A while back, I ran across “100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know.” I was horrified because I knew so few of them. Here’s the list in its entirety. I’ve marked which ones I know (or could probably use somewhat correctly in a sentence) with a *, and the ones I thought I knew but was wrong in italics.
- abjure
- abrogate
- abstemious
- acumen
- antebellum*
- auspicious
- belie*
- bellicose
- bowdlerize
- chicanery
- chromosome*
- churlish
- circumlocution
- circumnavigate*
- deciduous*
- deleterious
- diffident
- enervate
- enfranchise*
- epiphany*
- equinox*
- euro*
- evanescent
- expurgate
- facetious*
- fatuous
- feckless
- fiduciary*
- filibuster*
- gamete
- gauche
- gerrymander
- hegemony *
- hemoglobin*
- homogeneous*
- hubris
- hypotenuse*
- impeach*
- incognito*
- incontrovertible*
- inculcate
- infrastructure*
- interpolate
- irony*
- jejune
- kinetic*
- kowtow
- laissez faire*
- lexicon*
- loquacious*
- lugubrious
- metamorphosis*
- mitosis*
- moiety
- nanotechnology*
- nihilism*
- nomenclature*
- nonsectarian*
- notarize*
- obsequious
- oligarchy*
- omnipotent*
- orthography
- oxidize*
- parabola*
- paradigm*
- parameter*
- pecuniary
- photosynthesis*
- plagiarize*
- plasma
- polymer*
- precipitous
- quasar*
- quotidian
- recapitulate*
- reciprocal*
- reparation*
- respiration*
- sanguine*
- soliloquy*
- subjugate*
- suffragist*
- supercilious*
- tautology
- taxonomy*
- tectonic*
- tempestuous*
- thermodynamics*
- totalitarian*
- unctuous
- usurp*
- vacuous*
- vehement*
- vortex*
- winnow
- wrought*
- xenophobe*
- yeoman*
- ziggurat
So, I got… 63%. Does that mean I should go back to high school? I sure hope not. That was h*ll. Now, who wants to play along by commenting?
Kelly,
I’m surprised you didn’t know “deleterious” (did I just spell that right?) given all the Jane Austen I know you’ve read.
Is it wrong that I know “enervate” because of Harry Potter?
Have fun,
L