# SAT Vocabulary/Part 1

The more you study critical reading questions, the more you realize that the key to doing well on the critical reading sections of the SAT is a strong, working vocabulary. The key to improving your vocabulary of college-level words can be summed up in one word: READ.
Read widely, read deeply, and read daily. If you do, your vocabulary will grow. If you don't, it won't.
The SAT is designed to measure your knowledge and skills in reading and writing, and vocabulary has always been a crucial component in this assessment.
Vocabulary plays a crucial role in both the passages of the questions themselves and in the answer choices, if you do not understand both, you'll have a hard time answering the question. Reading widely, however, may not always help you remember the words you read. You may have the words in your passive vocabulary and be able to recognize them when you see them in a context and yet be unable to define them clearly or think of synonyms for them. Additionally, unless you have already begun to upgrade your reading to the college level, reading widely will not necessarily acquaint you most efficiently with college-level words.
The following table is a dictionary of college-level words to know in preparation for the SAT; these words have appeared on published SATs in the past, and some of them will show up on the test you take. Use flash cards to help you master these vocabulary words. You can also use memory tricks to help you remember the words and their definitions.
| Word | Part of Speech | Definition | Example Sentence |
| Abase | Verb | To lower in rank, prestige, or esteem. | Defeated, Queen Zenobia was forced to abase herself before the conquering Romans, who made her march in chains before the emperor in the procession celebrating his triumph. |
| Abash | Verb | To embarrass. | He was not at all abashed by her open admiration. |
| Abate | Verb | To subside; decrease; lessen. | Rather than leaving immediately, they waited for the storm to abate. |
| Abbreviate | Verb | To shorten. | Because we were running out of time, the lecturer had to abbreviate her speech. |
| Abdicate | Verb | To renounce; give up. | When Edward VIII abdicated the British throne to marry the woman he loved, he surprised the entire world. |
| Abduction | Noun | Kidnapping. | The movie Ransom! describes the attempts to rescue a multimillionaire's son after the child's abduction by kidnappers. |
| Aberrant | Adjective | Deviating from what is considered proper or normal. | Given the aberrant nature of the data, we doubted the validity of the entire experiment. |
| Abet | Verb | To approve, encourage, and support (an action or a plan of action); aid. | She was unwilling to abet him in the swindle he had planned. |
| Abeyance | Noun | Suspended action. | The deal was held in abeyance until her arrival. |
| Abhor | Verb | To dislike strongly; loathe; hate. | She abhorred all forms of bigotry. |
| Abject | Adjective | Being of the most miserable kind; wretched; lacking pride. | On the streets of New York, the homeless live in abject poverty, huddling in doorways to find shelter from the wind. |
| Abjure | Verb | To renounce upon oath. | He abjured his allegiance to the king. |
| Ablution | Noun | The act of washing or cleaning, especially as part of a religious rite. | His daily ablutions were accompanied by loud noises that he humorously labeled "Opera in the Bath." |
| Abnegation | Noun | Repudiation; self-sacrifice. | Though Rudolph and Duchess Flavia loved one another, their love was doomed, for she had to marry the king; their act of abnegation was necessary to preserve the kingdom. |
| Abolish | Verb | To cancel; put an end to. | The president of the college refused to abolish the physical education requirement. |
| Abominable | Adjective | Detestable; extremely unpleasant; very bad. | Mary liked John until she learned he was dating Susan; then, Mary called him an "abominable young man with an abominable taste in women. |
| Aboriginal | Adjective | Being the first of its kind in a region; primitive; native. | Her studies of the primitive art forms of the aboriginal Indians were widely reported in scientific journals. |
| Abortive | Adjective | Unsuccessful; fruitless. | Attacked by armed troops, the Chinese students had to abandon their abortive attempt to democratize Beijing peacefully. |
| Abrade | Verb | To wear away by friction; scrape; erode. | Because the sharp rocks had abraded the skin on my legs, I dabbed iodine on the scrapes and abrasions. |