Grade 10 College Vocabulary, Week 5

Definition: A thing used for tying or binding tightly; a bond or tie.

From the reading: "I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

Synonyms:

bond, tie, binding

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin ligatura, from ligare, ligatum, to bind: compare f. ligature. Cf. Ally, League, Legatura, Liable, Legament. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Something (such as a fact or circumstance) that shows an action to be reasonable or necessary; a statement in explanation of some action or belief.

From the reading: "There are some laws and customs in this empire very peculiar; and if they were not so directly contrary to those of my own dear country, I should be tempted to say a little in their justification." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

KJV link: "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." (Romans 4:25)

Synonyms:

circumstance, condition

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin justificatio: compare French justification. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Of or occurring in spring; fresh and youthful.

From the reading: "Every fourth year, at the vernal equinox, there is a representative council of the whole nation, which meets in a plain about twenty miles from our house, and continues about five or six days." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

Synonyms:

springlike, fresh, youthful

Antonyms:

autumnal

Root:Latin vernalis, from vernus vernal, ver spring; akin to Greek vasanta, Icelandic var, and English Easter, east. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Large or heavy and therefore difficult to carry or use; slow and complicated.

From the reading: "The queen likewise ordered the thinnest silks that could be gotten, to make me clothes, not much thicker than an English blanket, very cumbersome till I was accustomed to them." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

Synonyms:

cumbrous, unwieldy, unmanageable

Antonyms:

wieldy, felicitous

Root:English cumber, to hinder or burden (Old French encombrer, to block) + -some, tending to: tending to burden.

Definition: Vastness of size or extent; the quality of being outrageous.

From the reading: "But when a creature pretending to reason could be capable of such enormities, he dreaded lest the corruption of that faculty might be worse than brutality itself." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

Synonyms:

outrageousness

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin enormitas, from enormis enormous: compare French énormité. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: The quality of being wildly unreasonable, illogical, or ridiculous.

From the reading: "The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine; but the practice still continues, in compliance to the vulgar." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

Synonyms:

absurdness, ridiculousness, fatuity

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin absurditas: compare French absurdite. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: The action of improving or reforming something; capitalized, the sixteenth-century movement that renewed the church and gave rise to the Protestant churches.

From the reading: "These, and a thousand other reformations, I firmly counted upon by your encouragement; as indeed they were plainly deducible from the precepts delivered in my book." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

KJV link: "Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation." (Hebrews 9:10)

Synonyms:

Reformation, reclamation

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:French réformation, Latin reformatio. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A descriptive word or phrase attached to a name, such as the Great in Alfred the Great; sometimes an abusive word.

From the reading: "Thus they denote the folly of a servant, an omission of a child, a stone that cuts their feet, a continuance of foul or unseasonable weather, and the like, by adding to each the epithet of Yahoo." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

Synonyms:

name

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin epitheton, Greek épithète. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A history of a word; the study of the sources and development of words.

From the reading: "The word, which I interpret the flying or floating island, is in the original Laputa, whereof I could never learn the true etymology." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

Synonyms:

history, account

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latinetymologia, Greek étymologie. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Arousing intense distaste or disgust.

From the reading: "For, with respect to that part of the earth over which the monarch presides, the stone is endued at one of its sides with an attractive power, and at the other with a repulsive." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

Synonyms:

abhorrent, detestable, revolting

Antonyms:

attractive, pleasing

Root:Cf. French répulsif. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To say, state, or perform again.

From the reading: "The generous nature of Safie was outraged by this command; she attempted to expostulate with her father, but he left her angrily, reiterating his tyrannical mandate." (Frankenstein)

Synonyms:

repeat, restate, iterate

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Pref. re- + iterate: compare French réitérer, Late Latin reiterare to question again. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To move continuously through a closed system; to pass from person to person or place to place.

From the reading: "As soon as this volume began to circulate, Mr." (Great Expectations)

Synonyms:

spread, circularize, circularise

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin circulari, to form a circle, from circulus, a small ring: to move round in a circle.

Definition: Open to being acted upon in a certain way; disposed or willing to comply.

From the reading: "Mind, I don’t say a crime; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is error." (Jane Eyre)

Synonyms:

conformable, compliant, tractable

Antonyms:

defiant, unsusceptible

Root:French amener to lead; ad) = mener to lead, from Latin minare to drive animals (properly by threatening cries), in Late Latin to lead; Latin minari, to threaten, minae threats. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: The everyday language spoken by ordinary people of a region; using such language.

From the reading: "His dialectic forms are taken from the vernacular of the North Lancashire folk with which he was familiar." (The Faerie Queene, Book I)

Synonyms:

common, everyday, colloquial

Antonyms:

formal, literary

Root:Latin vernaculus born in one's house, native, from verna a slave born in his master's house, a native, probably akin to Skr. vas to dwell, English was. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Angry and bitter in speech or debate.

Context (original sentence): The meeting ended in an acrimonious quarrel over the will.

Synonyms:

bitter, rancorous, caustic

Antonyms:

amicable, cordial

Root:Latin acrimonia, sharpness.

Definition: Successful in producing a desired or intended result; effective.

From the reading: "Why, can that which is plainly more efficacious than anything else be esteemed a thing feeble and void of strength?" (The Consolation of Philosophy)

Synonyms:

effective, potent, successful

Antonyms:

ineffective, useless

Root:Latin efficax, powerful.

Definition: Miscellaneous articles, especially the equipment needed for an activity.

From the reading: "She was staggering under a load of cameras and paraphernalia." (Freckles)

Synonyms:

equipment, gear, apparatus

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek parapherna, property apart from a dowry.

Definition: Affected with madness or insanity.

From the reading: "Every living creature there held life as of no account, and was demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it." (A Tale of Two Cities)

Synonyms:

brainsick, crazy, disturbed

Antonyms:

sane

Root:From Dement. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: causing harm or injury.

From the reading: "I wondered how many other clerks there were upstairs, and whether they all claimed to have the same detrimental mastery of their fellow-creatures." (Great Expectations)

Synonyms:

damaging, prejudicial, prejudicious

Antonyms:

harmless

Root:Latin detrimentum, loss or damage, from deterere, to rub away (de-, away + terere, to rub): rubbing away, causing harm.

Definition: Unable to read or write; ignorant in a particular subject.

From the reading: "Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen." (Frankenstein)

Synonyms:

semiliterate, analphabetic, unlettered

Antonyms:

literate, educated

Root:Latin illiteratus: pref. il- not + literatus learned. (Webster, 1913)