SAT Vocabulary for Juniors

Lesson Two

#1 Impotent : adj. powerless; lacking strengthsyn: 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 correctionsyn: 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 meditationIs lost amid the labyrinth that he has madeIn 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; brutalsyn: 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; barrensyn: 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 redMay bloom in prison air;The shard, the pebble, and the flint,Are what they give us there:For flowers have been known to healA common man's despair.”-Shakespeare

#14 Bland: adj. mild; tasteless; dullsyn: 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 wideon a concrete continentspaced with bland billboardsillustrating 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