TOEFL® Word List

A galaxy is a group of many stars. Our sun is a star. The galaxy that we live in is known as milky way. It contains 300 billion stars.

Definition: Convert (a solid or liquid, especially coal) into gas:

Example sentences:

• The plans, which will be carried out over a 20 year horizon, will include energy recovery techniques such as incineration and gasification

Example sentences:

• The illness is believed to be caused by a defective gene. 
• Our personalities result from the complex interplay between our genes and our environment.

Definition: Of or relating to genes or heredity

Example sentences:

• Scientists believe the world’s famous fruit (banana) could disappear forever in 10 years’ time as it lacks the genetic capability to ward off pests and diseases that are in Central America, Africa and Asia.
• Bees have diminished drastically in recent years due to a variety of factors including pesticides, diseases and habitat degradation resulting in a loss of genetic diversity.
• Due to significant advances in biotechnology, experts predict that within years, doctors will be able to trace the genetic roots of common medical problems such as depression.​

Definition: A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.

Example sentences:

• Women also bring to poetry or other genres of literature a whole new area of experience and vision.

Definition:

Example sentences:

• The inner ear's structure and contents is thought to permit the shark to determine and distinguish sounds and the geomagnetic fields of the earth's magma.

Definition: A hot spring in which water intermittently boils, sending a tall column of water and steam into the air.

Example senences:

• A geyser of lava spouted between them and Seth attacked, charging through the lava like it was water, an unstoppable locomotive of power.

The verb “give weight to” means to attach importance to something. “I need to give weight to this decision before I make it.” This means that the decision is very important, thus one should think extra hard before coming to a conclusion. If you give weight to you job, you understand that it is important.

Definition: A slowly moving mass or river of ice formed by the accumulation and compaction of snow on mountains or near the poles.

Example sentences:

• A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation (melting and sublimation) over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform and flow due to stresses induced by their weight, creating crevasses, seracs, and other distinguishing features. They also abrade rock and debris from their substrate to create landforms such as cirques and moraines. Glaciers form only on land and are distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water.

Definition: Develop or be developed so as to make possible international influence or operation:

Example sentences:

• The moment the debate was publicized on the Internet, it was globalized.

Definition: giving pleasure or a feeling of accomplishment; showing thanks

Example sentences:

• The milestone is especially gratifying to the director, an early adopter of digital photography and an advocate of the Internet’s power to transform museums.
• It’s been incredibly gratifying to take this dream and make it a reality.

Definition: The force that attracts a body towards the centre of the earth, or towards any other physical body having mass

Example sentences:

• Objects exert a force of gravity because they have mass and the more mass they have the stronger the force of gravity they exert. Physics has found only four forces in nature: gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear.

Definition: (Of an animal, especially a dog) make a low guttural sound of hostility in the throat

Example sentences:

• The dog growls at the bottom of the tree, trying to claw his way up.

Definition: Relating to or having the characteristics of a gas

Example sentences:

• gaseous emissions from motor vehicles.

Definition: Convert (a solid or liquid, especially coal) into gas

Example sentences:

• Coal, too, could be made carbon-free, using advanced power plants that gasify the fuel and then generate power while stripping away the carbon for sequestration underground.

Definition: A general statement or concept obtained by inference from specific cases:

Example sentences:

• It just amazed him how people form such absurd generalizations out of specific instances.

Definition: by genetic mechanisms; "genetically passed down talents

Example sentences:

• Cloning is the process of making a genetically identical organism through nonsexual means

Definition: Adjective (geology)

Example senences:

• There is no stratigraphic or other geological evidence here for a break between the two volcanic episodes

Definition: Relating to or produced by the internal heat of the earth

Example sentences:

• Some 70 per cent of Iceland’s energy needs are met from geothermal sources. These rocks were later affected by low-grade metamorphism under high geothermal gradients

Gigantic is an adjective used to describe something that's really big, as though it were made for a giant. You might call a skyscraper a gigantic building, especially if it towers over other buildings nearby.

Example sentences:

• Gigantic (meaning huge, monstrous) waves were crashing on the beach.
• He made a gigantic (meaning huge) mistake when he quit his job.
• She owns a gigantic house.
• She has a gigantic appetite.

Definition: The process, condition, or result of being covered by glaciers or ice sheets.

Example sentences:

• These hydrogeological conditions are controlled by relative land and sea level, erosion and deposition, the cold climate processes of permafrost and glaciation, and rock stress changes.

Definition: The process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale

Example sentences:

• Globalization is an inevitable phenomenon in human history that's been bringing the world closer through the exchange of goods and products.

Definition: slowly, but surely

Example sentences:

• Nasa once adopted the mantra ‘follow the water’, which is now gradually changing into ‘seek signs of life’.

Definition: related to gravitation

Example senences:

• In walking, kinetic energy is converted to gravitational potential energy and back again, as in a pendulum

Definition: Suffer grief

Example sentences:

• she grieved for her father

Definition: A circular pattern of currents in an ocean basin:

Example sentences:

• Zones of minimum upwelling and, therefore, productivity, occur in the central regions of the oceans known as the gyres.