Go Short: Essential Three-Letter Words: Essential Three-Letter Words, Part 4

Is your vocabulary feeling lax, with too many words beyond your ken? Dip into this vat of verbal gems of every hue and turn your woe into awe! These four lists are arranged from easiest to most challenging. Try and learn them all!

Here are links to our lists in the collection: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
15 words 3072 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. vat
    a large open vessel for holding or storing liquids
    They entered a dark, surprisingly clean kitchen, its walls lined with huge vats that looked better suited to laundry than cooking. Six of Crows
  2. cog
    tooth on the rim of gear wheel
    Mulch held his breath and twisted the dial, one cog at a time. Artemis Fowl
  3. ewe
    female sheep
    Friesz said her sheep usually birth lambs on their own, though her family sorts and monitors the ewes throughout the lambing process, aided by barn cameras to keep an eye on them. Washington Times (Feb 15, 2020)
  4. elf
    (folklore) a small fairy-like creature that is somewhat mischievous
    Someone who’s like a sprite, a little imaginary creature resembling a pixie or an elf, is spritelike. Woe Is I
  5. nix
    a quantity of no importance
    The Latin for snowflake is nix, almost the same as the German for nothing. The Invention of Science
    Nicht means "nothing" in German, and nix is a slang shortening of that.
  6. yak
    large, long-haired ox of Tibet
    As our tour guide drove us back toward town, we spotted yaks grazing in the green pastures encircled by sharp gray peaks under loose, cotton-boll clouds. Washington Post (Aug 20, 2020)
    Yak, unsurprisingly, is a Tibetan word.
  7. ilk
    a kind of person
    That’s the math you end up doing: “I’m just not made for that. I’m not of that quality, I’m not of that ilk.” Los Angeles Times (Mar 24, 2016)
  8. cad
    someone who is morally reprehensible
    He was a swindler, a welsher, a cad, and a rogue. Words Like Loaded Pistols
    A cad is a low, offensive person with terrible manners. The word originated as an abbreviation of cadet or caddie.
  9. fey
    suggestive of an elf in strangeness and otherworldliness
    And sure enough, we’re soon being led along by the fey figure who holds the book together, a 12-year-old girl named Florence whose mysterious story threads through the others we encounter along the way. Washington Post (May 2, 2019)
  10. vim
    a healthy capacity for vigorous activity
    But the youth of today were a pasty lot, with none of the get-up-and-go, none of the vigor and vim that he remembered from the days when he was young.... Stardust
    You'll often see vim used in conjunction with vigor because they both denote energetic strength and sound good together due to the alliteration and assonance of their first two letters.
  11. yaw
    swerve unpredictably from a set course
    The truck, traveling southbound, lost control and “began to yaw in a clockwise rotation.” Washington Times (Mar 25, 2020)
  12. gnu
    large African antelope with horns and a long tufted tail
    Their region was inhabited by large herds of antelope, wildebeest, gnus—and the lions that preyed on them. A Long Walk to Water
    Gnu is a word in the Khoekhoe and San languages of Southern Africa.
  13. fez
    a felt cap for a man
    It’s a red fez, high and tapered at the top with a hanging tassel. Saints and Misfits
    Fez is a city in Morocco, and it is believed that these cylindrical red hats originated there.
  14. wok
    a frying pan with a convex bottom; used in Chinese cooking
    Note: A wok is better than a skillet for stir-frying noodles, as you need the volume of the wok. New York Times (Jul 15, 2013)
    A Cantonese word, wok describes a large bowl-shaped pan in which much Chinese food is cooked. By putting the pan right into the cooking fire, chefs are able to cook very quickly, giving the food what's known as wok hai or "breath of the wok," a particular combination of freshness and a seared flavor.
  15. lox
    brine-cured salmon that is lightly smoked
    Unlike the Nova lox I’m used to, this salmon was a particularly pale shade of pink, and was less salty and greasy, more delicate, with a pleasant chew. New York Times (Aug 12, 2010)
    Laks means "salmon" in Yiddish.
Created on Tue Sep 22 15:46:10 EDT 2020 (updated Thu Apr 21 09:06:08 EDT 2022)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.