Commonly Confused GRE Words: Sanction, Enervate, Cleave and More

A handful of GRE words are notorious because students confidently assume the wrong meaning. Some are contronyms — words that are their own opposites — and others simply look like a more familiar word. Knowing the root settles the confusion.

Sanction can mean both "to approve" and "a penalty." From Latin sancire, "to ordain or make sacred." A sanction was originally a binding decree — and a decree can either authorize something or punish it. Hook: an official decree can give a green light or lay down the law.

Cleave can mean both "to split apart" and "to cling to." English fused two different Old English verbs: cleofan, "to split," and clifian, "to adhere." Hook: a cleaver splits, but you also "cleave to" your beliefs.

Enervate means "to weaken," not "to energize." From Latin enervare, ex- + nervus, "sinew" — literally "to remove the sinews." Hook: take the nerve out of something and it goes limp. Do not let the "energy" lookalike fool you.

Fulsome means "excessive or insincere," especially of praise — not simply "full" or "generous." From "full" + -some, it drifted toward "so much it is off-putting." Hook: fulsome praise is so full it spills over into fake.

Noisome means "offensive or harmful," especially a foul smell — nothing to do with "noise." It comes from Middle English noy, a shortening of "annoy." Hook: a noisome odor annoys your nose.

Because these words carry surprising meanings, the GRE uses them to punish guessing from surface resemblance. When you see one, ignore the lookalike and recall the root. On Text Completion, the surrounding sentence usually disambiguates a contronym like "sanction" — let context pick the meaning.

Verbloom flags these high-confusion words and drills them in context, so the trap meaning is the one you remember.