100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know
The editors of the American Heritage® dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know.
“The words we suggest,” says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, “are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language.”
The following is the entire list of 100 words Every High School Graduate Should Know:
abjure
abrogate
abstemious
acumen
antebellum
auspicious
belie
bellicose
bowdlerize
chicanery
chromosome
churlish
circumlocution
circumnavigate
deciduous
deleterious
diffident
enervate
enfranchise
epiphany
equinox
euro
evanescent
expurgate
facetious
fatuous
feckless
fiduciary
filibuster
gamete
gauche
gerrymander
hegemony
hemoglobin
homogeneous
hubris
hypotenuse
impeach
incognito
incontrovertible
inculcate
infrastructure
interpolate
irony
jejune
kinetic
kowtow
laissez faire
lexicon
loquacious
lugubrious
metamorphosis
mitosis
moiety
nanotechnology
nihilism
nomenclature
nonsectarian
notarize
obsequious
oligarchy
omnipotent
orthography
oxidize
parabola
paradigm
parameter
pecuniary
photosynthesis
plagiarize
plasma
polymer
precipitous
quasar
quotidian
recapitulate
reciprocal
reparation
respiration
sanguine
soliloquy
subjugate
suffragist
supercilious
tautology
taxonomy
tectonic
tempestuous
thermodynamics
totalitarian
unctuous
usurp
vacuous
vehement
vortex
winnow
wrought
xenophobe
yeoman
ziggurat
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this site is stupid it doesn’t even tell you what those words mean, thanks for telling me a list of words that have no meaning towards me
The response by “suckadick” confuses me. He can use the internet but can’t use a dictionary?
Sad.
Hey suckadick, try a word a day. Then probably you will know why you need to know these 100 words… check it out.. will be totally worth it come SATs and LSATs and all the other good verbal stuff
so subjective and irrelevant. lemme guess; the poster knows all these words. i get by everyday life without using bowdlerize or yeoman, thank you… the writer of this list can bowdlerize a rock up his own yeoman, if you know what i mean… that insult holds more value and meaning than most of these random words do today. and its not because “america’s being dumbed down” like some people have said. language evolves, so naturally the words that make you sound like an uptight, elitist douchebag get phased out over time by commonly used words.
this is a good list of words to select from if you’re looking to stroke your ego and alienate the majority of people around you… it will make most people want to leave an ‘abstemious’ pile on your front step
surprisingly, these words have saved my ass on many occasions.
C’mon. Can’t you all see Suckadik was puling some chicanery and being facetious?
My favorite is euro.
here is more than a word you should know. fuck yourself …biggest load of shit i have ever seen in my life……7 children an air line pilot should be familiar with……4 teabags a mentally upset should be loosely habitual with…………just as pointless bullshit as 100 words EVERY high school gaduatre should know……….coc
Stupid cat is being stupid. (and I think he feels a little threatened that someone has caught on that it isn’t an accident!)
Poo-poo face! You words stupid! I talk OOOH-KAAY! YOU the stupid-head.
Poo on you and you jejune too!
Good collection of words. Intelligently picked. It should help people. Good luck!
I understand we should strive for knowledge but what’s the point in knowing so many words that NOBODY knows. I do know a fair bit of these but come on, what makes xenophobe so important that it’s on this list?! People appreciate when you can talk specifically and intellectually with common words, that’s true skill. On the other hand you have pricks with a superiority complex who want to use many of the words on this list to differentiate themselves when it’s not even impressive. You don’t see Noam Chomsky using these words. The American education system is so flawed, emphasizing memorization rather than teaching people how to actually use logic, think, and apply knowledge to new situations. Fill in the blank and multiple choice tests, pfff. I went to school in Australia for 3 years which isn’t even known for great education but you actually learned to think and write rather than memorize what year Hiroshima was bombed in. In science you could memorize every paragraph verbatim, but if you couldn’t apply what you learned to totally new situations on the tests, you would make a C. So go ahead and memorize what hemoglobin is.
Just because you don;t know many of these words, that doesn’t make them useless. It simply means you are foot soldier in the “Dumbing down of America”. Or maybe even a platoon leader.
Being proud of your ignorance simply points out that you will probably be an ignorant illiterate all of your life. Further evidence is given by the level of profanity in so many posts. When “fuck you” is your best insult, it shows you have no originality or intelligence. Profanity is always a sign of a weak mind tying to express itself forcefully.
I second this wholeheartedly. I could reiterate your points so I don’t just sound like a parrot, but you really did say everything that I feel needed to be said. So… squawk.
I’m a high school dropout, and I only had to look up one word, moiety, and that was only because I had a moment of self-doubt. Turns out, I was right.
So, tell me again, that NOBODY knows these words.
Make sure you know what a polymer is just in case Dupont shows up out of the blue to your house. Make sure you know what a yeoman is just in case you ever build your own time machine. Make sure you know what gauche ia, cause saying left is sooo 2007.
I think it’s far more important to use proper grammar than to try to impress anyone with a list such as this. It’s rather pedantic, I think and I don’t know why people need to use big words when a diminutive one will do.
The point is, *others* will be using these words out in the real world. It might be pedantic, but knowing the definition of “deleterious” might come in handy one day.
Anyway, big words look good when it comes to academic papers.
(Gauche is usually used to mean someone has committed some social faux pas.
Nothing wrong with knowing some French.)
It depends completely on the setting and job, but I’d guess that only in the rarest professions would anyone use 95% of these words. In my thinking, only a pompous ass would throw these words around knowing that most people wouldn’t know the meaning.
Why isn’t dipsomaniac on this list?
hemoglobin… should be spelled haemoglobin. look it up if u dont believe me
And the last time I checked “you” is spelled “y-o-u” not “u.” Hopefully, you will believe me without looking it up.
umm hemoglobin is spelt right. i am a nurse and its written “hemoglobin”. just so you know.
Using these words is not being elitist, it is being an effective communicator. Using 20 words to say what could be said in 1 is being either boorish or condescending.
Isn’t it more effective to communicate using 20 words everyone know than 1 word only 20% of the people know. I’m not arguing with the list as it may be good touchstone. I’m just arguing with the above logic.
There isn’t much point starting on learning that list until you are using what you already know of the English language correctly.
Thankfully, the people commenting here seem to have a grasp on the English language, but such a vast portion of the Internet is populated by people who don’t know their “there” from their “they’re”. How do these people survive in this world with such a poor command of their native language ?
You don’t have a ‘grasp on’ you have a ‘grasp of’ something. How people who purport to know the language don’t bother to check their own understanding and correctness clearly indicates the sorry state of education and literacy our nations have descended to. Until educators are properly educated we cannot expect much from the hordes being ‘educated’ can we?
Bullshit. I write for a living, and I’ve *never* had to use 20 words to replace the word ‘abjure’. And while a more bellicose response might be to say that this list enfranchises the supercilious with circumlocution, a closer look at Steven’s (and I bet he insists that you call him ‘Steven’, not ‘Steve’) title reveals that this list simply intends to sell dictionaries to the rest of us poor schlubs that have to listen to such gauche hubris.
End soliloquy.
100 words every high school graduate should know? Bullshit. I write for a living, and I’ve *never* had to use 20 words to replace the word ‘abjure’. And while a more bellicose response might be to say that this list enfranchises the supercilious with circumlocution, a closer look at Steven’s (and I bet he insists that you call him ‘Steven’, not ‘Steve’) title reveals that this list simply intends to sell dictionaries to the rest of us poor schlubs that have to listen to such gauche hubris.
End soliloquy.
This, the original post, is merely an ego trip. A word the author should know: superfluous.
There are two words I personally feel every high school student should know how to use:
Affect
Effect
i asked my english teacher to tell me the difference and he said he struggles witht the difference between the two as well. so much for knowing the difference, eh?
I agree with the others who said we should be teaching logic and how to apply it instead of having kids memorize a bunch of useless bullshit. History’s a good example, instead of having kids memorize what happened teach them how to analyze the situation so that they may see how complex a certain situation can be .
NeedsRelease makes a good point there are so many people who use those two incorrectly. Just as so many people use You’re and Your incorrectly. And these are basic English mistakes.
I do not believe a stifled vocabulary services anyone particularly well. It is true that toning down pompous and sprawling vernacular faux pas’ will allow for better engagement with unpretentious peoples, but, in order to best understand jackasses who will not return the favour (the actually pompous and socially retarded) a person must arm themselves with some rudimentary dazzlers. Unless, it is of course jargon, those highly specialized and often redundant phrases or words that fit only within the niche of certain branches of knowledge. That being said, this list blows.
Vortex? Quasar? Equinox? Nanotechnology? Thermodynamics? Oxidize?
Parabola? Really? How many opportunities will present themselves in which the average high school graduate can wistfully fling around this beautiful lexicon of jargon? Comprehension of the fields these words are used within is far more important than the words themselves. Name-dropping this garbage outside the chosen field is for either comedic affect/effect (depending on circumstance) or intercontextualization within academic fields.
More than two thirds of these should not be spoken outside of highly specialized sectors. I am trying to think of a simple term to sum this up. What is the name of the word that means you are using a term incorrectly?
=p
Auspicious list? I abjure, or do I abdicate? What is this an episode of the Gilmour Girls or Frasier? You decide.
*hint*
One is funny on purpose, the other isn’t.
f you want to be a successful novelist or writer for an intellectual crowd then it’s great to have a huge vocab, but otherwise what help does it lend you?
http://www.collegefastbreak.com/
I love the supporters or Newspeak who came along to voice their opinions. It was really plus good of them to do so.
1984!
If I may interpolate here- many of the bellicose and lugubrious comments (some crudely wrought and supercilious, others merely tempestuous and vehement, still others vacuous) above do make a point through inculcation if not by use of sound arguments or strong orthography. A moiety are on the mark. It is incontrovertible that a strong command of any language allows one to speak without diffidence. Yet this demands proper grammar usage as well as the use of a vast lexicon. Indeed, the hubris possessed by those who use obscure nomenclature simply to demonstrate that they have a vocabulary make them appear unctuous, not omnipotent. I agree with the fellow who suggested a quotidian routine of learning. I am feeling sanguine about the soundness of my comment and I will not abjure.
It’s not the words you should know. It’s the concepts.
These words aren’t for random memorization. They are (read the post) a benchmark for measuring the extent of your knowledge.
Can you discuss history without learning the meaning of ‘antebellum’ and ’suffragist’?
Can you talk about science without learning ‘mitosis ‘ and ‘chromosome’?
If you don’t know about impeachment, filibusters or gerrymandering then you don’t understand the inner workings of the government and will be royally screwed by slick politicans for the rest of your life.
If a high schooler isn’t familiar with these words then they must be failing all subjects.
But grades aren’t the most important part. What matters is that not knowing some of these words cuts you off from public discussion of ideas.
Give me an alternative word for chromosome. Give me a smaller more ‘ordinary’ word for nanotechnology. What is the alternative to the word xenophobe?
How do you talk about something when you don’t have a word for it?
Yes, I think premeditatively using words like these to impress people makes you look like a jerk-off. However, if you can use a word in a clever way, to say something succinctly (which might need hordes of other words to convey a similar meaning), then I think using them is great.
They can also create metaphors pretty well.
Penny Arcade’s writer does this well:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/4/10/
It is not too difficult to see why most of the above have trouble with the words in the list. They seem to have trouble with any words over fourletters, especially the first writer. Here are a few words more in line with their intelligence: cat, dog, up, like…etc.
Haha. Elitists, step down off your high horses. You’re making a mockery of yourselves.
It is sad that every time someone talks about gaining knowledge, we turn around and call them elitist.
It’s the concepts you should know, not just the words.
I use half of these on a daily basis with my friends. None of us put effort into it. Heck no one is taking English courses in university either, I only got my highschool degree too. What makes me wonder is why is “euro” , “parabola”, and “irony” in there? I doubt you can get out of middle school not knowing those…
the problem with this list is that some of the words, yes high school graduates should know them. some of the words on this list, however, are a bit much.
Most of these words are really big words. Dictionary is our best friend.
I think that I see the point that some of you argumentative people are trying to make, although I use these possibly pretentious words, all the time. (seriously… although still LOL)
IMHO, these word lists are most annoying (highfaluting, perhaps?) because learning a language one word at a time is most unproductive… even your native language. Words almost always act together, as a team, in complete sentences and paragraphs, with added nuances of meaning, sometimes called figures of speech, literary allusions, or idioms. Most students learn very little by memorizing definitions, one word at a time.
Well then, why do so many educators focus on learning separate “words” from a list. Well… it’s easier for the educators who write (and later analyze the results from) those confounded standardized tests. Statisticians have observed that students who “test out” to have large vocabularies are correlated with high academic achievement. However, that does not mean, conversely, that teaching a lot of words, one at a time, will educate students. (But that digresses to an entirely separate essay, on the scientific design of statistically valid research experiments, that lead to reasonably valid conclusions… LOL, but true.)
Unfortunate consequence is that our educational institutions can’t get out of the paradigm of teaching to the tests. Perhaps it’s the undue influence of sports in education. We want to see a scoreboard, with a clear numerical evaluation of the value of our efforts, our progress to date.
Instead, Grasshopper, try to take the pebble… The point is, that I can offer no alternative, no advice except read widely, of literature that is just within your grasp, not too easy, and at the same time, not too hard to understand. Perhaps, that is where our educational institutions let us down. Each grade and classroom gets the same textbook… one size fits all.
Please, offer your comments… concurrence or rebuttal. (reasoned, of course, as I am a proletarian grease monkey, in reality; yet a college professor, manque… LOL)
I would be surprised if more than 5% of high school graduates, in any region of the planet, could use each and every one of these words correctly in a sentence.
Agree with Godspeed You!. Maybe in a perfect world for English teachers these would be words every HS student should learn; but the reality is students will never come across the majority of words on this arbitrary list. Thanks, but I’ll continue to use “unsophisticated” words like upbeat instead of sanguine.
More important for students to learn how to construct sentences than learn obscure vocab. Do you see some of these office emails/whatever that get sent out? Vocab won’t help crappy structure.
You shouldn’t know all of these words many of them are useless to you unless you come across them when reading. Your vocabulary will not make or break you success, although having a good vocabulary may help :_
i knew 74 of those and i’m in my second semester of freshman year. is that bad?
nope. that is what a dictonary is for.