Grade 12 College Vocabulary, Week 4

Definition: An unfilled space or gap, especially a missing portion in a manuscript or an argument.

Context (original sentence): A lacuna in the manuscript leaves the end of the hero's speech forever unknown.

Synonyms:

gap, hiatus, omission

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin lacuna, a pool or hole (lacus, lake).

Definition: Skillful use of the hands in performing tricks; deception or trickery.

Context (original sentence): By financial legerdemain the treasurer made a deficit look like a profit.

Synonyms:

sleight of hand, trickery, chicanery

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:French leger de main, light of hand.

Definition: A drink poured out as an offering to a deity; humorously, an alcoholic drink.

From the reading: "But she—she had just done the only great deed that had been done for France in fifty years, and had consecrated it with the libation of her blood." (Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc)

Synonyms:

offering, oblation, drink

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin libare, to pour out as an offering.

Definition: Disturbing because concerned with or causing a fear of death.

Context (original sentence): Poe's macabre tales of buried men and beating hearts still frighten readers.

Synonyms:

gruesome, grisly, ghoulish

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:French danse macabre, the dance of death.

Definition: A general feeling of discomfort, illness, or unease whose cause is hard to identify.

Context (original sentence): A strange malaise settled over the town after the mill closed.

Synonyms:

unease, lethargy, melancholy

Antonyms:

vigor, well-being

Root:French mal, ill + aise, ease.

Definition: Smelling very unpleasant.

Context (original sentence): The malodorous tannery stood far outside the town walls.

Synonyms:

foul-smelling, fetid, rank

Antonyms:

fragrant, aromatic

Root:Latin malus, bad + odor, smell.

Definition: To chew food.

Context (original sentence): Horses masticate their oats slowly with powerful grinding teeth.

Synonyms:

chew, munch

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Late Latin masticare, to chew.

Definition: Self-pityingly or tearfully sentimental, often through drink.

From the reading: "They had lived amid dirt and foulness, and when his father had been in a maudlin state, he had sometimes cried and talked of the long-past days when he had shaved every morning and put on a clean shirt." (The Lost Prince)

Synonyms:

sentimental, mawkish, tearful

Antonyms:

unsentimental

Root:Middle English Maudelen, Mary Magdalene, often painted weeping.

Definition: To talk in a rambling manner; to move or act aimlessly.

Context (original sentence): The old man maundered on about the price of eggs in his boyhood.

Synonyms:

ramble, drone, babble

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:perhaps from obsolete maund, to beg.

Definition: Obsession with the exercise of power; delusions of one's own greatness.

Context (original sentence): His megalomania led the emperor to order statues of himself in every city.

Synonyms:

delusions of grandeur, egomania

Antonyms:

humility

Root:Greek megas, great + mania, madness.

Definition: A confused fight or scuffle involving many people.

From the reading: "Fights of all sorts took place--the light-armed soldier and the netsman--the lasso and the javelin--the two heavy-armed warriors--all combinations of single combat, and sometimes a general melee." (A Book of Golden Deeds)

Synonyms:

brawl, fracas, scrimmage

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:French melee, a mixing (meler, to mix).

Definition: Sweet or musical; pleasant to hear.

From the reading: "Lorna Doone, stand forth from contact with that heir of parricide; and state in your own mellifluous voice, whether you regard this slaughter as a pleasant trifle.'" (Lorna Doone)

Synonyms:

dulcet, honeyed, euphonious

Antonyms:

harsh, grating

Root:Latin mel, honey + fluere, to flow.

Definition: A highly unpleasant or unhealthy smell or vapor; an oppressive atmosphere.

From the reading: "“These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon—or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn." (The Works of Edgar Allan Poe)

Synonyms:

stench, vapor, pall

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek miasma, defilement.

Definition: Each of two parts into which a thing is divided; a half or a portion.

From the reading: "I generally contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself; but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with." (Jane Eyre)

Synonyms:

half, share, portion

Antonyms:

whole

Root:Old French moitie, from Latin medietas, half.

Definition: To slowly decay or disintegrate, especially because of neglect.

From the reading: "Between that first utterance and the last time it will be uttered on this earth—ah, think how many moldering ages will lie in that gap!" (Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc)

Synonyms:

decay, rot, crumble

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:from mold, loose earth.

Definition: To treat someone very indulgently or overprotectively.

Context (original sentence): His aunt mollycoddled him, wrapping him in scarves even in June.

Synonyms:

pamper, coddle, spoil

Antonyms:

neglect

Root:molly (a pampered boy) + coddle.

Definition: Formed of a single great block of stone; large, uniform, and unchanging.

Context (original sentence): The monolithic standing stones have stood on the moor for thousands of years.

Synonyms:

massive, uniform, solid

Antonyms:

diverse, varied

Root:Greek monos, single + lithos, stone.

Definition: A person who deceives others, especially to trick them out of money; a charlatan.

From the reading: "Hence it often assents to the clamor of a mountebank who knows the secret of stimulating its tastes, while its truest friends frequently fail in their exertions." (Democracy in America)

Synonyms:

charlatan, quack, swindler

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Italian montambanco, one who mounts a bench.

Definition: To search out and publicize scandal about famous people, often in a sensational way.

Context (original sentence): The reporter's paper muckraked until it found a scandal in the city's water contracts.

Synonyms:

expose, scandalmonger

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:from the "man with a muck-rake" in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

Definition: Stubborn; like a mule.

Context (original sentence): He gave a mulish refusal to every suggestion his brothers made.

Synonyms:

obstinate, stubborn, pigheaded

Antonyms:

docile, compliant

Root:from mule, Latin mulus.