SAT Power Vocab

Chapter 2 Word List

Here is an alphabetical list of the most important words you learned
in this chapter.

ADVOCATE (AD vuh kut) n a person who argues in favor of a position

• Lulu believes in eliminating tariffs and import restrictions;
she is an advocate of free trade.

Advocate (AD vuh kayt) can also be a verb:

• The representative of the paint company advocated cleaning
the deck before painting it, but we were in a hurry, so we
painted right over the dirt.

Advocacy (AD vuh kuh see) is support of or agreement with a

position.

AMBIGUOUS (am BIG yoo us) adj unclear in meaning; confusing;

capable of being interpreted in different ways
• The poem we read in English class was ambiguous; no one
had any idea what the poet was trying to say.

The noun form is ambiguity (am bih GYOO uh tee).

AMBIVALENT (am BIV uh lunt) adj undecided; having opposing

feelings simultaneously
• Susan felt ambivalent about Alec as a boyfriend. Her frequent
desire to break up with him reflected this ambivalence.

BENEDICTION (ben uh DIK shun) n a blessing; an utterance of good

wishes
In certain church services, a benediction is a particular kind of
blessing.
In secular usage, the word has a more general meaning:
• Jack and Jill were married without their parents’ benediction;
in fact, their parents had no idea that Jack and Jill had
married.

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The opposite of benediction is malediction (mal uh DIK shun),

which means curse or slander:
• Despite the near-universal malediction of critics, the sequel to
Gone with the Wind became a huge bestseller.

BENEFACTOR (BEN uh fak tur) n one who provides help, especially

in the form of a gift or donation

A person who gives benefits is a benefactor. A person who receives

benefits is a beneficiary. These two words are often confused.
• If your next-door neighbor rewrites his life insurance policy so
that you will receive all his millions when he dies, then you
become the beneficiary of the policy. He is your benefactor.

A malefactor (MAL uh fak tur) is a person who does bad things.

BENEVOLENT (beh NEV uh lunt) adj generous; kind; doing good

deeds
• Giving money to the poor is a benevolent act. To be benevolent
is to bestow benefits. The United Way, like any charity, is a
benevolent organization.
• Malevolent (muh LEV uh lunt) means evil, or wishing to do
harm.
BENIGN (bih NYNE) adj gentle; not harmful; kind; mild
• The threat of revolution turned out to be benign; nothing
much came of it.
• Charlie was worried that he had cancer, but the lump on his
leg turned out to be benign.
BURGEON (BUR jun) v to expand; to flourish
• The burgeoning weeds in our yard soon overwhelmed the
grass.

COMPLACENT (kum PLAY sunt) adj self-satisfied; overly pleased

with oneself; contented to a fault
• The complacent camper paid no attention to the poison ivy
around his campsite and ended up in the hospital.

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• The football team won so many games that it became

complacent, leading the players to be defeated by the worst
team in the league.
• To fall into complacency is to become comfortably uncaring
about the world around you.

Don’t confuse complacent with complaisant (kum PLAY zunt),

which means eager to please.

CONGREGATE (KAHN grih gayt) v to come together

• Protestors were granted permission to congregate peacefully
on the plaza.

The noun form is congregation, which often refers to the member-

ship of a house of worship.
• About half of the congregation attended the sunrise service.

DEXTROUS (DEX trus) adj skillful; adroit

Dextrous often, but not always, connotes physical ability. Like
adroit, it comes from the Latin word for right (as in the direction)
because it was once considered superior to be right-handed.
• Ilya was determined not to sell the restaurant; even the most
dextrous negotiator could not sway him.
You may also see this word spelled dexterous. Dexterity is the noun
form.

ELUSIVE (ih LOO siv) adj hard to pin down; evasive

To be elusive is to elude, which means to avoid, evade, or escape.
• The answer to the problem was elusive; every time the math-
ematician thought he was close, he discovered another error.
(One could also say that the answer to the problem eluded the
mathematician.)
ENCROACH (en KROHCH) v to make gradual or stealthy steps into;
to trespass
• As the city grew, it encroached on the countryside surrounding
it.
• With an encroaching sense of dread, I slowly pushed open the
creaky door.

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• My neighbor encroached on my yard by building his new

stockade fence a few feet on my side of the property line.

EQUANIMITY (ek wuh NIM uh tee) n composure; calm

• The entire apartment building was crumbling, but Rachel
faced the disaster with equanimity. She ducked out of the
way of a falling beam and continued searching for an exit.
• John’s mother looked at the broken glass on the floor with
equanimity; at least he didn’t hurt himself when he knocked
over the vase.

EQUITABLE (EK wuh tuh bul) adj fair

• The pirates distributed the loot equitably among themselves,
so that each pirate received the same share as every other
pirate.
• The divorce settlement was quite equitable. Sheila got the
right half of the house, and Tom got the left half.
Equity is fairness; inequity is unfairness. Iniquity and inequity both
mean unfair, but iniquity implies wickedness as well. By the way,
equity is also a finance term used to refer to how much something
(usually property or a business) is worth after subtracting what is
owed on it e.g., home equity.

EQUIVOCAL (ih KWIV uh kul) adj ambiguous; intentionally con-

fusing; capable of being interpreted in more than one way

To be equivocal is to be intentionally ambiguous or unclear.

• Joe’s response was equivocal; we couldn’t tell whether he
meant yes or no, which is precisely what Joe wanted.
• Dr. Festen’s equivocal diagnosis made us think that he had no
idea what Ms. Johnson had.
To be equivocal is to equivocate. To equivocate is to mislead by
saying confusing or ambiguous things:
• When we asked Harold whether that was his car that was
parked in the middle of the hardware store, he equivocated
and asked, “In which aisle?”

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EVOKE (i VOHK) v to summon forth; to draw forth; to awaken; to

produce or suggest
• The car trip with our children evoked many memories of
similar car trips I had taken with my own parents when I was
a child.
• Professor Herman tried repeatedly but was unable to evoke
any but the most meager response from his students.
• Paula’s Christmas photographs evoked both the magic and
the crassness of the holiday.
The act of evoking is called evocation (e voh KAY shun).
• A visit to the house in which one grew up often leads to the
evocation of old memories.
Something that evokes something else is said to be evocative
(i VAHK uh tiv).
• The old novel is highly evocative of its era; reading it makes
you feel as though you have been transported a hundred years
into the past.

IMPEDE (im PEED) v to obstruct or interfere with; to delay

• The faster I try to pick up the house, the more the cat impedes
me; he sees me scurrying around and, thinking I want to play,
he runs up and winds himself around my ankles.
• The fact that the little boy is missing all his front teeth
impedes his ability to speak clearly.
Something that impedes is an impediment (im PED uh munt).
• Irene’s inability to learn foreign languages was a definite
impediment to her proficiency in French literature.

INVOKE (in VOHK) v to entreat or pray for; to call on as in prayer;

to declare to be in effect
• Oops! I just spilled cake mix all over my mother’s new kitchen
carpet. I’d better go invoke her forgiveness.
• This drought has lasted for so long that I’m just about ready to
invoke the rain gods.

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• The legislature passed a law restricting the size of the state’s

deficit, but it then neglected to invoke the law when the
deficit soared above the limit.
The noun is invocation (in vuh KAY shun).

IRREVOCABLE (i REV uh kuh bul) adj irreversible

To revoke (ri VOHK) is to take back. Something irrevocable cannot
be taken back.
• My decision not to wear a Tarzan costume and ride on a float
in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is irrevocable; there
is absolutely nothing you could do or say to make me change
my mind.
• After his friend pointed out that the tattoo was spelled incor-
rectly, Tom realized that his decision to get a tattoo was
irrevocable.

MALAISE (ma LAYZ) n a feeling of depression, uneasiness, or

queasiness
• Malaise descended on the calculus class when the teacher
announced a quiz.

MALFEASANCE (mal FEE zuns) n an illegal act, especially by a

public official
• President Ford officially pardoned former President Nixon
before the latter could be convicted of any malfeasance.

PLACATE (PLAY kayt) v to pacify; to appease; to soothe

• The cashier placated the angry customer by refunding their
purchase.
• The beleaguered general tried to placate his fierce attacker by
sending him a pleasant flower arrangement. His implacable
enemy decided to attack anyway.

PLACEBO (pluh SEE boh) n a fake medication; a fake medication

used as a control in tests of the effectiveness of drugs
• Half the subjects in the experiment received the real drug;
half were given placebos. Of the subjects given placebos, 50
percent reported a definite improvement, 30 percent reported
a complete cure, and 20 percent said, “Oh, I bet you just
gave us a placebo.”

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• If a doctor prescribes placebos to their patient, the patient

may feel better, but they will not be cured.

REDUNDANT (ri DUN dunt) adj unnecessarily repetitive; excessive;

excessively wordy
• Eric had already bought paper plates, so our purchase of
paper plates was redundant.
• Shawn’s article was redundant—he kept saying the same
thing over and over again.
An act of being redundant is a redundancy.
• The title “Department of Redundancy Department” is
redundant.

THWART (thwort) v to prevent from being accomplished; to frus-

trate; to hinder
• I wanted to do some work today, but it seemed as though fate
thwarted me at every turn; first, someone on the phone tried
to sell me a magazine subscription, and then my printer broke
down, and then I discovered that my favorite movie was on TV.
• There’s no thwarting Yogi Bear once he gets it into his mind
that he wants a picnic basket; he will sleep until noon, but
before it’s dark, he’ll have every picnic basket that’s in
Jellystone Park.

VOCIFEROUS (voh SIF ur us) adj loud; noisy; expressed in a

forceful or loud way
• Her opposition to the bill was vociferous; she used every
opportunity to condemn and protest against it.

VOLITION (voh LISH un) n will; conscious choice

• Insects, lacking volition, simply aren’t as interesting to the
aspiring anthropologist as humans are.
• The jury had to decide whether the killing had been an acci-
dent or an act of volition.

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