Powerful Verbs

Strong writing and speaking employ descriptive verbs. Help yourself to this list of verbs that you are likely to hear at some point in classrooms and on radio or television. Don’t forget to rack up some of your own flash cards of verbs that you find particularly interesting!
Click here to go to ADJECTIVES page.
Click each card to reveal a definition.

• abrogate
  to abolish by authoritative action; nullify
• abscond
  to depart secretly and hide oneself
• amalgamate
  to mix or consolidate into a single body
• appease
  to bring to a state of calm or peace or to pacify
• asperse
  to attack a reputation, often with false charges
• assay
  to analyze for one or more specific components
• assuage
  to lessen the intensity of or to end by satisfying
• belaud
  to praise, usually to excess
• brook
  to tolerate
• bastardize
  to reduce from a higher to a lower state, debase
• beleaguer
  to besiege, trouble or harass
• calumniate
  to utter maliciously false statements about
• capitulate
  to surrender under terms or to acquiesce
• castigate
  to subject to severe punishment, reproof, or criticism
• comprise
  to include within a particular scope [not "compose"]
• couch
  to phrase or express in a specified manner
• cozen
  to coax by artful deception or to cheat
• cudgel
  to beat with, or as if with, a heavy club
• embroil
  to involve in conflict or difficulties or to confuse
• equivocate
  to deceive by using language with double meaning
• eruct
  to belch (noun. "eructation")
• exacerbate
  to make more violent, bitter, or severe
• expiate
  to make amends or to extinguish guilt by ending
• expostulate
  to reason earnestly and dissuade or remonstrate
• expunge
  to strike out, obliterate, or mark for deletion
• extirpate
  to destroy completely or to pull out by the root
• fleece
  to charge excessively for goods or services
• fulminate
  to denounce or to give censure or invective
• fustigate
  to criticize severely
• harangue
  to rant in speech or writing
• impute
  to blame, often falsely
• inure
  to accustom to accept something undesirable
• immolate
  to kill or destroy by fire, as in sacrifice
• inveigh
  to protest or complain bitterly or vehemently
• inculcate
  to teach and impress by frequent repetition or admonition
• impone
  to wager or to bet
• impinge
  to have an effect or make an impression
• imbue
  to permeate or influence as if by dyeing
• imbrue
  to stain by soaking or drenching
• imprecate
  to invoke evil on or to curse
• imbrute
  to sink or degrade to the level of a brute
• immure
  to enclose as if within walls or to imprison
• infuse
  to permeate with a quality or principle usually to improve
• impart
  to give or convey with authority or as if with authority
• impugn
  to assail or attack as false or lacking integrity
• moil
  to be in continuous agitation or confusion
• malign
  to utter injuriously misleading or false reports about
• mollify
  calm, soothe, or soften in feeling or to make less severe
• niggle
  to find fault constantly in a petty way
• obnubilate
  to becloud or obscure
• purloin
  to appropriate wrongfully, often by a breach of trust
• peregrinate
  to travel or walk about
• purport
  to have the appearance of intending or claiming
• prevaricate
  to deviate from the truth or to equivocate
• osculate
  to kiss
• promulgate
  to make public by declaration
• quell
  to overwhelm and reduce to submission or to quiet
• raze
  to shave off, cut down, or demolish
• repudiate
  to divorce or reject as unlawful or unjust
• subsume
  to include or encompass within something larger
• stultify
  to inhibit by alleging stupidity or absurdity
• scud
  to move swiftly as if driven, perhaps by wind
• suffuse
  to spread through as if in the manner of fluid or light
• traduce
  to expose to shame or blame by means of falsehood
• transpire
  to give off vapor or to become known or apparent
• vilipend
  to disparage or to treat as of little worth
• vilify
  to lower in estimation or importance
• vitiate
  to make faulty or defective or to impair