Grade 11 College Vocabulary, Week 9

Definition: Ignorant of or uninterested in cultures, ideas, or peoples outside one's own experience; relating to an island.

From the reading: "Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

parochial, provincial, narrow

Antonyms:

cosmopolitan, broad-minded

Root:Latin insularis, from insula island: compare French insulaire. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Lacking wit or imagination.

From the reading: "Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach?" (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

prosaic, prosy, earthbound

Antonyms:

interesting

Root:Latin pedester, on foot, from pes, pedis, foot: going on foot; plodding and dull.

Definition: Irritable and bad-tempered; suffering from indigestion.

From the reading: "This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

irritable, crabby; queasy

Antonyms:

good-natured

Root:Greek dyspeptos, hard to digest, from dys-, bad + peptein, to digest: suffering from indigestion; irritable.

Definition: To drive insane; to make very angry.

From the reading: "The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the blood of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus’s elephants in the book of Maccabees." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

infuriate, enrage; derange

Antonyms:

calm

Root:mad (Old English gemaedde, out of one's mind) + -en, to make: to make mad.

Definition: To distribute systematically or strategically; place troops or weapons in battle formation.

From the reading: "If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their number." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

position

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:French déployer; pref. dé = dés (Latin dis) + ployer, equiv. to plier to fold, from Latin plicare. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To persuade an unwilling person to do something by force or threats.

From the reading: "Is this the still militant old man, standing at the corners of the three kingdoms, on all hands coercing alms of beggars?" (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

compel, pressure, force

Antonyms:

persuade

Root:Latin coërcere; co- + arcere to shut up, to press together. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To break or burst suddenly; to breach a relationship or agreement.

From the reading: "I hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case, coalescing." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

burst, break, breach

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin ruptura, from rumpere, ruptum to break: compare French rupture. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Having ceased to exist or live; no longer in force or use; inactive.

From the reading: "In truth, it turned out to be one of those problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

inoperative, dead

Antonyms:

operative, alive

Root:Latin defunctus, past participle of defungi to acquit one's self of, to perform, finish, depart, die; de + fungi to perform, discharge: compare French défunt. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Open to two or more interpretations; or of uncertain nature or significance; or (often) intended to mislead; having more than one possible meaning.

From the reading: "Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists, whose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

equivocal, evasive, double

Antonyms:

unequivocal, unambiguous, structured

Root:Latin ambiguus, from ambigere to wander about, waver; amb- + agere to drive. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Last but one in a series.

From the reading: "Then in the dances twain penultimate The Principalities and Archangels wheel; The last is wholly of angelic sports." (The Divine Comedy)

Synonyms:

second-to-last, next-to-last

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin paenultimus, almost last.

Definition: Having limits or bounds.

From the reading: "The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

limited, bounded, restricted

Antonyms:

infinite

Root:Latin finitus, p.p. of finire. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Being or relating to or resembling or emanating from stars.

From the reading: "He burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

stellar

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin astralis, from astrum star, Greek astral. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Nobility in thought or feeling or style.

From the reading: "Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

nobility, nobleness

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin sublimitas: compare French sublimité. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A minor weakness or eccentricity in someone's character.

From the reading: "But this is a harmless little foible in the English whale-hunters, which the Nantucketer does not take much to heart; probably, because he knows that he has a few foibles himself." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

idiosyncrasy, mannerism

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Old French foible. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A mania restricted to one thing or idea.

From the reading: "But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab’s broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

obsession, fixation, idée fixe

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Mono- + mania. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Providing protective supervision; watching over or safeguarding.

From the reading: "Thus, then, one of our own noble stamp, even a whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England; and by good rights, we harpooneers of Nantucket should be enrolled in the most noble order of St." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

custodial, tutelar, protective

Antonyms:

unprotective

Root:Latin tutela, protection, from tueri, to watch over: serving as a guardian.

Definition: Difficult or impossible to evaluate with precision.

From the reading: "What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts?" (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

(none exact)

Antonyms:

ponderable

Root:Pref. im- not + ponderable: compare French impondérable. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: The action of formally investing a person with rank or office; the ceremony of doing so.

From the reading: "But this august dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes, but that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

installation, induction, inauguration

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Late Latin investitura: compare French investiture. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A disparaging remark; an abusive attack on a person's character or good name.

From the reading: "Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous aspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout a slatternly, untidy business." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

slur, calumny, slander

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin aspersio, from aspergere: compare French aspersion. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Limp and soiled as if dragged in the mud; in deplorable condition.

From the reading: "A low rumbling sound was heard; a subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely from the sea." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

draggled, dirty, soiled

Antonyms:

clean, undamaged

Root:be-, thoroughly + draggle, to drag in mud (frequentative of drag): soiled and limp from dragging.