Some of the most perplexing words on the GRE are diminutive. Who doesn’t see PAN : REVIEW and metaphorically scratch his or her head, or wonder what, exactly, a nib or a gin is on its own? Welcome to Three-Letter Words. A few of them might make you want to deploy some four-letter words.

If you’ve ever heard the word eke, it was probably in the context of the expression eke out a living or “barely eke out a living,” but what does eke mean by itself?

Interestingly, eke means “increase, enlarge, or lengthen” — in fact, the word shares a root, the Latin “augÄ“re,” with augment.

The expression “to eke out” of course means “to make (a living) or support (existence) laboriously” — to be just barely making it. “Eke out” can also mean to supplement an income, as in “He eked out his meager paycheck by participating in medical studies for money.”

(By the way, for the spelling-challenged, the eke in eke out a living is not the same as in Eek, a mouse!)

Welcome to Visual Dictionary, a series of posts about words that are better expressed in pictures.

An effigy is a representation of someone, such as a statue, or — more commonly — a grotesque or crude representation of a hated person, as in the expression “burned in effigy.” (Much like poking pins in a voodoo doll, burning a paper mache version of a ruler is an evocative way to express dislike).

A scarecrow is also a common type of effigy, intended to scare birds away and keep them from eating crops.

In Ecuador, burning effigies — especially figures representing the worst of the past year — is a traditional way to celebrate New Years. From photographer Eric Walton:

“This stage-hand is putting the finishing touches on an elaborate display of effigies in which Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is represented as a puppet-master who is controlling the president of Columbia and another figure who was identified as Falso Positivo.”

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCM2nEBE0RY

This classic Monty Python sketch, “Bookshop,” contains a memorable use of the word expurgate, which means “to censor, to remove morally offensive passages.”

The funny part — if you haven’t heard or seen the sketch before — is that the customer in the bookshop wants an expurgated version of a book that no one would normally find the need to censor: Olsen’s Standard Book of British Birds. (He dislikes a particular bird — they have “long, nasty beaks”).

There are a few other GRE words relating to censoring or shortening:

Redact – Revise or edit; draw up or frame. This word is sometimes used euphemistically to refer to censorship, as in the title of the 2007 film Redacted.

Abridge – “To shorten by omissions while retaining the basic contents,” as is frequently done when adapting a book to audiobook format.

Truncate – “to shorten by cutting off a part; cut short”

And, of course, don’t get censor mixed up with censure, which means to disapprove, especially formally.

Scurvy is a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency. From Wikipedia:

Scurvy was at one time common among sailors, pirates and others aboard ships at sea longer than perishable fruits and vegetables could be stored (subsisting instead only on cured and salted meats and dried grains) and by soldiers similarly separated from these foods for extended periods. It was described by Hippocrates (c. 460 BC“c. 380 BC), and herbal cures for scurvy have been known in many native cultures since prehistory. Scurvy was one of the limiting factors of marine travel, often killing large numbers of the passengers and crew on long-distance voyages. This became a significant issue in Europe from the beginning of the modern era in the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, continuing to play a significant role through World War I in the 20th century.

It was a pretty big deal when it was finally discovered that citrus fruit cured scurvy.

More interestingly for the GRE, however, scurvy can also be an adjective meaning “despicable or mean.”

The scurvy bully not only stole his lunch money, but also reversed all the positive and negative signs on his math homework.

Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics (it does not involve manual labor — hence the joke), but quantum on its own means “a particular quantity or amount” or can be used as an adjective to mean “sudden and dramatic” (a quantum shift in thought).

The meaning in physics is related to the smallest indivisible part of something (radiant energy) and can be used this way colloquially as well:

If you want to share your Skittles, a quantum is quite small (one Skittle), but if you want to share your Reese’s cups, a quantum is quite large (one of only two cups in the pack).

The word quantum also notably appears in the title of the show Quantum Leap (in which Scott Bakula’s character time-travels someplace new in every episode) and in the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace (we’re not sure why it’s called that — probably just because “Q” words sound cool).

Hyperbole is obvious and intentional exaggeration. Haha, “best thing ever”!

Kinetic means pertaining to or caused by motion. Relatedly, “motion scientists” (and highly educated gym teachers) are called kinesiologists.

Binary means of or relating to the number two. Sometimes people say binary to refer to a system of “ones and zeros” in computer programming.

Mathematically, binary means “of or pertaining to a system of numerical notation to the base 2, in which each place of a number, expressed as 0 or 1, corresponds to a power of 2. The decimal number 58 appears as 111010 in binary notation.”

Colloquially, people use binary to refer to a system with only two options. Activists fighting for the rights of transgendered (or non-gender-conforming) people sometimes speak out against a “gender binary.” By this, they mean that it ought to be okay to exist at various places in the middle of a spectrum of male and female, or to exist entirely outside of that system of gender encoding.

These shirts and other risible sartorial items are available here.

The Mental Floss store (last-minute holiday shopping, anyone?) sells a number of hilarious t-shirts that cleverly take advantage of GRE-style vocabulary.

Let’s start with an easy one:

Haha. Apathy means not caring. (A synonym is indifference). Don’t confuse apathy with antipathy, which is hatred.

Ambiguity, of course, is unclearness. Don’t confuse with ambivalence, the state of having mixed feelings or being undecided. Generally, stuff is ambiguous, people are ambivalent.

Entropy is the eventual heat death of the universe. We use it metaphorically to refer to the idea that all things kind of naturally fall apart if given enough time.

“Why is our last year’s best-performing branch lagging? What happened to those weekly motivational meetings? I thought that team worked so well together! We gave them the team-building award!”

(shrug) “I dunno. Entropy?”

These shirts and other risible sartorial items are available here.

Bristol Palin is, of course, the daughter of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, as well as a recent contestant on Dancing with the Stars and an abstinence advocate who is also mother to a almost-two-year-old.

It is for this last apparent paradox that MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann named Bristol Worst Person in the World (well, at least the Worst Person in the World for November 29th).

But this blog isn’t about politics, it’s about vocabulary. Bristol shot back on Facebook:

“Accusing me of hypocrisy is by now, an old canard. What Mr. Olbermann lacks in originality he makes up for with insincere incredulity.”

That’s a pretty good use of several GRE-worthy words (as well as alliteration)!

A canard is “a false or baseless, usually derogatory story, report, or rumor,” often used in the expression “tired, old canard.”

Canard is, literally, the French word for “duck” (the animal, not the verb). There seems to be some relationship with the English use of the word quack to mean a con artist, a dishonest salesperson. One origin note for canard offers: “from French: a duck, hoax, from Old French caner to quack, of imitative origin.”

Here, Bristol seems to be saying that pointing out that she is an abstinence advocate who, in the past, did not practice abstinence, is “played out.” She may be somewhat misusing the word, though, since certainly the mother of a small child cannot claim that the claim is “false or baseless.” The word canard is correctly used to refer to false stories that just won’t die — for instance, the tired, old canard that we only use 10% of our brains (and therefore this magic brain-enhancement program, spiritual movement, or pill will help you use the rest of it!)

Incredulity is an unwillingness to believe. It’s the state we’re in when we say, sincerely, “I just can’t believe it!” You could go so far as to call it the “OMG!” emotion.

So, insincere incredulity would be Olbermann pretending to be shocked when he really isn’t. I’ve never heard these two words put together before, but I can see it — a person might engage in insincere incredulity if she knows you’re planning her a surprise party but she doesn’t want you to know that she knows. So everybody jumps out and yells “Surprise!” and she says “OMG! I just can’t believe it!”

Insincere certainly has a negative connotation, though, so perhaps an even more appropriate use of the phrase would be something like a situation in which you tell your “friend” that you just found out that your boyfriend’s been cheating on you and she feigns total shock and indignation, but — OMG! — the woman he’s been cheating on you with is her!

Your erstwhile friend’s shock would certainly count as insincere incredulity.

The word natty means “neatly or trimly smart in dress or appearance.” The word is almost always applied to men, specifically men wearing suits or other sharp, businesslike menswear, and often occurs in its adverbial form, as in “nattily dressed.”

When I think of a nattily-dressed man, I think of R&B star Ne-Yo:

Select your answer to this GRE Antonyms problem before clicking “more.”

NATTY:
A. frowzy
B. chichi
C. dapper
D. hoary
E. fey

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The company Groupon (as in “group coupon”) cleverly posted this ad on Dictionary.com:

Copious simply means “plentiful, a lot of.” An abatement is a lessening or alleviation — or, “an amount deducted or subtracted, as from the usual price or the full tax.”

Copious abatements! A panoply of discounts! (See A Plethora of Words for a Plethora for more words that mean “a lot”).

I am now far more inclined to use the services of Groupon, now that they have become japingly bombastic.

Some of the most perplexing words on the GRE are diminutive. Who doesn’t see PAN : REVIEW and metaphorically scratch his or her head, or wonder what, exactly, a nib or a gin is on its own? Welcome to Three-Letter Words. A few of them might make you want to deploy some four-letter words.

To don is to put on or dress in. You don your clothes every morning. (Well, I don’t know you personally, but unless you live in a nudist colony, I’m pretty sure you don clothes diurnally).

Try this GRE Analogies problem — choose your own answer before clicking “more”:

DON : DOFF ::
A. vie : vex
B. bilk : stymie
C. frighten : terrify
D. excise : insert
E. pan : win

Read more