{"id":6618,"date":"2014-03-04T14:30:23","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T19:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/blog\/?p=6618"},"modified":"2019-08-30T16:43:10","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:43:10","slug":"brand-new-gre-vocab-in-brand-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/blog\/brand-new-gre-vocab-in-brand-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Brand New: GRE Vocab in Brand Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gre-words-vocabulary\"<\/a>I have a confession: I really don\u2019t like learning vocab. I\u2019m also not particularly good at learning it. So to score in the 99th<\/sup> percentile on the GRE, I really had to pull out all the stops.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you\u2019ll see a GRE word that you recognize, but won\u2019t know what it means. If you recognize it as a brand name, but don\u2019t know what it means, chances are it means something good: most brands don\u2019t want to be named after something bad. (There are certainly exceptions: the website Gawker<\/b> comes to mind.)<\/p>\n

Here are 15 GRE words that are also brand names. Sometimes the brand name comes from the definition, and sometimes not. But maybe associating them with their brand will help you remember what they mean!<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Kindle. <\/b>To kindle something means to spark it, or light it on fire. You probably already know the word \u201ckindling\u201d, but if not, think of the Kindle e-reader, designed to spark your imagination with all your reading at your fingertips.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Hedonism. <\/b>A hedonist is someone who seeks out pleasure. It\u2019s often associated with the ideas of being overly focused on pleasure, particularly in relation to physical pleasure. A quick glance at the web page of Hedonism Resorts, an adults-only all-inclusive Carribbean resort with devil horns on its logo, might help you remember this word.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Lampoon. <\/b>National Lampoon mocks things. It makes fun of them. The magazine has spun off movies such as \u201cAnimal House\u201d and \u201cNational Lampoon\u2019s Christmas Vacation\u201d. Hopefully that will help you remember that to \u201clampoon\u201d something means to make fun of something with sarcasm.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Intrepid. <\/b>Intrepid means fearless. It describes an adventurer. So it makes sense that Dodge would want to name a car after that characteristic, considering other Dodge models include the Avenger, Challenger, Charger, and Journey. (The name Dodge itself is a family name \u2013 otherwise it would be a pretty odd choice for a company so interested in naming things after bravery.)<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Amazon. <\/b>Probably everyone knows Amazon as an online marketplace (and, of course, as a huge forest in South America). Jeff Bezos has said that he chose the name Amazon in part because he wanted his store to be \u201cexotic and different\u201d like the Amazon itself. The word Amazon refers to a strong, statuesque woman, as it was the mythological name of a group of women warriors. The forest is named Amazon because of the women who fought in battle there, but thinking of the website Amazon might help you think of something powerful and strong.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Balderdash. <\/b>Balderdash is a pretty well-known board game where players must make up definitions of words and try to trick other players into voting for their definition over the real one. It\u2019s well-named, as \u201cbalderdash\u201d means nonsense. That\u2019s exactly what the game has everyone writing!<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Fiat. <\/b>Another car makes the list. A fiat, by definition, is a decree. It\u2019s often applied to an authorization of power. Fiat is a large Italian automobile manufacturer, and while the name wasn\u2019t intended this way (it\u2019s actually an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino), I use the brand name to help me remember that the word means a decree. Maybe your fancy Italian car is a decree of your power, and your ability to do what you want because you say so.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Bazaar. <\/b>Bazaar is a popular women\u2019s fashion magazine, showcasing the best products from around the world. That may help you to remember that a bazaar is a large market with all kinds of eclectic and interesting offerings.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>Fidelity. <\/b>Fidelity means faithfulness and loyalty. What better name would you want for a bank? Even better, Fidelty\u2019s advertisements use the full name, \u201cFidelity Bank and Trust\u201d. Getting the word trust in there really helps cement the link in your brain.<\/p>\n

10.\u00a0 <\/b>Pedigree. <\/b>Even if you\u2019ve never purchased dog food, you probably know that Pedigree is a brand of dog food. It\u2019s also a way of marking an animal as purebred through its ancestry records. Your pedigree is your lineage \u2013 in layman\u2019s terms, a measure of how fancy you are. What a good name for a food product that\u2019s marketed as a high-quality item for beloved pets.<\/p>\n

11.\u00a0 <\/b>Prudential. <\/b>Here\u2019s another well-named \u201cBank and Trust\u201d! Prudential, like prudent, means making good and careful decisions, particularly relating to money or business. Who wouldn\u2019t want a bank that does that?<\/p>\n

12.\u00a0 <\/b>Hallmark. <\/b>Hallmark has worked very hard to remind us, with its gold crown stamp, that Hallmark is the type of card you send \u201cwhen you care enough to send the very best.\u201d A hallmark is technically a stamp on something showing its quality, but has evolved to mean any literal or figurative mark of quality. In other words, that gold crown stamp is the hallmark of an overpriced greeting card.<\/p>\n

13.\u00a0 <\/b>Finesse. <\/b>Do you have finesse? I don\u2019t, in life, but I do under my sink. Finesse is a brand of shampoo and other hair products designed to be delicate on hair and create beautiful results. To have finesse means to have a delicate, subtle, or refined manner in doing something.<\/p>\n

14.\u00a0 <\/b>Nirvana. <\/b>Some of you didn\u2019t go to high school in the 1990s, but for those of us who did, the word \u201cNirvana\u201d is more synonymous with Kurt Cobain than Buddhism. Cobain reportedly picked the name because he wanted something \u201ckind of beautiful or nice or pretty\u201d. Nirvana is a transcendent state free of suffering, free of worldly worries and is often used on the GRE as a synonym for peace. When Nirvana frontman Cobain committed suicide in 1994 after a long battle with depression, the name took on an eerie meaning for many fans.<\/p>\n

15.\u00a0 <\/b>Essence<\/b>. Our second magazine on the list, \u201cEssence\u201d is a magazine for African-American women. The essence of something is the indispensable quality that determines its character: the abstract or special quality that makes something what it is. It makes sense that a women\u2019s magazine which set out to empower, inform, and entertain might want to remind its readers of the intrinsic, unique quality that makes them who they are.<\/p>\n

What other brand names help you to remember GRE definitions? Share them in the comments — and be sure to like us on Facebook<\/a> for more GRE fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a confession: I really don\u2019t like learning vocab. I\u2019m also not particularly good at learning it. So to score in the 99th percentile on the GRE, I really had to pull out all the stops. Sometimes you\u2019ll see a GRE word that you recognize, but won\u2019t know what it means. If you recognize […]<\/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":[129,131,133,191,192,194,196,197,1362341],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-verbal","category-vocabulary","tag-graduate-records-examination","tag-graduate-records-examination-vocabulary","tag-gre","tag-gre-vocab","tag-gre-vocabulary","tag-gre-vocabulary-words","tag-gre-word-of-the-day","tag-gre-words","tag-vocabulary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6618","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=6618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6810,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6618\/revisions\/6810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6618"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}