English Vocabulary Flash Cards: GRE - the Hard ones - Part 2

Disparage

• to slight or belittle

Credulous

• gullible
• tending to believe too readily

Cynicism

• a believe that all people are motivated by selfishness

Decorum

• polite behavior
• appropriate conduct

Derision

• scorn, ridicule
• contemptuous treatment

Desiccate

• to dry out or dehydrate
• to make dry or dull

Dilettante

• someone with an amateurish interest in art or another subject

Astringent

• having a tightening effect on living tissue
• harsh, severe

Contiguous

• Sharing a border
• touching, adjacent

Convention

• an agreed upon practice or attitude

Acerbic

• having a sour or bitter taste or character
• sharp, biting

Aggrandize

• to increase in intensity, power, influence, prestige

Alchemy

• medieval science to transmutate metals into gold

Amenable

• agreeable
• responsive to suggestion

Fawn

• to flatter or praise excessively

Flout

• to show contempt for

Garrulous

• pointlessly talkative
• talking too much

Glib

• marked by ease or informality
• nonchalant, lacking in depth

Aver

• to state as a fact
• to declare or assert

Anachronism

• something or someone out of place

Obdurate

• unyielding, hardhearted, intractable

Obsequious

• exhibiting a fawning attentiveness

Opprobrium

• disgrace, contempt, scorn

Pedagogy

• teaching or instructing

Pedantic

• overly concerned with learning or education
• show-offish about one's knowledge