Senior year of high school — especially the first semester — is quite a busy time for teens and parents. While you may hesitate to add anything more to your family’s plate at this time, you may want to make room for this list of 12th grade vocabulary words. Share this list, courtesy of Hyde Park Central School District, with your high school senior. Help your teen learn the meanings, uses, and spellings of these words. Challenge yourself and your teen to use these words in everyday conversation. Your teen will encounter these words in every subject this year — and next year, too. When teens know these words, they are better able to understand what they read and hear in class, rather than getting lost because of unknown terms. When your 12th grader knows these words well enough to use them in writing and presentations, it will add precision, nuance, and eloquence to your teen’s work. Not only will knowing these words help your teen excel in school, they’ll also be better prepared when they pop up on college admissions tests.
| anachronistic | empathy | perfidious |
| abbreviate | emulate | precocious |
| abdicate | enervating | pretentious |
| abstinence | enhance | procrastinate |
| adulation | ephemeral | prosaic |
| adversity | evanescent | prosperity |
| aesthetic | exasperation | provocative |
| amicable | exemplary | prudent |
| anecdote | extenuating | querulous |
| anonymous | florid | rancorous |
| antagonist | fortuitous | reclusive |
| arid | frugal | reconciliation |
| assiduous | hackneyed | renovation |
| asylum | haughty | resilient |
| benevolent | hedonist | restrained |
| camaraderie | hypothesis | reverence |
| censure | impetuous | sagacity |
| circuitous | impute | scrutinize |
| clairvoyant | incompatible | spontaneity |
| collaborate | inconsequential | spurious |
| compassion | inevitable | submissive |
| compromise | integrity | substantiate |
| condescending | intrepid | subtle |
| conditional | intuitive | superficial |
| conformist | jubilation | superfluous |
| congregation | lobbyist | suppress |
| convergence | longevity | surreptitious |
| deleterious | mundane | tactful |
| demagogue | nonchalant | tenacious |
| digression | novice | transient |
| diligent | opulent | venerable |
| discredit | orator | vindicate |
| disdain | ostentatious | wary |
| divergent | parched | zealot |
See the academic vocabulary lists for 10th grade and 11th grade, too.
