RC Vocab List – 1

This is compilation of some of the words from past CAT RC passages. The meaning is taken
from vocabulary.com

Word Meaning
abstract Abstract is from a Latin word meaning "pulled away, detached," and the basic idea
is of something detached from physical, or concrete, reality. It is frequently used
of ideas, meaning that they don't have a clear applicability to real life, and of art,
meaning that it doesn't pictorially represent reality. It is also used as a noun,
especially in the phrase "in the abstract" (a joke has a person laying down a new
sidewalk saying "I like little boys in the abstract, but not in the concrete"), and as a
verb (accented on the second syllable), meaning "to remove."
abstraction Abstraction is the noun from the adjective abstract, which derives from the
Latin abstrahere "to divert." From that, we can get the idea that an abstraction is
something that is drawn away from concrete reality. In the art world,
an abstraction is a painting or musical piece created in the style of expressionism,
in which a subject is not realistically presented or even recognized, but rather is
suggested by an emotional flow of paint or music.
aesthetic Aesthetic, from a Greek word meaning "perception," comes to us from German
philosophers who used it for a theory of the beautiful. From this technical sense, it
soon came to refer to good taste and to artistry in general; if something has
"aesthetic value," it has value as a work of art (even if nobody will pay much for it).
It does not, however, refer to the objects themselves; do not talk about an
"aesthetic painting."
antecedent In logic, mathematics, and grammar, the word antecedent (from Latin ante-,
"before" + cedere, "to yield") has the meaning "the first part of a statement." More
generally, it means "something that came before, and perhaps caused, something
else." The word is also an adjective: a lawyer or judge might talk about the
"antecedent events" leading up to someone committing a crime.
appalling Like so many things, people have different opinions on what is appalling. Most
people find the idea of children living in poverty appalling. Just about everyone
thinks a vicious "sport" like dog-fighting is appalling. If you're rich, paying a lot of
taxes might be appalling. A football announcer might say that a sloppy play was
appalling. Your parents might say the state of your room is appalling. This word
can fit just about any situation that disgusts you.
argument Argument comes from the 14th-century French word of the same spelling,
meaning "statements and reasoning in support of a proposition." An argument
can be a fact used as evidence to show that something is true, like a study that
shows exercise improves certain health conditions — an argument for being more
active. Argument also means "a discussion between people who have contrary
views."
 articulate Reach for articulate when you need an adjective meaning "well-spoken"
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(pronounced ar-TIC-yuh-lit) or a verb (ar-TIC-yuh-late) meaning "to speak or
express yourself clearly." The key to understanding articulate's many uses is to
think of the related noun article: an articulate person clearly pronounces each
article of his or her speech (that is, each word and syllable), and an articulated
joint is divided up into distinct articles, or parts.
artifact Artifact is a combination of two Latin words, arte, meaning "by skill"
and factum which means "to make." Usually when you use the word artifact, you
are describing something crafted that was used for a particular purpose during a
much earlier time.
assumption From the Latin assumptionem, meaning “a taking or receiving,” assumption was
recorded circa 1300 as a noun describing “the reception of the Virgin Mary into
heaven.” The word later shook its religious roots and developed into the noun we
hear more often today, usually when a person takes something for granted or
literally takes possession of something.
bequeathed Bequeath often is used about making plans to give away property and
possessions after a person's death: "It was strange to leave a house to a one-year-
old baby, but he planned what he would bequeath in his will while he was young,
and the baby would be 23 when he finally did die." Sometimes bequeath is used
for things handed down without death, as when living parents and grandparents
pass, or bequeath, a legacy of stories or family traits and talents as an inheritance.
bickering a quarrel about petty points
calibrating the act of checking or adjusting (by comparison with a standard) the accuracy of a
measuring instrument
canon A canon can also be a body of work, like the Shakespeare canon, which includes
all of the Bard's plays and poems. These days, many schools and colleges include
more diverse and underrepresented authors in literature classes and encourage
students to read works not included in the standard literary canon. The literary
canon can change with time, and so can the cultural canon. Don't confuse this
word with cannon with two n's, the big gun that shoots bowling-size balls at the
enemy.
causal You'll often find the word causality in scholarly or academic writing. Medical
researchers might talk about the causality of various diseases, and a sociologist
might study the causality of a childhood in poverty on future trouble in school.
This noun comes from the adjective causal, "acting as a cause," from a Latin
root, causa, or "cause."
caveat When your new friend gives you directions to her house, and then says, “The
caveat is that when it snows the driveway turns into an ice rink,” she's warning
you that your travels could be dangerous. Caveat is also a legal term for when a
lawyer asks for a break in proceedings. If a lawyer issues a caveat, she's filing a
formal notice to suspend a trial until her client gets a hearing.
codifying When you look at the word codify you can probably guess that it's related to the
word code. Warriors live by a code. Building inspectors check that a building and
its systems are up to code. Hockey players use "the code" to determine when —
and why — to fight on the ice. All of these codes are clear to the people who use
them because someone in the past made an effort to codify the various rules into
an organized system.
 cognition The word cognition is most often used in scholarly or formal writing about
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learning and thinking, though you can also use it to describe what happens when
you use your brain power to complete a crossword puzzle or remember math
equations for a test. Cognition comes from the Latin verb cognoscere, meaning "a
getting to know, or knowledge," combining com-, "together," and gnoscere, "to
know."
conciliatory The context is often a situation in which a dispute is settled by compromise. A
synonym is propitiatory, though this adjective usually refers to avoiding the anger
of someone who has the power to harm. In the word conciliatory, the –ory suffix
means "relating to or doing," and the root is from
Latin conciliatus, from conciliare "to bring together, win over,"
from concilium "council."
condemn Condemn originally comes, through Old French, from the Latin word condemnāre,
"to sentence, condemn." You may see politicians condemn each other in political
ads during a campaign in hopes of improving their chances of winning an election.
You also might hear of a convict being "condemned to death." In this sense of the
word, to condemn still carries on its Latin meaning of "to sentence."
condone Things that are condoned are allowed, even if everyone isn't exactly thrilled about
it. People often say, "I don't condone what he did, but I understand it." Condoning
is like excusing something. People seem to talk more about things they don't
condone than things they do condone. Your mom might say, "I don't condone you
staying up till 10, but I know you need to read." That's a way of giving approval
and not giving approval at the same time.
conform Conformity usually refers to people's behavior or looks, but it can also be used to
describe something that matches the form of something else — for example, a
one-story house built in conformity to the low-slung buildings that surround it. It's
common for conformity to follow the word in.
conjectural based primarily on surmise rather than adequate evidence
consequent A politician might talk about raising the minimum wage and consequent
improvements in workers' lives — in other words, she believes the positive
changes for workers would be a direct result of higher minimum pay. One thing
would follow the other. You're most likely to come across the
adjective consequent in formal speech or writing. The Latin root word is consequi,
"to follow after."
conspicuous Conspicuous comes from the adjectival form of the Latin verb, conspicere,
meaning "to look at." Conspicuous can mean either very obvious to the eye (like
something that is conspicuous from a distance) or attracting attention (like
conspicuous consumption). If you are doing something wrong, it's wise not to be
conspicuous about it!
contemporary In history class, if you hear that one famous person was a contemporary of
another, that means they lived at the same time. Contemporaries are people and
things from the same time period. Contemporary can also describe things
happening now or recently. It's common to speak of contemporary music or
contemporary furniture, for example. Those things are new, not old. Anything
characteristic of the present day can be called contemporary.
 contingency The noun contingency describes something that might or might not happen. We
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use it to describe an event or situation that is a possible outcome but one that's
impossible to predict with certainty. A company might have a contingency plan for
what to do if something goes wrong with their primary strategy, also known as
"plan B." They might even have plans C, D, and E, to prepare for multiple
contingencies.
corpus The written works of an author, or from one specific time period, can be called
a corpus if they're gathered together into a collection or talked about as a group.
You could discuss the corpus of Dr. Seuss, for example. Corpus sounds a little
like corpse, and that's no coincidence; corpus means "body" in Latin, and though
it's come to mean specifically "body of work," the two words are closely related.
crux The noun crux is often followed by the phrases "of the matter" or "of the
problem." When people are trying to identify the crux of something, it's like they
want to get to the heart of it. They want to peel back the layers and find out what
something is really all about or what is causing the problem. No more beating
around the bush!
curtail Curtail is an official-sounding word for stopping or slowing things down. The
police try to curtail crime — they want there to be less crime in the world. A
company may want to curtail their employees' computer time, so they spend
more time working and less time goofing around. Teachers try to curtail
whispering and note-passing in class. When something is curtailed, it's either
stopped entirely or stopped quite a bit — it's cut short.
defer If you're excellent at pushing things to a later date and a master at
procrastination, then you already know how to defer. But defer can also mean to
comply with another person’s opinion or wishes. So when your boss finds out you
deferred your work to shop online instead, you should probably defer when she
asks you to come in and finish everything up over the weekend.
denounce The prefix de- means "down," as in destroy or demolish (tear down). Add that to
the Latin root nuntiare, meaning "announce,"
and de- plus announce equals denounce. It's a word that shows up in the
headlines often, as a country might denounce a corrupt election. Politicians love
to denounce the shady behavior or their opponents. Denounce can also mean the
official end of something, like a treaty.
dichotomy A dichotomy is a contrast between two things. When there are two ideas,
especially two opposed ideas — like war and peace, or love and hate — you have
a dichotomy. You often hear about a "false dichotomy," which occurs when a
situation is unfairly represented as an "either/or" scenario. For example, the
statement "All cars are either small and efficient or large and polluting" creates a
false dichotomy because there are some cars that don't fit into either category.
disquieting Scary TV shows and books are disquieting, and even the local news or a
documentary can be a bit disquieting, making you feel uncomfortable or rattled.
In other words, they upset you with disturbing ideas, images, or subjects. You
could also describe disquieting things as unsettling or distressing. The Latin roots
are dis, "not," and quies, "peace."
 dogmatic Dogmatic goes back to the Greek words dogma, which means basically “what one
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thinks is true” and dogmatikos, “pertaining to doctrine.” To be dogmatic is to
follow a doctrine relating to morals and faith, a set of beliefs that is passed down
and never questioned. It also refers to arrogant opinions based on unproven
theories or even despite facts. Someone dogmatic might insist that dinosaurs
never existed or that women shouldn’t drive. Dogmatic people are usually not
very popular.
dominant Dominant derives from the Latin dominus which means "lord or master." If you
grew up with a Latin mass, you will recognize this as one of many words for God.
If you're dominant, it means you treat others as if you're their master. You can
also use dominant to describe something frequent or common. For example,
when cell phones first came out, their dominant use was for making calls. Now
cells phone do so much more, some people hardly make calls on them at all.
ebb Ebb is often used in the phrase, "ebb and flow," referring to the cyclical changing
of the tides from low to high and back to low again. This sense of cyclical change
can also be applied to other things. If you want to make money investing, you
have to weather the ebb and flow of the stock market
embedded Embedded also means to insert as part of a whole. In wartime, embedded
journalists are stationed with military units so that they can make first-hand
reports on the news, and so that viewers can have a more in-depth understanding
of issues facing the soldiers. This use arose during the Iraq war in
2003. Embedded comes from the verb embed, which originally applied to
materials embedded in rocks, such as fossils.
embodies If you embody someone, you put him or her "in-body," as when an actor gives a
complete and compelling representation of a character. You can also
use embody to describe character traits you see in a person, like,
“He embodies truth,” or, “She is the embodiment of goodness.”
enfeeble If an illness weakens you — makes you feel frail and shaky — it enfeebles you.
Aging enfeebles us, and the lack of Vitamin D in the winter also enfeebles many
people. You can also say that making it harder for people to vote enfeebles the
democratic process. The verb enfeeble combines the prefix en-, "cause to be,"
with feeble, with its Latin root flebilis, "that is to be wept over."
estrangement Right in the middle of the word estrangement is strange, and it provides a great
clue about how to use the word. Estrangement happens when something — or
someone — makes you feel like a stranger. It can describe a couple that's split up
or the alienation of a former friend. The meaning hasn't changed much from its
Latin root, extraneare, "treat as a stranger."
exigencies The meaning of exigency is obvious from its source, the Latin noun exigentia,
which means "urgency" and comes from the verb exigere, meaning "to demand or
require." An emergency situation, or exigency, is urgent and demands immediate
action. Our lives are filled with exigencies, both large and small, from a child stuck
in a tree to lightning striking your house to catastrophic river flooding. Each is an
exigency — it's all a matter of perspective.
faculty Faculty comes from the Old French word faculté, which means “skill,
accomplishment, or learning.” You may have great faculties of memory, sight,
mobility, charm, math, and musicality, but, as Beethoven was in the end, be
robbed of your faculty of hearing. Any aptitude or ability — inborn or learned —
that you have is a faculty. Also, if you go to school, your teachers make up
the faculty of that school.
 genre In music, genre refers to musical style such as jazz, salsa or rock. In film or
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literature, the genre is determined by the subject, setting or plot of the story.
When you are wandering around a book store, books are usually arranged by
genre. Many genres, such as "mystery" or "fantasy," overlap in film and literature,
while others, such as "romantic comedy" in film or "historical fiction" in books, are
specific to one or the other.
hypothesis A hypothesis is something more than a wild guess but less than a well-established
theory. In science, a hypothesis needs to go through a lot of testing before it gets
labeled a theory. In the non-scientific world, the word is used a lot more loosely. A
detective might have a hypothesis about a crime, and a mother might have a
hypothesis about who spilled juice on the rug. Anyone who uses the
word hypothesis is making a guess.
ideological Ideological is an adjective that describes political, cultural, or religious beliefs. An
ideology is a body of ideas, and those who agree with the main idea of something
take an ideological stand to support it. Unlimited freedom is a strong ideological
belief in countries like the United States, and communism was once the
ideological foundation in parts of Europe. Some follow ideological ideals that are
logical, while others take stands that seem, well, idiotic or illogical, like racism.
imperative Imperative is from Latin imperare, "to command," and its original use was for a
verb form expressing a command: "Do it!" is an imperative sentence. The word is
still used that way, but it's more commonly applied to something so pressing it
cannot be put off: "It's imperative that we hire more workers if we want to
complete the job on time." Imperative has more immediate force
than pressing but less than urgent.
implicit A very near synonym of implicit in this particular meaning is the word implied. But
the adjective implicit also means "complete without any doubt," so we can say
that we have implicit trust or confidence in someone. The Latin
root implicāre means "to involve or entangle." Another English word with a more
obvious connection to the Latin is the verb implicate.
infatuating Infatuation comes from the Latin infature which means "to make a fool of." You
can be infatuated with a person, but you can also be infatuated with an idea: "Nick
was so infatuated with the idea of knighthood that he wore a suit of armor to the
prom, and asked to be called 'Sir Nicholas the Brave.'"
insistent Insistent shares a root with the verb insist: the Latin word insistere, which means
"persist, dwell upon, stand upon." If you are insistent, you won't take "no" for an
answer, dwelling on your ideas, standing up for your position. Insistent can also
mean "demanding attention," like the insistent ringing of the telephone at a busy
office or the insistent cries of a hungry baby.
luddites any opponent of technological progress
manifested Coming from the Latin manifestus "caught in the act," manifest can be used as an
adjective or a noun as well as a verb. As an adjective, manifest is a formal way to
say that something is apparent to the senses and is synonymous with evident,
apparent, or clear. If you have strong feelings about something, they will be
manifest on your face. A ship or plane's manifest is the list of cargo or passengers
on a particular trip.
 mendacious People may tell "white lies" if they forgot your birthday or really don't like your
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new haircut, but if you catch someone intentionally manipulating you with a
falsehood, that person is just plain mendacious. So think of the most deceptive,
insincere, perfidious, duplicitous, false person you've ever met, and then add the
word mendacious to that list.
metaphor Good writers know their way around a metaphor, where you make an analogy
between two things to show how one resembles the other in some way. When a
character from Shakespeare calls the world his oyster, that's his boastful way of
saying that all the riches of the world are his for the taking, like plucking a pearl
from an oyster shell. Shakespeare also wrote, "All the world's a stage." Oyster?
Stage? Come on, Will, get your metaphors straight!
neutralise make ineffective by counterbalancing the effect of
norm The noun norm is from the Latin word norma, which was a carpenter's square or
pattern used in construction to make regular corners. Now we use norm for
anything that sets a standard. You can score within the norm on a standardized
test, score above the norm on an IQ test, or fall below the norm in acceptable
standards of dress if you wear a halter top and cut-off jeans to a formal ball.
obscured Obscure comes from Latin obscurus, which can mean "dark, dim," "unclear, hard
to understand," or "insignificant, humble." We tend to use obscure in the
metaphorical senses: an obscure sound is unclear, an obscure village is hidden
away in the countryside, and an obscure poet is little known and probably
insignificant. Obscure can also be used as a verb. If you get really nervous when
you speak during a debate, your embarrassing twitches and shaking hands can
obscure your argument.
paradigm The word paradigm comes up a lot in the academic, scientific, and business
worlds. A new paradigm in business could mean a new way of reaching customers
and making money. In education, relying on lectures is a paradigm: if you
suddenly shifted to all group work, that would be a new paradigm. When you
change paradigms, you're changing how you think about something.
Paradox A paradox is a logical puzzler that contradicts itself in a baffling way. "This
statement is false" is a classic example, known to logicians as "the liar's paradox."
Paradoxical statements may seem completely self-contradictory, but they can be
used to reveal deeper truths. When Oscar Wilde said, "I can resist anything except
temptation," he used a paradox to highlight how easily we give in to tempting
things while imagining that we can hold firm and resist them.
pedagogical The adjective pedagogical, pronounced "peh-duh-GAH-gi-cal," comes from the
Greek word paidagōgikos meaning “teacher.” If it's pedagogical, it concerns
teaching, from lesson plans to approaches to teaching, even how the classroom
looks. In rooms where the teacher's pedagogical philosophy is that students learn
better when they work collaboratively, desks may be pushed together so four
students can sit in their groups.
penumbral You're likely to come across penumbra most often in astronomy, as with an
eclipse, where shadow is a defining feature. In a lunar eclipse, the edge of the
earth's shadow — the part that isn't fully dark — is its penumbra. Sun spots also
have a penumbra, the outer edge that's not quite as dark as the center. The word
comes from the Latin root umbra, which means "shadow." The pen part means
"almost," so a penumbra is "almost shadow."
 peril Peril comes from the Latin peric(u)lum, meaning danger. Today it's often used in
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tandem with the word mortal, which relates to death. For example, you're in
mortal peril when you're flying down a cliff-side trail on your mountain bike and
you hit loose gravel. Peril can also describe dangers of a less physical sort, though
it's less common. If your employer sinks your 401K into what turns out to be a
Ponzi scheme, he's put your retirement in peril.
perpetuating Be careful not to confuse perpetuate with perpetrate. Although they differ in
spelling by only one letter, they differ greatly in meaning. If
you perpetuate something, you help it last. Perpetrate, on the other hand, means
to commit a criminal act. Needless to say, you wouldn't want to perpetuate the
acts of perpetrators!
persuasive People can be persuasive by using emotion or logic. A persuasive encyclopedia
salesman might lead you to believe you'll be a smarter person with your own
complete set of reference books. Temptations can also be persuasive. If your
mom offers you ten dollars to walk her dog, you might find her offer very
persuasive. Persuasive can be tricky to spell — remember that the u sounds like
a w.
posit When you posit, you submit an idea or give an opinion. Scientists posit many
ideas — called hypotheses — that they then try to prove or disprove through
experimentation and research. In science, you hear about positing a lot, and the
same is true in math and logic. When you say "If X, then Y" you're positing a
proposition. Positing can also mean to put something somewhere firmly — this
means to deposit, fix, or situate.
posteriori involving reasoning from facts or particulars to general principles or from effects
to causes
postscript Postscript comes from the Latin word postscribere, with post meaning after
and scribere meaning to write. A postscript especially refers to a note added after
the signature of a letter. In this use, it's often abbreviated as P.S. A mother's
favorite thing might be getting a letter from her kid at camp that says, "I love you,
Mom," especially if there is a postscript adding hugs and kisses, written this way:
"P.S. XOXOXOXOX."
postulate Anyone who has suffered through geometry class is familiar with some of the
greatest hits, like Euclid's postulate and the point-line-plane postulate. Those are
propositions that have to be assumed for other mathematical statements to
follow logically. As a verb (pronounced "POST-you-late") it describes the act of
presenting an idea, theory, belief, or concept.
propensities If you have a propensity for something, then it's something that comes naturally
to you or something you just do a lot. Some people have a propensity to laugh.
Other people have a propensity for making others laugh, or for being generous, or
for getting angry. It's hard to change your propensities. Sometimes a propensity is
a bad thing, as in a criminal with a propensity for theft or murder.
prudence Prudence can also describe the skill of side-stepping trouble or embarrassment,
like having the prudence to avoid risks or the prudence to prepare for the
unexpected, like packing a change of clothes in case the weather changes or your
dinner reservations turn out to be at a fancy restaurant. Prudence comes from
the Latin word prudentia, which means "foresight, sagacity."
 putative Every once in a while, a putative planet is reported in the news, which we get very
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excited about and which usually turns out to be an illusion. But in 2005, an
astronomer discovered what appears to be a new planet beyond Neptune. But is
this putative planet for real? There is always some doubt — something not quite
official — about putative things.
quaint There is a commonly used sarcastic sense of quaint — when something is run
down or shabby and you're trying to say something positive, you might substitute
"How...quaint" for "How...interesting." In Middle English, this adjective meant
"clever" or "cunning." Its origin is Old French queinte, cointe, from
Latin cognitus "known," from cognōscere "to learn."
quasi The adjective quasi is often hyphenated with the word it resembles. Quasi-
scientific ideas are ideas that resemble real science, but haven't been backed up
with any real evidence. A quasi-religious person may attend church services, but
he doesn't take much interest in what's being said. Get the idea? It's a great
alternative for "kind of."
rational Rational comes from the Latin word rationalis, meaning reasonable or logical. If
you're rational, you do things based on logic, as opposed to impulse or whimsy.
The original meaning in English was of something endowed with the ability to
reason. Before we knew how smart some animals like dolphins are, writers liked
to distinguish rational human minds from the supposedly irrational, instinctual
minds of animals.
reminiscent Reminiscent traces back to the Latin for "remember." If a house is reminiscent of
your childhood home, it makes you remember your childhood
home. Reminiscent can have a good or bad implication. If you tell someone that
her paintings are reminiscent of a chimp's finger paintings, obviously that's not so
good. But if you tell her that they're reminiscent of Dali, well that might be better.
sanguine Sanguine is from Latin sanguis "blood" and originally meant "bloody" — in
medieval medicine it described someone whose ruddy complexion was a sign of
an optimistic outlook. That was back when people thought that "bodily humors"
like blood were responsible for your attitudes. Now that we no longer believe in
humors, sanguine has settled down as a fancy way to say someone is cheerfully
confident. Experts are frequently described as feeling sanguine about a political or
economic situation — or not sanguine, if they think we're going to hell in a
handbasket.
schema Schema sounds like scheme, but they have different nuances. You scheme to
snatch a cookie from the jar. A schema is more of a master plan. It can also just be
an organized vision. If you have a master concept about how the world works,
that's your world organization schema. Someone with an insanely big idea about
how to change the world has "a grand schema." Now she just needs to make a
practical schema for actually making that change.
semantic Semantic comes from the Greek word for "significant," and has to do with how,
say, the word dog actually means that furry friend of yours, and all the others like
him. If you're really into the philosophy of language and how words come to have
particular meanings, then you like semantics. It can be an adjective, as in a
semantic argument with your mom over the meaning of "grounded," or a noun,
meaning "the study of signs and meaning."
 semiotics Have you ever thought about traffic lights? How did we decide red means "stop,"
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green means "go," and yellow means "slow down" (even if most people speed up)?
Traffic lights are symbolic, and the study of symbols is semiotics. Just don't get
absorbed with semiotics when there are cars behind you at a traffic light!
squint When the sun shines brilliantly through the car windshield, the driver will squint,
or squeeze her eyes almost shut against the bright light. This is probably a good
moment for the driver to grab her sunglasses! You'll squint when a light is
suddenly turned on in a dark room, and you might also squint when you're trying
to read tiny type on a food label or medicine bottle. The expression on your face,
and the action of doing this, are both called a squint as well. Squint comes from
the now rare adverb asquint, or "from the corner of the eyes.
strand The noun strand describes things that are long and thin like a rope, or a strand of
spaghetti, hair, or thread. Strands are often twisted together to form thicker,
stronger things like cables. As a verb, the meaning is very different: "to leave
helpless," like unreliable cars that strand their drivers, or a snowstorm that
strands people at airports.
stratified If you’ve ever studied geology, you’ve heard about strata: layers of sand, clay, and
rock spread out one on top of the other. A lot of things can be described like that.
The Amazon jungle is stratified — with massive trees up high and shrubbery
below. The division between rich and poor people is an example of a stratified
society. And when you spread peanut butter onto bread, and then add jelly on top
of that, well, sure, that’s a stratified sandwich.
subsistence Subsistence can be used in a variety of subtly different ways. In addition to
referring to necessities for survival, it can indicate one's means of obtaining those
necessities (usually a job). And if you feel like getting
philosophical, subsistence can refer to the very act of existence itself.
sumptuously Sumptuous comes from the Latin sumptus which means expensive. Sumptus is
related to sumere which means to consume. The word sumptuous carries both
meanings with it. It is a pricey, high quality thing that's meant to be consumed or
enjoyed. You wouldn't use sumptuous to describe a tractor, even if it has leather
seats and cost more than your house.
supplement If a zombie army wants to increase its ranks but is running out of bodies, it might
supplement its troops with mummies. If the zombies put out their manifesto and
then realize they left out an important point, they might supplement the
manifesto with a press release. That press release could also be referred to as
a supplement.
surmise If you surmise that something is true, you don't have much evidence or
knowledge about it. Near synonyms are guess, conjecture, and suppose. You
might say, "I can't even surmise what he would do in such a
situation." Surmise came to English from the French surmettre, "to accuse," which
is formed from the prefix sur-, "on, upon," plus mettre, "to put" (from
Latin mittere, "to send").
 temporal Temporal comes from the Latin word temporalis which means "of time" and is
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usually applied to words that mean not having much of it, such as the temp who
works at an office for a set amount of time, because temporary situations don't
last long. A less common word, temporality also means "having limited time," and
it rhymes with mortality! (Don't remind us.) Temporal implies "of this earth," too
— temporal boundaries keep us from being able to fly around the clouds, but
spiritual beings can zing around at will. Temporal can also refer to temples, the
ones on the side of your head that are probably aching by now.
tenet Tenet is pronounced "ten’it." The word evolved from the Latin tenere "to hold."
The noun tenet is an opinion or doctrine one holds. It usually refers to a
philosophy or a religion, but it doesn't have to — for instance, Eastern medicine
has different tenets from Western medicine. One of the central tenets of
succeeding in the workplace is that a good offense is the best defense.\
tentative Tentative, from the Latin tentātīvus, "testing, trying," always describes something
that is uncertain. If you make a tentative appointment, write it down in pencil, not
pen, because it might have to be changed. Here the opposite
of tentative is definite or set. If someone gives you a tentative smile or nod, the
person feels hesitant or unsure about something. In this case, its opposite
is confident.
treachery The noun treachery comes from the Old French word trechier, “to cheat.” Many a
corrupt government or dictator has been accused of treachery: deceiving the
people and abusing their trust. Greed is a common cause of treachery — with the
promise of wealth, people can be tempted to betray their country and even their
loved ones, as new celebrities find out when their best friends sell embarrassing
secrets to the tabloids
voluminous Suppose instead of calling a book a book, you called it a volume. Suddenly, it
seems to be part of a much bigger thing. And what if it were only Volume I, with
23 more volumes to go? Even bigger, right? In fact, it's more than big;
it’s voluminous. Voluminous describes very large things. The flouncy skirt of a
wedding dress? Voluminous. Media coverage of some movie star's divorce?
Also voluminous. The word voluminous describes something ample, extensive,
and just plain huge.