100 Words That All High School Graduates Should Know
The editors of the American Heritage dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every high
school graduate should know, in order to have “a superior command of the language.” Most of those words
are below, with a few added or replaced.
Over the next few weeks we will study and learn the definitions of these words, with regular check quizzes.
Each week, I will give you the definitions for 10 words on this list, which you will write directly on this
handout, so have it with you in class at all times. A quiz over those words will follow about a week later, on
Mondays. Subsequent quizzes will cover the 10 new words each week, as well as any words from the previous
weeks’ lists.
WEEK ONE
aberration
abhor
abrogate
abstemious
acumen
auspicious
behemoth
belie
bellicose
callous
WEEK TWO
chicanery
chide
churlish
circumlocution
daunting
dearth
deciduous
deleterious
denigrate
diffident
WEEK THREE
enervate
egregious
epiphany
emulate
enmity
evanescent
expurgate
facetious
fatuous
feckless
WEEK FOUR
fiduciary
filibuster
gauche
gerrymander
grievous
harangue
haughty
hegemony
homogeneous
hubris
WEEK FIVE
idiosyncratic
impeach
incognito
incontrovertible
inculcate
infrastructure
irony
judicious
kinetic
kowtow
WEEK SIX
laudatory
lexicon
loquacious
lugubrious
magnanimous
metamorphosis
moiety
nanotechnology
nebulous
nihilism
WEEK SEVEN
nomenclature
nonsectarian
obfuscate
obsequious
omnipotent
onerous
oxidize
paradigm
paragon
pejorative
WEEK EIGHT
perfunctory
plasma
plethora
precipitous
quandary
quotidian
rancor
reciprocal
rectitude
respiration
WEEK NINE
sanguine
soliloquy
subjugate
sublime
supercilious
tautology
taxonomy
temerity
tempestuous
totalitarian
WEEK TEN
unctuous
usurp
vacuous
vehement
vortex
winnow
wrought
xenophobe
yolk
zenith