

100 Words That All High School Graduates  And Their Parents  Should Know 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 measurethemselves. 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

nihilism

nomenclature

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

ziggurat



