GRE word list

aseptic \uh-SEP-tik\, adjective

1. Free from the living germs of disease, fermentation, or putrefaction.

noun:

1. A product, as milk or fruit juice, that is marketed in an aseptic package or container.

2. Aseptics, (used with a singular verb) a system of packaging sterilized products in airtight containers so that

freshness is preserved for several months.

The development of aseptic packaging is so highly regarded in food industry circles that in 1983 members of the Institute of Food Technologists… voted it the number-one food innovation in the last fifty years.

-- Vince Staten, Can You Trust a Tomato in January?

He was taken to an aseptic, white barracks on the opposite bank of the Moldau.

-- Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths

Aseptic was invented in the 1850s by chemists. It is based on the root septic meaning "infected."

antic \an-tik\, adjective

1. Ludicrous; funny.

2. Fantastic; odd; grotesque: an antic disposition.

noun:

1. Usually, antics. A. A playful trick or prank; caper. B. A grotesque, fantastic, or ludicrous gesture, act, or posture.

2. Archaic. A. An actor in a grotesque or ridiculous presentation. B. A buffoon; clown.

3. Obsolete. A. A grotesque theatrical presentation; ridiculous interlude. B. A grotesque or fantastic sculptured figure, as a gargoyle.

From the subversive to the antic, the uproarious to the disturbing, the stories of Bruce Sterling are restless,

energy-filled journeys through a world running on empty.

-- Bruce Sterling, A Good Old-Fashioned Future

Grey Magic is a work of great scope and stylistic virtuosity, combining antic humor with immense sophistication, an Anglo-American setting with an Anglo-European sensibility and a profound insight into contemporary issues of both personal and collective resonance.

-- Richard Leigh, Grey Magic

Antic comes from the Italian word antico which meant "ancient." Apparently, it was associated with the fantastic figures of the Roman ruins and came to mean "grotesque."

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."

austral \AW-struhl\, adjective

1. Southern.

2. (Initial capital letter) Australian.

That, at least, was not difficult to do; as they filtered through branches and thick treetops, the rays of the austral sun covered bodies and houses and all the objects of the inhabited area with undulating patterns of light and shadow blended spectrally into random jungle forms.

-- Carlos Fuentes, Terra Nostra

The church, from the north, seems a precious stone, on its austral side it is blood-colored, to the west white as snow, and above it shine countless stars more splendid than those in our sky.

-- Umberto Eco, Baudolino

Austral is derived from the Latin word australis meaning "southern."

agita \AJ-i-tuh\, noun

1. Agitation; anxiety.

2. Heartburn; indigestion.

And my being named after the patron saint of love, St. Valentine, when I've had nothing but agita in romance just makes it more painfully ironic.

-- Rosanna Chiofalo, Bellla Fortuna

I'm eighty-two years old and I don't need this agita in my life!

-- Rita Lakin, Getting Old Is Murder

Agita was coined in America in the 1980s. It comes from the Italian word agitare meaning "to bother."

apophasis \uh-POF-uh-sis\, noun

Denial of one's intention to speak of a subject that is at the same time named or insinuated, as “I shall not mention Caesar's avarice, nor his cunning, nor his morality.”

But I think that anything that is deep isn't love, it's deliberate calculation or schizophrenia. I myself wouldn't even attempt to say what love is - probably both love and God can only be defined by apophasis, through those things that they are not.

-- Viktor Pelevin, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

"…Now, I have no desire to be a backseat driver—” Apophasis, Chris thought; saying you're not going to say something in order to say it. Nixon's favorite device, and Newt Gingrich's, and Karl Rove's—fine old 

Republican tradition.

-- John Barnes, Directive 51

Apophasis stems from the Greek word apópha meaning "to say no, deny." The suffix -sis appears in Greek

loanwords, where it forms an abstract noun from a verb, as in thesis.

anacoluthon \an-uh-kuh-LOO-thon\, noun

1. A construction involving a break in grammatical sequence, as It makes me so—I just get angry.

2. An instance of anacoluthia.

She employed, not from any refinement of style, but in order to correct her imprudences, abrupt breaches of syntax not unlike that figure which the grammarians call anacoluthon or some such name.

-- Marcel Proust, The Remembrance of Things Past

Sometimes there is no main verb at all, or the sentence is an anacoluthon, beginning in one way and ending in

another.

-- Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda

Anacoluthon has a very literal meaning in Greek. The root kolouth- meant "march." However this root has two prefixes. First, the prefix a- means "together." The other prefix "an-" means "not following." In Greek anakólouthos meant "not following."