Test Your Vocabulary
The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation
Test Your Vocabulary
“The richer and more copious one’s vocabulary and the greater one’s awareness of fine distinctions and subtle nuances of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to be one’s thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the words for them grow together. If you do not know the words, you can hardly know the thing.”
―Henry Hazlitt, Thinking as a Science
Here is another of our intermittent vocabulary tests. The answers directly follow the quiz.
1. arcane
A) evil
B) sweet
C) mysterious
D) curved
2. temerity
A) boldness
B) fear
C) inflexibility
D) foresight
3. feckless
A) uninformed
B) sterile
C) incompetent
D) distasteful
4. precipitous
A) unexpected
B) edgy
C) clean
D) steep
5. stolid
A) muscular
B) impassive
C) watchful
D) confused
6. egregious
A) outrageous
B) angry
C) desperate
D) life-changing
7. trenchant
A) watery
B) sharp
C) melodic
D) handy
8. assuage
A) demolish
B) predict
C) relieve
D) condemn
9. protean
A) healthy
B) versatile
C) unruly
D) implausible
10. oxymoron
A) a complete fool
B) a muscular bully
C) a legal document that voids a contract
D) a phrase that seems to contradict itself
ANSWERS
1: C) mysterious. Their arcane habits and practices shocked our Western eyes.
2: A) boldness. He had the temerity to disobey the judge’s orders.
3: C) incompetent. Rita’s feckless cousin just lost another job.
4: D) steep. The young hikers turned back, unwilling to scale the precipitous cliffs.
5: B) impassive. For all its stolid reputation, the country has become surprisingly flexible.
6: A) outrageous. This was an egregious act of betrayal.
7: B) sharp. Oscar’s trenchant wit won him many an argument.
8: C) relieve. To assuage her guilt, she decided to change her ways.
9: B) versatile. He is a protean musician who can play in almost any style.
10: D) a phrase that seems to contradict itself. Isn’t “jumbo shrimp” an oxymoron?
If the article or the existing discussions do not address a thought or question you have on the subject, please use the "Comment" box at the bottom of this page.
The email I received this morning had a different sentence in Answer #5:
5: B) impassive. I wished that my class of stolid undergraduates were more interested in what was happening around them.
Shouldn’t the verb in this sentence be “was”? I wish my class [of stolid undergraduates] was…
By the way, I really enjoy receiving your newsletter and I appreciate the tips and quizzes!
Sentence 5 expresses a wish. Please see our blog post The Subjunctive Mood. Thank you for your kind words.
Loved this and learnt the correct meaning of more words, thank you.