It can take a long time to achieve a goal you’ve set for yourself, but you may have picked that specific goal on a whim, a moment’s flash of thought, a sudden idea of “wouldn’t this be great?” that sets your life moving in a new direction. Sometimes these impetuous decisions turn out to be the best thing you could have done. Impetuous means impulsive, quick to act – often without thinking of the consequences – or to make decisions based on emotion or random chance. An impetuous person is generally optimistic, trusting that everything will turn out well in the end.

Example: Anna’s plane was delayed in Paris when she was returning from her two-week vacation in France; she made the impetuous decision to stay there instead of going home, and she’s lived in Paris ever since.

An optimistic person is generally cheerful and quick to find humor in a situation. The adjective jocund means cheerful or jolly, even exuberantly happy. The word comes from the Latin iucundus, meaning pleasant or agreeable. Note that there’s no “j” in the original Latin word – that letter did not appear in the Roman alphabet until the mid-16th century.

Example: My Uncle Frank was a great favorite at our family reunions, with his jocund laugh and his repertoire of jokes and entertaining stories.

You’re making great progress in your study of these difficult words. Before we move on to the next set of words, take some time to review the words we’ve already covered. Remember, repetition is key to learning, and especially repetition with active use. Can you create sentences using these ten essential GRE words we’ve discussed already? If you’re having trouble remembering the vocabulary from previous posts, click on the words for a quick review.