As you learn a plethora of GRE vocabulary words, you’ll soon discover that there are some unusual words and phrases you can easily puzzle out.

You may know the root “hetero” from heterosexual and heterogeneous. “Hetero,” of course, means “different.” Another interesting GRE word with “hetero” is heterodox. If you know that “dox/doct” means opinion or teaching (orthodox, doctrine, doctor), then it makes sense that heterodox would mean “different opinion” — in other words, it’s a synonym for unorthodox.

You probably know the word paternal — for instance, a paternal grandmother is your father’s mother, and a paternity test determines whether a man is a particular child’s father. This root also occurs in patriotic, patron, patronize, patricide, patrician, and many others.

“Super,” of course, means “above, upper.” Insuperable is a great GRE word — it means “undefeatable.”

Finally, fecund is an important GRE word meaning “fertile.”

So, if you happen to be watching the Maury Povich show (or reading this article about it) and you read about “heteropaternal superfecundation,” it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out that that term means something like “different father super-fertility.” And indeed it does! Apparently, you can have twins by different fathers, if that’s what you’re into.