Yes, the holidays have come and gone. Welcome to 2014! But having spent the last month listening to Christmas music non-stop, I have lots of these songs still stuck in my head. Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, these songs are around this time of year and tend to plant themselves in our minds. So if they\u2019re stuck in your head too, there\u2019s a good chance to learn a little vocab!<\/p>\n
Here are seven examples of GRE words in holiday songs. If you find others, share them in the comments!<\/p>\n
(1) Terrific. Here\u2019s one of those words that the GRE likes to use for its less-conventional meaning. We usually think of terrific as \u201cgreat\u201d, but it really means \u201cawesome\u201d in the literal sense: big and awe-inducing, often in a bad or scary way. Like the word \u201cterror\u201d. To be honest, I can only think of one popular culture use of \u201cterrific\u201d in this way, and that\u2019s in \u201cHome for the Holidays,\u201d which tells us, \u201c\u2026from Atlantic to Pacific, gee the traffic is terrific!\u201d<\/p>\n
(2) Conspire. In \u201cWinter Wonderland,\u201d the singer says, \u201cLater on, we\u2019ll conspire as we dream by the fire.\u201d So picture the couple in the song, chatting away and planning for the new year. To conspire is to make secret plans together, although those plans are to do something bad\u2026 maybe that song is a bit naughtier than the sing-song tone would have us believe.<\/p>\n
(3) Incarnate. \u201cIncarnate\u201d means given a body or shape, and it\u2019s usually easiest to remember by thinking of the more-frequently-used \u201cincarnation\u201d. But you could also think of the lyrics to \u201cHark! The Herald Angels Sing\u201d, which implore the listener to \u201chail the incarnate deity\u201d when telling the story of the first Christmas.<\/p>\n
(4) Cloven. The song \u201cIt Came upon a Midnight Clear\u201d is full of great vocab, but one of the best words in \u201ccloven\u201d, which means \u201ccut in two\u201d. We mostly hear this word describing \u201ccloven hooves\u201d \u2013 or hooves that are split in the middle, such as those of a cow. The song speaks of angels coming to earth and says, \u201cthrough the cloven skies they come\u201d, describing the sky breaking in two.<\/p>\n
(5) Traverse. \u201cTraverse\u201d means to move to travel across something. \u201cWe Three Kings\u201d begins, \u201cWe three kinds of Orient are bearing gifts we traverse afar.\u201d And if you\u2019ve always sung that as \u201ctravel afar\u201d, you\u2019re already all set on this one.<\/p>\n
(6) Lament. To lament is to grieve or be sorrowful, often in a way that involves crying or wailing. In \u201cGood Kind Wenceslas\u201d, the king and his page are traveling \u201cthough the rude wind\u2019s wild lament and the bitter weather.\u201d That wailing of the winter wind is a great way to remember the word \u201clament\u201d.<\/p>\n
(7) Laud. We mostly hear \u201claud\u201d used as a verb meaning \u201cto praise or glorify,\u201d but it is also a noun for the praise or glory that is given. It\u2019s used in this way in \u201cWhat Child is This,\u201d which says, \u201cHaste, haste to bring Him laud, the Babe, the son of Mary.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a point here far beyond these seven words: GRE vocab is everywhere. When you hear or read a word that you don\u2019t know, look it up! You might find that you start noticing GRE vocab everywhere. And who knows \u2013 learning it might be, dare we say it, sort of fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yes, the holidays have come and gone. Welcome to 2014! But having spent the last month listening to Christmas music non-stop, I have lots of these songs still stuck in my head. Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, these songs are around this time of year and tend to plant themselves in our minds. So […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13],"tags":[129,133,188,192],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-verbal","category-vocabulary","tag-graduate-records-examination","tag-gre","tag-gre-verbal","tag-gre-vocabulary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6814,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6589\/revisions\/6814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6589"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}