GRE Vocabulary: Let’s Go to the Movies!

So you want to expand your vocabulary in preparation for the GRE Verbal section. You may have even done a few sessions of flash card review – that was fun, wasn’t it?

As I have asserted in a past blog entry, there are other, less-traditional but more “inspired” avenues to increase one’s GRE word awareness.  In my next few posts, I will help you throw back a few handfuls of lofty GRE words while providing you with an example of their context as found within the scripts of lauded movie-makers, The Coen Brothers.  As many of you are probably aware, The Coen Bros. delight in writing rich, eccentric dialogue; their movies seem to traffic in word choices that juxtapose with the characters that utter such vernacular – often resulting in good times for all!

The first film offering us just such an enjoyable word horde platform:  Raising Arizona

The comedy tells a tale of baby-theft as recounted by a semi-thoughtful jailbird (Nicholas Cage).  The dialogue is as ridiculous as it is heady and it contains, as promised, many words you might not expect to hear from these characters. Although I have given you a link to the accepted definition of these words that are well worth your acquisition, I fully expect you to watch the movie so that you may enjoy their cinematic context while taking in a hilarious film in the process. Learning words in context is one of the best ways to absorb new vocab for the GRE.

Yes, you will be tested on these – or at least words quite similar – on the GRE.  Just check ‘em off and look ‘em up as they come your way:

Camaraderie – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/camaraderie

Wiles – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/wiles

Rambunctious – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rambunctious

Incarceration – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/incarceration

Latent – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/latent

Recidivism – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/recidivism

Premonish – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Premonish

Recognizance – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/recognizance

Domicile – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/domicile

Tarry – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tarry

Bipedal – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bipedal

The following words are used in the movie with alternate meanings and/or different parts of speech than the normally recognized definitions/speech part (The GRE is quite fond of using words in this manner):

Appointments (as furnishings) – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/appointments

Tender (transitive verb) – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Tender

Accessory (as used in law) – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/accessory

Posture (verb) – http://www.thefreedictionary.com/posture

Enjoy, and let me know how your GRE vocabulary has improved after taking on this fun AND productive study break!