100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know

Just fun with words

Press Release

100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know by Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries (Editor)
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BOSTON, MA — The editors of the American Heritage® dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know.

"The words we suggest," says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, "are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language."

The following is the entire list of 100 words:

• abjure
• abrogate
• abstemious
• acumen
• antebellum
• auspicious
• belie
• bellicose
• bowdlerize
• chicanery
• chromosome
• churlish
• circumlocution
• circumnavigate
• deciduous
• deleterious
• diffident
• enervate
• enfranchise
• epiphany
• equinox
• euro
• evanescent
• expurgate
• facetious
• fatuous
• feckless
• fiduciary
• filibuster
• gamete
• gauche
• gerrymander
• hegemony
• hemoglobin
• homogeneous
• hubris
• hypotenuse
• impeach
• incognito
• incontrovertible
• inculcate
• infrastructure
• interpolate
• irony
• jejune
• kinetic
• kowtow
• laissez faire
• lexicon
• loquacious
• lugubrious
• metamorphosis
• mitosis
• moiety
• nanotechnology
• nihilis
• mnomenclature
• nonsectarian
• notarize
• obsequious
• oligarchy
• omnipotent
• orthography
• oxidize
• parabola
• paradigm
• parameter
• pecuniary
• photosynthesis
• plagiarize
• plasma
• polymer
• precipitous
• quasar
• quotidian
• recapitulate
• reciprocal
• reparation
• respiration
• sanguine
• soliloquy
• subjugate
• suffragist
• supercilious
• tautology
• taxonomy
• tectonic
• tempestuous
• thermodynamics
• totalitarian
• unctuous
• usurp
• vacuous
• vehement
• vortex
• winnow
• wrought
• xenophobe
• yeoman