Acetic - used figuratively?; And general "trick words"

[eschafer]

I am trying to identify trick words I suspect ETS throws in as distractors.

If acetic (vinegary) can be used more generally to mean sour or bitter, it would edge away from being a distractor.
If it can be used figuratively, it is flexible enough to appear relatively often.
A cursory search didn't turn up any figurative usages for me, but one dictionary supplied bitter and severe as synonyms, so I've been wondering how to categorize it.


Also, do you guys have any other GRE words you think are a bit on the overly specific side or seem like a trap?

I identified quite a few apparent tricks on the practice tests and the GRE itself - usually consisting of homonyms/close spellings of common words that are very much not synonyms or words with misleading roots [sanguinary is a far cry from sanguine, no?]. Words with weird second definitions the GRE prefers are also good.

I apologize if this was the wrong place to post this. I posted thinking it was more like the student-student GMAT forums, but it looks like this is under "ask an instructor".

[tommywallach]

Hey E,

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by a distractor. "Acetic" means what it means, so it can't "distract" from another word in any way. Now if you're simply asking about words with alternate meanings--well many thousands of words have multiple meanings, so I can't really point them out one by one.

I wouldn't worry about trying to locate any kind of "special" words in any way. Really, it's just about memorizing as many definitions as you can. And truthfully, if a word means "bitter" in any way, it can probably be used metaphorically as well. When test time comes and you see the word, it'll be the best of the options even if you didn't specifically study it as a metaphorical word.

Good luck!

-t