# Test your vocabulary. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 6, 2012, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838 "2012-09-06T09:48:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/1 "2012-09-06T09:48:08Z")
Test is [here.](http://testyourvocab.com/). My estimated vocabulary is 22000 words. I am from India. What is your score? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/2 "2012-09-06T09:59:55Z")
37500, they say. I swear half the words from the second list were either Italian or French šŸ˜› The other half looked like something I might run into in a Dickens novel (I havenā€™t read him in the original). Spaniard, took the TOEFL back in 1993 (before living in the US for 5 years in two different periods) and got a perfect score, so a wide vocabulary isnā€™t exactly news. My other languages, being Romance ones, actually help boost my score in tests like these. There was a question about where youā€™d place yourself in your ESL classes which was too narrow for my experience; at one point (thanks, Micaela!) I went from ā€œgetting a barebones Pass by pooling resources with 8 other studentsā€ to ā€œanything less than 90% is a bad gradeā€. ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/3 "2012-09-06T10:08:10Z")
I didnā€™t know most of those Italian or French words. Nor have I taken TOFEL or ELTS. Arenā€™t you from Spain? EDIT: I noticed it later.:smack: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/4 "2012-09-06T10:12:30Z")
32,500. Iā€™m a native English speaker. It would be more interesting if they could break the figure down into active and passive vocabulary. I know Iā€™ve encountered many of the words I wasnā€™t sure of; if I could see them in context, I would probably understand them. There were also a lot of word roots that I recognized, but I couldnā€™t be sure of how to properly use the words that contained them. ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/5 "2012-09-06T10:18:02Z")
32,200 native speaker ---
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/6 "2012-09-06T10:30:52Z")
24,800 Is this good or bad? I spent my formative years in Rhode Island, so English may not count as my native language.;)šŸ˜ƒ ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/7 "2012-09-06T10:37:46Z")
37,500. What a delightful list of words. It was fairly easy to answer honestly and skip the words I couldnā€™t define, because they almost seemed made up. I was pretty sure that if I selected [spoilered word below] a graphic of a wagging finger would pop up with print that said ā€œHah! We know you cheated because THERE IS NO SUCH WORD.ā€ Iā€™m gonna look that word up now. One possible flaw in the test ā€¦ what if I THINK I know the definition, but Iā€™m wrong? cenacle ETA - thatā€™s definitely a real word, but I swear I never heard it before. Kind of surprising, since it seems like something I would have encountered in books. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/8 "2012-09-06T10:40:38Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I know Iā€™ve encountered many of the words I wasnā€™t sure of; if I could see them in context, I would probably understand them. Same here. Iā€™ve _seen_ many of them, and could probably figure out their meaning in context, but I couldnā€™t come up with a definition for many of the weird ones when they were sitting out there all alone like that. It gave me a score of 33,100. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/9 "2012-09-06T10:49:28Z")
33,900 was my estimate. Iā€™m a native English speaker. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/10 "2012-09-06T11:30:08Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > 37,500. What a delightful list of words. It was fairly easy to answer honestly and skip the words I couldnā€™t define, because they almost seemed made up. I was pretty sure that if I selected [spoilered word below] a graphic of a wagging finger would pop up with print that said ā€œHah! We know you cheated because THERE IS NO SUCH WORD.ā€ > > Iā€™m gonna look that word up now. > > One possible flaw in the test ā€¦ what if I THINK I know the definition, but Iā€™m wrong? > > cenacle > > ETA - thatā€™s definitely a real word, but I swear I never heard it before. Kind of surprising, since it seems like something I would have encountered in books. Thatā€™s one of the examples which, while Iā€™d encountered in English before, I recognize easily thanks to having a Spanish cognate. _cenĆ”culo_. In Spain dinner is called _cena_ - the root is the same šŸ˜ƒ ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/11 "2012-09-06T11:30:35Z")
26100 - English is my second language. Iā€™m a bit sad I didnā€™t know oneiromancy (and neither does Firefox spell checker) - if I had sort of cheated and selected the words I wasnā€™t 100% sure of, I wouldā€™ve gotten a lot higher score but I guess thatā€™s not the point. ---
**Author:** ![Rala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@Rala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rala)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/12 "2012-09-06T11:49:20Z")
Iā€™m a native speaker. I got 32, 600, and was a bit disappointed compared to some of the scores in this thread. But then I went to look at the breakdown by age and saw that the average score for a 20 year old native speaker is 23, 874, so now Iā€™m rather pleased with myself. ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/13 "2012-09-06T12:19:34Z")
30,000 and a bit disappointed! Must try harder next time šŸ˜ƒ (there were a few I only got because they were old Scots I knew from Burns poems) ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/14 "2012-09-06T12:25:58Z")
40,300, but a lot of the ones on the second page Iā€™ve only seen once or twice in my life. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/15 "2012-09-06T13:01:21Z")
38,400 - native speaker, 40 years old, credentialed to teach English, Language Arts, and Writing in two states. I should have written down the words I didnā€™t know. The only one that stuck was uxocide. ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/16 "2012-09-06T13:14:28Z")
35,700. Native speaker. Iā€™m now going to spend 20 minutes looking up all of the words I didnā€™t know. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/17 "2012-09-06T13:24:41Z")
35,500. Native speaker. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/18 "2012-09-06T13:34:02Z")
43,200, native speaker, avid reader of historical fiction and fantasy, which helps a whole lot with that particular list of words! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/19 "2012-09-06T13:39:09Z")
> [@phouka](#): > > 38,400 - native speaker, 40 years old, credentialed to teach English, Language Arts, and Writing in two states. > > I should have written down the words I didnā€™t know. The only one that stuck was uxocide. Uxo_ri_cide. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838/20 "2012-09-06T14:12:52Z")
> [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](#): > > 26100 - English is my second language. Iā€™m a bit sad I didnā€™t know oneiromancy (and neither does Firefox spell checker) - if I had sort of cheated and selected the words I wasnā€™t 100% sure of, I wouldā€™ve gotten a lot higher score but I guess thatā€™s not the point. What if I told you that the gods of dreams in greek mythology are called Oneiroi? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/test-your-vocabulary/633838.md?page=2)