GRE word list

ataraxia \at-uh-RAK-see-uh\, noun

A state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety; tranquility.

The former breathes only peace and liberty; he desires only to live and be free from labor; even the ataraxia of the Stoic falls far short of his profound indifference to every other object.

-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and a Discourse on Political Economy

Thus, hedonism ends in ataraxia, which confirms the paradoxical relation between sadism and stoicism.

-- Marquis de Sade, 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings

Ataraxia stems from the Greek word of the same spelling that meant "impassiveness."

mucro \MYOO-kroh\, noun

A short point projecting abruptly, as at the end of a leaf.

The outward surface of it was extremely slippery, and the mucro, or point, so very cold withal, that upon endeavoring to take hold of it, it glided through the fingers like a smooth piece of ice.

-- Richard Hughes, Spectator, No. 281

Munro holds that it must be "from the mucro or point of the stylus setting a mark at each end of any length you wish to note."

-- William Ellery Leonard, De Rerum Natura

Mucro stems from Latin word mucro meaning "sharp point."

litotes \LAHY-tuh-teez\, noun

Understatement, especially that in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary, as in “not bad at all.”

Stevens does not allow himself much of the Sublime here, yet it creeps in by negation in the litotes or understatement of the stanza's close.

-- Harold Bloom, Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate

I know it's a textbook example of what lit-crit geeks like to call litotes, a figure of speech in which an affirmative is expressed through the negation of its opposite…

-- Mark Dery, I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts

Litotes comes from the Greek word litótes which meant "plainness, simplicity."