Grade 7 College Vocabulary, Week 29

Definition: a speech or writing that praises someone, especially someone who has just died.

From the reading: "A lament for a good man is often an encomium spoken in grief." (A lament of this kind is a eulogy.)

KJV link: David's eulogy for Saul and Jonathan opens with its refrain: "The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!" (2 Samuel 1:19).

Synonyms:

tribute, encomium, panegyric

Antonyms:

condemnation, invective, denunciation

Root:Greek eulogia, "praise," from eu- ("well") + logos ("word"): speaking well of someone.

Definition: deliberate overstatement, used for emphasis or effect and not meant to be taken literally.

From the reading: "they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions."

Context: David's hearers knew Saul and Jonathan could not really outfly an eagle. The hyperbole is honest because everyone hears it as a figure of speech, not as a false fact. In a speech of praise, a few figures like this are fine; an invented deed is not.

Synonyms:

overstatement, exaggeration, embellishment

Antonyms:

understatement, litotes, accuracy

Root:Greek hyperbolē, "a throwing beyond," from hyper- ("over, beyond") + ballein ("to throw").

Definition: to make beautiful by adding ornaments; to decorate or add honor to.

From the reading: "who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel." (Saul adorned the daughters of Israel.)

KJV link: Paul asks Christian women to "adorn themselves in modest apparel" (1 Timothy 2:9). The truest ornament is a godly life.

Synonyms:

decorate, embellish, beautify

Antonyms:

strip, deface, mar

Root:Latin adornare, from ad- ("to") + ornare ("to equip, decorate"). It is related to ornament.

Definition: generosity; readiness to give freely.

From the reading: "Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights." (David praises the king's liberality to his people.)

KJV: The poor churches of Macedonia gave so freely that "their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality" (2 Corinthians 8:2).

Synonyms:

generosity, munificence, open-handedness

Antonyms:

stinginess, miserliness, parsimony

Root:Latin liberalitas, from liber, "free": the giving that befits a free man, not a grasping one.

Definition: praising too much and too lavishly, so that the praise sounds insincere. (Some writers now use fulsome to mean "abundant," but on tests read it as "excessive, overdone.")

From the reading: "Praise that is false or swollen is flattery, and Proverbs warns against it."

KJV link: "The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things" (Psalm 12:3).

Synonyms:

effusive, gushing, overdone

Antonyms:

restrained, measured, sincere

Root:Middle English ful ("full") + -som. It first meant "plentiful," then "too full, cloying."

Definition: trying to win favor by flattery and humble, exaggerated attention.

Context: A fawning courtier praises the king to win a reward. An honest speaker praises a man's real deeds even when nothing can be gained from it, the way David praised Saul after Saul was dead.

KJV link: "A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet" (Proverbs 29:5).

Synonyms:

obsequious, servile, sycophantic

Antonyms:

dignified, forthright, independent

Root:Old English fagnian, "to rejoice, wag the tail": what a dog does to beg a scrap.

Definition: high-sounding, puffed-up language with little real meaning behind it.

Context: A student who praises his grandfather with grand words and no deeds is writing bombast. One true story of the old man at work says more.

KJV link: Jude warns of men whose "mouth speaketh great swelling words" (Jude 1:16).

Synonyms:

pomposity, grandiloquence, rant

Antonyms:

plainness, simplicity, restraint

Root:Old French bombace, "cotton padding," from Latin bombyx, "silk, cotton." Bombast was once stuffing for clothes, so bombastic speech is padded speech.

Definition: increasing one's own power, wealth, rank or reputation, often at the expense of others.

From the reading: "Sir John was a rough and violent man who was known to hesitate at nothing which might lead to his aggrandizement."

KJV link: "And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not" (Jeremiah 45:5). Self-praise is aggrandizement with words; Proverbs 27:2 tells us to leave our praise to others.

Synonyms:

self-advancement, enlargement, empire-building

Antonyms:

humility, self-denial, abasement

Root:French agrandir, "to make greater," from Latin grandis, "great."

Definition: To drive back an attack or an attacker; to cause disgust in someone (adjective: repulsive).

From the reading: "We have repulsed an attack this morning."

Synonyms:

repel, rebuff, beat back; (second sense) disgust, revolt

Antonyms:

yield to, admit, welcome; (second sense) attract

Root:Latin repulsus, from repellere, "to drive back" (re- "back" + pellere "to drive").

Definition: to scatter in different directions; to break up and go separate ways.

From the reading: "The greater portion of the army of Wallace was now dispersed."

KJV link: The word can also mean to give out widely: "He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever" (Psalm 112:9).

Synonyms:

scatter, disband, spread

Antonyms:

gather, assemble, concentrate

Root:Latin dispersus, from dispergere, "to scatter abroad" (dis- "apart" + spargere "to scatter").

Definition: to trouble or wear down by repeated attacks or pressure.

From the reading: Wallace promised to keep the English from besieging the town "by so harassing their garrisons elsewhere that none would be able to spare troops."

Synonyms:

pester, harry, beleaguer

Antonyms:

relieve, aid, leave in peace

Root:French harasser, "to tire out," probably from Old French harer, "to set a dog on."

Definition: to find a way around an obstacle; to get around a rule or an enemy by cleverness.

From the reading: "...in that case we may find some way by which we may circumvent the Kerrs."

Synonyms:

bypass, evade, outmaneuver

Antonyms:

confront, face, obey

Root:Latin circumventus, from circumvenire, "to come around" (circum- "around" + venire "to come").

Definition: to approve formally and make valid, as a treaty, law or choice.

From the reading: "The title which had been bestowed upon Wallace by a comparatively small number was now ratified by the commonalty of the whole of Scotland."

Synonyms:

confirm, approve, sanction

Antonyms:

reject, annul, veto

Root:Medieval Latin ratificare, from ratus ("fixed, settled") + facere ("to make"): to make a thing settled.

Definition: to take property by authority, often as a penalty.

From the reading: "I, as Warden of Scotland, hereby declare forfeit and confiscated" the lands that Sir John Kerr held in Lanark.

Synonyms:

seize, impound, appropriate

Antonyms:

restore, return, grant

Root:Latin confiscare, "to put into the treasury," from con- ("together") + fiscus ("basket, money chest").

Definition: to strike back; to pay back an injury with a similar injury.

From the reading: "We will not retaliate by hanging his crofters and vassals." (Archie will not punish the poor tenants for their lord's crimes.)

KJV: "Recompense to no man evil for evil" (Romans 12:17). "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21).

Synonyms:

avenge, requite, reciprocate

Antonyms:

forgive, forbear, pardon

Root:Latin retaliare, from re- ("back") + talis ("such"): to pay back in the same kind, as in the old lex talionis, "an eye for an eye."

Definition: widespread destruction or ruin; (also) overwhelming grief or shock.

From the reading: "So terrible was the devastation that for generations afterwards men spoke of the harrying of Buchan."

KJV link: Isaiah describes a land laid waste: "Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire" (Isaiah 1:7).

Synonyms:

ruin, destruction, desolation

Antonyms:

restoration, renewal, prosperity

Root:Latin devastare, "to lay waste" (de- "completely" + vastare "to make empty," from vastus, "empty").

Definition: Able to float; cheerful and quick to recover from trouble (the sense tests often check).

From the reading: "...the boat, stout and buoyant as she was, seemed every moment as if she would be engulfed in the chaos of water."

Context (sense 2): A soldier with a buoyant spirit keeps his courage after a lost battle, like a boat that rises again after every wave.

Synonyms:

floating; (second sense) resilient, cheerful, upbeat

Antonyms:

sinking; (second sense) dejected, despondent, gloomy

Root:Spanish boyante, from boyar, "to float," from boya, "buoy."

Definition: kind, merciful and considerate toward people or animals, especially those who are suffering or in one's power.

From the reading: "...at night the governor, who was a humane man, allowed the door to remain unlocked."

KJV: "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel" (Proverbs 12:10).

Synonyms:

merciful, compassionate, benevolent

Antonyms:

cruel, inhumane, brutal

Root:Latin humanus, "of man, kindly." Around 1700 English began spelling the sense "kind" differently from human.

Definition: to rule over others in a harsh, overbearing way.

From the reading: "...another of the strongholds, by whose possession the English were enabled to domineer over the whole of the surrounding country."

KJV link: Peter tells elders to serve, "Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock" (1 Peter 5:3).

Synonyms:

tyrannize, bully, lord it over

Antonyms:

serve, defer, submit

Root:Dutch domineren, from Latin dominari, "to rule," from dominus, "lord, master."

Definition: a solemn, binding agreement or promise.

From the reading: The Scots demanded "that no native of Scotland should for any cause whatever be compelled to answer, for any breach of covenant or from crime committed, out of the kingdom."

KJV: "Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul" (1 Samuel 18:3). That covenant is why David mourned Jonathan so deeply.

Synonyms:

pact, compact, pledge

Antonyms:

betrayal, breach, violation

Root:Old French covenant, "agreement," from covenir, from Latin convenire, "to come together, agree."