Top 100 Vocabulary Words That Adults Should Know
Top 100 Vocabulary Words That Adults Should Know
Educators often use words with meanings that students may not fully understand. Rather than looking foolish and asking for an explanation, students may go through years of schooling and not truly grasp the meaning of important terminology.
After consulting with a past English teacher, my sister, Lesley Hamilton, and a future English teacher, my daughter, Terra Rothpletz, we came up with a list of 100 words that are dispersed by educators but not necessarily understood by students. Rather than list the definitions here, I thought it might be better to just include the link so that you could test yourself. Look at the following words and see how well you do. To find out the definitions, just click on the word.
- Acquiesce
- Acronym
- Ambiguity
- Analogy
- Anachronism
- Andragogy
- Antithesis
- Antonym
- Articulate
- Assonance
- Benchmarking
- Brainstorming
- Circumspect
- Clandestine
- Cognition
- Collaborate
- Colloquial
- Connotation
- Contrived
- Conundrum
- Correlation
- Criterion
- Cumulative
- Curriculum
- Deference
- Developmental
- Dialect
- Diction
- Didactic
- Dissertation
- Divergent
- Egregious
- Eloquence
- Emergent
- Empathy
- Enigma
- Epitome
- Epiphany
- Epitaph
- Erudite
- Existential
- Exponential
- Formative
- Holistic
- Homonym
- Hubris
- Hyperbole
- Incongruous
- Infamy
- Initiation
- Innate
- Intellectual
- Interactive
- Irony
- Jargon
- Juxtaposition
- Malapropism
- Magnanimous
- Mentor
- Metaphor
- Meticulous
- Mnemonic
- Monologue
- Motif
- Myriad
- Nemesis
- Nominal
- Norms
- Obfuscate
- Obtuse
- Onomatopoeia
- Ostentatious
- Oxymoron
- Paradox
- Paraphrase
- Pedantic
- Pedagogy
- Perusal
- Phonemes
- Phonological
- Plagiarism
- Plethora
- Posthumously
- Preposition
- Pretentious
- Pseudonym
- References
- Reflection
- Rubric
- Sardonic
- Satire
- Simile
- Soliloquy
- Superfluous
- Syntax
- Thesis
- Validity
- Vernacular
- Virtual
- Vocational
Related articles
How to Respond Effectively in Online Discussions
Online college students often find that they are required to answer discussion questions in class. With the popularity of texting and the lack of formality used when writing an email, many students are lacking the necessary skills to write an appropriate posting.
Online schools often require that postings are substantive. In other words, the postings should be substantial and have sufficient content to answer questions in depth. Students may be given guidelines or a minimum word count to guide them. However, when responding to fellow students’ postings, there are usually not specific word count requirements. Therefore, it is important for students to respond in a way that is not merely showing their agreement or disagreement with what is being discussed.
A good rule of thumb is to support what the student has said with at least one sentence. That doesn’t mean the student has to agree with the statement; they just have to support the fact that the student has made their point.
Then after supporting them, the student can disagree or agree with the topic at hand. They should include several more sentences explaining their position on the topic. They could give examples and cite sources.
A good way to end the discussion would be with a question that is either addressed to the original student or one that could be addressed to the class in order to bring more participants into the discussion.
It is extremely important that students write in complete sentences, use correct grammar, check spelling and punctuate correctly. For additional help with writing skills, please check out the following links:
Can Spell Check Make Things Worse?
Top 15 Writing and Grammar Mistakes
Top 5 Most Intriguing Lists
The How Stuff Works website is a great resource to find out just about everything about anything. While doing research for my books, I ran into some interesting lists that I will be sharing with my students. I particularly like the list of misspelled words, but check out the others on the list below:
Top 5 Most Intriguing Lists
While you can browse through hundreds of fascinating lists at Extraordinary Lists, here are 5 lists that we feel are certain to amaze and entertain:
Can Spell Check Make Things Worse? The Most Misspelled Words
Today’s Ask Dr. Diane: What are some of the mostly commonly misspelled words?
I post a lot of information about spelling and grammar for my students. There are certain words that many people tend to misspell. For a list of the top 100 misspelled words, click here. I often ask students to quiz their family and friends to see how they do with some of the more commonly misspelled words . . . For fun, ask people to spell the following words that seem pretty simple and basic to see how well they do. I think you’ll be surprised at how many times people misspell these:
Calendar
Embarrass
Questionnaire
Accommodate
Definitely
I think a lot of students tend to rely heavily on the spell check function. The problem is, if you don’t really have a good idea of how the word you are looking for is spelled in the first place, spell check may offer solutions that are not even close to the word you had intended. I often have students send me an email saying something like, “I apologize for the incontinence.” I kind of think they were looking for the word inconvenience . . . but I guess you never know.
For some extra tips on improving your spelling, check out an article by powa.org by clicking here. Here are some tips from that article that may be helpful to you:
Suggestions for Spelling Improvement
1. Don’t look words up while you’re composing. Wait until your thought-flow runs its course. As you write, highlight or mark any words you aren’t absolutely sure about. Then later when editing, your attention will go right to these words and you can look them up all at once without interrupting and losing track of your thoughts. By looking up words later, you also can concentrate on learning to spell them correctly so you won’t have to look them up again. You might even consider keeping a list of Target Words to concentrate on.
2. Every time you write a word ask yourself whether you know how to spell it. There are only two possible answers to this question: yes and no. Maybe, probably, and I think so all count as no. If the answer is yes, keep on writing, but if the answer is no, mark the word to look up. Most spelling errors come not on words like “cataclysmic,” which you know you need to look up, but on words like “front,” where you think the odds are with you.
3. Notice what part of the word you’ve spelled wrong. Hardly ever do you spell a whole word wrong. Usually one or two letters need to be changed. Find the trouble spot by comparing the dictionary version with the version you’ve already written down. Sometimes a memory prod will help you get those letters right next time. For example, you might learn to spell “environment” by remembering that it has the word “iron” in it.
4. Watch out for words that sound like other ones. Here the problem isn’t so much spelling as using the wrong word, as when someone says, “I don’t care weather it rains.” Besides “whether” and “weather,” some other frequently confused words are listed below. These words are especially treacherous because computer spell-checkers won’t pick them up.
a — an — and
our — hour — are
accept — except
personal — personnel
cite — site — sight
quiet — quite — quit
cloths — clothes
roll — role
desert — dessert
soul — sole
do — due
than — then
led — lead
there — their — they’re
loose — lose
to — too — two
moral — morale
wear — where — were
new — knew
who’s — whose
no — know
your — you’re
past — passed