WORD LISTS

Intermediate, List 9

November 30, 2022
By Vocabulary.com (NY)Visual Thesaurus Moderator
This list of intermediate words features a mixture of easier and more difficult words that you may be less familiar with. Study these words and watch your GRE score grow.
amenities
We are very modern—our bathroom is equipped with amenities such as a flushing toilet, an iron bathtub, and running water.
anachronism
The big thing back then was something called “desktop publishing” and now the very idea of printing anything seems like an anachronism.
anomalous
These alterations don’t make him appear more normal, however, but more anomalous, like a creature from an alien planet disguised in human clothing.
autonomous
The whole dear notion of one’s own Self—marvelous old free-willed, free-enterprising, autonomous, independent, isolated island of a Self—is a myth.
defunct
The satellites met up in what’s called a “graveyard orbit,” which is a place where defunct satellites are put so that they won’t interfere with active satellites.
distend
In contrast, food that distends the stomach initiates short reflexes that cause cells in the stomach wall to increase their secretion of digestive juices.
elixir
Magazines called his culture medium “an elixir of youth” and claimed that bathing in it might make a person live forever.
expatiate
It was suddenly cool to know stuff, to expatiate on the causes of the Spanish Civil War.
guileless
Hodor blinked at him with guileless brown eyes, eyes innocent of understanding.
nostalgia
The scent of burning wood reminded everyone of land so far away, and sunk many of the men into nostalgia and fresh pangs of homesickness.
premonition
When someone dies, people always say they had some sort of premonition, a sinking feeling that something awful was right around the corner.
preternatural
It felt wrong, preternatural; it shouldn’t have gotten so cold so quickly.
puissant
His black sorcerer was more puissant than all of Euron’s three, even if you threw them in a pot and boiled them down to one.
quibble
The fact that the Japanese had attacked Hawaii rather than invaded the continental United States was a distinction that neither of us bothered to quibble over.
rationale
What possible rationale could exist for a large American land force, since the conflict with France was occurring on the high seas?
recant
He had refused to recant his heresies, including his belief in other inhabited worlds.
redoubtable
He never was to them the mean whining deity of the Iliad, but magnificent in shining armor, redoubtable, invincible.
sinuous
The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck coiled under her chin.
spendthrift
Maybe you grew up poor, so now you’re a spendthrift, but your spending frustrates your frugal spouse, so you think winning the lottery will fix the issue.
strident
Suddenly his voice was so strident that I looked up startled.

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