Vocabulary Made Easy series: Aim at improving your word skills to succeed | Competitive Exams

Here’s a way to improve your vocabulary and communication skills. Check out the words for the day and a small quiz to push yourself to improve your word power and language skills.

Guttural (Adjective)

Meaning: (of a speech sound) produced in the throat; harsh-sounding

Example: The whatever-it-was uttered something in a harsh, guttural language

Gumption (Noun)

Meaning: shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness

Example: The president would hire almost any young man who had the gumption to ask for a job

Grotesque (Adjective)

Meaning: comically or repulsively ugly or distorted/incongruous or inappropriate to a shocking degree

Example: He had a mug with a grotesque caricature of a human face

Also Read: Vocabulary Made Easy series: Consistent effort will help you improve word power

Grovel (Verb)

Meaning: lie or crawl abjectly on the ground with one’s face downwards/act in an obsequious way in order to obtain someone’s forgiveness or favour

Example: They criticized leaders who grovelled to foreign patrons

Put your thinking cap on and try to answer the following questions to understand how much you have grasped.

1. I had to ________________ to the manager for a loan. Which of the following words fits best in the sentence? (Grovel, Grotesque)
2. There were __________________ figures carved on the battlements. Which of the following words fits best in the sentence? ( Grotesque, Gumption)
3. Can you think of some antonyms for the word Gumption?
4. Can you think of some synonyms for the word Guttural?

Also Read: Vocabulary Made Easy series: Word hard to taste success in competitive exams

Watch out for this space for your weekly update on improving word power.

(Definitions and examples are from Oxford Languages)