Grade 11 College Vocabulary, Week 2

Definition: Based on or having the nature of an illusion.

From the reading: "Miss Ophelia and the physician alone felt no encouragement from this illusive truce." (Uncle Tom's Cabin)

Synonyms:

illusory, unreal

Antonyms:

real

Root:. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Incapable of being repudiated or transferred to another; not subject to forfeiture.

From the reading: "All this enmity and passion had Pearl inherited, by inalienable right, out of Hester’s heart." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

unalienable, absolute, infrangible

Antonyms:

alienable, defeasible

Root:Pref. in- not + alienable: compare French inaliénable. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Relating to the dawn; rosy and radiant like the dawn.

From the reading: "To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited the year before." (Walden, selected)

Synonyms:

aurorean

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin Aurora, the goddess of the dawn + -al: of the dawn.

Definition: Change or alter in form, appearance, or nature; change in outward structure or looks.

From the reading: "In the spiritual world, the old physician and the minister—mutual victims as they have been—may, unawares, have found their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden love." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

transform, metamorphose, convert

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin transmutare, transmutatum; trans across + mutare to change. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A temporary camp without tents or cover, used especially by soldiers.

From the reading: "At all events, with my knapsack for a pillow, and my hound as a sentry, a bivouac in the open air was just the thing which would have amused me." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

camp, encamp, tent

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:French bivouac, bivac, prab. from German beiwache, or beiwacht; bei by, near + wachen to watch, wache watch, guard. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Being essentially equal to something.

From the reading: "For Flask to have presumed to help himself, this must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the first degree." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

equivalent, equal

Antonyms:

unequal

Root:French tant so much (Latin tantus) + English amount. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To persuade someone that an idea or belief is mistaken.

From the reading: "His frankness would have led him to disabuse every inquirer of such prejudice; but his indolent humor forbade all farther agitation of a topic whose interest to himself had long ceased." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

undeceive, correct, set straight

Antonyms:

deceive

Root:Pref. dis- + abuse; compare French désabuser. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Designed to be useful or practical rather than attractive.

From the reading: "His own person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

useful, functional, utile

Antonyms:

nonfunctional, useless

Root:. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Spread or diffuse through; pass through.

From the reading: "The ultimate, or unparticled matter, not only permeates all things but impels all things; and thus is all things within itself." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

pervade, penetrate, interpenetrate

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin permeatus, p.p. of permeare to permeate; per + meare to go, pass. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Lacking distinct or individual characteristics; dull and uninteresting.

From the reading: "It was a stormy, windy night, such as raises whole squadrons of nondescript noises in rickety old houses." (Uncle Tom's Cabin)

Synonyms:

characterless, ordinary

Antonyms:

extraordinary

Root:Pref. non- + Latin descriptus described. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To dig out something buried, especially a body, from the ground; to bring to light again.

From the reading: "Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than seventy feet in length in the skeleton." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

disinter

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Late Latin exhumare; Latin ex out + humus ground, soil: compare French exhumer. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Corresponding in size or degree or extent.

From the reading: "Besides, although I was evidently approaching the surface below me, it was with a speed by no means commensurate with the velocity I had at first so horribly conceived." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

proportionate, commensurable, coextensive

Antonyms:

incommensurate

Root:Pref. com- + mensurate. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Capable of being shaped or bent or drawn out; easily influenced.

From the reading: "The characters of the narrative would not be warmed and rendered malleable by any heat that I could kindle at my intellectual forge." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

ductile, tractable, manipulable

Antonyms:

intractable, unformed

Root:French malléable, from Late Latin malleare to hammer. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To soak thoroughly with liquid; to fill something until no more can be held.

From the reading: "The sand beneath our feet is saturate With blood of martyrs; and these rifted stones Are awful witnesses against a people Whose pleasure was the pain of dying men." (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

soak, drench, steep

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin saturatus, p.p. of saturate to saturate, from satur full of food, sated. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To jump or dance around excitedly.

From the reading: "By-and-by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling." (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

Synonyms:

frolic, caper, romp

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:perhaps an alteration of curvet, a horse's leap (Italian corvetta), origin uncertain: to prance about.

Definition: Betrayal of a trust; an act of deliberate betrayal.

From the reading: "He brought this letter only. (Reads.) O cursed perfidy!" (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

perfidiousness, treachery, betrayal

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin perfidia, from Latin perfidus faithless; per (compare Skr. para away) + fides faith: compare French perfidie. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: The practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest.

From the reading: "This is done, chiefly by suppressing, or at least keeping a strait hand, upon the devouring trades of usury, ingrossing great pasturages, and the like." (Essays of Bacon)

Synonyms:

extortion, loan-sharking

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin usura, use, interest.

Definition: The essential part of something; the spongy tissue in a stem.

From the reading: "Why do they all draw their nourishment from roots as from a mouth dipped into the earth, and distribute the strong bark over the pith?" (The Consolation of Philosophy)

Synonyms:

essence, core, gist

Antonyms:

periphery

Root:Old English pitha.

Definition: A powerful whirlpool; a situation of confused movement or violent turmoil.

From the reading: "But the whale rushed round in a sudden maelstrom; seized the swimmer between his jaws; and rearing high up with him, plunged headlong again, and went down." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

whirlpool, vortex, turmoil

Antonyms:

calm

Root:Norw., a whirlpool. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Death or something that causes death, regarded as a release from life; a final settlement.

From the reading: "I would thou couldst; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The law’s delay, and the quietus which his pangs might take." (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

Synonyms:

rest, sleep

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Late Latin quietus quit, discharged, Latin, at rest, quiet, dead. (Webster, 1913)