High School Vocabulary Worksheets

Press Print worksheet to match twelve describing words, such as ambivalent and insidious, to their meanings.

A sample is on the sheet. What you type replaces it.

What you type stays in your browser. Nothing is sent to us.

NameDateMade at homeroomtools.comDraw a line from each one on the left to its partner on the right.Vocabularyambivalentclandestinecopiouseclecticimpeccableinsidiousnebulouspalpableprolificsuperfluousvehementvicariousproducing a great many works orresultshazy; without a clear form orlimitso strong that it seems able to betouchedvery large in amount; plentifuldrawn from many differentsources or stylesfelt through another person'sexperiencebeyond what is needed or usefulfree of any fault or errorhaving mixed or opposing feelingsdone in secret, often to hide aforbidden purposecausing harm slowly and withoutbeing noticedshowing strong, forceful feeling
NameDateMade at homeroomtools.comDraw a line from each one on the left to its partner on the right.VocabularyAnswer keyambivalentclandestinecopiouseclecticimpeccableinsidiousnebulouspalpableprolificsuperfluousvehementvicariousproducing a great many works orresultshazy; without a clear form orlimitso strong that it seems able to betouchedvery large in amount; plentifuldrawn from many differentsources or stylesfelt through another person'sexperiencebeyond what is needed or usefulfree of any fault or errorhaving mixed or opposing feelingsdone in secret, often to hide aforbidden purposecausing harm slowly and withoutbeing noticedshowing strong, forceful feeling
More options

Next step Next: find high school words in a gridSpell twelfth grade words

All 96 words

Describing words 12

  • ambivalent Having mixed or opposing feelings. She felt ambivalent about leaving her hometown.
  • clandestine Done in secret, often to hide a forbidden purpose. The rebels held clandestine meetings in a cellar.
  • copious Very large in amount; plentiful. He took copious notes during the lecture.
  • eclectic Drawn from many different sources or styles. The shop sells an eclectic mix of old furniture.
  • impeccable Free of any fault or error. Her timing was impeccable.
  • insidious Causing harm slowly and without being noticed. Rumor has an insidious effect on trust.
  • nebulous Hazy; without a clear form or limit. The plan was still nebulous in March.
  • palpable So strong that it seems able to be touched. The tension in the courtroom was palpable.
  • prolific Producing a great many works or results. The prolific author finished a novel every year.
  • superfluous Beyond what is needed or useful. Cut every superfluous word from the summary.
  • vehement Showing strong, forceful feeling. The proposal met vehement opposition.
  • vicarious Felt through another person's experience. Readers take a vicarious thrill in the hero's escape.
Show all 96 words (84 more)

Action words 12

  • acquiesce To accept or go along without protest. The board chose to acquiesce to the demand.
  • ameliorate To improve something that is in a bad state. New wells helped ameliorate the water shortage.
  • disparage To belittle; to talk about as if worthless. Do not disparage a view you have not read.
  • enumerate To name one by one, as in a list. The report enumerates five causes of the delay.
  • eschew To avoid on purpose; to keep away from. The essayist eschews long words.
  • exonerate To free from blame or accusation. New evidence exonerated the clerk.
  • extol To praise with great enthusiasm. The speech extols the value of public libraries.
  • inundate To overwhelm, as a flood covers land. Letters of complaint inundated the office.
  • obfuscate To make something confusing in order to hide the truth. Jargon can obfuscate a simple point.
  • placate To soothe a person's anger. A refund did little to placate the customers.
  • proliferate To grow or spread rapidly in number. Rumors proliferate when facts are scarce.
  • rescind To cancel or take back officially. The council voted to rescind the ban.

Character words 12

  • contrite Sincerely sorry for a wrong one has done. The contrite driver paid for the broken fence.
  • deferential Politely yielding to another out of respect. The young clerk was deferential to the judge.
  • erudite Having deep knowledge gained from study. The erudite guide knew the history of every street.
  • fastidious Very hard to please about small details. A fastidious editor marks every stray comma.
  • impetuous Quick to act with force and without thought. His impetuous decision cost the team a month.
  • indolent Lazy by habit; avoiding effort. The indolent heir let the estate fall apart.
  • intrepid Fearless in the face of danger. The intrepid crew sailed on through the storm.
  • irascible Quick to lose one's temper. The irascible innkeeper shouted at every guest.
  • judicious Showing good sense and sound judgment. A judicious use of quotations strengthens the essay.
  • nonchalant Calm and seemingly unconcerned. He gave a nonchalant wave and kept reading.
  • obsequious Overly eager to obey or to win favor. The obsequious waiter agreed with every remark.
  • sanctimonious Showing off how moral one believes oneself to be. His sanctimonious lecture annoyed the whole table.

Rhetoric terms 12

  • analogy A likeness between two things, used to explain one of them. The essay draws an analogy between a cell and a factory.
  • antithesis Two opposite ideas set side by side in balanced form. The line gains force from antithesis: easy to say, hard to do.
  • aphorism A brief, memorable statement of a general truth. Haste makes waste is an aphorism.
  • caveat A warning or limit attached to a statement. The study comes with a caveat: the sample was small.
  • counterexample A case that shows a general claim to be false. The number 2 is a counterexample to the claim that every prime is odd.
  • digression A turn away from the main subject. After a digression about his dog, the speaker returned to the budget.
  • invective Harsh, abusive words aimed at a person. The debate sank into invective.
  • parallelism Matching grammatical forms used for related ideas. The parallelism of three verbs in a row gives the sentence its beat.
  • polemic A forceful written or spoken attack on an idea. The pamphlet is a polemic against the new tax.
  • rhetorical question A question asked for effect, with no answer expected. The speaker opens with a rhetorical question: who would refuse?
  • syllogism An argument in which two premises lead to a conclusion. All squares have four sides; this shape is a square; so it has four sides. That is a syllogism.
  • understatement Words that make a thing seem smaller than it is. Calling the flood a bit of rain is an understatement.

Faults in reasoning 12

  • ad hominem An attack on the person instead of the argument. Calling the author lazy is an ad hominem, not a reply.
  • cherry-pick To choose only the evidence that supports one's side. The poster cherry-picks the one good review.
  • circular reasoning An argument that assumes what it sets out to prove. The rule is fair because it is just: that is circular reasoning.
  • equivocation Using one word in two senses to mislead. The argument turns on equivocation: free means two things in it.
  • false dilemma Two choices presented as the only ones when more exist. Win or quit is a false dilemma.
  • false equivalence Treating two unlike things as if they were the same. Comparing a typo to a forged report is a false equivalence.
  • hasty generalization A broad conclusion drawn from too few cases. Judging a city by one rude driver is a hasty generalization.
  • loaded question A question with an unproved assumption built in. Asking why someone always interrupts is a loaded question.
  • non sequitur A conclusion that does not follow from what came before. It rained, so the test was unfair: that is a non sequitur.
  • red herring A point that draws attention away from the real issue. The talk of cost was a red herring; the question was safety.
  • slippery slope The claim that one small step must lead to disaster. A slippery slope argument says one late paper will end all deadlines.
  • straw man A distorted version of a view, set up to be easily defeated. He answered a straw man, not what she had said.

Literary terms 12

  • antihero A main character who lacks heroic qualities. The antihero lies and steals, yet readers side with him.
  • bildungsroman A novel that traces its hero's growth from youth to maturity. The bildungsroman follows its hero from age nine to twenty.
  • deus ex machina A sudden, unlikely event that solves a story's problem. A lost uncle who arrives with a fortune is a deus ex machina.
  • dystopia A society in which life is miserable and unfree. In the dystopia of the novel, every book is banned.
  • elegy A poem that mourns a loss or a death. The poet wrote an elegy for a friend lost at sea.
  • enjambment A sentence in verse that continues past the line break. Enjambment pulls the reader on to the next line.
  • in medias res In the middle of the events of a story. The epic begins in medias res, with the war already old.
  • metonymy Calling a thing by the name of something tied to it. Calling the king the crown is metonymy.
  • ode A lyric poem in a dignified, elevated style. The ode speaks to the autumn evening as if it could hear.
  • stream of consciousness Writing that follows a character's flow of thoughts. The chapter is one long stream of consciousness.
  • synecdoche A part named to mean the whole, or the whole a part. All hands on deck uses synecdoche: hands means sailors.
  • unreliable narrator A storyteller whose account cannot be trusted. The unreliable narrator leaves out his own part in the theft.

Government and economics words 12

  • austerity A plan to cut a deficit by spending less or taxing more. Under austerity, the city closed two libraries.
  • bipartisan Supported by members of two political parties. A bipartisan group of senators wrote the bill.
  • collateral Property pledged as security for a loan. She offered her car as collateral.
  • constituent A person whom an elected official represents. The senator answered a letter from a constituent.
  • dividend A payment a company makes to its shareholders. The firm pays a dividend four times a year.
  • due process Fair treatment under the rules of the legal system. The court ruled that the firing had denied him due process.
  • fiscal Having to do with government taxes and spending. Fiscal policy sets how much a state taxes and spends.
  • impeach To formally accuse a public official of wrongdoing. The legislature voted to impeach the governor.
  • judicial review A court's power to judge whether a law is valid. Under judicial review, a court may strike down a law.
  • opportunity cost The value of the best choice given up. The opportunity cost of a night of work is the sleep you miss.
  • precedent An earlier ruling that guides later cases. The court followed a precedent set ten years before.
  • referendum A vote in which the people decide a single question directly. The city held a referendum on the new bridge.

Borrowed words and phrases 12

  • ad hoc Made or done for one particular purpose. An ad hoc committee met to plan the fair.
  • alter ego A second self; another side of one's personality. On stage the shy singer has a bold alter ego.
  • avant-garde New and experimental, especially in the arts. The avant-garde play had no script.
  • bona fide Genuine; made in good faith. The shop made a bona fide offer for the painting.
  • carte blanche Full freedom to act as one thinks best. The director gave the designer carte blanche.
  • de facto Existing in fact, whether or not by law. She became the de facto leader of the group.
  • fait accompli A thing already done and past changing. By the time we heard of the sale, it was a fait accompli.
  • faux pas An embarrassing social mistake. Forgetting the host's name was a faux pas.
  • magnum opus The greatest work of an artist or writer. The long novel is considered her magnum opus.
  • quid pro quo Something given in exchange for something else. The trade was a quid pro quo: a vote for a vote.
  • status quo The present state of affairs. The new mayor promised to change the status quo.
  • zeitgeist The spirit or mood of a particular time. The song caught the zeitgeist of its decade.

How this list was compiled: Word list chosen for this site on 2026-10-09; the grade is our suggestion and the list follows no published program, exam or standard. Each meaning is written in our own words and was checked that day against the entry for the word in Wiktionary, the free dictionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/), whose text is under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: it gives a sense the entry lists, in shorter words. The example sentence after each meaning is our own. No list was copied from a test-preparation book or an exam. For the set Borrowed words and phrases, the Latin, French or German origin of each entry was read in its Wiktionary etymology the same day. Licence: own work

How it works

These high school vocabulary worksheets, written for grades 11 and 12, pair twelve words on the left with their meanings, shuffled, on the right. Eight sets run from describing words to rhetoric terms, faults in reasoning and borrowed phrases.

Read the full guide

Eight sets for juniors and seniors

Set opens on Describing words, such as ambivalent, clandestine and superfluous. Action words (ameliorate, exonerate, rescind) and Character words (erudite, fastidious, intrepid) suit either grade.

11th grade vocabulary worksheets

For a year of argument and rhetoric, print Rhetoric terms and Faults in reasoning: antithesis, syllogism and caveat on one sheet, straw man, red herring and non sequitur on the other.

12th grade vocabulary worksheets

Seniors can take Literary terms (bildungsroman, synecdoche, unreliable narrator), Government and economics words (precedent, fiscal, opportunity cost) and Borrowed words and phrases (carte blanche, status quo, zeitgeist).

  • The box above the sheet takes your own pairs, one a line: tacit = implied without being said.
  • Under the sheet every word has a sentence: The tension in the courtroom was palpable.

Questions and answers

What vocabulary words should a high school student know?

No list is official. Ours suggests words that juniors and seniors meet in essays, speeches, novels and civics, such as ambivalent, acquiesce, obsequious, polemic, non sequitur and referendum. The grades are our suggestion.

Are these high school vocabulary worksheets with answers?

Yes. The answer key prints as the last page, with a line drawn from each word to its meaning. To print the sheet alone, open More options and uncheck Add an answer key as the last page.

Is there a high school vocabulary worksheets PDF?

Press Print worksheet and choose Save as PDF where your browser asks for a printer. The file has the sheet first and the answer key after it.

Does the list repeat the 9th or 10th grade words?

No. No word here is on our 9th grade vocabulary worksheets or 10th grade vocabulary worksheets, so a department can use the pages in turn.

How were the definitions checked?

Each is in our own words and matches a sense Wiktionary lists for the entry, read on 9 October 2026. Nothing was copied from an exam or a test-preparation book.

More tools

Show 8 more

Browse Handwriting