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What's the most useless word you learned while studying for the GRE?


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Posted

For me, probably "chary." It means cautious/wary, but I can't think of any situation in which I would ever use it and I'm certain that I've never heard or read it before. Honestly, I think I learned more useful words than useless words while studying for the GRE.

Posted

I agree, and while studying for the GRE I would find a bunch of words in the book I was reading! However, since I'm bad at memorizing stuff as well, a few of them never stuck even when read in context. :lol: 

Posted

During my GRE, I came across a couple of words which made me go 'Yup, never saw this one before :blink:'

And then after that, while reading a few books, I was like.. 'Hey, I know what that means! :lol:

Life.

Posted
3 minutes ago, Forest Owlet said:

During my GRE, I came across a couple of words which made me go 'Yup, never saw this one before :blink:'

And then after that, while reading a few books, I was like.. 'Hey, I know what that means! :lol:

Life.

Exactly!!

Posted

That happened to me too. Also, sometimes I learned the correct definition for a word I'd incorrectly inferred the meaning of decades before. ?

Posted
2 hours ago, hopefulPhD2017 said:

That happened to me too. Also, sometimes I learned the correct definition for a word I'd incorrectly inferred the meaning of decades before. ?

I'm SO glad you mentioned this. 

Posted

I had a similar situation to you all. I'd learn a new GRE word, and then I'd suddenly hear it everywhere. 

It felt like I had never heard the word in my life, and then suddenly my life was inundated with those words.

(Yes, "inundate" is one such example!)

Posted
On 12/30/2016 at 8:30 PM, Almaqah Thwn said:

Personally, mine was flocculent: Resembling tuffs of wool in loose, fluffy organization. 

I beg your pardon! As a highland sheep-shearer I use flocculent daily!

Just kidding. ;) The sound of that word cracks me up.

Posted

As much as I adore vocabulary, mine would be garrulous: full of trivial conversation.

That word was on the actual GRE for me. I had zero roots or orthographic patterns I could use. I challenge anyone to slip it into casual conversation without feeling like they're dropping a two-ton cement block.

Posted

whatever the word was, I have forgotten it by now because it was so completely useless.

Posted
9 hours ago, barrettnumber5 said:

As much as I adore vocabulary, mine would be garrulous: full of trivial conversation.

That word was on the actual GRE for me. I had zero roots or orthographic patterns I could use. I challenge anyone to slip it into casual conversation without feeling like they're dropping a two-ton cement block.

Fellow vocabulary lover, and I have the same irritation at that word. No matter how many times I remind myself what it means, my brain always skids off towards associations with "garrison" and the like, which get me nowhere near "trivial conversation". 

Like @dagnabbit above, I also found "chary" particularly useless.

Posted
On 1/5/2017 at 8:45 AM, wet gremlin said:

Fellow vocabulary lover, and I have the same irritation at that word. No matter how many times I remind myself what it means, my brain always skids off towards associations with "garrison" and the like, which get me nowhere near "trivial conversation". 

Like @dagnabbit above, I also found "chary" particularly useless.

Chary seems like one of those words you make up while playing Scrabble. 

Posted

hahahaha great question. Every time I use a GRE word my advisor tells me I sound arrogant and jargony. Except for ubiquitous. That one is allowed :D 

Posted
On 12/30/2016 at 8:30 PM, Almaqah Thwn said:

Personally, mine was flocculent: Resembling tuffs of wool in loose, fluffy organization. 

Surprisingly, I have actually seen the word "flocculent" in a paper, and my lab mentor has used it on occasion (I blame the paper). I would have to agree with you though - such a strangely specific word is hard to use or even imagine using. I feel like it could be used to describe clouds maybe?

Posted

I don't know about useless words (probably because I can't remember them), but I did enjoy learning about even more commonly used words in English that come from other languages, such as pariah (Tamil) and amuck (Malay). That's one thing I always find super interesting and seems to have stuck with me more than most of the GRE words ^_^

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