Sentence #11

Buckbeak will always be remembered as a halcyon creature who showed forbearance even while Draco Malfoy hectored her. Malfoy's ignominious hubris during class displays the need for mandatory etiquette classes for Slytherin students to avoid such future gaucherie.

halcyon: calm and peaceful
forbearance: patience; willingness to wait
hector: to bully
ignominious: shameful; dishonorable; undignified; disgraceful
hubris: arrogant pride
gaucherie: socially awkward, tactless behavior

Sentence #10

Draco Malfoy mostly left the pugilism to his cronies Crabbe and Goyle. He preferred to make invidious remarks against people like the Weasleys who he liked to abase for being much poorer than him. While his comments occasionally stung, the Weasleys had the satisfaction of knowing that they were much richer in love, friends, and family than a puerile ingrate like Malfoy would ever be.

pugilism: fighting, sparring, boxing
invidious: envious, obnoxious, or offensive; likely to promote ill-will
abase: to disgrace, to humble, demean, humiliate
puerile: childish, immature, silly
ingrate: ungrateful person

Sentence #9

Fleur didn't think Mrs. Weasley was officious in planning her and Bill's wedding. The phalanx of things to do seemed to accrete daily and would have left an acidulous taste in the pit of Fleur's stomach if her mother-in-law-to-be wasn't there to help make sure no one's contributing energies lay fallow and wasted.


officious: too helpful, meddlesome
phalanx: a compact or close-knit body of people, animals, or things
accrete: to grow in size, to increase in amount
acidulous: sour in taste or manner
fallow: dormant, unused

Sentence #8

As the first year students sportively paraded into Honeydukes, they did not notice the Spartan and stolid cashier warning them of the specious Explosive Tarts. The tarts were so soporific that they caused the students to remain in a state of torpor until Hagrid called them.

sportive: frolicsome, playful
stolid: unemotional, lacking sensitivity
specious: deceptively attractive; seemingly plausible but fallacious
Spartan: highly self-disciplined; frugal; austere
soporific: causing sleep or lethargy
torpor: extreme mental and physical sluggishness

Sentence #7

At their acme during O.W.L. exams, the students' stress levels were further amalgamated with fears of Death Eaters on the run. As the students sank into a greater emotional abyss, they realized these aberrations could only be alleviated or abated with the anodyne of Hagrid's homemade treacle fudge.

acme: highest point, summit, the highest level or degree attainable
amalgamate: to combine, to mix together
anodyne: something that calms or soothes pain
aberration: deviation from the norm
abate: to reduce in amount, degree or severity
alleviate: to make more bearable
abyss: an extremely deep hole

Sentence #6

Argus Filch lugubriously accepted that he wouldn't be able to hang Fred and George up by their thumbs for filching the confiscated items from the coffer in his office. As much as he tried to ingratiate himself to Dumbledore to bend the rules, the headmaster was intractable in his decision and made rejoinders about such things as 'human rights' and the like.

lugubrious: sorrowful, mournful, dismal
coffer: strongbox, large chest for money
ingratiate: to gain favor with another by deliberate effort, to please somebody so as to gain an advantage
intractable: not easily managed or manipulated, stubborn, unruly
rejoinder: response, retort, riposte

Sentence #5

As Professor Cuthbert Binns waffled throughout his arcane history lectures, he hardly noticed the lack of plaudit from his second-year students. Hermione Granger was the only vivacious student among the otherwise torpid class who considered Binns' accounts to be yarns full of gems, each word of which she scribbled frugally with her blue ink quill.

waffle: to talk vaguely and without much result
arcane: concerning obscure knowledge
plaudit: praise, approval
vivacious: lively; high spirited
yarn: long entertaining story
torpid: sleeping; sluggish; lethargic; dormant
frugal: careful; economical

Sentence #4

Using mendacity, Crabbe and Goyle always managed to pass their final exams, innocuous to none but themselves, by bilking off of Draco Malfoy's exam. Thankfully Professor Snape caught them and excoriated them. However, that did not last too long as Lucius Malfoy exculpated them by bribing Snape. Slytherin's internal workings remain a mystery to us all...

mendacity: dishonesty
innocuously: causing no harm
bilke: cheat
excoriate: severe criticism/self-righteously correcting
exculpate: to set free from blame/to clear from a charge of guilt

Sentence #3

Professor McGonagall's polemic against unruly students often leaves them so contrite that it makes them ill enough to seek help from Madam Pomfrey to make them salubrious again. However, while McGonagall may come off as a martinet, she can also be surprisingly blithe at times.

polemic: controversy, argument, verbal attack, denunciation, refutation.
contrite: deeply sorrowful, repentant for a wrong
salubrious: healthful, curative
martinet: strict disciplinarian, one who rigidly follows rules
blithe: joyful, cheerful, or w/o appropriate thought, carefree

Sentence #2

Neville Longbottom, an extremely timorous individual, gains temerity mercurially upon rediscovering his parents' courageous past; no longer obsequious, Neville changes into a percipient character who offers moral support for Dumbledore's army.

timorous: afraid
temerity: boldness/brashness/intrepidness
mercurial/ly: quick/changeable in characater/fleeting
obsequious: seeking to please/falsely flattering (others)
percipient: insightful

Sentence #1

I postulate that Dumbledore is indeed a sagacious and rather hoary man. His perspicacity is unequivocal. He never upbraids corybantic students and doesn't show umbrage at Professor Umbridge, though she deserves it. He also never vacillates in his morals, nor is he prone to solecisms- he is a vestige of classier times.

postulate: to claim the existence of truth of
sagacious: shrewd, wise
hoary: very old
perspicacity: (see sagacious)
unequivocal: absolute, certain
corybantic: frenetic, frenzied
umbrage: offense, resentment
vacillate: to be indecisive, or to physically sway
solecism: grammatical mistake, blunder in speech

Salutations!

Welcome to our GRE vocabulary blog! We'll be using common GRE words in made-up sentences about Harry Potter to help you and ourselves study for the exam. Enjoy, and auspicious studying!





Disclaimer: Harry Potter and it's affiliations belong exclusively to J.K. Rowling. We do not claim any ownership of the characters, settings, plots, themes, etc. of the Harry Potter novels or films.