Grade 12 College Vocabulary, Week 26

Definition: Permanent or everlasting; very durable.

Context (original sentence): The old monks believed that truth is perdurable while kingdoms pass away.

Synonyms:

lasting, enduring, everlasting

Antonyms:

transient, fleeting

Root:Latin perdurare, to endure.

Definition: Inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times or from before the arrival of colonists.

From the reading: "Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan?" (Moby-Dick)

Synonyms:

native, indigenous, original

Antonyms:

introduced, foreign

Root:Latin ab origine, from the beginning.

Definition: Arranged alphabetically; rudimentary.

Context (original sentence): The schoolmaster drilled the little ones in abecedarian lessons.

Synonyms:

alphabetical, elementary, rudimentary

Antonyms:

advanced

Root:Latin abecedarius, from the letters a, b, c, d.

Definition: Occurring or existing before a particular war, especially the American Civil War.

Context (original sentence): Antebellum houses with tall columns line the river road.

Synonyms:

prewar

Antonyms:

postwar

Root:Latin ante bellum, before the war.

Definition: An opening, hole, or gap.

From the reading: "Pushing his arm into the aperture, Dick found an iron bar, which he thrust vigorously upwards." (The Black Arrow)

Synonyms:

opening, gap, orifice

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin apertura, from aperire, to open.

Definition: Of the south; southern.

Context (original sentence): Captain Cook sailed in search of an austral continent.

Synonyms:

southern

Antonyms:

boreal, northern

Root:Latin australis, from auster, south wind.

Definition: Relating to the ear or hearing; told privately in the ear.

From the reading: "If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your satisfaction, and that without any further delay than this very evening." (King Lear)

Synonyms:

aural, otic

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin auricula, little ear.

Definition: Intellectual rather than emotional or physical; of the brain.

Context (original sentence): His cerebral sermons pleased the professors but puzzled the farmers.

Synonyms:

intellectual, scholarly, analytical

Antonyms:

emotional, physical

Root:Latin cerebrum, brain.

Definition: The science of the origin and development of the universe.

From the reading: "But I may pause to remark that the more I saw of the merely abstract arguments against the Christian cosmology the less I thought of them." (Orthodoxy)

Synonyms:

astronomy, cosmogony

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek kosmos, order, world + logos, study.

Definition: Denoting or relating to the kind of language used by ordinary people; colloquial.

Context (original sentence): Luther translated the Bible into demotic German.

Synonyms:

vernacular, colloquial, popular

Antonyms:

literary, formal

Root:Greek demotikos, of the people.

Definition: The dispersion of any people from their original homeland.

Context (original sentence): After the fall of Jerusalem, the Jewish diaspora spread across the Roman world.

Synonyms:

dispersion, scattering, exile

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek diaspora, a scattering.

Definition: A line of hereditary rulers of a country.

From the reading: "The ark lived under the load of waters; after being buried under the debris of dynasties and clans, we arose and remembered Rome." (Orthodoxy)

Synonyms:

house, line, lineage

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek dynasteia, lordship.

Definition: A moment of sudden revelation or insight; capitalized, the feast of the visit of the Magi.

Context (original sentence): Reading the old letter, she had an epiphany about her father's silence.

Synonyms:

revelation, realization, insight

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Greek epiphaneia, manifestation.

Definition: The time or date at which the sun crosses the celestial equator, when day and night are of equal length.

From the reading: "When descends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm-wind of the equinox, Landward in his wrath he scourges The toiling surges, Laden with seaweed from the rocks:" (Poems of Longfellow)

Synonyms:

equal night

Antonyms:

solstice

Root:Latin aequus, equal + nox, night.

Definition: Either of the two times in the year when the sun reaches its highest or lowest point at noon.

From the reading: "I have known a fog for a fortnight at the summer solstice, and farmers talking in church about it when they ought to be praying." (Lorna Doone)

Synonyms:

midsummer, midwinter

Antonyms:

equinox

Root:Latin sol, sun + sistere, to stand still.

Definition: The tidal mouth of a large river, where the tide meets the stream.

From the reading: "It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom." (Heart of Darkness)

Synonyms:

firth, inlet, river mouth

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin aestuarium, tidal channel.

Definition: A group of islands.

From the reading: "Look in your map of the Archipelago, or Aegean Sea, as it was then called, for the great island of Negropont, or by its old name, Euboea." (A Book of Golden Deeds)

Synonyms:

island group, chain of islands

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Italian arcipelago, from Greek pelagos, sea.

Definition: The heavens or the sky, especially when regarded as a tangible thing.

From the reading: "The brand was brilliant, brightly it glimmered, 15 Just as from heaven gemlike shineth The torch of the firmament." (Beowulf)

Synonyms:

sky, heavens, vault of heaven

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Latin firmamentum, support.

Definition: A star that is used to guide the course of a ship, especially the pole star; a guiding principle.

From the reading: "“To thyself, fair maid,” answered De Bracy, in his former tone—“to thine own charms be ascribed whate’er I have done which passed the respect due to her, whom I have chosen queen of my heart, and lodestar of my eyes.”" (Ivanhoe)

Synonyms:

guide, model, polestar

Antonyms:

(none exact)

Root:Middle English lode, way + star.

Definition: Knowing or using several languages.

Context (original sentence): The polyglot scholar read Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Arabic.

Synonyms:

multilingual

Antonyms:

monolingual

Root:Greek polys, many + glotta, tongue.