Posts Tagged ‘definitions’ Archive

Aaand the Definitions Are…

  1. Alacrity: eager and enthusiastic willingness
  2. Hackneyed: rendered trite or commonplace by frequent usage
  3. Specious: seeming true, but actually being fallacious; misleadingly attractive; plausible but false
  4. Garrulous: given to much talking, tediously chatty
  5. Trenchant: sharply perceptive; keen; penetrating
  6. Obfuscate: to deliberately obscure; to make confusing

Clearly, I need to start studying the dictionary and quit relying on Google to do the work for me 🙂

Do You Know These Words?

I read a tweet yesterday that said something to the effect of, “Open a dictionary, even if you know the word,” which reminded me of studying for the GRE. While studying for the Verbal section, I read over the Hit Parade (a compilation of vocabulary words that are frequently tested on the GRE) and was surprised by how many I did not know.  Now, I knew the words, but not the actual dictionary version of the word.

My point?  Maybe whoever wrote that tweet yesterday had it right.  Maybe, as writers, we need to refer to our dictionaries more often to make sure we know what we’re writing about.

I’ve randomly picked six of the words from the Hit Parade.  I’m going to post them below and then will post the definitions tomorrow.  Come back to see if you got them right!  And NO cheating! haha 🙂

  1. Alacrity
  2. Hackneyed
  3. Specious
  4. Garrulous
  5. Trenchant
  6. Obfuscate