Look Out for Words with Multiple Meanings (SAT Vocabulary)

Sometimes the most difficult vocabulary questions on the SAT don't deal with words you've never seen before. Instead, they deal with common, everyday words -- they're just used in ways most people don't expect. And not realizing that the SAT is testing their second or third meaning, most people don't hesitate to cross them off, even when they're correct.

The list below contains a number of very common words, along with their less common definitions. Ones that have shown up on recent SATs are marked with an asterisk. You shouldn't go crazy over these because the SAT is far more likely to test words like trite, paradigm, multifarious, and esoteric, but you should keep them in mind.

Affect/Affected (n., adj.) - Artificial or pretentious behavior

*Alien (adj.) - Unfamiliar, foreign

Badger (v.) - To bother, question repeatedly

*Bent (n.) - A liking or talent for (syn: predilection, proclivity, penchant). The SAT really likes this one!

*Bridge (v.) - To join two things together

*Buffet (v.) - To toss around (e.g. the ship was buffeted by high winds)

*Carp (v.) - To complain

Cave (v.) - To give in, acquiesce

Constitution (n.) - The physical character, health of a body

Crop  (v.) - To cut short

*Elliptical (adj.) - Indirect, vague

*Embroider (v.) - To elaborate or exaggerate

Flag (v.) - To diminish

Floor (v) - To shock or stun

Grate (v.) - To have an irritating effect

*Grave/Gravity (adj.) - Serious

Grill (v.) - To question intensively

*Hail (v.) - To proclaim enthusiastically

Lumber (v.) - To move heavily or clumsily, especially with great bulk

*Mint (n., v.) - A factory where money is produced / To produce money

Milk (v.) - To attempt to get recognition or applause (e.g. to milk an audience)

*Modest (adj.) - Simple, unadorned

*Pedestrian (adj.) - Dull, unoriginal

*Police (v.) - To regulate, control

*Pore (n.) - To read over or study with great attention

*Qualify (v.) - To modify or soften the severity of a statement

Rail (v.) - To complain about or denounce bitterly

Rank (adj.) - Having an offensively strong or unclean odor

Rake (n.) - A dissolute man, womanizer

Root (v.) - To rummage around, search

*Severe (adj.) - Austere, rigid

Slight (v.) - To insult, put down

Spare (adj.) - Simple, undecorated

Staple (n.) - A fundamental (e.g. staple crop)

Stem (v.) - To put a stop to

*Subscribe (v.) - To believe in

Sustain (v.) - To withstand