3,400+ GRE and SAT words, ranked across 14 prep lists. Then more ways to make each one stay than a flashcard ever gave you: mnemonics, roots, themes, stories, games and a daily plan.
BetaA closed test on Google Play: it installs and updates like any store app.
You are on the list.
We will email you once, the day SnapVocab lands in the stores. Until then, see how the word lists were built.
You are on the list.
We will email you once, the day SnapVocab lands in the stores. Until then, see how the word lists were built.
On Android? The beta is on Google Play as a closed test. Join the Android beta
Free to start. No ads.
laconic
using very few words; terse
The hookLOW ON MIC
Battery bar red, so the panellist is LOW ON MIC and rations every syllable. "Thoughts?" "Bad. Next." He is LACONIC, using very few words.
1 / 5
Every word is ranked by how many prep lists agree on it, and every set was reviewed before it shipped. Read how the lists were built.
Why SnapVocab
A flashcard gives a word one way in. SnapVocab starts with the list worth learning, then gives every word several more, because the trick that makes garrulous stick is not the one that makes obdurate stick.
3,400+ GRE and SAT words, ranked across 14 prep lists.
27,000+ sound-alike hooks, each reviewed before it shipped.
600+ roots, prefixes and suffixes, with the families they build.
160+ meaning families, each one next to its opposite.
A daily plan: one new set, and exactly the reviews it needs.
A short story that uses all 30 words of a set in context.
Boards that each train one skill, with levels that get harder.
Spaced-repetition flashcards, plus Fill the Blank, Definitions, Synonyms, and Black Sheep quizzes.
Hooks you can see. Until they land, every word has its written ones.
The GRE and SAT word list
Every prep book prints its own word list, and they disagree. We cross-referenced 14 of them and ranked every word by how many agree it matters, so your first set is the one nearly every list includes.
Pick a word from the ladder
austere
severe or stern in manner; plain and without ornament
recalcitrant
stubbornly resisting authority; hard to manage
truculence
aggressiveness; ferocity
torrid
scorching hot and dry; passionate
verbatim
in exactly the same words as were used originally
SnapVocab is not affiliated with these publishers. The names identify the lists we cross-referenced.
Vocabulary mnemonics
Every hard word gets a hook: something that already sounds like it, dropped into a scene small enough to picture and pointed enough to give the meaning away. You do not memorize obdurate. You remember an old door that will not budge.
Pick a word
Memory aid
laconic
The hook
LOW ON MIC
The scene
Battery bar red, so the panellist is LOW ON MIC and rations every syllable. "Thoughts?" "Bad. Next." He is LACONIC, using very few words.
So it means
using very few words; terse
What do you think it means?
Memory aid
garrulous
The hook
"GARY, LESS!"
The scene
The whole table shouts "GARY, LESS!" and he still will not stop. Gary is GARRULOUS, talking far too much about nothing at all.
So it means
excessively talkative, especially about trivial matters
What do you think it means?
Memory aid
obdurate
The hook
the OLD DOOR, IT won't budge
The scene
The OLD DOOR, IT will not budge however hard you push. Your uncle is OBDURATE the same way, stubbornly refusing to move or change.
So it means
stubbornly refusing to change one's opinion or course
What do you think it means?
Memory aid
ephemeral
The hook
A FEW MORE seconds, ALL gone
The scene
Soap bubbles need A FEW MORE seconds and they are ALL gone. They are EPHEMERAL, lasting only a very short time.
So it means
lasting only a very short time; fleeting
What do you think it means?
Memory aid
austere
The hook
ALL STARE, nobody laughs
The scene
When the strict headmaster walks in, ALL STARE and nobody dares laugh. He is AUSTERE, stern and cold with no fun in him.
So it means
severe or stern in manner; plain and without ornament
What do you think it means?
Pick a word part
root · Latin · “hard, lasting, endure”
stubbornly refusing to be moved or persuaded
force or threats used to compel someone
able to last a long time without wearing out
to bear hardship patiently; to last
the length of time something continues
Watch it come apart
Words it builds
root · Latin · “look, see, watch”
keenly discerning; quick to see the truth
cautious; looking around before acting
standing out so as to be clearly seen
superficially plausible but actually wrong
promising a favourable outcome
Watch it come apart
Words it builds
root · Latin · “flock, herd”
sociable; fond of the company of others
conspicuously and outrageously bad
to gather into a mass; a total formed from parts
to come together in a crowd
to set apart from the rest
Watch it come apart
Words it builds
prefix · Latin · “good, well”
well-meaning and kindly
one who gives help or money to a cause
kindly in disposition; not harmful
a spoken blessing
actively doing good to others
Watch it come apart
Words it builds
Word roots
Long words are built from short parts. Learn one piece of Latin and you have not learned one word — you have a way into every word built from it, and a fighting chance at the next one you meet. Pull a few words apart and the same handful of pieces keeps coming back.
obdurate is the same word whose hook was “the OLD DOOR” — a sound to hold it and a structure to explain it. Two ways into one word.
Word themes
garrulous, loquacious, verbose, prolix — one idea, four words, and the exam is going to ask you which of them swap cleanly for each other. So they arrive together, with the family that means the opposite sitting right beside them.
laconic was the first word on this page. It lives one card away from garrulous — and knowing that is the whole trick to a sentence-equivalence question.
Pick a meaning
talking far too much
saying a lot in few words
expressing strong approval
scolding someone for their conduct
telling deliberate untruths
truthful and without pretense
refusing to budge
giving in easily
plain, with no ornament
flashy display meant to impress
kept hidden from others
letting something become known
160+ themes: Speech & Communication, Praise & Blame, Honesty & Deception, Character: Will & Drive, and 15 more groups.
Inside every word
The exam does not ask what a word means. It asks whether it fits this sentence, whether it flatters or stings, and which look-alike you have mixed it up with. So every entry carries all of that.
Open an entry
GAIR-uh-luhsadjective
excessively talkative, especially about trivial matters
How it feels
DisapprovingThe excess is built in — too much talk about too little
In a sentence
Where it comes from
Latin garrulus 'talkative', from garrire 'to chatter'
garrchatter-uloustending to
OB-duh-ritadjective
stubbornly refusing to change one's opinion or course
How it feels
DisapprovingStubbornness that will not hear reason; a complaint
In a sentence
Where it comes from
Latin obduratus, from obdurare 'harden against', from ob- 'against' and durus 'hard'
ob-againstdurharden-atemade
pur-FID-ee-uhsadjective
disloyal; treacherous, violating one's trust
How it feels
DisapprovingBetrayal from someone trusted; the worst kind of disloyalty
In a sentence
Where it comes from
Latin perfidiosus, from perfidia 'faithlessness', from per fidem decipere 'to deceive through trust'
per-through, awayfidfaith-iousfull of
Every word has its pronunciation, origin, example sentences, synonyms, a note on how it feels and a set of hooks. Opposites, look-alikes, word parts and meaning families appear wherever a word has them.
The rest arrives on launch day. One email, then nothing.
You are on the list.
We will email you once, the day SnapVocab lands in the stores. Until then, see how the word lists were built.
Vocab Mountain
Pick a list and a schedule, and the app stops asking you what to study. Every day you learn one new group of 30 and review the groups behind it. Come back tomorrow and the day is already laid out.
The two schedules follow the Vocab Mountain method popularized by GregMat. SnapVocab is not affiliated with GregMat.
60 groups· 1,800 words · 1 new, 59 reviewed
Chapter One
A Plan
Bolt Bakes a Cake
Bolt had never baked before. On Monday night his plan still looked . He had a picture of a cake and nothing else. Then he pulled down every book on the shelf. The pile grew . It held books about boats, books about birds and one about the moon. One book helped. Its steps were short and , so Bolt copied them out.
Grandpa was before his morning tea. Bolt waited until the kettle had boiled and then asked about eggs. Grandpa answered in five words. He spoke in a way until noon. Nina was the opposite at breakfast. She chattered in a stream about her socks and a duck-shaped cloud. Grandpa stayed about his birthday, so Bolt never learned what he wanted.
From context 17Looked up 0
Set Stories
Finish a set and a story is waiting that uses all 30 of its words, plainly enough that you can work most of them out. Tap anything you're unsure of. It is not a quiz — nothing is scored and nothing is withheld.
Vocabulary games
Not one quiz in a dozen costumes. Each board trains a different skill, and each has its own ladder of curated levels that get harder as you climb.
Word Groups
Five words share a meaning. Cut the one that only looks like it does.
Nuance & Context
File each word by the feeling it carries: praise, blame, or neither.
Word Groups
Build the word the definition asks for out of a prefix, a root and a suffix.
Nuance & Context
Tell apart the look-alikes and sound-alikes that swallow marks.
Nuance & Context
Mark the span of a document that does no work — or say there is nothing to cut.
Spell & Recall
Spell the word from its meaning, with only the first letter to go on.
Make it yours
The curated lists are the starting point, not a fence. Your professor's reading list, the words you keep missing, the hook only you would think of: they all study the same way.
Paste a list or upload a file, and it becomes a list like any other: sets, flashcards, spaced review and all.
Every word comes with curated hooks, and the best one is sometimes your own. Write it once and it becomes the hook on your card.
Ask a question about any word, or have a few hooks suggested for a word of your own. It helps with your words; the curated lists never depend on it.
Staying with it
Learning a few thousand words is a months-long habit. These are the small things that make tomorrow's session easier to start.
Send a friend the exact board you just played. They answer when they have five minutes, and the scores meet in the middle.
The widget puts one word where you will see it twenty times a day, before you open anything.
A streak for showing up, and a league table you climb by studying. Finish the week near the top and you move up a league.
No ads. No trackers.
Nothing is sold to you mid-session, on the free plan or on Pro, and the app ships without an analytics or advertising SDK.
Works on the train.
With Pro you can download your lists and practice with no connection. It is a practice mode: your scheduled reviews pick up again once you are back online.
Words that sit on both lists are learned once and count for both.
Start with the words that matter most and pay nothing. Pro opens the rest for $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year, with a 7-day free trial on the yearly plan.
Every new account gets Pro free within 24 hours. Didn't get it? Email hello@snapvocabapp.com.
Enough to learn the must-know words properly.
Everything in Free, and the whole catalog.
On Android, yes: SnapVocab is on Google Play as a closed beta that anyone with a Google account can join from snapvocabapp.com/android. It is not on the App Store yet; on iPhone, join the waitlist and we will send you one email on launch day.
GRE and SAT. The GRE list has 3,000+ words in 100+ sets, and the SAT list has 1,100+ words in 35+ sets. Words that appear on both are learned once and count for both.
We took 14 published GRE prep lists and 4 SAT lists and ranked every word by how many of them include it. You study in sets of 30, starting with the words the most lists agree on, so the early sets are the ones most worth your time.
They are written to a house style: an everyday sound-alike, inside a tiny scene that gives away the meaning. Every one was reviewed against a written rubric before it shipped, and weak ones were rewritten. They are not generated when you tap a button, so you never get a confusing or wrong one on the fly.
Yes. Pro is a paid subscription, but while SnapVocab is in beta every new account gets Pro free within 24 hours, with no card and nothing to cancel. If yours did not, email hello@snapvocabapp.com and we will add it. The free plan stays free either way.
Yes. The free plan includes the first tier of each word list, six of the games, thirty word themes and daily duels, with no ads. Pro unlocks every list tier, every game and theme, your own word lists, and offline downloads. Pro is a paid subscription.
Yes. With Pro you can paste or upload your own word list and study it like any built-in list. On any word you can also write your own mnemonic, and it becomes the hook on your card. Pro can suggest hooks for your own words and answer questions about a word.
Flashcards run on FSRS, a modern open spaced-repetition algorithm. You grade each card Again, Hard, Good or Easy, and the scheduler decides when that word should come back, so you spend your time on the words you are about to forget.
You choose the pace. Vocab Mountain gives you one clear task each day: a new set of words plus a review of the sets behind it. The Classic schedule reviews everything you have learned so far; the Steady schedule caps the daily load at about ten sets, however long your list is.
One set a day, a hook for every word, and a scheduler that remembers what you are about to forget.
BetaA closed test on Google Play: it installs and updates like any store app.
You are on the list.
We will email you once, the day SnapVocab lands in the stores. Until then, see how the word lists were built.
You are on the list.
We will email you once, the day SnapVocab lands in the stores. Until then, see how the word lists were built.
On Android? The beta is on Google Play as a closed test. Join the Android beta
