Grade 8 College Vocabulary, Week 18

Definition: Soft, sweet and full from ripeness; rich and smooth in sound or color; gentle and relaxed, especially after age or experience.

From the reading: "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" (Keats). Blackmore paints the same season: "Autumn's mellow hand was on them" (Lorna Doone).

Synonyms:

ripe, rich, gentle

Antonyms:

harsh, unripe, shrill

Root:Middle English melwe, "ripe, soft," probably related to Old English melu, "meal, flour": soft like ground grain.

Definition: heavily loaded or weighed down; burdened.

From the reading: "Steady thy laden head across a brook" (Keats, picturing Autumn as a gleaner carrying her bundle of grain).

KJV: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28).

Synonyms:

loaded, burdened, weighed down

Antonyms:

empty, unburdened, light

Root:Old English hladan, "to load, heap up." Bill of lading (a list of a ship's cargo) comes from the same root.

Definition: filled or well supplied with something; full to the brim.

Context: Keats's first stanza is replete with verbs of filling. Apples bend the trees, the gourd swells, and the hazel shells plump until the bees think summer will never end.

Synonyms:

full, abundant, brimming

Antonyms:

empty, lacking, depleted

Root:Latin repletus, from replere, "to fill again" (re- "again" + plere "to fill"). Compare complete and deplete.

Definition: the point at which a plan or hope is fulfilled; the bearing of fruit. Usually "come to fruition."

Context: After a summer of weeding and waiting, the Ridds' wheat came to fruition, and the whole parish turned out to reap it.

Synonyms:

fulfillment, completion, realization

Antonyms:

failure, frustration, inception

Root:Late Latin fruitio, "enjoyment," from frui, "to enjoy." The word first meant enjoying something you possess, and it later took on the sense of "ripening" by association with fruit.

Definition: To blow the light chaff away from grain; to sift a group so that only the best or most useful part remains (the common test sense).

From the reading: "Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind" (Keats).

KJV: "Behold, he winnoweth barley to night in the threshingfloor" (Ruth 3:2).

Context (sense 2): The editor winnowed fifty student odes down to the five best.

Synonyms:

sift, separate, screen

Antonyms:

mix, combine, accumulate

Root:Old English windwian, "to fan with wind," from wind.

Definition: (verb) to gather and store, or to earn and collect, as in "garner praise"; (noun) a storehouse for grain.

From the reading: "...will be sung long after I am garnered home" (John Ridd, speaking of his own death as a harvest gathered in).

KJV: "...gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matthew 3:12).

Synonyms:

gather, collect, amass

Antonyms:

scatter, squander, disperse

Root:Old French gernier, from Latin granarium, "granary," from granum, "grain."

Definition: closely related to the matter at hand; relevant and fitting.

From the reading: "...with my left arm bowed for clasping something more germane than wheat..." (John, dreaming of Lorna in the middle of the reaping).

Context (test sense): In a debate, keep to arguments that are germane to the question.

Synonyms:

relevant, pertinent, apt

Antonyms:

irrelevant, extraneous, unrelated

Root:Latin germanus, "of the same parents, closely akin," from germen, "sprout, bud." Something germane is "akin" to the subject.

Definition: to catch sight of something far off or hard to see; to detect.

From the reading: "Even now I could descry, like high waves in the distance, the rounded heads and folded shadows of the wood of Bagworthy."

Synonyms:

spot, discern, glimpse

Antonyms:

overlook, miss

Root:Old French descrier, "to proclaim, announce." The word later blended in meaning with describe and came to mean "to make out by looking."

Definition: a long and bitter quarrel, especially between families or clans, often passed down from one generation to the next.

From the reading: "...the Doones being now in direct feud with the present Government..."

Synonyms:

vendetta, quarrel, rivalry

Antonyms:

peace, friendship, reconciliation

Root:Old French fede, from a Germanic word meaning "hostility." It is related to English foe.

Definition: a person who roams from place to place raiding and plundering.

From the reading: "...against the spreading all over the country of unlicensed marauders?" (John fears that a lawless band of soldiers would be worse than the Doones themselves).

Synonyms:

raider, plunderer, brigand

Antonyms:

protector, guardian, defender

Root:French marauder, "to prowl for plunder," from maraud, "rogue, vagabond."

Definition: to strip a person or place of its goods or valuables; to rob or plunder.

From the reading: "Thou hast despoiled the spoiler." (A London lawyer who had tried to squeeze an unfair fee out of John pays him two guineas instead, so the robber is robbed.)

Synonyms:

plunder, rob, strip

Antonyms:

restore, enrich, replenish

Root:Latin despoliare, de- (thoroughly) + spoliare, "to strip, rob," from spolium, "booty." Compare spoils of war.

Definition: bold refusal to obey or yield; open resistance to authority or to a challenge.

From the reading: "Through my defiance, and stupid ways, here was I in a duello..." (young John, sorry that his boasting has led him into a contest with the highwayman Tom Faggus).

Synonyms:

resistance, insubordination, rebelliousness

Antonyms:

obedience, submission, compliance

Root:Old French defier, "to renounce one's faith, to challenge," from Latin dis- (away) + fidus, "faithful."

Definition: pleasant to look at; attractive in a wholesome way. Also, in older English, fitting or proper.

From the reading: "And afterwards she grew up to be a very comely maiden..." (of John's sister Annie).

KJV: "...praise is comely for the upright" (Psalm 33:1), meaning that praise is fitting for the upright.

Synonyms:

handsome, fair, becoming

Antonyms:

homely, unattractive, unbecoming

Root:Old English cymlic, "lovely, beautiful," later influenced by become ("to suit").

Definition: strong and healthy, especially of an older person.

From the reading: "From a hale, and rather heavy man, gray-haired, but plump, and ruddy, he was altered to a shrunken, wizened, trembling, and almost decrepit figure." (John finds Uncle Reuben greatly changed.)

Synonyms:

healthy, robust, vigorous

Antonyms:

frail, sickly, feeble

Root:Old English hal, "whole, sound." Whole, heal and holy come from the same root, because to be hale is to be whole.

Definition: shriveled and wrinkled with age or sickness.

From the reading: "...he was altered to a shrunken, wizened, trembling, and almost decrepit figure."

Synonyms:

withered, shriveled, wrinkled

Antonyms:

plump, smooth, youthful

Root:Old English wisnian, "to wither, dry up."

Definition: Gray or white with age; very old, ancient. Also used of frost (hoarfrost).

From the reading: "He looked so hoary, and so silvery, and serene in the moonlight, that verily I must have believed him..." (John sees through Counsellor Doone, whose white hair hides a lying heart).

KJV: "The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness" (Proverbs 16:31). Gray hair is a crown only if the life beneath it is righteous, and the Counsellor's is not.

Synonyms:

gray, white-haired, venerable

Antonyms:

youthful, young, fresh

Root:Old English har, "gray, old."

Definition: a serious lyric poem of praise that addresses its subject directly and is built in carefully patterned stanzas.

Context: Keats's ode does not describe Autumn from a distance. It speaks to the season, praises it and moves through three eleven-line stanzas.

Synonyms:

hymn of praise, paean, lyric

Antonyms:

lampoon, satire, dirge (in tone)

Root:Greek oide, "song," from aeidein, "to sing." The Greek poet Pindar and the Roman poet Horace are its fathers.

Definition: a figure of speech in which the speaker turns aside to address someone absent or something not human, as if it could hear.

From the reading: "Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?" (Keats speaks to Autumn as to a friend.)

Synonyms:

direct address, invocation

Antonyms:

(none exact) third-person description

Root:Greek apostrophe, "a turning away," from apo- (away) + strephein (to turn). The speaker turns away from the audience to speak to someone else. The punctuation mark comes from a related Greek word.

Definition: an excessive amount, more than is needed or wanted; overindulgence, especially in food or drink.

Context: Keats's bees have been so well fed that, in his words, "Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells." That is a surfeit of honey.

KJV: "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life" (Luke 21:34).

Synonyms:

excess, glut, overabundance

Antonyms:

shortage, dearth, scarcity

Root:Old French sorfait, "excess," from sur- (over) + faire (to do).

Definition: to fret or complain discontentedly; to long sadly for what is gone.

Context: In stanza 3, Keats will not repine for the songs of Spring. He tells Autumn, "Think not of them, thou hast thy music too." That is gratitude, not grief. ✝ KJV link: "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

Synonyms:

fret, grumble, lament

Antonyms:

rejoice, give thanks, be content

Root:re- (again) + pine, from Old English pinian, "to suffer, torment," ultimately from Latin poena, "penalty."