Grade 11 College Vocabulary, Week 11

Definition: To set someone free from imprisonment, slavery, or oppression.

From the reading: "She reads to them at eventide Of One who came to save; To cast the captive's chains aside And liberate the slave." (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

emancipate, free, release

Antonyms:

confine

Root:Latin liberatus, past participle of liberare to free, from liber free. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To intervene between people in a dispute in order to bring about an agreement.

From the reading: "God is the author of such knowledge by those means: flesh and blood is made use of by God as the mediate or second cause of it; he conveys it by the power and influence of natural means." (Early American Voices: Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God)

Synonyms:

arbitrate, intervene, reconcile

Antonyms:

immediate, terminal

Root:Latin mediatus, past participle of mediare, v. t., to halve, v. i., to be in the middle. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To complain or find fault continually about trivial matters.

Context (original sentence): He carped about the soup, the bread, and the weather.

Synonyms:

complain, cavil, nitpick

Antonyms:

praise

Root:Old Norse karpa, to brag.

Definition: A style that involves indirect ways of expressing things; an indirect way of expressing something.

From the reading: "I had made use of many circumlocutions in describing to him the nature of the several crimes for which most of our crew had been forced to fly their country." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

Synonyms:

periphrasis, ambage

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin circumlocutio, from circumloqui, - locutus, to make use of circumlocution; circum + loqui to speak. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Enjoyment or vigor in doing something; zest.

Context (original sentence): The choir sang the old carol with gusto.

Synonyms:

zest, relish, enthusiasm

Antonyms:

apathy

Root:Latin gustus, taste.

Definition: A severe and harsh rebuke; a raw or abraded place on the skin.

From the reading: "In bringing the body to the shore the fishermen had attached to it a rope; but none of the excoriations had been effected by this." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

denunciation, censure; abrasion

Antonyms:

praise

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

Definition: Of writing or narration; divided into or composed of episodes; occurring or appearing at usually irregular intervals.

From the reading: "He wrote, indeed, no system of divinity; yet he is the very opposite of a fragmentary thinker, and few minds have been less episodic than was his." (Early American Voices: Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God)

Synonyms:

divided, occasional, unpredictable

Antonyms:

united, predictable, permanent

Root:Greek epeisodion, a part between choral songs, from epi, upon + eisodos, entrance: made of separate episodes.

Definition: Supreme blessedness; any of the blessings pronounced by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount.

From the reading: "This is what I always think of, this is what I hope for.' Although her eyes were so glorious, and beaming with eternity, this distant sort of beatitude was not much to my liking." (Lorna Doone)

Synonyms:

blessedness, beatification, Beatitude

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin beatitudo: compare French béatitude. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A condition of decline or moral deterioration; a falling away.

From the reading: "These bits of wood were covered, on every square, with paper pasted on them; and on these papers were written all the words of their language, in their several moods, tenses, and declensions; but without any order." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

Synonyms:

deterioration, worsening, descent

Antonyms:

ascent

Root:Apparently corrupted from French déclinaison, from Latin declinatio, from declinare. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A long and complicated and confusing procedure; a set of confused and meaningless statements.

From the reading: "You may wonder what his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini performances on one string or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes or plaster." (Walden, selected)

Synonyms:

palaver, fuss, procedure

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:For ragman roll. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: The activity of obscuring people's understanding, leaving them baffled or bewildered; confusion resulting from failure to understand.

From the reading: "The mystification comes in covering it up, in leading men’s thoughts away from it." (The Innocence of Father Brown)

Synonyms:

bewilderment, obfuscation, puzzlement

Antonyms:

(none exact)

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

Definition: A circle of light or brightness around the head or body of a person in a painting, especially a saint; a halo.

From the reading: "The descending sun Seems to caress the city that he loves, And crowns it with the aureole of a saint." (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

corona, aura, halo

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin aureola, golden (crown), from aurum, gold: a golden halo.

Definition: State of disgrace resulting from public abuse; a state of extreme dishonor.

From the reading: "I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory." (Frankenstein)

Synonyms:

obloquy, infamy

Antonyms:

fame

Root:Latin, from ob (see Ob-) + probrum reproach, disgrace. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Not in keeping with accepted standards of what is right or proper in polite society; lacking propriety and good taste in manners and conduct.

From the reading: "Yes, and tried to shut its indecorous mouth and make itself grave and proper; but when it saw the Maid herself go to laughing, it thanked God for this mercy and the earthquake that followed." (Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc)

Synonyms:

indelicate, indecent, unbecoming

Antonyms:

decorous, proper

Root:Latin indecorous. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Easily moved to anger; quickly aroused to anger.

From the reading: "Once more Blakeney turned, and from his high altitude looked down on the choleric little man before him; but not even for a second did he seem to lose his own imperturbable good-humour." (The Scarlet Pimpernel)

Synonyms:

irascible, hot-tempered, testy

Antonyms:

good-natured

Root:Latin cholericus, Greek cholérique. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: A person of humble origin who has gained wealth, influence, or celebrity but is thought unworthy of it.

From the reading: "I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when there came to the university a young parvenu nobleman, Glendinning—rich, said report, as Herodes Atticus—his riches, too, as easily acquired." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

upstart, newcomer, social climber

Antonyms:

aristocrat

Root:French, prop. p.p. of parvenir to attain to, to succeed, to rise to high station, Latin pervenire to come to; per through + venire to come. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: To chop or cut something with an axe; to conform to a standard.

From the reading: "Here some design a mole, while others there Lay deep foundations for a theatre; From marble quarries mighty columns hew, For ornaments of scenes, and future view." (The Aeneid)

Synonyms:

chop, hack, cleave

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Old English heawan.

Definition: A consequence of an action or event, especially a complex or unwelcome one.

From the reading: "He loves to dissect one of these cancers of the mind, and to trace all the subtle ramifications of its roots." (Poe, selected tales and poems)

Synonyms:

consequence, result, implication

Antonyms:

(none exact)

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

Definition: The act of calling down a curse that invokes evil (and usually serves as an insult).

From the reading: "May maledictions fall and blast Thyself and lineage to the last Of all thy kith and kin!" (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

imprecation

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin maledictio: compare French malédiction. (Webster, 1913)

Definition: Dark and gloomy.

From the reading: "Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of the cypress Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid-air Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient cathedrals." (Christmas Bells)

Synonyms:

tenebrific, tenebrious, dark

Antonyms:

light

Root:Latin tenebrosus, from tenebrae darkness: compare French ténébreux. (Webster, 1913)