Grade 11 College Vocabulary, Week 8

Definition: To illuminate or shine on; to light up the mind with spiritual insight.

From the reading: "For, d’ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

enlighten, ray

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin irradiatus, past participle of irradiate. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Lacking or characterized by lack of ambition or initiative; lazy.

From the reading: "Dress a scarecrow in your last shift, you standing shiftless by, who would not soonest salute the scarecrow?" (Walden, selected)

Synonyms:

unambitious, ambitionless

Antonyms:

ambitious

Root:shift, a means or resource (Old English sciftan, to arrange) + -less: without resource or effort.

Definition: To make someone agitated or confused.

From the reading: "Why, they’d steal the very—why, goodness sakes, you can guess what kind of a fluster I was in by the time midnight come last night." (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

Synonyms:

agitate, unsettle, ruffle

Antonyms:

calm

Root:Cf. Icelandic flaustra to be flustered, flaustr a fluster. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Attractively lively or cheeky; saucy.

From the reading: "“Dern your skin, ain’t the company good enough for you?” says the baldhead, pretty pert and uppish." (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

Synonyms:

saucy, cheeky, impudent

Antonyms:

shy, demure

Root:Old French apert, open, bold.

Definition: Calm and even-tempered; not varying greatly.

From the reading: "I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground, for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable temperature." (Walden, selected)

Synonyms:

even-tempered, placid, steady

Antonyms:

temperamental

Root:Latin aequabilis, from aequare to make level or equal, from aequus even, equal. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To cause something to permeate or pervade; to transfer blood from one person to another.

From the reading: "Yes, beautiful beyond belief, Transfigured and transfused, he sees The lady of the Pyrenees, The daughter of the Indian chief." (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

instill, imbue, permeate

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin transfusus, past participle of transfundere: compare French transfuser. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Full of or showing high-spirited merriment.

From the reading: "TO A CHILD Dear child! how radiant on thy mother's knee, With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles, Thou gazest at the painted tiles, Whose figures grace, With many a grotesque form and face." (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

cheerful, jolly, jovial

Antonyms:

joyless

Root:Latin jocundus, jucundus, orig., helpful, from juvare to help. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Release from entanglement of difficulty; extricate from entanglement.

From the reading: "I cannot disentangle this skein, Nor wind it rightly upon the reel." (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

extricate, untangle, disencumber

Antonyms:

entangle, snarl

Root:dis-, undo + entangle (en-, in + tangle, Middle English tangilen, origin uncertain): to free from tangles.

Definition: To imprison or confine.

From the reading: "Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his want of faith in this matter of the prophet, was something obscurely in reference to his incarcerated body and the whale’s gastric juices." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

imprison, jail, immure

Antonyms:

free, release

Root:Pref. in- in + Latin carceratus, past participle of carcerare to imprison, from carcer prison. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Not opportune.

From the reading: "EPIMETHEUS. 'T is my brother's voice; A sound unwelcome and inopportune As was the braying of Silenus' ass, Once heard in Cybele's garden." (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

ill-timed, unseasonable, untimely

Antonyms:

opportune

Root:Latin inopportunus: compare French inopportun. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To display a design conspicuously on something; to celebrate or extol publicly.

From the reading: "The noble blood of Gothic name, Heroes emblazoned high to fame, In long array; How, in the onward course of time, The landmarks of that race sublime Were swept away!" (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

blazon, display, adorn

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Pref. em- + blazon. Cf. Emblaze. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Of or relating to the period before the biblical flood; so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period.

From the reading: "But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian painter’s portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the antediluvian Hindoo." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

antediluvial, antiquated, archaic

Antonyms:

new

Root:Latin ante, before + diluvium, the Flood (diluere, to wash away): before the Flood; very old.

Definition: Harshly critical or expressing censure.

From the reading: "I know the charms that made her youth a benediction: Nor should I be content, As a censorious friend, to solace thine affliction By her disparagement." (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

critical

Antonyms:

uncritical

Root:Latin censorius pertaining to the censor. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Wilfully obstinate; stubbornly disobedient.

From the reading: "By righteous punishment and perseverance, And perseverance in that punishment, At last I have brought this contumacious town To strict observance of the Sabbath day." (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

insubordinate

Antonyms:

subordinate

Root:Latin contumax, -acis. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge.

From the reading: "But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at once to descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with its inmates." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

abstruse, deep, esoteric

Antonyms:

exoteric

Root:Latin reconditus, past participle of recondere to put up again, to lay up, to conceal; pref. re- re- + condere to bring or lay together. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Of a loud noise, to be repeated as an echo; to have continuing serious effects.

From the reading: "In his song I hear reverberate the gates of Florence, Closing upon him, never more to open; But mingled with the sound are melodies Celestial from the gates of paradise." (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

resound, echo, ring

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin reverberatus, past participle of reverberare to strike back, repel; pref. re- re- + verberare to lash, whip, beat, from verber a lash, whip, rod. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Destructive to both sides in a conflict; relating to conflict within a group.

From the reading: "It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other." (Walden, selected)

Synonyms:

destructive, mutually ruinous; internal

Antonyms:

external, bloodless

Root:Latin internecinus deadly, murderous, from internecare to kill, to slaughter; inter between + necare to kill; akin to Greek Necromancy. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Make susceptible.

From the reading: "Although both the immediate and the predisposing causes, and even the actual diagnosis, of this disease are still mysterious, its obvious and apparent character is sufficiently well understood." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

dispose, incline

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Pref. pre- + dispose: compare French prédisposer. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Associated by chance and not an integral part.

From the reading: "And, indeed, the character of the Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious embellishment." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

extrinsic

Antonyms:

intrinsic

Root:Latin adventitius. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Reduce in population.

From the reading: "Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that she would either redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty, or perish, after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the attempt." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

empty, desolate, unpeople

Antonyms:

populate

Root:Latin depopulari, to lay waste, later understood as de-, away + populus, people: to empty of people.