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I came across a question while practicing for my GRE.

That Egyptologists believe the ancient Egyptians’ memory of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun quickly faded after his death is based on the fact that the Pharaoh’s tomb was not _______ in antiquity, but rather was found nearly intact by twentieth-century archaeologists.

Options: defamed, denigrated, depredated, derided, developed

I chose depredated by method of elimination. (it is the correct choice) but upon checking the reason -

The clue phrase here is "found intact." Because of the pivot word "but rather" before the clue, we know the first blank will disagree with the clue. Thus we're looking for a filler like "robbed" or "destroyed."

I can't get my head around why depredate is the filler. It doesn't make sense as whole in sentence. Can anyone elucidate on this ?

Pirate X
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    It's an appalling example sentence! But the only credible choice is the relatively rare word *depredated* (plundered, ravaged, laid waste to). Any reasonably literate native speaker should be able to decipher the "tortured syntax" of the sentence, but I suspect many of them would need to consult a dictionary (as I just had to) to check that particular definition. Are they testing people's ability to handle cumbersome phrasing, or the breadth of their vocabulary? – FumbleFingers Sep 08 '18 at 17:42
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    Semantically deconstructed: The assertion The ancient Egyptians’ memory of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun quickly faded after his death is something Egyptologists believe. That belief is based on the fact that the Pharaoh’s tomb wasn't plundered in antiquity (presumably because the ancients forgot about that Pharaoh, so it never occurred to anyone to find and loot the grave). – FumbleFingers Sep 08 '18 at 17:52
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    (As you'll see from this NGram, *depredated* virtually "flatlines" when compared to the more natural term *looted*.) – FumbleFingers Sep 08 '18 at 17:55
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    Looted is the word that would be correct in the blank. But I agree it's a terrible sentence. – John Lawler Sep 08 '18 at 19:27
  • if "rob" was included with 'depredate", it is trickily reasonable. – lbf Sep 08 '18 at 19:30
  • @FumbleFingers your collected comments would easily form a good answer ;-) – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Sep 09 '18 at 01:12
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    Although I "looted" may be clearer, I see nothing wrong with someone's tomb being depredated. The dictionary definitions I find give the meanings of "plunder", "pillage", "steal, without necessary connotations of violence or predation in the predator-prey sense. That's a very fitting word for someone who robs a tomb or a grave, because apart from the actual connotation of stealing, it also has a connotation of wrongfully disturbing a site, as would be the case if you robbed a tomb/grave. By the way I'm pretty sure his tomb was robbed twice in antiquity. – Zebrafish Sep 09 '18 at 05:23
  • @FumbleFingers Disagree that there’s anything poorly written here. It’s doing its job. The purpose of this question is *NOT* to try to find the most casual term possible that still conveys the intended meaning. The question was deliberately written this way to tease out whether you understand the difference between a bunch of polysyllabic Latinate verbs all beginning with de-. – tchrist Sep 09 '18 at 17:06
  • @tchrist: I'm sure you're one of the relatively few people who would have actually known the verb *depredate* (I freely admitted I didn't, even though my own vocabulary is relatively extensive). I'd guess over 90% of people applying for degree courses wouldn't know the word. But like me, over 90% of those people would still pick the right answer, because they'd be able to eliminate all the other possibilities on the grounds of obvious semantic incompatibility. But certainly I'd expect well over 90% of such applicants to handle the convoluted syntax without any problems. – FumbleFingers Sep 10 '18 at 12:23
  • ...but I still don't know if it's intended to test (1) ability to parse cumbersome phrasing, (2) knowledge of a very obscure word, or (3) ability to reason logically (given prior familiarity with all the wrong options). Whatever - I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to say *looting* is a "[most] casual" term in any context, even by way of contrasting it with *depredating* (which my Google spell-checker underlines in red - presumably because even it doesn't know the word! :) – FumbleFingers Sep 10 '18 at 12:26
  • @FumbleFingers Oh come now, my good sir: depredation is a perfectly common word. The OED places it in Frequency Band 4, no less. – tchrist Sep 10 '18 at 12:34
  • @tchrist: What can I say? Google Books claims millions of hits for each of *deprecated* and *depreciated* - a distinction which 43 *serious English language enthusiasts* thought worthy of an upvote here on ELU, but only 15 thousand hits for *depredated*. That's a pretty big difference, imho, and the fact that even Google Chrome's spell-checker doesn't recognise the word speaks volumes to me (if not to you, but I would never claim to be on your level as regards extensive vocabulary, as I'm sure you know! :) – FumbleFingers Sep 10 '18 at 12:59

2 Answers2

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The simplest way to make sense of this question is to winnow out the answers that can't be correct.

The test question's sentence asserts a logical opposition between finding the tomb intact in the twentieth century and having the tomb X in antiquity, where X stands for one of five words: defamed, denigrated, depredated, derided, or developed. So the task is to figure out which of the five words works in direct opposition to "found intact."

The words defamed, denigrated, and derided share a similar sense of insult, mockery, or unfair criticism—but there is no obvious connection between a lack of defamation, denigration, or derision toward Tutankhamun and the historical fact that his tomb remained intact over the millennia. Likewise, the fact that the tomb was found intact has little connection to whether it was "developed" in antiquity—unless we imagine that parceling it out into condominiums would have resulted in considerably more wear and tear to the structure than it actually endured.

That leaves for our consideration the choice depredated—which means ransacked or plundered. Clearly, "remained intact" stands in strong opposition to "was depredated"; so the only remaining test is whether the whole sentence, with depredated in place, is tolerably logical. In my view, it is: the writer argues that the fact that the tomb escaped the depredations of grave robbers (and so remained intact through many centuries) is evidence that people living in the area quickly forgot about Tutankhamun and his tomb, and so were not inclined to seek it out and pillage it.

Maybe so, maybe not. But unquestionably an argument that links a tomb's intactness to an absence of depredation makes far more sense than an argument that links the tomb's intactness to an absence of defamation, denigration, derision, or development.

Sven Yargs
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"I can't get my head around why rob/depredate is the filler"

In the title to your question you referenced only depredate, but in the body of your question you reference rob/depredate.

To depredate does require more than basic use of and understanding of English, but to rob does not. As a test GRE test question, it appears apropos. It was not 'robbed' in antiquity.

lbf
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