Where can I find a good vocabulary list?
I'd like to expand my vocabulary and already do several of the things recommended in the Tips for expanding my vocabulary question. In addition to that, I've been spending some time with a flashcard-like program I wrote and am looking for good lists of vocabulary words.
Here's what constitutes a "good vocabulary list" in my eyes:
The words are actually used and useful (you might run across them if you read much)
It preferably does not include words that any high school graduate should know
I've been using the 1062 Vocabulary Words list, which is the best I've found looking around online. However, I often run across words that aren't in it (e.g. asperity, cavil, debonair, frock, limpid, maudlin, persiflage, ribald, vitriolic, etc). Where else can I find good lists?
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Ok, you might say that my answer is a wee bit off-topic because I'm not recommending a list--well, I SORT OF am, but my first and best recommendation is that reading news articles of interest by paid journalists (not bloggers!) along with fiction by highly literary writers (ex, Nabokov, Fowles, etc) will do more to help you gain vocabulary than messing with flash cards. Reading words in context will help your vocabulary much more than flash cards and learning things by rote.
I like to recommend two favorite fantasy/sci fi writers Stephen Donaldson (Thomas Covenant books) and Jack Vance (The Demon Princes) to those who wish to develop vocabulary; both these fiction writers, though their writing is very clear and direct, use tons of complex and unusual words in rigorously technical style.
I do have a list to recommend, however, before you dismiss my advice as unhelpful: The "worthless word of the day" list: home.comcast.net/~wwftd/disclaim.htm These words are not "worthless" by any means (although some are quite archaic), but quite unusual. You can subscribe and they send you a new "worthless word" every day.
Not exactly a word list, but Vocabulary.com can handle word lists (which its users create and share) and its dictionary is quite good.
Its approach to word lists isn't the conventional flash-cards type but I liked it, have had success using it for several month now, and can recommend it if for nothing but the fact that they always present the words in context before telling you the definition(asking you about it, which they often do before resorting to the definition).
The Phrontistery (another good word) is a good site for vocabulary. The fellow who keeps it claims to have come across all of these words in his own reading, but omits ones that he considers needlessly obscure, specialised, etc.. He lays out his criteria on the first page. Notice that you have to click at the letters at the top or bottom to go to a list. It took me a few minutes to find where the words were the first time I was there for some reason...The rest of the site is just as interesting, and if you ever need to know something about numerical prefixes...Look no further is all I'll say. O.o
I can also say that I've come across a fair number of these myself, more than once. Some of them I haven't, but I wish I had.
Link! phrontistery.info/ihlstart.html
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