEFL.

To create this list, we started with the words that give our users the most trouble and then ranked them by how frequently they appear in our corpus of billions of words from edited sources. If you only have time to study one list of words, this is the list.


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

abysmal, poignancy, stilted, effete, provender, endemic, jocund, procedural, rakish, skittish, peroration, nonentity, abstemious, viscid, doggerel, sleight, rubric, plenitude, rebus, wizened, whorl, fracas, conoclast, saturnine, madrigal, discursive, zealot, moribund, modicum, connotation, adventitious, recondite, zephyr, countermand, captious, cognate, forebear, cadaverous, foist, dotage, nexus, choleric, garble, bucolic, denouement, animus, overweening, tyro, preen, largesse, retentive, unconscionable, badinage, insensate, sherbet, beatific, bemuse, microcosm, factitious, gestate, traduce, sextant, coiffure, malleable, rococo, fructify, nihilist, ellipsis, accolade, codicil, roil, grandiloquent, inconsequential, effervescence, stultify, tureen, pellucid, euphony, apocryphal, veracious, pendulous, exegesis, effluvium, apposite, viscous, misanthrope, vintner, halcyon, anthropomorphic, turgid, malaise, polemical, gadfly, atavism, contusion, parsimonious, dulcet, reprise, anodyne, bemused

901. abysmal

resembling an abyss in depth; so deep as to be unmeasurable

Example Sentence: After all, many Americans regard this Congress as dysfunctional, with abysmal approval ratings.

—New York Times (Dec 28, 2011)


902. poignancy

a quality that arouses emotions (especially pity or sorrow)

Example Sentence: They were curious about the “near loss” experience—specifically the feelings of poignancy that occur when what we cherish disappears.

—Scientific American (Jan 17, 2011)


903. stilted

artificially formal

Example Sentence: But thanks to the stilted writing and stiff acting, the characters still feel very much like onedimensional figures from a dutiful fable.

—New York Times (Jul 12, 2011)


904. effete

marked by excessive self-indulgence and moral decay

Example Sentence: John Bull was an effete old plutocrat whose sons and daughters were given up to sport and amusement.

—Moffett, Cleveland


905. provender

food for domestic livestock

Example Sentence: "Fools!" she cried, looking in her magic crystal, "he was in the big sycamore under which you stopped to give your horses provender!"

—Housman, Laurence


906. endemic

of or relating to a disease (or anything resembling a disease) constantly present to greater or lesser extent in a particular locality

Example Sentence: Mean-spirited chants and songs are also endemic in British soccer.

—New York Times (Jan 27, 2012)


907. jocund

full of or showing high-spirited merriment

Example Sentence: Her jocund laugh and merry voice, indeed, first attracted my attention.

—Lever, Charles James


908. procedural

of or relating to procedure

Example Sentence: In other words, the rejection was a bureaucratic/procedural decision.

—Scientific American (Feb 1, 2012)


909. rakish

marked by a carefree unconventionality or disreputableness

Example Sentence: She wore her red cap in a rakish manner on the side of her head, its tassel falling down over her forehead between her eyes.

—Sage, William


910. skittish

unpredictably excitable (especially of horses)

Example Sentence: That combined with his calm and reassuring tone made me think of an animal trainer trying to woo skittish wild animals.

—Time (May 20, 2011)


911. peroration

a flowery and highly rhetorical oration

Example Sentence: He had little hope that Gallagher, once embarked on a peroration, would stop until he had used up all the words at his command.

—Birmingham, George A.


912. nonentity

a person of no influence

Example Sentence: Was he such a nonentity in every way that she could remain unconcerned as to any fear of danger from him?

—Woolson, Constance Fenimore


913. abstemious

marked by temperance in indulgence

Example Sentence: Raw, boozy, untethered performances are heralded as real; the abstemious professional is yawned off the stage.

—Salon (Jul 25, 2011)


914. viscid

having the sticky properties of an adhesive

Example Sentence: Roads were quagmires where travellers slipped and laboured through viscid mud and over icy fords.

—Buck , Charles Neville


915. doggerel

a comic verse of irregular measure

Example Sentence: He sang, with accompanying action, some dozen verses of doggerel, remarkable for obscenity and imbecility.

—Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)


916. sleight

adroitness in using the hands

Example Sentence: The trick was performed Tuesday by Russell Fitzgerald, an amateur magician known to open meetings with a little sleight of hand.

—Washington Post (Sep 29, 2011)


917. rubric

category name

Example Sentence: Ms. Moss took issue, not surprisingly, with the notion that grouping the performances under the rubric of spirituality was a marketing ploy.

—New York Times (Nov 22, 2010)


918. plenitude

a full supply

Example Sentence: Of course at that season, amid the plenitude of seeds, nuts, and berries, they were as plump as partridges.

—Reid, Mayne


919. rebus

a puzzle where you decode a message consisting of pictures representing syllables and words

Example Sentence: They wrote at times with pictures standing for sounds, as we now write in rebus puzzles.

—Park , Robert Ezra


920. wizened

lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness

Example Sentence: Kim Jong II may be increasingly wizened and frail, with fingernails white from kidney disease, but his propaganda apparatus is as vigorous as ever.

—Wall Street Journal (Mar 26, 2010)


921. whorl

a round shape formed by a series of concentric circles (as formed by leaves or flower petals)

Example Sentence: The flowers are waxy, tubular, fragrant, turning their yellow petals backward in a whorl.

—Rogers, Julia Ellen


922. fracas

noisy quarrel

Example Sentence: Other cops were battling each other, going after the kids and clutching empty air, cursing and screaming unheard orders in the fracas.

—Freas, Kelly


923. iconoclast

someone who attacks cherished ideas or traditional institutions

Example Sentence: Jobs is a classic iconoclast, one who aggressively seeks out, attacks, and overthrows conventional ideas.

—BusinessWeek (Oct 12, 2010)


924. saturnine

bitter or scornful

Example Sentence: Only when Bill Lightfoot spoke did he look up, and then with a set sneer, growing daily more saturnine.

—Dixon, Maynard


925. madrigal

an unaccompanied partsong for 2 or 3 voices; follows a strict poetic form

Example Sentence: Nevertheless we learn from Malvezzi's publication that the pieces were all written in the madrigal style, frequently in numerous voice parts.

—Henderson, W. J. (William James)


926. discursive

(of e.g. speech and writing) tending to depart from the main point or cover a wide range of subjects

Example Sentence: “Tabloid,” like his previous films, consists largely of long, discursive conversations — in effect monologues directed at an unseen, mostly unheard interlocutor.

—New York Times (Jul 22, 2011)


927. zealot

a fervent and even militant proponent of something

Example Sentence: "The public is going to just think of us as these zealots who want to ban smoking everywhere," he said.

—Seattle Times (Feb 20, 2011)


928. moribund

not growing or changing; without force or vitality

Example Sentence: The entertainment sector there is booming, while Pakistan's is moribund.

—Seattle Times (Dec 3, 2011)


929. modicum

a small or moderate or token amount

Example Sentence: He volunteered a modicum of advice, limited in quantity, but valuable.

—Bolderwood, Rolf


930. connotation

an idea that is implied or suggested

Example Sentence: In Arabic, the word “bayt” translates literally as house, but its connotations resonate beyond rooms and walls, summoning longings gathered about family and home.

—New York Times (Feb 18, 2012)


931. adventitious

associated by chance and not an integral part

Example Sentence: The derivation of the word thus appears to be merely accidental and adventitious.

—Stace, W. T. (Walter Terence)


932. recondite

difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge

Example Sentence: The mystery of verse is like other abstruse and recondite mysteries—it strikes the ordinary fleshly man as absurd.

—Gosse, Edmund


933. zephyr

a slight wind (usually refreshing)

Example Sentence: The dwellings and public buildings throughout Cuba are planned to give free passage to every zephyr that wafts relief from the oppressive heat.

—Various


934. countermand

cancel officially

Example Sentence: In the midst of executing this order, he got another order countermanding it, and proceeding directly from his direct superior.

—Belloc, Hilaire


935. captious

tending to find and call attention to faults

Example Sentence: Miss Burton had been very irritable and captious in class, more so even than usual, and most of her anger was vented upon Gerry.

—Chaundler, Christine


936. cognate

having the same ancestral language

Example Sentence: The synonyms are also given in the cognate dialects of Welsh, Armoric, Irish, Gaelic, and Manx, showing at one view the connection between them.

—Jenner, Henry


937. forebear

a person from whom you are descended

Example Sentence: His forebears were Greek immigrants who opened a small sandwich shop in Brooklyn, then moved, one after another, to Providence, to sell distinct, delectable wieners.

—New York Times (Sep 24, 2010)


938. cadaverous

very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold

Example Sentence: He looked gaunt and cadaverous, and much of his old reckless joyousness had left him, though he brightened up wonderfully on seeing an old friend.

—Doyle, A. Conan


939. foist

to force onto another

Example Sentence: Mr. Knoll added that the 3-D “Star Wars” movies are not “going to be foisted on anybody against their will.”

—New York Times (Sep 29, 2010)


940. dotage

mental infirmity as a consequence of old age; sometimes shown by foolish infatuations

Example Sentence: He is, as you say, a senile old man in his dotage.

—Wilcox, Ella Wheeler


941. nexus

a connected series or group

Example Sentence: Numerous innovators are also worrying away at this nexus of problems.

—Economist (Apr 28, 2011)


942. choleric

characterized by anger

Example Sentence: Jonathan, choleric with indignation, stood by his desk, clenching his hands.

—Mills, Weymer Jay


943. garble

make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story

Example Sentence: But the fact remains that the contradictory and inconsistent things said do reach the public, and usually in garbled and distorted form.

—Unknown


944. bucolic

(used with regard to idealized country life) idyllically rustic

Example Sentence: Forty-four years ago, Bill Sievers moved into his neo-Colonial house in Douglaston, Queens, on bucolic Poplar Street, lined with stately trees and equally stately homes.

—New York Times (Mar 26, 2012)


945. denouement

the outcome of a complex sequence of events

Example Sentence: Suppose the truly apocalyptic denouement happens -- no deal is reached, and taxes rise for everyone.

—Salon (Nov 30, 2010)


946. animus

a feeling of ill will arousing active hostility

Example Sentence: The youthful savages had each an armful of snowballs, and they were pelting the child with more animus than seemed befitting.

—Murray, David Christie


947. overweening

unrestrained, especially with regard to feelings

Example Sentence: He had overweening ambitions even then, along with a highly developed sense of his own importance.

—New York Times (Apr 19, 2010)


948. tyro

someone new to a field or activity

Example Sentence: As yet he was merely a tyro, gaining practical experience under a veteran Zeppelin commander.

—Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis)


949. preen

dress or groom with elaborate care

Example Sentence: He preened on fight nights in a tuxedo, a bow tie and no shirt, and he favored showy rings and bracelets.

—New York Times (Jul 24, 2011)


950. largesse

liberality in bestowing gifts; extremely liberal and generous of spirit

Example Sentence: After being saved by government largesse, they say, big banks then moved to thwart reforms aimed at preventing future meltdowns caused by excessive risk -taking.

—New York Times (Jul 14, 2011)


951. retentive

good at remembering

Example Sentence: The child was very sharp, and her memory was extremely retentive.

—Rowlands, Effie Adelaide


952. unconscionable

greatly exceeding bounds of reason or moderation

Example Sentence: For generations in the New York City public schools, this has become the norm with devastating consequences rooted in unconscionable levels of student failure.

—New York Times (Nov 4, 2011)


953. badinage

frivolous banter

Example Sentence: It was preposterous to talk to her of serious things, and nothing but an airy badinage seemed possible in her company.

—Maugham, W. Somerset (William Somerset)


954. insensate

devoid of feeling and consciousness and animation

Example Sentence: Men also are those brutal soldiers, alike stupidly ready, at the word of command, to drive the nail through quivering flesh or insensate wood.

—Stowe, Harriet Beecher


955. sherbet

a frozen dessert made primarily of fruit juice and sugar, but also containing milk or egg-white or gelatin

Example Sentence: "One person said it looks like a big lime sherbet ice cream cone!"

—Southern Living (Apr 28, 2010)


956. beatific

marked by utter benignity; resembling or befitting an angel or saint

Example Sentence: She dozed at last, her face serene and beatific.

—Beach, Rex Ellingwood


957. bemuse

cause to be confused emotionally

Example Sentence: They were marching in the middle of the street, chanting and singing and disrupting traffic while countless New Yorkers looked on, some bemused, others applauding.

—Time (Oct 28, 2011)


958. microcosm

a miniature model of something

Example Sentence: The building, he said, is "a microcosm of what Shanghai was all about."

—Wall Street Journal (Apr 30, 2010)


959. factitious

not produced by natural forces

Example Sentence: Indeed, the Chinese make a factitious cheese out of peas, which it is difficult to discriminate from the article of animal origin.

—Cameron, Charles Alexander, Sir


960. gestate

have the idea for

Example Sentence: Mr. Lucas’s most recent project, still gestating, is a collaboration with Cuban musicians.

—New York Times (May 9, 2011)


961. traduce

speak unfavorably about

Example Sentence: For Grover Cleveland there were no longer enemies to traduce and vilify.

—Straus, Oscar S.


962. sextant

a measuring instrument for measuring the angular distance between celestial objects; resembles an octant

Example Sentence: For example, a sextant could be used to sight the sun at high noon in order to determine one’s latitude.

—Scientific American (Mar 8, 2012)


963. coiffure

the arrangement of the hair (especially a woman's hair)

Example Sentence: They sat down, and Saint-Clair noticed his friend's coiffure; a single rose was in her hair.

—M?rim?e, Prosper


964. malleable

easily influenced

Example Sentence: “The Americans are seen as naïve malleable tools in the hands of the Brits.”

—New York Times (Nov 30, 2011)


965. rococo

having excessive asymmetrical ornamentation

Example Sentence: The upper part of the case is decorated with elaborately carved and gilt rococo motifs.

—Bedini, Silvio A.


966. fructify

become productive or fruitful

Example Sentence: Thence they grow, expand, fructify, and the result is Progress.

—Stanton, Elizabeth Cady


967. nihilist

someone who rejects all theories of morality or religious belief

Example Sentence: “He’s a loner nihilist who believes in nothing,” Mr. Lu said.

—New York Times (Nov 6, 2011)


968. ellipsis

omission or suppression of parts of words or sentences

Example Sentence: He speaks in ellipses, often leaving sentences hanging, and fiddles apologetically with his Black Berry.

—The Guardian (Jun 28, 2010)


969. accolade

a tangible symbol signifying approval or distinction

Example Sentence: The Nobel Prize, considered one of the highest accolades in literature, is given only to living writers.

—Seattle Times (Oct 6, 2011)


970. codicil

a supplement to a will; a testamentary instrument intended to alter an already executed will

Example Sentence: The codicil to her will, which she had spoken of with so much composure, left three hundred pounds to Stella and me.

—Fothergill, Jessie


971. roil

be agitated

Example Sentence: Like thousands of fellow students, he was roiled with emotions, struggling to come to grips with an inescapable reality.

—New York Times (Nov 26, 2011)


972. grandiloquent

lofty in style

Example Sentence: A large part of his duties will be to strut about on the stage, and mouth more or less unintelligible sentences in a grandiloquent tone.

—Smith, Arthur H.


973. inconsequential

lacking worth or importance

Example Sentence: But as the months went by, Mr. Kimura had an unexpected epiphany: His business, which he thought was inconsequential, mattered to a lot of people.

—Wall Street Journal (Nov 11, 2011)


974. effervescence

the property of giving off bubbles

Example Sentence: Both were in the very sparkle and effervescence of that fanciful glee which bubbles up from the golden, untried fountains of early childhood.

—Stowe, Harriet Beecher


975. stultify

deprive of strength or efficiency; make useless or worthless

Example Sentence: Far from being engines of economic growth, Egypt's leading cities are stultified.

—Inc (Feb 12, 2011)


976. tureen

large deep serving dish with a cover; for serving soups and stews

Example Sentence: Soups are presented in big tureens and can be quite good.

—New York Times (Apr 13, 2012)


977. pellucid

(of language) transparently clear; easily understandable

Example Sentence: Caribou Island is a scant 300 pages, and written in prose as pellucid as the rivers he used to fish as a boy.

—The Guardian (Jan 1, 2011)


978. euphony

any agreeable (pleasing and harmonious) sounds

Example Sentence: It depends somewhat on usage and on euphony or agreeableness of sound.

—Hamilton, Frederick W. (Frederick William)


979. apocryphal

being of questionable authenticity

Example Sentence: We're reminded of the story, possibly apocryphal, that they used to play the Beach Boys' Smiley Smile in psychiatric wards to calm patients.

—The Guardian (Jan 20, 2011)


980. veracious

precisely accurate

Example Sentence: For proof, we cite the following veracious narrative, which bears within it every internal mark of truth, and matter for grave and serious reflection.

—Roby, John


981. pendulous

having branches or flower heads that bend downward

Example Sentence: And all around, far out of reach, the trees of the forest were swaying restlessly, their long, pendulous branches, like tentacles, lashing out hungrily.

—Bates, Harry


982. exegesis

an explanation or critical interpretation (especially of the Bible)

Example Sentence: Its musical significance has been presented with illuminating exegesis by more than one commentator.

—Forkel, Johann Nikolaus


983. effluvium

a foul-smelling outflow or vapor (especially a gaseous waste)

Example Sentence: However, acting on my best judgment, I struck a downward course, and then suddenly a horrible effluvium was wafted to my nostrils.

—Mitford, Bertram


984. apposite

being of striking appropriateness and pertinence

Example Sentence: He was quite capable of meaningful, apposite phrases about the game, even though distant sports editors did not encourage them enough.

—The Guardian (Aug 18, 2010)


985. viscous

having the sticky properties of an adhesive

Example Sentence: Sluggish, blind crawling things like three-foot slugs flowed across their path and among the tree trunks, leaving viscous trails of slime behind them.

—Various


986. misanthrope

someone who dislikes people in general

Example Sentence: And shaking his head like a misanthrope, disgusted, if not with life, at least with men, Patout led the horse to the stable.

—Dumas père, Alexandre


987. vintner

someone who makes wine

Example Sentence: The question remains, he said, whether established vintners will change their winemaking practices or “continue to sell their schlock .”

—New York Times (Oct 27, 2010)


988. halcyon

idyllically calm and peaceful; suggesting happy tranquillity

Example Sentence: He now seemed to have entered on a halcyon period of life—congenial society, romantic and interesting surroundings.

—Kennard, Nina H.


989. anthropomorphic

suggesting human characteristics for animals or inanimate things

Example Sentence: The same anthropomorphic fallacy that accords human attributes to giant corporations like BP distorts clear thinking about how to limit their political influence.

—Salon (Jul 28, 2010)


990. turgid

ostentatiously lofty in style

Example Sentence: His waspish wit can make him entertaining company at a party, but there is little evidence of that in his largely turgid prose.

—The Guardian (Jul 17, 2010)


991. malaise

physical discomfort (as mild sickness or depression)

Example Sentence: Initially, many doctors discounted sufferers’ feelings of generalized malaise as nothing more than stress or normal fatigue.

—Time (Dec 22, 2011)


992. polemical

of or involving dispute or controversy

Example Sentence: His works include several dogmatic and polemical treatises, but the most important are the historical.

—Various


993. gadfly

a persistently annoying person

Example Sentence: Mr. Phelps is regarded here as the ultimate example of an irritating local gadfly.

—New York Times (Oct 9, 2010)


994. atavism

a reappearance of an earlier characteristic

Example Sentence: Criminal atavism might be defined as the sporadic reversion to savagery in certain individuals.

—Symonds, John Addington


995. contusion

an injury that doesn't break the skin but results in some discoloration

Example Sentence: My falling companion, being a much stouter man than myself did not fare so well, as his right shoulder received a severe contusion.

—Bevan, A. Beck ford


996. parsimonious

excessively unwilling to spend

Example Sentence: Pill-splitting is catching on among parsimonious prescription-takers who want to lower costs.

—Forbes (Mar 4, 2010)


997. dulcet

pleasing to the ear

Example Sentence: Ever and anon the dulcet murmur of gurgling streams broke gently on the ear.

—Madison, Lucy Foster


998. reprise

repeat an earlier theme of a composition

Example Sentence: The live set reprises material from this remarkable group's earlier Aurora CD.

—The Guardian (Jan 6, 2011)


999. anodyne

capable of relieving pain

Example Sentence: But philosophy failed, as it will probably fail till some far-off age, to find an anodyne for the spiritual distresses of the mass of men.

—Dill, Samuel


1000. bemused

perplexed by many conflicting situations or statements; filled with bewilderment

Example Sentence: They were marching in the middle of the street, chanting and singing and disrupting traffic while countless New Yorkers looked on, some bemused, others applauding.

—Time (Oct 28, 2011)


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Powered By ♥ Eduhyme.com