Grade 10 College Vocabulary, Week 24

Definition: The contradiction or denial of something.

From the reading: "Find the how: the poem defines by negation (“Love is not love / Which alters”) and by images of fixed things (“an ever-fixed mark,” “the star”) set against images of change (tempests, “bending sickle”)." (the lesson)

Synonyms:

denial, contradiction, nullification

Antonyms:

affirmation

Root:Latin negatio, from negare to say no, to deny; ne not + the root of aio I say; compare Greek ah to say; compare French négation. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement.

From the reading: "I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool." (Jane Eyre)

Synonyms:

craze, delirium, frenzy

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:NL.: compare French hystérie. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Cautious or wary due to realistic suspicions.

Context (original sentence): The farmer was leery of strangers who offered easy money.

Synonyms:

wary, suspicious, distrustful

Antonyms:

trusting

Root:perhaps from obsolete leer, cheek.

Definition: Showing little emotion.

From the reading: "She said “Good morning, Miss,” in her usual phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking up another ring and more tape, went on with her sewing." (Jane Eyre)

Synonyms:

phlegmatical, unemotional

Antonyms:

emotional

Root:Latin phlegmaticus, Greek phlegmatique. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Without limits in extent or size or quantity.

From the reading: "The weird woodland, sombre and illimitable, covered hill and vale, tableland and mountain-peak." (The First Christmas Tree)

Synonyms:

limitless, measureless, immeasurable

Antonyms:

measurable

Root:Pref. il- not + limitable: compare French illimitable. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Of a voice, loud and powerful.

From the reading: "A MUSKETEER (with fierce mustache, enters, and in a stentorian voice): Good-day! (Lise goes up to him quickly.) CYRANO (turning round): Who's that?" (Cyrano de Bergerac)

Synonyms:

booming, full

Antonyms:

thin

Root:Greek Stentor, a herald in Homer's Iliad whose voice was as loud as fifty men's: very loud.

Definition: (used especially of glances) directed to one side with or as if with doubt or suspicion or envy; situated at or extending to the side.

From the reading: "And then, even as the Earl toppled sidelong, crash!" (Men of Iron)

Synonyms:

askance, askant, asquint

Antonyms:

direct, top, bottom

Root:. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To cause something to change direction; to turn aside.

From the reading: "His suicide, however corroborative of suspicion, were there found to be deceit in the affidavits, is, without such deceit, in no respect an unaccountable circumstance, or one which need cause us to deflect from the line of ordinary analysis." (The Works of Edgar Allan Poe)

Synonyms:

divert, turn aside, avert

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin deflectere, to bend aside.

Definition: Relating to or inclined to dissension; quarrelsome and divisive.

From the reading: "But let such military persons be assured, and well reputed of, rather than factious and popular; holding also good correspondence with the other great men in the state; or else the remedy, is worse than the disease." (Essays)

Synonyms:

dissentious, divisive, discordant

Antonyms:

accordant

Root:Latin factiosus: compare French factieux. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Deeply agitated especially from emotion.

From the reading: "I had a mind to visit the high shrines, For Oedipus is overwrought, alarmed With terrors manifold." (Oedipus the King and Antigone)

Synonyms:

distraught, agitated

Antonyms:

unagitated

Root:over + wrought, worked (old past tense of work): worked up too far.

Definition: Lock up or confine, in or as in a jail.

From the reading: "Creon, unrelenting, condemns her to be immured in a rock-hewn chamber." (Oedipus the King and Antigone)

Synonyms:

imprison, confine, wall up

Antonyms:

free

Root:Pref. im- in + mure: compare French emmurer. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Ostentatiously lofty in style.

From the reading: "He had chosen this work, he said, because the declamatory style was framed in imitation of the Eastern authors." (Frankenstein)

Synonyms:

bombastic, rhetorical, grandiloquent

Antonyms:

plain

Root:Latin declamatorius: compare French déclamatoire. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Mix or blend; mix together different elements.

From the reading: "How could the soil thy father eared so long Endure to bear in silence such a wrong? (Ant. 2) All-seeing Time hath caught Guilt, and to justice brought The son and sire commingled in one bed." (Oedipus the King and Antigone)

Synonyms:

blend, flux, mix

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:com-, together + mingle (Old English mengan, to mix): to mix together.

Definition: An utter coward.

From the reading: "“I was determined not to return home a poltroon who was afraid of the water.” When Fritz was gone, I tried the bridge, and soon found there was not sufficient water over it to risk my being drowned." (The Swiss Family Robinson)

Synonyms:

coward, craven, dastard

Antonyms:

hero

Root:French poltron, from Italian poltrone an idle fellow, sluggard, coward, poltro idle, lazy, also, bed, from OHG. polstar, bolstar, cushion, German polster, akin to English bolster. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Exaggeratedly proper.

From the reading: "He remembered her pretty face and priggish speeches with a sudden secret vividness which is all the bitterness of death." (The Innocence of Father Brown)

Synonyms:

prim, prissy, prudish

Antonyms:

improper

Root:English prig, a fussy, self-righteous person (origin uncertain): smugly proper.

Definition: Extremely small.

From the reading: "You miss an infinitesimal line and you can build it into a pyramid of evidence!" (Crime and Punishment)

Synonyms:

minute, tiny, microscopic

Antonyms:

enormous, vast

Root:Latin infinitus, infinite.

Definition: Not easily destroyed; very long lasting.

From the reading: "A fine old lion he was, with his flowing white mane and his tameless spirit; yes, and his indestructible energy as well; for he fought as knightly and vigorous a fight that day as the best man there." (Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc)

Synonyms:

undestroyable, durable, perdurable

Antonyms:

destructible, perishable

Root:Pref. in- not + destructible: compare French indestructible. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A sketchy summary of the main points of an argument or theory.

From the reading: "Wopsle’s great-aunt may be resolved into the following synopsis." (Great Expectations)

Synonyms:

outline, abstract, precis

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin, from Greek optic. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Reason with (somebody) for the purpose of dissuasion.

From the reading: "Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable, his sisters would expostulate." (Jane Eyre)

Synonyms:

argue, reason

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin expostulatus, p.p. of expostulare to demand vehemently; ex out + postulare to ask, require. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A configuration of stars as seen from the earth; an arrangement of parts or elements.

From the reading: "For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine." (Isaiah 13:10)

Synonyms:

configuration

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:French constellation, Latin constellatio. (Webster, 1913)