IELTS Vocabulary ebook

When people such as immigrants assimilate into a community or when that community assimilates them, they become an accepted part of it. Here are example sentences:

• In order to assimilate into the new culture, immigrants should learn to follow the customs of the new country and learn the new language.
• This country assimilates immigrants very quickly.
• The organization’s goal is to help refugees to assimilate into American culture.
• The Inca civilization arose in the mountainous regions of Peru in the early 13th century. From 1438 to 1533, the Inca assimilated a large part of western South Americans.

If you assimilate new ideas, techniques, or information, you learn them and understand them thoroughly.  Here are example sentences:

• Informed people generally assimilate information from several divergent sources before coming to an opinion.

The verb "assimilate" can also mean to "absorb and digest". Here is an example sentence:

• The sugars in the fruit are readily assimilated by the body

Definition: bewildering or striking dumb with wonder

Example sentences:

• In the past year, American beekeepers have reported losing, on average, an astounding 42.1 per cent of their hives.

The adjective captivating describes something that holds your attention. You might find a marathon of episodes of a TV show so captivating that you forget to eat dinner. When people are captivating, they're often very intelligent, attractive, charming, or otherwise fascinating. Something that catches and holds your interest is captivating, like a captivating mystery novel you just can't put down.

Take a look at its use below:

• A captivating story
• A captivating smile
• The story is captivating and keeps the viewer hooked.
• Our university is looking to hire captivating teachers that can keep students engaged for long periods of time.

Definition: characterized by extreme care and great effort; guided by conscience or sense of right and wrong

Example sentences:

• It’s well-known that personality influences professional prowess, as high earners tend to be extraverted, ambitious, conscientious and self-confident.
• The purpose of college is to create conscientious, thinking individuals who know how to function in society.

Definition: The action of spreading the light from a light source evenly to reduce glare and harsh shadows;The dissemination of elements of culture to another region or people;The dissemination of elements of culture to another region or people:

Example senences:

• Some parts are painted white to assist with light diffusion, but the essential texture and character of the material is still legible.
• According to world culture theorists, the diffusion took place in three phases.

The noun "dispersion" is the act of dispersing. The verb "disperse" means to disappear in all different directions or to cause something to disappear in all different directions. 

Here are example sentences using dissipation:

• In the dispersion of seeds, birds play an indispensable role.
• A refraction is the dispersion of white light into its individual colors by a glass prism. 
• Dispersion of light through a prism produces a spectrum of colors.

The noun "dissemination" is the act of disseminating. The verb disseminate is a transitive verb. Disseminate means to spread information, knowledge, opinions widely. 

Here are example sentences using dissemination:

• The dissemination of information is the most important aspect of a public relations person's job.
• The Internet allows faster dissemination of information.

Definition: make easier; increase the likelihood of (a response)

Example sentences:

• More often than not, hacking attacks are facilitated by carelessness.

Definition: A thing intended to simulate or copy something else

Example senences:

• These works are often replicas or imitations of ancient Greek and Roman art. Surely, there could be imitations and really good reproductions, but these cannot be considered original art

The phrase "in retrospect" means when thinking about the past or something that happened in the past​ Here are example sentences:

• In retrospect, I should have realized I was going to fail the class.
• In retrospect, I made the right decision.​

Ingenuity is the ability to think creatively about a situation or to solve problems in a clever way. If you want to build a boat out of toothpicks and yarn, you’ll need a lot of ingenuity.Ingenuity is all about imagination, and an imaginative mind knows that every obstacle can be overcome with a little ingenuity. 

Example sentences:

• She showed amazing ingenuity in finding ways to cut costs.
• It will take considerable/much/some ingenuity to fix these problems.
• Inspecting the nest may require some ingenuity.

Tangible and intangible are antonyms. Tangible is something that you can touch or something that can be perceived by your senses. Normally, children are only encouraged by tangible rewards. 

If you say, “Wow! You did great” it won’t go very far with a seven-year-old. However, if you say “Wow! You did great!” and also give the child a sticker, they will likely be more excited because the sticker is tangible and something they can look at and feel.

On the contrary, intangible things can not be touch, felt, smelt or tasted. Feelings are intangible because even though you can’t feel them with your senses, you can feel them in your heart. For example, if you are sad, you aren’t able to pick up your sadness and throw it away. You also may feel a lot of joy from intangible things, such as a promotion. Even though your desk stays the same, your pride may be bursting at the seams.

The verb "proliferate" means to increase a lot and suddenly in number.​ When something proliferates, it's growing, spreading or multiplying really quickly. 

Example sentences using the word proliferate:

• Funny YouTube videos normally proliferate on the internet​
• The flowers proliferated rapidly all spring.
• Small businesses have proliferated in the last ten years.
• Starved of oxygen, malignant cells in many parts of the tumor proliferate and may even become more aggressive.

Definition: Continuing for a long time or longer than usual; lengthy:

Example sentences:

• Drought is a prolonged, abnormally dry period when there is not enough water to meet normal or expected needs. There will be a prolonged recovery period because of the damage the lorry sustained and its precarious position

The noun "propagation" means the act of producing a new plant. For example:

• The propagation of healthy plants is very important.
• Today’s class is plant propagation

The noun "propagation" can also mean the spread of ideas. For example:

• The rapid propagation of information is now possible with the invention of the Internet.

The noun "propagation" can also mean the transmission of motion, light or sound in a medium. For example:

• The rate of propagation of sound depends on the compressibility, ocean oceai water at the tropical temperature of 77° F.

Provoke is a verb that means to do something that causes a reaction. For example, you don’t want to provoke a lion, because it is likely the lion will attack. You will generally only hear and use the word “provoke” used in a negative sense. Used in a sentence, “My mom was angry because she knows I provoked my little brother to cause mayhem.”

Phrase

be easily provoked

• He is sensitive and easily provoked.

Collocations

provoke a reaction/response

• The report provoked a furious reaction from staff.

provoke debate/discussion/controversy/

• A new book criticising Hollywood has provoked fierce debate in the US.

provoke criticism

• The introduction of the tax provoked widespread criticism.

provoke protest(s)/an outcry

• Not surprisingly, the new rules have provoked protests from gun owners.
• The crackdown provoked an international outcry.

provoke anger/outrage

• His detention has provoked the anger of his supporters.

provoke opposition

• The government's proposals provoked widespread backbench opposition.

provoke hostility

• Aggressive behavior provokes hostility.

provoke violence

• It was a small incident but it provoked weeks of violence.

provoke interest

• Their campaign provoked great interest.

provoke laughter

• Sara's remark provoked faint laughter.

The word "spur" can be used as a verb. To spur something on is to get it going or to encourage it. You will see the usage "spur economic growth" a lot. For example:

• Lower interest rates should spur economic growth.
• Cheap transportation networks, the rise of cities, and the availability of capital and credit all spurred the shift to factory production. 
• The fundamental concept in supply-side economics is that tax cuts will spur economic growth because these tax cuts will allow entrepreneurs to invest their tax savings, thereby creating more jobs and profits

The word "spur" is a noun. Spurs are small metal wheels with sharp points that are attached to the heels of a rider's boots. The rider uses them to make their horse go faster. We can say something that encourages a person or organization to do that thing is a "spur". For example:

• The reward was offered as a spur to greater work/achievement.

A stimulus causes an action or response, like the ringing of your alarm clock if you didn't sleep through it. Most times, you will use “stimulus” in the plural form- “stimuli.” For example “Light, heat and sound are common physical stimuli.

Example sentences using the word stimulus:

• The pay raise was a stimulus for production.
• The dog responded to the stimulus of the ringing bell.
• Heat and light are physical stimuli.​
• The brain was no longer responding to the stimuli of shocks, commands, smells, noises, pressures, pains.

Titillating is an adjective that describes something that is pleasantly and superficially exciting. Titillating is typically used in a sexual reference, so be careful how you use it.

Let’s take a look the way it is used:

• titillating gossip
• an intentionally titillating movie
• Even though she knew this was all an act, it was nevertheless titillating.
• Honestly, their concealed phone calls and secret texts had been more titillating than the actual acts.

Titillating comes from the word titillate which is very similar in meaning to titillating. Titillate means to interest or excite (someone) in an enjoyable and often sexual way.

When you use "trigger" as a verb, you are putting something into motion or moving to act. For example, when a movie has a sad scene, the producers are likely wanting to trigger an emotion from the audience.

Example sentences using trigger in the noun form:

• He pulled/squeezed the trigger.
• Police officers are trained to not be too quick on the trigger. (meaning eager to fire a gun)
• These are known as your anger triggers.
• Stress is among the major smoking triggers.
• The sleeping position also triggers snoring.
• The faulty wire was the trigger for the explosion.
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Example sentences using the word trigger in the verb form:

• Smoke triggered the fire alarm.
• The timer was set to trigger the bomb in exactly one hour.
• His remarks triggered a public outcry.
• Certain foods trigger his headaches.
• The power outage was triggered by heavy rains.