College Vocabulary · Grade 11 · Week 20
20 words for the week · pairs with Composition lesson 5.4.
Reading: the Composition lesson 5.4, "Submission: Foyle, Bennington and Scholastic," and this week's literature book, Poe, selected tales and poems, the section for Week 20 (public-domain text, Project Gutenberg).
Theme of the week: Send your poems out as work done for the Lord, and the judges’ verdict will not be the last word on them. "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;" (Colossians 3:23).
Rhythm: 4 words a day, Monday to Friday. Each day: read the entry aloud, copy the quoted sentence into the writing notebook, and write one sentence of your own. Friday: learn the last 4 words, then take the quiz.
Sources: ★ = quoted exactly from this week's reading (the lesson or the literature book) · ✝ = KJV (1769 text), quoted exactly · ◆ = quoted exactly from another work on the approved booklists (public-domain text) · ✎ = original example sentence
Part of speech: noun
Definition: The method and practice of teaching.
Context (original sentence): Classical pedagogy moves a student from memorizing facts, to reasoning about them, to speaking well.
Root:Greek paidagogia (pais, child + agogos, leader).
Part of speech: adjective
Definition: Having or showing no skill; clumsy or incompetent.
Context (original sentence): The inept burglar locked himself inside the bank vault.
Root:Latin ineptus; prefix. in- not + aptus apt, fit: compare French inepte. Cf. Inapt. (Webster, 1913)
Part of speech: verb
Definition: To cheat or defraud, especially out of money.
Context (original sentence): The swindler bilked dozens of widows out of their savings.
Root:perhaps a variant of balk, 17th-century English.
Part of speech: noun
Definition: A strict disciplinarian, especially in the military.
Context (original sentence): The new sergeant was a martinet who inspected boots with a ruler.
Root:named for Jean Martinet, a French army officer under Louis XIV famed for strict drill.
Part of speech: adjective
Definition: Just begun and not fully formed or developed; rudimentary.
Context (original sentence): His plan for the novel was still inchoate, a handful of scenes with no plot to join them.
Root:Latin inchoare, to begin.
Part of speech: noun
Definition: A tiny trace or spark of a quality or feeling.
Context (original sentence): There was not a scintilla of evidence that the accused had been in the city that night.
Root:Latin scintilla, a spark.
Part of speech: noun
Definition: A person who argues in favor of an idea or course of action.
Context (original sentence): He was a lifelong proponent of reading aloud to children every evening.
Root:Latin proponere, to put forward.
Part of speech: noun
Definition: The gradual wearing down of strength or numbers, as by constant pressure.
Context (original sentence): The siege became a war of attrition, each side waiting for the other to starve.
Root:Latin atterere, to rub away (ad- + terere, to rub).
Part of speech: noun
Definition: A sudden and complete failure; a fiasco.
Context (original sentence): The picnic became a debacle when the bull broke through the fence.
Root:French debacle, a breaking up of ice in a river.
Part of speech: adjective
Definition: Having the same boundaries or extent; sharing a common end.
Context (original sentence): The parish was coterminous with the old township, so one map served both.
Root:Latin con-, together + terminus, boundary.
Part of speech: noun
Definition: An extremely confused, complicated, or embarrassing situation.
Context (original sentence): The mix-up over the two wedding invitations grew into a family imbroglio.
Root:Italian imbrogliare, to entangle.
Part of speech: noun
Definition: The quality of being deep, full, and rich in sound.
Context (original sentence): The sonority of the great organ filled every corner of the cathedral.
Root:Latin sonoritas. (Webster, 1913)
Part of speech: noun
Definition: A pet scheme or favorite remedy, especially one of doubtful effectiveness.
From the reading: "Yes, I said; and what a delightful life they lead! they are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they will be cured by any nostrum which anybody advises them to try." (The Republic)
Root:Latin nostrum, "our own" (remedy), as advertised by quacks.
Part of speech: verb
Definition: To become rigid and unchanging in habits or attitudes (literally, to turn into bone).
From the reading: "The right, in its upper portion, was also partially, if not thoroughly, ossified, while the lower region was merely a mass of purulent tubercles, running one into another." (The Works of Edgar Allan Poe)
Root:Latin os, bone + -fy, to make.
Part of speech: adjective
Definition: Designed to impress or attract notice; showy.
From the reading: "Though truly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now and then stamp with impatience; but not one added heave did he thereby give to the negro’s lordly chest." (Moby-Dick)
Root:Latin ostentare, to display.
Part of speech: verb
Definition: To exclude someone from a society or group.
Context (original sentence): The village ostracized the man who had betrayed the hiding place of the refugees.
Root:Greek ostrakizein, to banish by vote on potsherds (ostrakon).
Part of speech: noun
Definition: The presence of something in small or insufficient quantity.
From the reading: "The Union is a great republic in extent, but the paucity of objects for which its Government provides assimilates it to a small State." (Democracy in America)
Root:Latin paucus, few.
Part of speech: noun
Definition: A strong liking or tendency for something.
Context (original sentence): She had a penchant for long walks before breakfast.
Root:French pencher, to lean.
Part of speech: adjective
Definition: Traveling from place to place; working in various places for short periods.
Context (original sentence): A peripatetic preacher, he rode a circuit of twelve frontier churches.
Root:Greek peripatein, to walk about (Aristotle taught while walking).
Part of speech: adjective
Definition: Holding firmly to an opinion or course of action; stubbornly persistent.
From the reading: "Poor indemnity for natural rights of self-agency so pertinaciously, so insultingly denied!" (The Works of Edgar Allan Poe)
Root:Latin pertinax, very tenacious (per- + tenax).
Part A. Words in context (2 points each). Choose the meaning of the word as used in the sentence.
1. "The village ostracized the man who had betrayed the hiding place of the refugees." Here ostracize most nearly means
A) The presence of something in small or insufficient quantity B) To exclude someone from a society or group C) To cheat or defraud, especially out of money D) An extremely confused, complicated, or embarrassing situation
2. "There was not a scintilla of evidence that the accused had been in the city that night." Here scintilla most nearly means
A) A tiny trace or spark of a quality or feeling B) The method and practice of teaching C) A strict disciplinarian, especially in the military D) The gradual wearing down of strength or numbers, as by constant pressure
3. "The picnic became a debacle when the bull broke through the fence." Here debacle most nearly means
A) A strong liking or tendency for something B) The presence of something in small or insufficient quantity C) To exclude someone from a society or group D) A sudden and complete failure
4. "Yes, I said; and what a delightful life they lead! they are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they will be cured by any nostrum which anybody advises them to try." Here nostrum most nearly means
A) The presence of something in small or insufficient quantity B) An extremely confused, complicated, or embarrassing situation C) A strong liking or tendency for something D) A pet scheme or favorite remedy, especially one of doubtful effectiveness
Part B. Sentence completion (1 point each). Each sentence comes from this week's entries; supply the word in the form used there. Word bank: ossify, attrition, sonority, inchoate, imbroglio, peripatetic, proponent, coterminous, inept, penchant
5. A ______ preacher, he rode a circuit of twelve frontier churches.
6. He was a lifelong ______ of reading aloud to children every evening.
7. The ______ burglar locked himself inside the bank vault.
8. The ______ of the great organ filled every corner of the cathedral.
9. The mix-up over the two wedding invitations grew into a family ______.
10. The siege became a war of ______, each side waiting for the other to starve.
11. She had a ______ for long walks before breakfast.
12. "The right, in its upper portion, was also partially, if not thoroughly, ______, while the lower region was merely a mass of purulent tubercles, running one into another."
Part C. Synonyms and antonyms (1 point each).
13. Synonym of bilk: (pedagogy / swindle / paucity)
14. Antonym of paucity: (coterminous / imbroglio / abundance)
15. Synonym of pedagogy: (scintilla / imbroglio / teaching)
16. Antonym of ostentatious: (bilk / scintilla / modest)
Part D. Analytical sentence (6 points). In two or three sentences, make a claim about this week's reading, quote it once, and use at least three of these words correctly: inchoate, coterminous, martinet.
1. B 2. A 3. D 4. D
5. peripatetic 6. proponent 7. inept 8. sonority 9. imbroglio 10. attrition 11. penchant 12. ossified (distractors: inchoate, coterminous)
13. swindle 14. abundance 15. teaching 16. modest
Part D scoring: 2 for a clear claim, 2 for an accurate quotation, 2 for three week words used correctly. (8 + 8 + 4 + 6 = 26.)