Vocabulary
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50 free Vocabulary trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A good vocabulary is less about showing off than about having the right word ready when you need it. English has borrowed from Latin, Greek, French, German and dozens of other languages, so many of its most useful words carry a small story inside them, and knowing the story makes the meaning stick. This quiz tests what words really mean. Some questions give you a definition and ask for the word; others give you the word and ask what it describes. Every stem carries a clue from the word's past, such as a myth, a famous writer or a moment in history, and every answer comes with a short explanation. It suits students building their English, teachers who want a ready-made classroom or printable quiz, and word lovers who enjoy a challenge. The questions run from familiar words to ones that stretch keen readers.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which verb for putting off a task until later is built on the Latin word for 'tomorrow'?
Procrastinate
Procrastinate comes from the Latin 'procrastinare', to put off till tomorrow. Coleridge, who knew his Latin, jokingly called a habitual delayer a 'tomorrower'.
Q 02What does 'schadenfreude' mean, a German loanword one Victorian scholar thought fearful for a language to have?
Joy at others' misfortune
Joy at others' misfortune is the sense: the word joins the German for 'harm' and 'joy'. English has used it as a word of its own since the 1920s.
Q 03Which word for a longing for the past was coined at the University of Basel as a medical term for homesickness?
Nostalgia
Nostalgia was coined in 1688 by Johannes Hofer from the Greek for 'homecoming' and 'pain'. Doctors treated it as a real and sometimes fatal disease, at first thought peculiar to the Swiss.
Q 04Which reference work listing words of similar meaning takes its name from the Greek for 'treasure' or 'storehouse'?
Thesaurus
Thesaurus is Greek for a treasure or storehouse, a label early dictionary makers liked for a 'treasury of words'. Roget's title of 1852 fixed its modern sense: words grouped by meaning.
Q 05What is 'serendipity', a word Horace Walpole coined from a Persian fairy tale about three princes?
A lucky discovery
A lucky discovery is the idea: Walpole wrote in 1754 that the princes of Serendip kept finding things they were not looking for. Serendip is an old name for Sri Lanka.
Q 06Which word for a person equally skilled with both hands literally means 'right-handed on both sides'?
Ambidextrous
Ambidextrous grew out of 'ambidexter', which in English first named a double-dealer who took bribes from both sides. The sense of skill with either hand appeared by the 1590s.
Q 07What does 'flabbergasted' mean, a word first noted in a 1772 magazine as fashionable new slang?
Utterly astonished
Utterly astonished is the meaning, though nobody is sure where the word came from. One guess is a playful formation echoing 'flabby' and 'aghast'.
Q 08What does 'draconian' mean when applied to laws, a word taken from the traditional first lawgiver of Athens?
Extremely harsh
Extremely harsh is the sense, because the code Draco set down for Athens around 621 BC is said to have punished even minor crimes with death. His name seems to mean 'sharp-sighted'.
Q 09Which word for throwing someone out of a window entered English after a 1618 incident at Prague Castle?
Defenestration
Defenestration was taken up in English after Protestant rebels threw two royal officials and their secretary from a castle window. All three survived, and the incident helped start the Thirty Years' War.
Q 10Which word for a person who preaches one thing but does another comes from the Greek for a stage actor?
Hypocrite
Hypocrite comes from the Greek 'hypokrites', a stage actor, and so someone playing a part. English has used it since about 1200 for a false pretender to virtue or religion.
Q 11What does a person with triskaidekaphobia fear, a dread the composer Arnold Schoenberg is known to have had?
The number 13
The number 13 is the dread, named from the Greek for 'thirteen'. Schoenberg is said to have feared dying in a year that was a multiple of it.
Q 12What does 'frugal' mean, a word that grew from the Latin for 'fruit' or 'produce'?
Careful with money
Careful with money is the sense, reached in Latin by steps from 'useful' to 'profitable' to 'economical'. The root 'frux' meant fruit or produce, and so value or success.
Q 13Which word for 'kindly and well-meaning' is built from the Latin for 'well' and 'wishing'?
Benevolent
Q 21What does 'gregarious' describe in a person, a word built on 'grex', the Latin for a flock?
A love of company
A love of company is the human sense, first recorded in 1789. For more than a century before that, the word described animals that live in flocks and herds.
Q 22What does 'ephemeral' mean, a word that shares its Greek root with Ephemeroptera, the scientific order of mayflies?
Short-lived
Short-lived is the meaning, from the Greek for 'lasting only a day'. English first used the word of one-day fevers before stretching it to anything fleeting.
Q 23What does 'ubiquitous' mean, a word that grew from a theological term for an attribute of God?
Found everywhere
Benevolent joins the Latin 'bene', well, and 'volens', wishing. English took it up in the 15th century for anyone well-disposed and wishing to do good.
Q 14What does 'jovial' mean, a nature astrologers once credited to people born under the planet Jupiter?
Cheerful and friendly
Cheerful and friendly was the temperament astrologers gave to those born under Jupiter. Jove, the root of the word, is another name for that Roman god of the sky.
Q 15What does 'penultimate' mean, a word built on 'paene', the Latin for 'almost'?
Second to last
Second to last is the meaning: Latin 'paene', almost, plus 'ultimus', final. The same 'almost' hides in peninsula, which is literally almost an island.
Q 16Which term for a word of opposite meaning entered English in the 1860s as a counterpart to 'synonym'?
Antonym
Antonym joins the Greek for 'opposite' and 'name', and may have been introduced by an 1867 volume titled Synonyms and Antonyms. French and German had the word first.
Q 17What is a 'faux pas', a French phrase that literally means a 'false step'?
A social blunder
A social blunder is the sense: a misstep in manners rather than on the stairs. English has used the phrase since the 1670s for any act that compromises a reputation.
Q 18What does a 'bibliophile' love, a word that shares its Greek root with 'Bible'?
Books
Books are a bibliophile's passion: 'biblio-' goes back to 'byblos', the Greek for Egyptian papyrus. That may come from Byblos, the Phoenician port that shipped papyrus to Greece.
Q 19What does a modern 'Luddite' oppose, a name first taken by a band of English weavers in 1811?
New technology
New technology is the target: the original Luddites spent about five years destroying machinery they feared would take their work. The label was turned on modern technophobes by 1961.
Q 20Which verb for teasing someone with something kept out of reach comes from a king punished in Greek myth?
Tantalize
Tantalize recalls Tantalus, who stood in water beneath boughs of fruit that drew back whenever he tried to eat or drink. The metal tantalum was named after him too.
Found everywhere is the sense, from the Latin 'ubique'. 'Ubiquity' entered English in the 1570s for the divine capacity to be in countless places at the same moment.
Q 24What does 'candid' mean, a word from the Latin for 'white' that also gave English 'candidate'?
Frank and honest
Frank and honest is the sense, a metaphor from a Latin word for white, pure and sincere. Roman office-seekers wore gleaming whitened togas, which is how the same root produced 'candidate'.
Q 25Which word for 'sluggish and drowsy' shares its root with the river of forgetfulness in Greek myth?
Lethargic
Lethargic comes from the Greek 'lethargos', forgetful, built on 'lethe', forgetting, and 'argos', idle. The same 'argos' later named the unreactive gas argon.
Q 26Which word for favouring relatives with jobs comes from the Italian for 'nephew', after favours granted by popes?
Nepotism
Nepotism comes from the Italian 'nepote', nephew. It first described popes handing privileges to a 'nephew', which was often a polite word for an illegitimate son.
Q 27Which word for someone who speaks several languages comes from the Greek for 'many-tongued'?
Polyglot
Polyglot joins the Greek 'polys', many, and 'glotta', tongue or language. A 'gloss', a note inserted to explain a hard word, comes from the same Greek root.
Q 28Which term for a mild expression swapped in for a blunt one comes from the Greek for 'speaking with fair words'?
Euphemism
Euphemism comes from a Greek verb for using words of good omen, a superstitious habit at religious rites. The Greeks even gave the vengeful Furies a flattering name, the Eumenides.
Q 29Which term for deliberate exaggeration for effect comes from the Greek for 'a throwing beyond'?
Hyperbole
Hyperbole joins the Greek 'hyper', beyond, and 'bole', a throwing: an overshoot made on purpose. Aristotle was already using it as a term of rhetoric.
Q 30Which word for chasing noble but impractical ideals comes from the hero of a Cervantes novel?
Quixotic
Quixotic comes from Don Quixote, the knight of Cervantes's 1605 satire who keeps attempting the impossible. His name literally means 'thigh', after a piece of leg armour.