Grade 11 College Vocabulary, Week 3

Definition: An ornamental design of intertwined flowing lines; a ballet position on one leg.

From the reading: "Two large orange-trees, now fragrant with blossoms, threw a delicious shade; and, ranged in a circle round upon the turf, were marble vases of arabesque sculpture, containing the choicest flowering plants of the tropics." (Uncle Tom's Cabin)

Synonyms:

scrollwork, ornament, tracery

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:French arabesque, from Italian arabesco, from Arabo Arab. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Government that is inefficient or dishonest.

From the reading: "“Is God HERE?” Ah, how is it possible for the untaught heart to keep its faith, unswerving, in the face of dire misrule, and palpable, unrebuked injustice?" (Uncle Tom's Cabin)

Synonyms:

misgovernment

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:mis-, badly + rule (Old French riule, from Latin regula, a straight stick): bad government.

Definition: To withdraw formally from membership in a federation or body.

From the reading: "In 1861 nine States, with a population of 8,753,000, seceded, and maintained for four years a resolute but unequal contest for independence, but they were defeated." (Democracy in America)

Synonyms:

withdraw, break away, separate

Antonyms:

join, unite

Root:Latin secedere, to go apart.

Definition: To capture again; to recover or experience again.

From the reading: "This nerves the African, naturally patient, timid and unenterprising, with heroic courage, and leads him to suffer hunger, cold, pain, the perils of the wilderness, and the more dread penalties of recapture." (Uncle Tom's Cabin)

Synonyms:

retake

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:re-, again + capture (Latin captura, from capere, to take): to take again.

Definition: Censure severely or angrily.

From the reading: "If any part of the dinner was a failure, there were fifty indisputably good reasons for it; and it was the fault undeniably of fifty other people, whom Dinah berated with unsparing zeal." (Uncle Tom's Cabin)

Synonyms:

scold, rebuke, upbraid

Antonyms:

praise

Root:be-, thoroughly + rate, to scold (Middle English raten, origin uncertain): to scold thoroughly.

Definition: To speak or write at length or in detail.

From the reading: "He was listening, with a good-humored, negligent air, half comic, half contemptuous, to Haley, who was very volubly expatiating on the quality of the article for which they were bargaining." (Uncle Tom's Cabin)

Synonyms:

elaborate, expound, enlarge

Antonyms:

condense

Root:Latin exspatiari, to wander out, from ex-, out + spatiari, to walk about (spatium, space): to range at length over a subject.

Definition: Noisily and stubbornly defiant; boisterously and noisily aggressive.

From the reading: "“O! go long, will ye?” said the mother, giving now and then a kick, in a kind of general way, under the table, when the movement became too obstreperous." (Uncle Tom's Cabin)

Synonyms:

defiant, noncompliant, aggressive

Antonyms:

compliant, unaggressive

Root:Latin obstreperus, from obstrepere to make a noise at; ob (see Ob-) + strepere to make a noise. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Relating to trade or commerce.

From the reading: "The story of “old Prue,” in the second volume, was an incident that fell under the personal observation of a brother of the writer, then collecting-clerk to a large mercantile house, in New Orleans." (Uncle Tom's Cabin)

Synonyms:

commercial, trading, business

Antonyms:

noncommercial

Root:French mercantile, Italian mercantile, from Latin mercans, -antis, present participle of mercari to traffic. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To take in and understand fully; to absorb into a larger group.

From the reading: "They are in our homes; they are the associates of our children, and they form their minds faster than we can; for they are a race that children always will cling to and assimilate with." (Uncle Tom's Cabin)

Synonyms:

absorb, ingest

Antonyms:

dissimilate

Root:Latin assimilare, to make like, from ad-, to + similis, like: to make like oneself, to absorb.

Definition: Dishonest practices and claims to have special knowledge and skill, especially in medicine.

From the reading: "This patient, it is recorded, was doing well and seemed to be in a fair way of ultimate recovery, but fell a victim to the quackeries of medical experiment." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

charlatanism, fraud, humbug

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Dutch kwakzalver, a hawker of salves (kwakken, to chatter + zalf, salve) + -ery: the practice of a quack.

Definition: A departure from what is normal, usual, or expected.

From the reading: "When I observed this last, plain evidence of my friend’s aberration of mind, I could scarcely refrain from tears." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

aberrance, aberrancy, deviance

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin aberratio: compare French aberration. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A detail that is considered insignificant.

From the reading: "It will be seen that, in bringing about such result, he secures all the advantages of interest or design, while relieving his work of the harshness or technicality of the worldly art." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

trifle, triviality

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek technikos, of art or skill, from techne, art + -ity: a point of technical detail.

Definition: Not conclusive; not putting an end to doubt or question.

From the reading: "It is by endless subdivisions based upon the most inconclusive differences, that some departments of natural history become so repellingly intricate." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

indecisive, unsettled, ambiguous

Antonyms:

conclusive, decisive

Root:in-, not + Latin concludere, to shut up or close (com-, together + claudere, to shut) + -ive: not bringing to a close.

Definition: Esoteric or elevated in nature; (of air) of lower density than usual.

From the reading: "The accelerated rate of ascent thus obtained, carried me too rapidly, and without sufficient gradation, into a highly rarefied stratum of the atmosphere, and the result had nearly proved fatal to my expedition and to myself." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

lofty, elevated; thin

Antonyms:

thick, ignoble

Root:Latin rarefacere, to make thin, from rarus, thin or rare + facere, to make: made thin; lofty.

Definition: Despicably cowardly.

From the reading: "The coffee-room—the scene lately of the dastardly outrage on two English gentlemen—was quite deserted." (The Scarlet Pimpernel)

Synonyms:

cowardly, base, treacherous

Antonyms:

brave, noble

Root:dastard, a coward (Middle English, perhaps from dazed + -ard) + -ly: cowardly and mean.

Definition: To ask for or obtain something to which one is not strictly entitled; to beg.

Context (original sentence): The idle fellow cadged meals from every kitchen in the village.

Synonyms:

scrounge, beg, sponge

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:perhaps from cadger, a peddler.

Definition: Undesirably noticeable; sticking out; protruding.

From the reading: "Not the less, however, came this importunately obtrusive sense of change." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

noticeable, protrusive

Antonyms:

unobtrusive, intrusive

Root:Latin obtrudere, to thrust against, from ob-, against + trudere, to thrust: thrusting itself forward.

Definition: Tending to move away from a center; tending away from centralization, as of authority.

From the reading: "For it is evident that such a medium must, in retarding the comet’s velocity, increase its centripetal, by weakening its centrifugal force." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

outward-moving, outward-developing, decentralizing

Antonyms:

centripetal, centralizing, afferent

Root:Latin centrum center + fugere to flee. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Enough to be estimated or measured.

From the reading: "Inch by inch—line by line—with a descent only appreciable at intervals that seemed ages—down and still down it came!" (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

considerable

Antonyms:

inconsiderable

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

Definition: Delicate ornamental work made from fine twisted gold or silver wire.

From the reading: "The frame was oval, richly gilded and filigreed in Moresque." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

lacework, tracery, scrollwork

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Corrupted from filigrane. (Webster, 1913)