Essential English Vocabulary List for Advanced Learners

Essential English Vocabulary Definitions

• Accomplishment: Success in doing something good.
• Acquaintance: Someone whom you have met but do not know well.
• Advance: New discoveries and inventions.
• Award: A prize given to someone for something they have achieved.
• Back towards: To move back, going in the opposite direction to the one you were moving before.
• Blind: Somebody who is unable to see because their eyes are damaged.
• Blink: To close and reopen both eyes repeatedly.
• Breathing: Taking air into our lungs and letting it out again.
• Challenge: Something that is difficult and that tests someone's ability or determination.
• Clue: A piece of information essential to find out something hidden or to solve a puzzle.
• Cope: To deal successfully with a difficult problem or situation.
• Corridor: A long passage in a building, with doors and rooms on one or both sides.
• Courage: The quality shown by somebody who decides to do something difficult or dangerous.
• Defeat: To win against someone in a fight or competition.
• Describe: To give details of something you have seen previously.
• Disability: An illness, injury, or condition that makes it difficult for someone to do the things that other people do.
• Disappointed: Feeling sad because something that you wanted has not happened or because it is not as good as you expected.
• Endurance: The ability to keep doing something difficult, unpleasant, or painful for a long time.
• Enhance: To improve something.
• Equipment: The things that are used for a particular activity or purpose.
• Flatmate: Somebody with whom someone shares a flat.
• Frightened: Feeling afraid because of something that has happened; also feeling worried or nervous.
• Frustrated: Feeling sad or angry because you are unable to do what you would like to do, or not doing it as well as expected.
• Gloomy: A place or a person who is dark and cheerless.
• Grasp: To hold something or somebody tightly.
• Grimly: Meaning the same as angrily.
• Hereditary: Passed from one generation to the other.
• Hesitate: To pause slightly while doing something, usually because you are uncertain, embarrassed, or worried.
• Ignore: To look away, as if you haven’t seen somebody or something happening.
• Lengthen: To become longer or to make something longer.
• Limbs: A leg or an arm of a person.
• Look straight through somebody: To pretend you haven’t seen someone.
• Murmur: To say something very quietly.
• Overcome: To deal with and control a problem or feeling.
• Overturn: To officially change a legal decision.
• Performance: Acting, singing, dancing, or playing music to entertain people.
• Poison: A substance which harms or kills people or animals if they swallow or absorb it.
• Prosopagnosia: The condition which makes it impossible for some people to remember the details of a face.
• Prove: To show definitely that something is true.
• Raise: To move something so that it is in a higher position.
• Relief: Feeling glad that something unpleasant has not happened.
• Report: A written or spoken account of an event or situation.