Grade 7 College Vocabulary, Week 19

Definition: A kingdom; a field or sphere of activity, thought or knowledge.

From the reading: "Much have I traveled in the realms of gold,"

Context: Keats means the second sense. His realms of gold are the great books of poetry he has read.

KJV: "So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet: for his God gave him rest round about" (2 Chronicles 20:30).

Synonyms:

kingdom, domain, sphere

Antonyms:

(none exact) wasteland, no-man's-land

Root:Old French reaume, from Latin regimen, "rule," shaped by reial, "royal" (from Latin rex, "king").

Definition: loyal faithfulness owed to a lord or ruler; steady allegiance.

From the reading: "Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold."

Context: In Greek story Apollo was the patron of poetry. Keats pictures the poets as knights who hold their lands in loyal service to the lord of song.

Synonyms:

loyalty, allegiance, faithfulness

Antonyms:

disloyalty, treachery, betrayal

Root:Old French feaute, from Latin fidelitas, "faithfulness," from fides, "faith." It is a cousin of fidelity.

Definition: a wide, open area of land, sea or sky.

From the reading: "Oft of one wide expanse had I been told"

KJV link: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork" (Psalm 19:1). The Hebrew word behind firmament means a spread-out expanse.

Synonyms:

stretch, sweep, breadth

Antonyms:

nook, confines, narrowness

Root:Latin expansum, from expandere, "to spread out" (ex- "out" + pandere "to spread").

Definition: Land ruled or owned by one person; an area of knowledge or activity that belongs to someone.

From the reading: "That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;"

Context: Demesne is the old form of domain. Keats says the wide sea of epic poetry was Homer's own domain.

Synonyms:

territory, realm, province

Antonyms:

(none exact) foreign ground

Root:French domaine, from Latin dominium, "ownership," from dominus, "lord, master."

Definition: the range of one's sight or knowledge, usually in the phrase beyond one's ken.

From the reading: "When a new planet swims into his ken;"

Context: Keats is thinking of William Herschel, who found the planet Uranus in 1781. A world that had always been there suddenly came within an astronomer's sight.

Synonyms:

knowledge, understanding, awareness

Antonyms:

ignorance, unawareness

Root:Old English cennan, "to make known," and Old Norse kenna, "to know." Related to can and canny.

Definition: a guess based on little evidence; to suppose something without being sure.

From the reading: "Look'd at each other with a wild surmise"

Context: The explorer's men stare at one another, guessing at what this great new ocean might mean, but none of them can be sure.

Synonyms:

guess, conjecture, supposition

Antonyms:

certainty, proof, knowledge

Root:Old French surmise, "an accusation," from surmettre, "to put upon" (Latin super- "upon" + mittere "to send, put").

Definition: peaceful in nature; tending to make or keep peace.

From the reading: "He star'd at the Pacific"

Context: The ocean got its name from Magellan, who found its waters calm after a stormy passage. As an ordinary adjective, pacific describes a peaceful person or nation.

KJV link: "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9).

Synonyms:

peaceable, calm, conciliatory

Antonyms:

warlike, belligerent, hostile

Root:Latin pacificus, "peacemaking," from pax, pacis "peace" + facere "to make."

Definition: quick to notice and understand things; having keen insight.

From the reading: "Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes"

Context: Keats gives the explorer eagle eyes. A perspicacious reader has the same gift on the page: he sees what careless readers miss, such as the trochee hidden in a sonnet's last line.

Synonyms:

perceptive, discerning, astute

Antonyms:

obtuse, dull, unobservant

Root:Latin perspicax, "sharp-sighted," from perspicere, "to see through" (per- "through" + specere "to look").

Definition: paying close and careful attention; also, thoughtful of others' needs.

Context: To scan a line by ear, the student must be attentive to where a parent's voice naturally leans.

KJV: "Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications" (Psalm 130:2).

Synonyms:

alert, heedful, observant

Antonyms:

inattentive, careless, distracted

Root:French attentif, from Latin attendere, "to stretch toward" (ad- "toward" + tendere "to stretch"). The attentive mind leans toward what it hears.

Definition: agreement and harmony between people or things.

Context: In a good line of verse, sense and sound are in concord: the natural stress of each word falls right where the beat expects it.

KJV link: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" (Psalm 133:1).

Synonyms:

harmony, accord, agreement

Antonyms:

discord, strife, conflict

Root:Latin concordia, from concors, "of one heart" (con- "together" + cor, cordis "heart").

Definition: the rise and fall of the voice in speaking or reading; a regular rhythm or beat.

From the reading: "It sounds like a heartbeat, or footsteps."

Context: The steady cadence of iambic pentameter made long poems easier to remember, back when most verse was heard rather than read.

Synonyms:

rhythm, beat, lilt

Antonyms:

(none exact) irregularity, broken rhythm

Root:Italian cadenza, from Latin cadere, "to fall." A cadence is the fall of the voice.

Definition: a harsh, clashing combination of sounds; (also) a lack of agreement between ideas or actions.

Context: When a word is forced against its natural stress to fit the meter, the reader hears a dissonance and stumbles.

Synonyms:

discord, clash, jarring

Antonyms:

harmony, concord, consonance

Root:Latin dissonare, "to sound apart" (dis- "apart" + sonare "to sound").

Definition: seeming to see things that cannot be seen by ordinary means, especially things to come.

Context: Small, nervous Fiver seems almost clairvoyant: he senses disaster coming to the home warren long before any other rabbit does.

Synonyms:

prophetic, far-seeing, visionary

Antonyms:

shortsighted, unaware, blind

Root:French clair "clear" + voyant "seeing," from voir, "to see."

Definition: strange in a way that is hard to explain; beyond what is normal or expected.

Context: Fiver has an uncanny feeling about the comfortable warren where the rabbits are well fed but never answer a plain question.

Synonyms:

eerie, mysterious, unnatural

Antonyms:

ordinary, familiar, normal

Root:un- "not" + canny, "knowing," from Scots ken, "to know." What is uncanny cannot be fully known (compare word 5).

Definition: eager to fight; warlike and aggressive.

Context: General Woundwort is a bellicose leader who answers every challenge with claws and teeth.

Synonyms:

belligerent, combative, hostile

Antonyms:

pacific, peaceable, conciliatory

Root:Latin bellicosus, from bellum, "war." (Compare rebel, one who makes war again.)

Definition: dealing with things in a sensible, practical way, based on what will actually work.

Context: Hazel is a pragmatic leader: he trusts Bigwig's strength, Blackberry's cleverness and Fiver's warnings, and uses each where it serves the whole band.

Synonyms:

practical, sensible, realistic

Antonyms:

impractical, idealistic, unrealistic

Root:Greek pragmatikos, "skilled in business," from pragma, "a deed, a thing done."

Definition: the practice of giving and receiving in return; a mutual exchange of help or favors.

Context: The rabbits shelter and feed the wounded gull Kehaar, and in reciprocity he flies far and wide to scout the country for them.

Synonyms:

exchange, mutuality, give-and-take

Antonyms:

one-sidedness, selfishness

Root:Latin reciprocus, "moving back and forth," from re- "back" + pro- "forward."

Definition: A holy place; a place of safety and refuge.

Context: After long danger, the high down becomes a sanctuary for Hazel's rabbits, a home where they can live in peace.

KJV: "And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them" (Exodus 25:8). "The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe" (Proverbs 18:10).

Synonyms:

refuge, haven, shelter

Antonyms:

danger, exposure, peril

Root:Latin sanctuarium, "a holy place," from sanctus, "holy."

Definition: a turning upside down or reversing of normal order; in verse, a swap in the order of words or of stresses.

From the reading: "Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

Context: Keats's last line opens with a trochaic inversion, SI-lent instead of da-DUM, so the hush falls heavily at once. His first line, Much have I traveled, is an inversion of word order.

Synonyms:

reversal, transposition, turnabout

Antonyms:

(none exact) normal order, regularity

Root:Latin invertere, "to turn upside down" (in- "in, on" + vertere "to turn").

Definition: the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of verse; also, a unit of measure.

From the reading: "It is long enough to hold a full thought and short enough to say in one breath."

Context: The lesson says this of iambic pentameter, the meter of Shakespeare's sonnets and of Paradise Lost.

Synonyms:

rhythm, measure, beat

Antonyms:

(none exact) free verse, prose

Root:Greek metron, "measure." Penta-meter is "five measures."