4000 CPE Vocabulary List

v. cut off part of the body, especially by surgery; prune
When the doctors had to amputate the young man's leg to prevent the spread of cancer, he did not let the loss of a limb keep him from participating in sports.

a. having time error in the story; erroneous in date; in the wrong time
The reference to clocks in Julius Caesar is anachronistic: clocks did not exist in Caesar's time.

a. serving to reduce sensibility to pain without loss of consciousness
The analgesic qualities of this lotion will provide temporary relief.

a. comparable; similar or alike
She called our attention to the things done in an analogous situation and recommended that we do the same.

v. diagnose; study, or examine something in detail to discover more about it
Historians follow a few basic rules to help them analyze primary sources.

n. a person who seeks to overturn established government; advocate of abolishing authority
Denying she was an anarchist, Katya maintained she wished only to make changes in our government, not to destroy it entirely.

n. solemn curse; someone or something regarded as a curse
To the Ayatolla, America and the West were anathemas; he loathed the democratic nations, cursing them in his dying words.

n. detailed analysis;  the scientific study of the body and how its parts are arranged
You have to know something about anatomy if you want to draw the human body well.

a. inherited or inheritable by established rules
On the key issue of land rights, it called for a mechanism to study ancestral links to the land.

n. family descent; series or line of ancestors; lineage
David can trace his ancestry as far back as the seventeenth century when one was a court trumpeter somewhere in Germany.

a. serving as aid or accessory; auxiliary
In an ancillary capacity, Doctor Watson was helpful; however, Holmes could not trust the good doctor to solve a perplexing case independently.

a. experiencing extreme discomfort or discontent; feeling, expressing, or caused by anguish
We have to transfer these anguished victims of the earthquake at first.

a. sharp-cornered; consisting of an angle or angles; stiff in manner
Mr. Spock's features, though angular, were curiously attractive in a Vulcan way.

n. the feeling of enmity or ill will; an attitude that informs one's actions; disposition
The animus of the speaker became obvious to all when he began to indulge in sarcastic and insulting remarks.

n. a chronological record of the events of successive years
In the annals of this period, we find no mention of democratic movements.

v. append or attach; take possession of; incorporate into an existing political unit
Mexico objected to the United States' attempts to annex the territory that later became Texas.

v. destroy completely; reduce to nonexistence
The enemy, in its revenge, tried to annihilate the entire population.

v. comment; make explanatory notes
The editor sought to annotate many of the author's more esoteric references in the appendix to the novel.

a. bothersome; troublesome; irritating
Please tell us how to get rid of the annoying windows alert balloons.

n. annual payment of allowance or income; periodical payment, amounting to a fixed sum in each year
The annuity he set up with the insurance company supplements his social security benefits to live very comfortably without working.