GRE Vocabulary

Pious

having or showing a dutiful spirit of reverence for God or an earnest wish to fulfill religious obligations.

Ascetic

a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons.
OR
a person who leads an austerely simple life, especially one who abstains from the normal pleasure

Atheist

a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

Parochial

of, relating to, or financially supported by one or more church parishes.

Hedonism

the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the highest good.
OR
devotion to pleasure as a way of life.

Didactic

intended for instruction; instructive: didactic poetry.
OR
inclined to teach or lecture others too much: a boring, didactic speaker.
OR
teaching or intending to teach a moral lesson.

Blasphemous

uttering, containing, or exhibiting blasphemy; irreverent; profane.

Hallowed

regarded as holy; venerated; sacred.

Orthodox

of, relating to, or conforming to beliefs, attitudes, or modes of conduct that are generally approved.
OR
customary or conventional, as a means or method; established.
OR
conforming to the Christian faith as represented in the creeds of the early church.

Heretic

a professed believer who maintains religious opinions contrary to those accepted by his or her church or rejects doctrines prescribed by that church.

Sacrilegious

the violation or profanation of anything sacred or held sacred.
OR
the stealing of anything consecrated to the service of God.

Agnostic

a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

Transgression

an act of transgressing; violation of a law, command, etc.; sin.

Peccadillo

a very minor or slight sin or offense; a trifling fault.