Vocabulary Grade 10 — Set 2: Meanings flashcards
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The next 100 of the 300 Grade 10 words, from abstain to zeal: pronunciation, a plain definition and three example sentences, the most common use first.
Learn deck · part of Vocabulary Level 5 · Grade 10 · written against: Our own grade placement (VOCABULARY-PLAN.md): word frequency (wordfreq, CC BY-SA 4.0) and editorial review; no publisher's grade or word list is reproduced. Updated 2026-10-10.
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pious (adj.) · PIGH-uhsdeeply religious and devoted to worship; making a showy display of being morally goodCharacter & Behavior
The pious villagers walked to the chapel for prayers every morning.
Her grandfather was deeply pious and never missed a Sunday service.
After the scandal, the senator's pious speech about honesty fooled nobody.
Watch out: it can be an insult, suggesting someone acts holier than they really are. -
receptive (adj.) · rih-SEP-tivready to give new ideas, plans or suggestions a fair hearing rather than brushing them offFeelings & Attitudes
When the students pitched a later lunch, the principal was surprisingly receptive.
Riders in the city proved receptive to the new electric buses.
The comedian found a receptive audience at the senior center.
Watch out: you are receptive to an idea, not "receptive for" it. -
retrospect (n.) · RET-ruh-spekta backward look at what already happened, often seeing it in a new lightThinking & Knowing
In retrospect, leaving the tent poles at home was a big mistake.
Those cheap sneakers split in a month; in retrospect, buying them was foolish.
Viewed in retrospect, the early warnings about the dam were clear.
Watch out: almost always used in the phrase in retrospect; a retrospective is a career-spanning show. -
slander (n., v.) · SLAN-durwords said aloud that are false and hurt someone's good name; to say such things about someoneSpeaking & Arguing
His lawyer said the speech's false claims amounted to slander.
Spreading rumors that the coach cheated is slander, not opinion.
Rivals slandered the inventor, claiming he had stolen his designs.
Don't confuse with: libel, which is the same harm done in writing or print. -
fiasco (n.) · fee-AS-koha failure from start to finish, often an embarrassing oneActions & Effort
The class picnic turned into a fiasco when the sprinklers came on.
After last year's ticketing fiasco, the festival switched to online sales.
The rocket launch was a fiasco: the engine failed on the pad.
Origin: ultimately Italian for "bottle"; how it came to mean failure is a mystery. -
degenerate (v.) · dih-JEN-uh-raytto slide into poorer quality, condition or character; to sink to a lower levelChange & Growth
Within an hour, the group chat had degenerated into name-calling.
Without care, the old trails degenerated into muddy ruts.
In some diseases, nerve cells slowly degenerate over many years.
Watch out: the adjective, "having fallen into immoral ways," is said dih-JEN-ur-it. -
exceedingly (adv.) · ik-SEE-ding-leefar more than usual; extremelySize & Amount
The final exam was exceedingly difficult, even for top students.
Snow leopards are exceedingly rare in the wild.
Hiro was exceedingly polite to his grandmother's guests.
Watch out: it means "extremely," not "more than allowed"; that sense belongs to excessively. -
deplorable (adj.) · dih-PLOR-uh-buhlso bad that it shocks people and ought to be harshly criticizedQuality & Judgment
Inspectors found the animals living in deplorable conditions.
The team's behavior on the bus was deplorable.
Reformers exposed the deplorable state of factories in the 1800s.
Root: Latin deplorare, "to weep over." -
philanthropy (n.) · fuh-LAN-thruh-peegiving money, time or effort to help others and improve societySociety & Power
The museum was built through the philanthropy of a local family.
Her philanthropy funded scholarships for hundreds of students.
Andrew Carnegie turned to philanthropy, paying for thousands of public libraries.
Root: Greek philos, "loving," and anthropos, "human being." -
eradicate (v.) · ih-RAD-uh-kaytto remove or wipe out something so completely that none of it is leftNature & Time
Vaccines helped eradicate smallpox worldwide by 1980.
The city is working to eradicate invasive vines from its parks.
No single law can eradicate poverty overnight.
Root: Latin radix, "root": to eradicate something is to rip it out, roots and all.
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Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.
Checked against:
- Senses, parts of speech and sense order checked against Merriam-Webster.com, the American Heritage Dictionary and the frequency-ordered Oxford, Longman and Cambridge learner's dictionaries; all definitions, notes and example sentences are original.
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