Grade 12 College Vocabulary, Week 19

Definition: An artificial, highly elaborate way of writing or speaking, named after John Lyly's Euphues.

Context (original sentence): The young poet's euphuism buried every simple thought under three similes.

Synonyms:

affectation, preciosity, floweriness

Antonyms:

plainness

Root:from Euphues, hero of John Lyly's romance (Greek euphyes, well-formed).

Definition: A short poem of ten or thirteen lines with two rhymes and the opening words used twice as a refrain.

Context (original sentence): He wrote a rondeau for his mother's birthday, ending each stanza with the same phrase.

Synonyms:

lyric, verse form

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:French rondeau, from rond, round.

Definition: The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named, as buzz or sizzle.

Context (original sentence): Words like hiss and murmur show how onomatopoeia lets sound echo sense.

Synonyms:

echoism, imitative wording

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek onoma, name + poiein, to make.

Definition: A form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two premises.

From the reading: "A syllogism is, which proved it to me With such acuteness, that, compared therewith, All demonstration seems to me obtuse.”" (The Divine Comedy)

Synonyms:

deduction, argument, inference

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek syllogismos, reckoning together.

Definition: An argument in which one premise is not stated but assumed.

Context (original sentence): Aristotle called the enthymeme the body of persuasion in rhetoric.

Synonyms:

abbreviated syllogism, implied argument

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek enthymema, a thought, from en thymo, in the mind.

Definition: A stanza of four lines, usually with alternate rhymes.

From the reading: "It will be observed that the two quatrains are bound together by the first two b rhymes, and the Alexandrine, which rhymes with the eighth line, draws out the harmony with a peculiar lingering effect." (The Faerie Queene, Book I)

Synonyms:

stanza, verse

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:French quatre, four.

Definition: A set or group of three lines of verse rhyming together or connected by rhyme.

Context (original sentence): Dante wrote the whole Divine Comedy in interlocking tercets.

Synonyms:

triplet, stanza

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Italian terzetto, from terzo, third.

Definition: A line of verse consisting of five metrical feet.

From the reading: "There are eight lines in the iambic pentameter measure (five accents); e.g.--" (The Faerie Queene, Book I)

Synonyms:

five-foot line, blank verse

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek pente, five + metron, measure.

Definition: A long poem narrating the deeds of heroic figures or the past history of a nation.

From the reading: "The student of English literature he aims to interest by giving him, in modern garb, the most ancient epic of our race." (Beowulf)

Synonyms:

heroic poem, saga, chronicle

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek epos, word, song.

Definition: A long story of heroic achievement, especially a medieval Icelandic or Norse prose narrative.

From the reading: "My deeds, though manifold, No Skald in song has told, No Saga taught thee!" (Poems of Longfellow)

Synonyms:

epic, chronicle, legend

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Old Norse saga, narrative.

Definition: A short story, typically with animals as characters, conveying a moral.

From the reading: "Which monstrous fable containeth a secret of empire; how kings are to make use of their counsel of state." (Essays of Bacon)

Synonyms:

parable, allegory, apologue

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin fabula, story.

Definition: A published collection of poems or other pieces of writing.

Context (original sentence): The anthology gathered English verse from Chaucer to Tennyson.

Synonyms:

collection, compilation, miscellany

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek anthologia, a gathering of flowers.

Definition: A newly coined word or expression.

Context (original sentence): Shakespeare's neologisms, like assassination, are now ordinary English.

Synonyms:

coinage, new word

Antonyms:

archaism

Root:Greek neos, new + logos, word.

Definition: The vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge; a dictionary.

From the reading: "Certainly, it needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon." (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

vocabulary, dictionary, glossary

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek lexikon, of words.

Definition: A system of names or terms used in a particular science or art.

From the reading: "Then, changing his language, he continued, adhering to the imperfect nomenclature of his provincial instructors." (The Last of the Mohicans)

Synonyms:

terminology, naming, classification

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin nomenclatura, a calling by name.

Definition: A word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of another.

From the reading: "“When this method fails, they have two others more effectual, which the learned among them call acrostics and anagrams." (Gulliver's Travels, Parts I-II)

Synonyms:

rearrangement, wordplay

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek ana, back + gramma, letter.

Definition: A humorous five-line poem with a rhyme scheme aabba.

Context (original sentence): Edward Lear filled a book with limericks about odd old men.

Synonyms:

comic verse, jingle

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:perhaps from Limerick, a town in Ireland.

Definition: A part-song for several voices, especially of the Renaissance, usually without accompaniment.

From the reading: "Steal soft from lap to lap, --A little great man in a circle small, Or navigate, with madrigals for sails, Blown gently windward by old ladies' sighs?" (Cyrano de Bergerac)

Synonyms:

part-song, glee, round

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Italian madrigale, perhaps from Latin matricalis, simple.

Definition: Expressed in or of the nature of short, pithy maxims; enigmatic.

Context (original sentence): The old abbot spoke in gnomic phrases that the novices puzzled over for days.

Synonyms:

aphoristic, pithy, cryptic

Antonyms:

verbose, plain

Root:Greek gnome, opinion, maxim.

Definition: The study of meter, rhyme, and the sound patterns of verse.

Context (original sentence): Her course on prosody taught us to scan every line of Milton.

Synonyms:

metrics, versification

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek prosoidia, song sung to music.