Grade 11 College Vocabulary, Week 7

Definition: An inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest; distrust.

From the reading: "Discuss with your student that testing sources is not cynicism: the Bereans were called noble for checking even Paul against the Scriptures (Acts 17:11)." (the lesson)

Synonyms:

distrust, skepticism, pessimism

Antonyms:

trust, optimism

Root:Greek kynikos, doglike (kyon, dog), the name of a school of philosophers who scorned comfort and custom: a sneering distrust of others' motives.

Definition: Characterized by propriety and dignity and good taste in manners and conduct; according with custom or propriety.

From the reading: "It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

sedate, staid, becoming

Antonyms:

indecorous, improper

Root:Latin dec, from decor comeliness, beauty; akin to decere. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Give new life or energy to; make more striking or animated.

From the reading: "Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman’s frailty and sinful passion." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

enliven, invigorate, animate

Antonyms:

deaden

Root:French vivifier, Latin vivificare. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Not auspicious; boding ill; contrary to your interests or welfare.

From the reading: "Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

unfortunate, unpromising, adverse

Antonyms:

auspicious, favorable, propitious

Root:in-, not + Latin auspicium, bird-watching for omens (avis, bird + specere, to look): of bad omen.

Definition: Intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people.

From the reading: "The merchants valued him not less than we, his esoteric friends." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

arcane, obscure, recondite

Antonyms:

common, exoteric

Root:Greek In. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Ready or eager to fight; argumentative.

From the reading: "Then, she was supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

contentious, disputatious, disputative

Antonyms:

unargumentative, noncompetitive, unaggressive

Root:French combattre, to fight, from Latin com-, with + battuere, to beat + -ive: eager to fight.

Definition: Well-educated people who are interested in literature.

Context (original sentence): The literati of London crowded into the coffeehouse to hear Johnson talk.

Synonyms:

intelligentsia, scholars, intellectuals

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin literati, lettered persons.

Definition: Not liable to being annulled or voided or undone.

From the reading: "Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them to the death." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

unforfeitable, inalienable

Antonyms:

defeasible

Root:Pref. in- not + defeasible: compare Old French indefaisable. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: The office or authority of a magistrate.

From the reading: "It was the place whence proclamations were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such public observances in those days." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

judgeship, office

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:From Magistrate. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A person of no influence; the state of not existing.

From the reading: "He was, in truth, a rare phenomenon; so perfect, in one point of view; so shallow, so delusive, so impalpable such an absolute nonentity, in every other." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

nobody, cipher, lightweight

Antonyms:

existence

Root:Latin non, not + entitas, being (ens, being, from esse, to be): a thing or person of no account.

Definition: Be a signal for or a symptom of; indicate by signs.

From the reading: "This morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong beneath." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

bespeak, indicate, point

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:be- + token (Old English tacen, a sign): to be a sign of.

Definition: Expressing offensive reproach.

From the reading: "Satan dropped it there, I take it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reverence." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

abusive, opprobrious, offensive

Antonyms:

inoffensive

Root:. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To discharge slowly and steadily; to display a feeling or quality strongly.

From the reading: "I exude it round me; it is an aura." (The White Company)

Synonyms:

ooze, emit; radiate

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin exsudare, to sweat out.

Definition: Completely free from dirt or contamination; immaculately clean and unused.

From the reading: "It grovelled helpless on the ground, even while his intellectual faculties retained their pristine strength, or had perhaps acquired a morbid energy, which disease only could have given them." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

pure, clean

Antonyms:

impure, dirty

Root:Latin pristinus, akin to prior: compare French pristin. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: The property of being close together.

From the reading: "But it was the constant shadow of my presence, the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged, and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge!" (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

proximity

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin propinquitas, from propinquus near, neighboring, from prope near. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Elegance by virtue of fineness of manner and expression.

From the reading: "She was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterised by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now recognised as its indication." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

breeding, genteelness

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin gentilitas the relationship of those who belong to the same clan, also, heathenism: compare French gentilité heathenism. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Liability to change; changeableness.

From the reading: "This outward mutability indicated, and did not more than fairly express, the various properties of her inner life." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

mutableness

Antonyms:

immutability, immutableness

Root:Latin mutabilitas: compare French mutabilité. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A record of events year by year; historical records.

From the reading: "Blackstone, the first settler of the peninsula; that half mythological personage who rides through our early annals, seated on the back of a bull." (The Scarlet Letter)

Synonyms:

journal

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin annalis (sc. liber), and more frequently in the pl. annales (sc. libri), chronicles, from annus year. Cf. Annual. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Completely neat and clean; free from stain or blemish.

From the reading: "And though now nailed amidst all the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its Quito glow." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

speckless, spick-and-span, spic-and-span

Antonyms:

dirty, impure, imperfect

Root:Latin immaculatus; pref. im- not + maculatus, past participle of maculare to spot, stane, from macula spot. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Radiating or as if radiating light.

From the reading: "And beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying Fish." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

beaming, beamy, radiant

Antonyms:

dull

Root:Latin effulgens, -entis, present participle of effulgere. (Webster, 1913)