The 200-word list for a 16-year-old
200 new target words to explore around age 16. A themed word bank, not a required vocabulary total or birthday deadline.
| Number and theme | Words, in sequence |
|---|---|
| 001–020 Judging information | provisional, tentative, anecdotal, authoritative, questionable, defensible, inconclusive, unfounded, deceptive, corroborate, substantiate, refute, qualify, contextualise, testable, verifiable, unsubstantiated, definitive, dispassionate, subjective |
| 021–040 Public decisions | deliberation, consensus, pluralism, partisanship, polarisation, populism, authoritarianism, federalism, devolution, bureaucracy, diplomacy, oversight, ombudsman, consultation, hearing, quorum, veto, ratification, enforcement, bicameral |
| 041–060 Agreements and costs | waiver, breach, clause, stipulation, addendum, appendix, annex, disclaimer, reimbursement, rebate, surcharge, commission, royalty, turnover, levy, markup, forfeiture, amortisation, underwriting, termination |
| 061–080 Systems in everyday life | bottleneck, backlog, interruption, disruption, continuity, breakdown, workaround, fallback, resumption, maintenance, downtime, uptime, outage, spillover, interdependence, robustness, fragility, stability, adaptability, recoverability |
| 081–100 Resolving practical problems | troubleshoot, rectify, reconcile, consolidate, streamline, implement, oversee, reassess, renegotiate, recoup, compensate, reschedule, defer, expedite, postpone, opt, reject, retain, retrieve, submit |
| 101–120 Precise descriptions | concise, succinct, comprehensive, thorough, adequate, arbitrary, inherent, inevitable, subsequent, concurrent, cumulative, incremental, substantial, negligible, inadvertent, intentional, sporadic, intermittent, acute, chronic |
| 121–140 Work and organisations | enterprise, entrepreneurship, stakeholder, shareholder, fiduciary, delegation, procurement, tender, outsourcing, restructuring, succession, receivership, management, assurance, accreditation, diligence, deliverable, milestone, onboarding, handover |
| 141–160 Boundaries and ethics | impersonation, infringement, copyright, defamation, libel, slander, harassment, coercion, duress, manipulation, intimidation, complicity, discretion, conscience, recourse, intervention, inviolable, permissible, illicit, safeguarding |
| 161–180 World connections | geopolitics, humanitarian, statehood, annexation, deterrence, escalation, peacekeeping, sanctions, embargo, blockade, armistice, ceasefire, exile, statelessness, repatriation, resettlement, naturalisation, neutrality, hegemony, interconnectedness |
| 181–200 Making sound commitments | discernment, judgement, prioritisation, prudence, ownership, dedication, equanimity, magnanimity, fortitude, steadfastness, fidelity, candour, circumspection, selflessness, forbearance, tenacity, uphold, fulfil, reconsider, relinquish |
List audit: 200 entries in 10 groups of 20. Every target word is unique within this list and assigned only once in the complete Age 1–16 collection of 3,200 words. Earlier words should still be reused in conversation. This audit concerns word selection, not a child’s development.
Ages 1–16: vocabulary series index · All vocabulary guides
Choose your next step
Precise language for practical adult decisions. Use the list as a reference, then choose the part of the guide that helps today.
Guide contents
1–5: Meanings and everyday use
6–10: More examples, questions and sources
“I can help” may begin a useful conversation, but it leaves several questions open. Help with what? By when? What will someone else receive? What happens if the plan changes? Words such as deliverable, provisional, handover and reconsider give those questions clearer shapes.
This Age 16 selection brings together language for information, commitments, organisations, public life and everyday problems. It is for young readers developing independence and for adults who want to discuss real decisions with them. You can start with the part of the list that helps with something you are doing now.
The age label organises the collection; it does not establish a required level of knowledge. These 200 entries are editorial choices, not a validated ranking or a birthday deadline. Specialist words such as underwriting, bicameral and amortisation can wait for a reliable explanation in a relevant setting. Knowing a term is also different from being ready or authorised to make the decision it describes.
The examples below are invented. They follow a small team making a short audio guide and show how wording can make a task, limit or next step easier to understand. Earlier vocabulary remains useful throughout; only the target entries are separated between the sixteen age lists.
Use these working meanings as starting points. They explain the particular senses used in this guide, rather than every possible use of each word.
Words that make decisions and commitments clearer
| Word | Working meaning | Original example |
|---|---|---|
| Provisional | In place for now, with a possibility of change. | “The recording time is provisional until the room is confirmed.” |
| Inconclusive | Not enough to settle the question being asked. | “One unclear recording is inconclusive about whether the microphone is faulty.” |
| Corroborate | Provide additional support for an account or claim. | “Does the booking record corroborate the time in the message?” |
| Qualify | Limit or make a statement less general. | “The equipment worked in our short indoor test.” |
| Reassess | Consider something again in light of the available information. | “Let us reassess the deadline after we hear the new recording.” |
| Reconcile | Bring conflicting information or accounts into agreement where possible. | “We need to reconcile the two different task lists.” |
| Defer | Put a decision or action off until later. | “We will defer the music choice until we check permission.” |
| Handover | A transfer of work or responsibility, with the information needed to continue. | “The handover explains which recording is ready and what still needs checking.” |
Cambridge Dictionary’s entries for provisional and qualify support the senses used here. In another sentence, qualify might concern meeting an entry requirement. Identify the meaning the sentence needs before substituting a more familiar word.
A useful check is to finish this sentence: “Using this word helps us decide or understand…” If you cannot finish it, a simpler expression may communicate better. You do not need to make every conversation sound formal.
Imagine that a team listens to three short recordings. One contains crackling. Someone says, “This microphone always fails.” The word always makes a much wider claim than the three recordings support.
A more useful report is: “We heard crackling in the second recording. We have not identified the cause.” It separates what happened from an explanation. The team can now ask whether the problem concerns the microphone, a connection, the recording settings or something else. These are possibilities to investigate, not conclusions established by the example.
Now compare three messages:
- “The microphone is definitely broken.”
- “There may be a problem with the microphone.”
- “There is crackling between 20 and 30 seconds in the second recording; the other two recordings sound clear to us.”
The last message gives a collaborator something specific to inspect. It does not settle the cause. Tentative can describe an explanation still being considered; unsubstantiated can describe a claim for which support has not been supplied. Neither term means that the claim must be false.
Try qualifying a sentence by naming its setting, evidence or limit: “in this recording”, “according to this document”, or “we have not checked the outdoor version”. Do not weaken every sentence automatically. State a directly checked detail plainly, and make uncertainty visible where it actually exists.
If new information changes the picture, say what changed: “I previously blamed the microphone. The new test suggests we should check the connection.” That is more informative than silently replacing one confident account with another.
Suppose you agree to prepare the audio guide. “I will finish it soon” gives the other person little to plan around. A clearer commitment might be: “I will send a 60-second preview to the organiser by Friday at 5 pm. It will include the introduction and two edited sections. It is for review.”
The preview is the deliverable: the particular result someone expects to receive. A milestone is a point used to mark progress, such as having all recordings collected. These working distinctions help the fictional team recognise that collecting recordings and delivering an edited preview are different stages.
An original commitment check for the audio-guide project
| Question | A clear answer for this example |
|---|---|
| What will be sent? | A 60-second audio preview with the agreed sections. |
| Who will receive it? | The organiser who is reviewing the draft. |
| When is it due? | Friday at 5 pm. |
| What remains outside this task? | Public release and the final choice of background music. |
| What needs clarification? | Who checks the recording permissions and approves the final version. |
If the recordings arrive late, renegotiate can name a conversation about changing the arrangement. Explain the effect and propose a workable revision: “I can send the introduction on Friday and the complete preview on Monday. Would that meet your needs?” The other person may have constraints you have not seen.
A vocabulary exercise does not determine the legal effect of an agreement. For a real document, the wording, circumstances and applicable rules matter. Ask an appropriate adult or qualified adviser about obligations you do not understand before taking responsibility for them.
Reimbursement concerns money paid back for an expense or loss. In an everyday project, understanding the word is only the beginning: you also need to know which expense has been agreed and what information is required.
Here is an invented example, using fictional amounts. The organiser agrees to reimburse up to S$12 for printing the approved script. You spend S$9.60 on printing and S$4 on a snack. The total you paid is S$13.60, but the printing expense is still S$9.60. The snack is outside the stated arrangement, and the S$12 limit is not a promise to pay S$12 regardless of the expense.
A clear request would be: “The approved printing cost S$9.60. Here is the receipt.” If the receipt contains several purchases, identify the relevant item. This is an arithmetic and vocabulary example, not a claim about anyone’s actual reimbursement policy.
Before spending money for a shared project, try asking: “Which costs have been agreed?”, “Is there a limit?”, and “When should I expect repayment?” If an answer is unclear, clarify it first. A label such as reimbursement does not supply the missing conditions.
The same habit helps when you encounter surcharge, rebate or commission. Look for the amount, how it is calculated and what triggers it in that specific document. Do not assume that familiar vocabulary makes two different offers equivalent.
Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower explains business continuity planning in terms of resuming and restoring operations after disruption. Its overview also considers dependencies, resources and testing. The smaller example below is an original vocabulary activity, not a complete continuity plan.
Imagine that the team’s shared folder becomes temporarily unavailable. The outage interrupts access to the current recordings. The deadline has not disappeared, but the team needs to decide what useful work can continue.
One person has a previously approved script saved locally. They can review pronunciation while another person checks the folder’s status through the normal support route. That is a limited workaround. It does not make the folder available, and it does not mean every local file is the latest version.
A clearer message is: “We can practise from the approved script. Editing will resume when access returns and we confirm which recordings are current.” The words continuity and resumption now describe different parts of the situation: maintaining some useful activity and restarting the interrupted work.
For a practice discussion, change one condition. What if the local copy is outdated? What if the person who knows the arrangement is unavailable? Identify what the fallback depends on. Keep the exercise small and use ordinary project materials; you do not need to create a real failure to discuss one.
The audio team wants background music and a cover image. A search result makes both easy to find. It does not answer whether the intended use is permitted.
The World Intellectual Property Organization’s copyright FAQ explains that using a protected work generally requires authorisation, while licences and exceptions under national law can permit particular uses. Online availability does not by itself place a work in the public domain. The relevant permission or exception must fit the intended use.
For this fictional project, the team writes down three questions: “Who supplied the material?”, “What permission or licence covers our use?”, and “What conditions do we need to follow?” If they cannot establish an answer, they can defer that choice and ask the organiser for help. This is a way to organise questions, not a determination that a particular use is lawful.
Words such as permissible, infringement and discretion belong in specific contexts. Avoid treating a legal-sounding word as a verdict. If a real concern involves someone’s work, reputation or personal information, explain the facts accurately and seek guidance appropriate to the situation.
For an adult supporting a young person, a useful question is, “Which part have we checked, and which part still needs an answer?” It leaves room to learn without pretending that a short vocabulary guide supplies every relevant rule.
Concise communication says what is needed clearly without unnecessary wording. It does not mean removing a condition that the reader needs. A short message can still be incomplete; a longer message can still be easy to follow.
Compare “Everything is done” with this original handover:
“The 60-second preview is ready for the organiser’s review. The introduction and two sections are edited. Background music has not been added because permission is still being checked. Please use the file labelled ‘Preview 2’ and send any corrections to the editor by Monday at 5 pm.”
This note distinguishes completed work from an unresolved choice. It names the file, the next action and the person handling corrections. Someone joining the project does not have to reconstruct every previous conversation to understand what to do.
Try keeping four short headings in a handover: done, still open, next action, responsible person. Add a date or a location for the relevant file where it helps. This is an editorial template you can adapt, not a required professional standard.
To revisit the vocabulary, hide the example and explain why comprehensive does not simply mean “long”. Which necessary detail would be missing if you shortened the note? Which sentence could you remove without losing useful information? Let the reader’s task decide.
Finish by checking whether the receiving person can explain the next step. Their question may reveal a missing detail. Revising the note is part of making it useful, rather than evidence that the first attempt was a failure.
Should a sixteen-year-old already know every word?
No. This is an editorial bank containing familiar, specialist and possible stretch vocabulary. Choose words that fit the reader’s present questions and interests.
Does precise language have to sound formal?
No. “Please send the recording by five” can be more precise than a long sentence about completing a deliverable. Use the wording the other person can understand.
Is a provisional plan unreliable?
Not automatically. It makes its current status visible. Ask what still needs confirmation, who will confirm it and how changes will be communicated.
What if two people understand a word differently?
Describe the actual action or result you mean. Compare examples, check the relevant document or reference, and agree on the meaning needed for that conversation.
Can I use this list to interpret a contract by myself?
The list can help you identify questions. It cannot establish the legal meaning or effect of a particular agreement. Get appropriate help with real obligations you do not understand.
What happens after the Age 16 list?
Keep using the words that matter and add useful terms from the subjects, work and relationships you encounter. The sixteen lists complete this collection, not the process of developing a vocabulary.
- Cambridge Dictionary: provisional and qualify — meanings used for the status and limits of a statement.
- Cambridge Dictionary: reimbursement — the financial word meaning; the amounts and agreement in the example are invented.
- Singapore Ministry of Manpower: business continuity planning — a short overview of continuity and recovery considerations.
- World Intellectual Property Organization: copyright FAQ — general context for permission, licences and national exceptions.
- Cambridge Dictionary: concise — the meaning used in the handover activity.
The 200-word selection, audio-project scenes, calculations, questions and practice suggestions are eduKate editorial work. Sources support particular meanings and factual explanations. They do not validate this selection as an age standard, replace advice about a real agreement, or guarantee a learning outcome.
Continue with useful words, at your own pace
This compact collection assigns new target words to each age band. It complements the larger reference banks below. Familiar words remain part of every later conversation.
Choose another age
Age 1 · Age 2 · Age 3 · Age 4 · Age 5 · Age 6 · Age 7 · Age 8 · Age 9 · Age 10 · Age 11 · Age 12 · Age 13 · Age 14 · Age 15
Broader vocabulary resources
- The Age 16 reference bank of 2,000 words — a wider reference when you want more word choices.
All 16 guides in this collection are now published, with 3,200 distinct target entries across Ages 1–16. The nonrepeat rule applies within this Essential 200 collection; other eduKate vocabulary collections may include the same useful words.