10 Advanced Verbs to Help You Sound Smarter

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- Today I am going to talk to you about some

advanced verbs to help you sound smarter.

That's coming up.

Welcome to today's lesson.

It is a super, awesome, amazing vocabulary lesson

because I'm going to teach you 10 different verbs

to help you sound smarter. And I say that they

help you sound smarter because these are more advanced

verbs, these are advanced vocabulary words

that are very specific, very precise

that you can use in certain situations

so that you can perfectly express your ideas,

thoughts and opinions and say exactly what you want to say.

These verbs are going to help you do just that.

Now I'm not only going to tell the verb and the meaning

but I'm also going to give you the pronunciation

as well as an example sentence so that you can

see how these words are used in context.

That's very important.

So without further ado, let's begin.

The first word is to admonish

and admonish has three syllables and the stress

is on that second syllable, mon,

Admonish.

And this is a verb that we use with a direct object,

to admonish someone, usually for doing something wrong

because what it means is to counsel or advise

against something, it's kind of like you're scolding

somebody in a way but not because you are super

angry and they did something really terrible

but they just did something wrong and it's not correct,

maybe it was a little rude.

- You just interrupted me again while I was admonishing

you for interrupting me.

- Have you ever been admonished for doing something?

I definitely have been admonished for

many things in my life.

The next wonderful verb is to advocate.

This word has three syllables and the stress

is on that first syllable, advocate

and to advocate means to show strong support

for something, it could be a support for a policy,

it could be support for an issue

and you advocate for it.

We often use it with the preposition for,

you advocate for something when you are really

passionate about something, you really, really

really believe in it and you want

to advocate for this thing.

The next verb is to bemoan and this verb has two syllables

and the stress is on that second syllable, mohn, bemoan.

You may also notice that word in that second syllable,

which kind of shares a similar meaning to the verb,

to bemoan, which means you are basically expressing

that you are upset, you are distressed about something.

It's kind of like you're complaining and you might bemoan

a situation that you are in.

You might bemoan someone's decision if you disagree

with it and you don't like it, you're not very happy

with something that happened and you bemoan the situation.

The next verb is compel.

This word has two syllables and the stress is on that

second syllable, compel and what it means is to,

to force or drive or maybe even encourage somebody

to do something, some course of action,

to do something that you want them to do,

you really want to convince them to do something,

sometimes it can be done by force,

you compel someone to do something because maybe

you're threatening them in some way, shape or form

and you are compelling them to do what you want them to do.

- The power of Chrysler compels you.

- But you're really just trying to get somebody

to do this thing, to compel someone to do something.

The next verb is a good one, embezzle, to embezzle.

This verb has three syllables and the stress is on

that second syllable, embezzle.

Embezzle and what it means is to take money or maybe

even property but most of the time we're talking

about money and to do it in a fraudulent way.

People are creating some false records, some false receipts

and they are taking that extra money and stealing it

and they are embezzling the money.

You could embezzle money from a company,

you can embezzle money from a bank.

- Lloyd Gross is a fictional

salesman we invented to, how do I put this,

steal from the company, embezzle.

To commit fraud.

- I just got fired from Sweetems.

- Because you were embezzling?

- Now if you do this, it's a crime so it is not

a good verb, it's not a verb that you want

to be associated with.

The next verb is extol, to extol.

This word has two syllables and the stress

is on that second syllable, extol.

And what it means is to praise highly,

to give a lot of high praise, to someone or to something.

Often times you might extol someone during a eulogy

if there is a funeral and a person is giving a eulogy

and talking about the person that has passed away,

you want to talk about all of the good things

that this person did, you want to give them a lot of praise

and you would extol this person.

You can also use it talking about places or things,

if you really just want to speak highly of it, extol.

Next is the verb impugn, to impugn.

This word has two syllables and the stress

is on that second syllable, impugn.

And what it means is to claim that something is false,

to say that, to challenge it and say that's it's not true

and kind of cast doubt upon this situation

or even this person.

- So because of a few bad apples, you're gonna impugn

an entire continent?

- I'm impugning a continent.

- A lot of times you might hear it with the word character,

to impugn someone's character.

Basically saying that this person should not be

believed, that they say things that are false,

they're dishonest and you're trying to cast doubt

over the things that this person is talking about

when you impugn someone's character.

- Mr. Chairman, if she's going to impugn his character

while he's speaking.

- It's not a good verb, it's not something that

we should try to do but this is a situation

that happens and it's a great way to describe it.

To impugn someone or something.

Another great verb, which is one

of my favorites is obfuscate.

This verb has three syllables and the stress is on

that first syllable, obfuscate.

And what it means to obfuscate something

is to confuse or bewilder and just try to create

a confusing situation so that it's really difficult

to understand so you might hear it being used,

they want to obfuscate a situation, they want to obfuscate

an issue, they want to obfuscate a policy,

it happens a lot I think in politics when you're

trying to get people to believe one thing or another thing

and some people try to obfuscate certain issues.

The next verb is placate.

This word has two syllables and the stress

is on that first syllable, placate.

And what it means is to appease by giving something up,

you're giving up some concession in order

to try and get something that you want,

to placate someone.

For example, if somebody is upset with you,

you did something wrong, you will do something for this

person, you'll give something up, you are trying

to placate them in order for this person to forgive

you, to be okay with it and just to move on,

to placate someone.

Another great verb, repudiate.

This verb has four syllables and the stress

is on that second syllable, repudiate.

And this means to reject something, to reject it

with disapproval because there's no authority

in this thing that people are trying to say or do.

To repudiate someone or you could repudiate something.

So for example at work if you are the manager

and you have employees and they make a request

and you could reject it and say no,

I don't like it, this is a terrible idea,

you would repudiate this.

- Senator Eleanor, Prenses Shaw, does it bother

you at all your son repudiates so many of your

more controversial policies?

- No.

- It was refused, rejected, rebuffed, repudiated.

- It's kind of a confrontational word because

if you repudiate something then you're really

letting the other person know that you're a bit

unhappy, that you don't like this and you are

rejecting it, you repudiate it.

So right now I would like to advocate for you to write

us a comment and let us know an English word

that you have recently learned.

It could be any word, a noun, an adjective, a verb.

Just let us know, we love hearing

from you in the comments.

If you don't write us a comment, I'm not going

to bemoan the situation, I'm not even going to admonish you

but we would really appreciate it and if you do,

I will placate you by coming out

with another lesson next week.

I hope you enjoyed learning these new words

and you can go on and practice and use them,

please hit that like button if you found this lesson

useful and as always, thanks for watching

and we'll see you next time.