Advanced Vocabulary: Definitions and Meanings

Posted on Jan 30, 2025 in Medicine & Health

A

• Abdicate: To give up power or control.
• Abeyance: A state of temporary inactivity or to stop for a period of time.
• Abscond: To make off with something secretly.
• Abysmal: Terrible or awful.
• Accolade: Awards, honors, or praise.
• Acerbity: Bitterness, roughness, or sharpness.
• Acidulous: Sour or sharp in taste or manner.
• Acrimonious: Bitter or harsh.
• Acumen: Great skill, smartness.
• Admonish: To scold gently, to correct in a well-meaning way.
• Adulterate: To make impure by adding something that is inferior.
• Aegis: Sponsorship, leadership, protection.
• Affable: Friendly, easy to be around, or having good manners or speech.
• Affront: An insult or show of disrespect.
• Agglomeration: A cluster of something, a mass of varied parts.
• Aggrandize: To expand something or make it bigger, to exaggerate.
• Agog: To be very excited, eager, and full of interest.
• Allay: To calm, to ease.
• Allude: To suggest or refer to something indirectly.
• Amalgam: A combination or mixture.
• Amiss: Something that seems wrong about a situation, when something is not right or is out of order.
• Amorphous: Lacking a definite shape or form.
• Anachronistic: Out of place in a particular time period or out of chronological order.
• Anathema: A person or thing that is extremely hated or disliked.
• Anoint: To rub or sprinkle oil on, to make sacred, or to choose by divine knowledge.
• Anthropocentric: Believing humans are central to and above everything in the universe.
• Aphasia: The loss of power to use or understand words, usually caused by brain disease or injury.
• Apparition: A ghostly figure.
• Apprise: To inform or give good news.
• Apropos: At the right time or in just the right way.
• Aquiline: Curved or hooked.
• Arcane: Meant for or known to only a select few.
• Arraign: To charge or to accuse.
• Arroyo: A dry creek which fills with water after rain.
• Ascendancy: A position in which one has control or power or is governing.
• Asinine: Stupid, foolish, or lacking good sense or intelligence.
• Astute: Very clever, smart, and perceptive.
• Asunder: Cut apart or being apart in direction or position.
• Atone: To reconcile or make up for a mistake.
• Atrophy: Wasting away, especially of body tissue, muscle, or organ.
• Attenuate: To weaken or lessen the severity, intensity, or value of something.
• Attrition: Wearing away, a normal loss of workers or members by retirement or dying.
• Augury: A foretelling of the future, a prediction, or the ability to tell the future.
• Aureole: A ring of light, often like a halo.
• Autocratic: Like a tyrant, assertion of total authority.
• Aver: To state positively or declare to be true.
• Avuncular: Of or like an uncle.
• Axiom: Something that is generally accepted as true or self-evident.

B

• Badger: To bother or to nag.
• Ballyhoo: Loud talk or a noisy uproar.
• Banal: Ordinary, commonplace, or unoriginal.
• Bandy: To throw or pass back and forth.
• Bard: Someone who writes poems, a poet.
• Bastion: A fortified place of strong defense.
• Bawdy: Funny but indecent, or vulgar humor.
• Beatific: Making someone or something blissful, blessed, or pure.
• Belie: To tell lies, to misrepresent, or to prove false.
• Bellicose: Warlike, ready to attack, or eager to fight.
• Benediction: A blessing or good wishes.
• Beseech: To beg or plead for something.
• Bicameral: A legislative body with two branches or houses.
• Bivouac: A temporary encampment or shelter, often out in the open.
• Blithe: Carefree, cheerful, showing no concern.
• Bluster: To blow in loud gusts.
• Boorish: Behaving in a rude manner.
• Bourgeois: Wanting material things.
• Breadth: General size, scope, distance from side to side, or the extent of something.
• Brusque: Rough and abrupt in manner or speech.
• Bulwark: A structure that acts as a defense, something that protects from outside danger.

C

• Cajole: To persuade with flattery or sweet talk.
• Cantankerous: Cranky, unpleasant, or hard to get along with.
• Careen: To sway or lurch sideways, especially while moving rapidly.
• Castigate: To criticize or punish severely, especially to correct behavior.
• Catharsis: A release of tensions or purifying of the emotions.