In the spirit of graduation season, the editors of American Heritage Dictionaries have put together a list of the 100 words every high school graduate and their parents should know. These words are a benchmark against which all graduates can measure whether they really have a superior command of the language.
I knew 89 of the 100. Keep reading to see which words I didn’t know, and how many you know.
Ok, I did not know the following 11 words: abstemious, bowdlerize, deciduous, evanescent, gamete, jejune, moiety, pecuniary, quotidian, supercilious and tautology.
Word to the Wise 
I am way too embarressed to say how many I did NOT know 😦
Knew all but 2: bowdlerize and hubris. I think my nursing background helped. deb
What does “know” mean? There should be a test associated, to verify that the words you think you know, you really know correctly. The 5 words that I am not confident that I could give a decent definition for are:
I have the impression that ‘bowdlerize’ means something like ‘engage in chicanery’, and ‘enervate’ means ‘make nervous’, but I’m not confident. jejune and moiety I’ve seen, but I have no clue what they might mean. Orthography I’ve never seen, but by etymology alone, it probably means something like ‘straight drawing’, or ‘correct writing’.
Okay, I came over to your site because of a comment you left on Keith Schooley’s. Now I know I can’t read your blog. If you know all those words, then I’m way over my head intellectually. May God bless you and your readers immensely. selahV
Selah, it’s never to late. You can do all things through Christ who gives you strength.
so the old addage, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is not true? selahV