SAT Vocabulary for Juniors
Lesson Two
#1 Impotent : adj. powerless; lacking strength
syn: ineffective; helpless /ant: potent; powerful
The bodybuilder felt impotent when he used
brain, not brawn.
"The studio has become the crucible where human genius
at the apogee of its development brings back to question
not only that which is, but creates anew a fantastic and
conventional nature which our weak minds, impotent to
harmonize it with existing things, adopt by preference,
because the miserable work is our own.”
-Eugene Delacroix
#2 Antithesis. n. an exact opposite; an opposite extreme
syn: converse /ant: same
.
The skilled debater made an opponent’s point
appear to be the antithesis of what he
meant.
"Antithesis is the narrow gateway through
which error most prefers to worm its way
towards truth."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
#3 Maelstrom. n. whirlpool; turbulence; agitated state of
mind
Bobbing helplessly about, their rowboat
approached the raging maelstrom.
"A merciless fate threw me into this
maelstrom. I wanted much, I began much,
but the gale of the world carried away me
and my work.“
-Draza Mihajlovic
#4 Emendation: n. a correction
syn: improvement; amendment
Meticulous authors obsess
about mistakes and enjoy
making emendation before
their books are printed.
The students were required
to make an emendation
before they could retake a
test.
#5. Chagrin. n. embarrassment; a complete loss of
courage
Overcome by chagrin, Hortense blushed and
backed out of the room.
"I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he
never had a chagrin but he made a poem out of it. I have
altogether too much patience of this kind.
-Henry David Thoreau
#6 Bauble. n. a showy but useless thing.
syn: trinket
Early in the morning, salespeople blanket TV,
pushing the most ostentatious baubles
imaginable.
“Shakespeare possesses the power of
subordinating nature for the purposes of
expression, beyond all poets. His imperial muse
tosses to creation like a bauble from hand to
hand, and uses it to embody any caprice of
thought that is upper-most in his mind.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
#7 Diaphanous. adj. very sheer and light.
syn: transparent; gossamer / ant: opaque
Only certain audacious starlets have the
nerve to wear diaphanous dresses for
red carpet appearances.
“The whole story of the universe is implicit in any part of it.
The meditative eye can look through any single object
and see, as through a window, the entire cosmos. Make
the smell of roast duck in an old kitchen diaphanous
and you will have a glimpse of everything, from the
spiral nebulae to Mozart's music and the stigmata of St.
Francis of Assisi.”
-Aldous Huxley
#8 Labyrinth. n. a complicated network of winding
passages; a maze.
The minotaur, a half-man,
half-bull creature, lurked
within the winding
passages of the labyrinth.
“A man in his own secret
meditation
Is lost amid the labyrinth that
he has made
In art or politics....”
-William Butler Yeats
#9 Gloat. v. to look at or think about with great satisfaction
syn: revel; crow
The end caught an easy pass, made it look
heroic, then gloated foolishly at the middle
of the football field.
“Many gloat over their own troubles.”
-Mason Cooley
#10 Impediment. n. a barrier; obstruction syn:
obstacle; lundrance / ant: aid
Jealousy made Aaron an obvious
impediment between his former girlfriend
and the personal trainer.
“He only is a well-made man who has a good
determination. And the end of culture is not to
destroy this, God forbid! but to train away all
impediment and mixture and leave nothing but
pure power.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
#11 Bestial: adj. savage; brutal
syn: brutish; vile; cruel / ant: humane; kind
Rage transformed the losing team into
bestial rabble.
“I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.”
-Stephen Crane
#12 Effete: adj. worn out; barren
syn: exhausted; spent and sterile / ant: vital; vigorous
A former United States Vice President
called the media an “effete corps of
impudent snobs.”
“We are supposed to be the children of Seth; but Seth is
too much of an effete nonentity to deserve ancestral
regard. No, we are the sons of Cain, and with violence
can be associated the attacks on sound, stone, wood
and metal that produced civilisation.”
-Anthony Burgess
#13 Shard: n. a fragment
The super villain threw a compact car through
the plate glass window of the coffeehouse,
sending shards flying in all directions.
“But neither milk-white rose nor red
May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
A common man's despair.”
-Shakespeare
#14 Bland: adj. mild; tasteless; dull
syn: smooth; agreeable / ant: exciting; thrilling
The critic listened to the tired, bland rhythms of
the band and declared the group “a
celebration of the mediocre.”
“Freeways fifty lanes wide
on a concrete continent
spaced with bland billboards
illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness.”
-Lawrence Ferlinghetti
#15 Nihilism: n. a total rejection of established
laws
Novelist Victor Hugo said that nihilism has no
substance because there is no such thing as
nothingness: everything is something.
“Nihilism has no substance. There is no such
thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist.
Everything is something. Nothing is nothing.
Man lives more by affirmation than by bread.”
-Victor Hugo