A comprehensive glossary of investing terms could go on for miles, but here are some basic words you're bound to run into. Learn these words to conquer confusion and impress friends with your thoroughly respectable investing intelligence.

1. 12b-1 fee -- An annual fee deducted from an investor's fund assets to pay for the distribution and marketing costs of the fund. 12b-1 fees are capped by law at 1 percent.

2. Actively managed fund -- A fund that uses a manager or team to analyze securities and try to beat the market return. The opposite of active management is passive management, found in index funds.

3. Aggressive growth -- This is an investment style of funds that hold positions in potential high-growth companies. Aggressive growth funds have high betas, meaning they tend to be more volatile than the stock market.