Date post: | 27-Jan-2016 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | saaleni-murugiah |
View: | 34 times |
Download: | 0 times |
VOCABULARY TESTS
Which word or phrase is nearest in meaning to each of the following headwords?
1. Mordant
a) drawing one’s last breath
b) caustic or sarcastic, as in express
c) suggesting an unhealthy mental state
d) pertaining to edible mushrooms having spongy caps
2. Defenestration
a) the act of throwing a person or thing out of a window
b) design and disposition of windows and other exterior openings of a building
c) line of strikers of other demonstrators serving as pickets
d) shell of a submarine
3. Morganatic
a) pertaining to a form of marriage between a man of high rank and a woman of lower
station
b) payably at the end of the year by Wall Street brokers
c) temporarily inactive
d) living in tropical waters
4. Gullet
a) channel through which rain water runs
b) jaw of a large mouthed seabird
c) esophagus, or throat or pharynx
d) the pickoff move of a pitcher to second base
5. Polymath
a) female professor of mathematics
b) person learned in many fields
c) nitwit
d) multicoloured cube
6. Multifoliate
a) in a dying state
b) capable of moving spontaneously
c) motivated
d) having many leaves
7. Anfractuous
a) with both arms in slings
b) near a roadbed on which railroad trackage rests
c) sinuous
d) gloomily or sullenly ill-humored
8. Wizened
a) magical
b) shriveled and dried up, as from age
c) in intense grievous distress
d) swollen (as from a growth in stomach)
9. Unctuous
a) indisputably good
b) hypocritically smooth or suave
c) not subject to conditions
d) greasy
10. Dormer
a) sleeping mouse
b) snout on a polar bear
c) vertical window in a projection built out from a sloping roof
d) weeding night (slang)
11. Chaplet
a) knitted legging worn on each calf by a cowboy
b) cross that towers over a chapel
c) small condominium
d) wreath or garland for the head
12. Crenel
a) hoped underskirt
b) gong
c) mouth of a canon
d) open space between the merlons of a battlement
13. Umbrage
a) shelter from the media, preferably a hideway
b) resentful, displeasure or personal offense
c) shady side of politic
d) money passed under the table in a scene recorded secretly on videotape
14. Procrustean
a) fecund
b) tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means
c) dealing with the rectum and anus
d) pertaining to underside of a sea slug
15. Hobbledehoy
a) donkey work
b) extraordinary size or amount
c) lame child at play
d) awkward, clumsy youth
16. Avatar
a) insatiable greed for riches
b) avoirdupois
c) emobodiment or manifestation, as a principle
d) daydreaming about flying
17. Mulet
a) grass favoured by cows in the Southwest
b) offspring of a male donkey and a mare
c) a fine, especially for a misdemeanor
d) thin, vertical bay, as between windowpanes
18. Threnody
a) group of three
b) sudden, keen excitement
c) song of lamentation
d) great number of persons or things crowded or considered together
19. Shibboleth
a) foaming of the mouth, especially among seekers of political power
b) peculiarity of speech that distinguishes a particular set of persons
c) chief law – enforcement officer in northern African countries
d) wise saying that, because it is indeed true, becomes a cliché
20. Cynic
a) center of attention
b) resident of an island country in the Mediterranean
c) person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions
d) owner of a brothel in Turkey
21. Quintessence
a) combination of five ingredients that makes the perfect aphrodisiac
b) official management of a sovereign’s living quarters
c) the most perfect embodiment of something
d) popular words to describe the five roads that led into Keifent, once China’s capital
22. Capitation
a) transport of prisoners to the guillotine
b) tax levied against each person
c) alcove that leads directly into a governor’s office
d) relationship between the parents of the groom and the parents of a bride
23. Pantheism
a) the belief that wood nymphs dictate weather patterns
b) the belief that the panther is really the king of the jungle
c) critical comment that closed a Broadway drama after one performance
d) philosophical doctrine that identifies GOD with the universe
24. Precursor
a) last word spoken before a child’s first epithet
b) person of thing that precedes, as in a job or a method
c) route between Scylla and Charbdis
d) foreleg of a large dog
25. Sapient
a) dumb
b) wise and discerning
c) silly or foolish
d) derisive
26. Nugatory
a) of no value significance
b) golden
c) obnoxious
d) passing periodically from one region or climate to another, as certain birds
27. Megalomania
a) huge man-made structure
b) one million deaths (a unit of hypothetical casualties in a nuclear war)
c) lengthy account or explanation
d) mental illness marked by delusions of greatness
28. Diffident
a) widely spread of scattered
b) lacking confidence in oneself
c) hard to deal with
d) discursive or wordy
29. Audacious
a) inspiring awe and reverence
b) extremely daring, or insolent
c) factually accurate or reliable
d) severely stern or strict, as in manner
30. Redoubtable
a) to be feared
b) said in protest, objection, or disapproval
c) made more tense
d) mild, compassionate, or forgiving
31. Sanguine
a) cheerful and hopeful
b) like or befitting a saint
c) fearful or nervous
d) capable of being held, maintained, or defended
32. Roseate
a) gullible
b) dissipated, lecherous
c) optimistic or promising
d) shaped roughly
33. To affiance
a) to treasure
b) to oppose
c) to make rich
d) to betroth
34. Artifice
a) expert in pre-Raphaelite colour schemes
b) clever stratagem
c) skating rink without ice
d) award to a tyro watercolourist
35. Malefic
a) with a pastoral subject
b) horrendously seasick
c) meteorlike
d) producing evil\
36. Capidity
a) neck-gland secretion that can cause dwarfism
b) eager or inordinate desire, especially for wealth
c) the most intimate act of love
d) emotion felt by many men on seeing lasciviousness
37. Sedulous
a) preserving
b) upright
c) reversing the direction, as a electrical current
d) metallic
38. Ineffable
a) timid
b) oppressed or coerced
c) inefficient
d) unspeakable
39. Inductive
a) enlisted in U.S armed service
b) seductive
c) supplied through a pipeline
d) pertaining to roundabout logical reasoning
40. Empiricism
a) far-ranging political power
b) royal arrogance
c) doctrine that all knowledge is derived from sense experience
d) acquisition of overseas colonies
41. Mnemonic
a) forming a new word from the initial letters of an organization
b) intended to aid the memory
c) manic depressive
d) living “in the tent of wickedness”
42. Parsimony
a) extreme or excessive frugality
b) estate inherited from one’s father or ancestors
c) jargon
d) garden herb with aromatic leaves used to garnish food
43. Perception
a) example of excellence
b) mental recognition
c) upside-down vision
d) extinction or oblivion
44. Hypothesis
a) two-foot-long needle used to drug, thick-skinned mammals of Africa and India before
transporting them to safe preserves
b) exaggerated position in a college senior’s term paper, to insure a passing grade
c) testable assumption
d) result of having too much sugar in the blood
45. To vulcanize
a) to erupt like clockwork
b) to fizzle in a test tube, then evaporate
c) to treat (rubber) under heat with sulphur to make it more durable
d) to synchronize
46. Euphemism
a) scarcely perceptible difference
b) castrated man especially, formerly one employed by Oriental rulers as a harem attendant
c) exclamation of triumph at a discovery
d) substitution of a mild or vague expression for one thought to be offensive
47. Stygian
a) causing a pink colouration in the eye
b) sewn together
c) dark or gloomy,internal,hellish
d) pertaining to a liquid that polymerizes to a transparent material
48. Cyclopean
a) gigantic, vast (like cyclops, a giant with a single round eye in the middle of the forehead)
b) recurring with regularity
c) exclusive of the nucleus of a cell
d) referring to the machine that helped to decipher the Trojan code before Actium
49. Bastinado
a) a beating with a stick, cudgel, et cetera
b) illegitimate offspring
c) strong woody fiber used in cordage
d) utensil of bamboo
50. To beseech
a) to look sharply
b) to expectorate
c) to catch in or as in a trap
d) to beg or ask eagerly
51. Prophylactic
a) toxic
b) sterile
c) preventive
d) curative
52. Propinquity
a) stinginess
b) nearness
c) searching quality
d) absolute proof
53. Propitiate
a) conform
b) appease
c) influence
d) approach
54. Provender
a) dry food for animals
b) hawker
c) careful person
d) thriftiness
55. Prurient
a) impoverished
b) guiltless
c) prudish
d) lewd
56. Pullulate
a) grasp
b) swarm
c) tug
d) applaud
57. Purblind
a) dazzling
b) lacking understanding
c) incomprehensible
d) conceited
58. Pylon
a) gateway
b) synthetic fabric
c) accumulation
d) asp
59. Quagmire
a) gradual rise
b) large clam
c) bog
d) underbrush
60. Quietus
a) conservatism
b) comfort
c) soft speech
d) release from life
61. Quizzical
a) antiquated
b) puzzling
c) odd
d) ill-tempered
62. Quotidian
a) trite
b) occurring every day
c) word for word
d) apportioning
63. Raucous
a) despairing
b) pugnacious
c) immature
d) harsh-sounding
64. Recrimination
a) counter-accusation
b) double jeopardy
c) flattery
d) needless repetition
65. Redaction
a) conquest
b) submission
c) editing
d) rehearsal
66. Redolent
a) fragrant
b) needy
c) lazy
d) grieving
67. Refection
a) meditation
b) light meal
c) remedy
d) dessert
68. Refulgent
a) brilliant
b) unstable
c) capacious
d) explosive
69. Relegate
a) put in order
b) tie together
c) assign to an inferior position
d) relieve
70. Comprehensible
a) easy to grasp
b) blameworthy
c) deferential
d) returnable
71. Robate
a) sinner
b) deserter
c) stickler for accuracy
d) official in charge of wills
72. Reproof
a) check
b) strengthening
c) demonstration
d) censure
73. Reticulated
a) purchased
b) in a network pattern
c) sewed together
d) drawn together
74. Revulsion
a) change of government
b) a drawing back in disgust
c) backward motion
d) degradation
75. Rhapsodic
a) ecstatic
b) fervent
c) bombastic
d) tightly knit
76. Risible
a) shimmering
b) likely
c) inducing laughter
d) climbable
77. Runnel
a) underground passage
b) race track
c) grain stalk
d) small stream
78. Salacious
a) flavoured
b) briny
c) obscene
d) purchasable
79. Salutatory
a) healthy
b) leaping
c) spies’
d) attacking
80. Salver
a) tray
b) ointment
c) salute
d) rescuer
81. Sartorial
a) costly
b) flashy
c) well-dressed
d) relating to a tailor
82. Scrimshaw
a) carved decorated object
b) gimlet
c) doodling
d) gadget
83. Scurf
a) coarse linen
b) menial attendant
c) rough water
d) dandruff
84. Semantics – study dealing with:
a) earthquakes
b) tides
c) changes in the meaning of words
d) military signals
85. Senescence
a) process of growing blind
b) belief in hereafter
c) rebirth
d) dotage
86. Sequacious
a) preceding
b) following
c) isolated
d) forever questioning
87. Seraglio
a) silk culture
b) mediation
c) fracas
d) harem
88. Serried
a) notched
b) scattered
c) pursued
d) crowded together
89. Sibylline
a) poetic
b) oracular
c) hissing
d) luxurious
90. Simian
a) foolish
b) resembling
c) apelike
d) pertaining to Malaysia
91. Sirocco
a) hot wind
b) contagious disease
c) leather binding
d) style of painting
92. Skittles
a) pretzels
b) ale
c) bowling game
d) trifles
93. Sleazy
a) flimsy
b) disgusting
c) asthmatic
d) slippery
94. Slough
a) marsh
b) bed of coal
c) difficult journey
d) massacre
95. Sluice
a) microscopic section
b) period between two wars
c) multitude
d) artificial water channel
96. Sodality
a) sogginess
b) temperance
c) fellowship
d) saltiness
97. Soporific
a) indiscreet
b) inducing sleep
c) adolescent
d) causing trouble
98. Speleology – study of:
a) caves
b) rhetoric
c) geysers
d) soil conservation
99. Splenetic
a) effusive
b) gorgeous
c) spiteful
d) damaging’
100. Spoliation
a) marring
b) plundering
c) recession
d) embellishing