Grade 8 College Vocabulary, Week 25

Definition: (noun) a person living at the same time as another; (adjective) belonging to the same period, or belonging to the present day.

From the reading: "nor was it a poetical flight in a contemporary, when he exclaimed" (Lamb means his friend and schoolfellow Coleridge).

Synonyms:

peer, coeval; (adjective) concurrent, simultaneous, modern

Antonyms:

predecessor, successor; (adjective) ancient, bygone

Root:Latin con- (together) + tempus, temporis (time): living in the same time.

Definition: To pretend to have or feel something; to put on a show of it; (the more common sense) to influence or change. Tests often use sense 1 and the adjective affected.

From the reading: "...though some of my companions affected rather to manifest an exhilaration at the birth of the coming year..."

Synonyms:

feign, assume, put on; (sense 2) influence, sway

Antonyms:

show sincerely, be genuine

Root:Latin affectare, "to strive after, pretend," from afficere, "to act upon" (ad- + facere, "to do"). Bacon uses the noun: "to use them too much for ornament, is affectation."

Definition: a feeling of lively joy and high spirits.

From the reading: "...an exhilaration at the birth of the coming year..."

Synonyms:

elation, euphoria, glee

Antonyms:

dejection, gloom, despondency

Root:Latin exhilarare, "to gladden," from ex- (thoroughly) + hilaris (cheerful), the root of hilarious.

Definition: one who came before another in an office, a position or a series.

From the reading: "...than any very tender regrets for the decease of its predecessor."

Synonyms:

forerunner, precursor, antecedent

Antonyms:

successor, heir, descendant

Root:Late Latin praedecessor, from prae- (before) + decessor (one who departs), from decedere, "to go away, die." Decease, Lamb's next-door word, comes from the same root.

Definition: mournful; expressing sorrow for someone or something that is gone.

Context: Lamb's essay is elegiac. He mourns the old year as if a friend had died: "It is no more than what in sober sadness every one of us seems to be conscious of, in that awful leave-taking."

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

Synonyms:

mournful, plaintive, sorrowful

Antonyms:

jubilant, festive, exultant

Root:Greek elegeia, from elegos, "a song of mourning."

Definition: full of quiet, longing sadness, usually for something past or out of reach.

Context: While his friends cheered the new year, Lamb was wistful and kept looking back at the old one as it went out the door.

Synonyms:

longing, yearning, pensive

Antonyms:

contented, satisfied, indifferent

Root:probably from the old word wistly, "intently," shaped by wishful.

Definition: The fact that one must die; the rate of death in a group, as in "infant mortality.".

Context: The New Year bells remind Lamb of his own mortality: "I begin to know its worth, as when a person dies."

KJV: "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom" (Psalm 90:12). Paul's hope is "that mortality might be swallowed up of life" (2 Corinthians 5:4).

Synonyms:

transience, frailty, impermanence

Antonyms:

immortality, deathlessness

Root:Latin mortalis, from mors, mortis, "death."

Definition: to think deeply and at length about something; to turn it over in the mind.

From the reading: "...there is no other way but to meditate, and ruminate well upon the effects of anger, how it troubles man's life." Bacon adds that the best time "is to look back upon anger, when the fit is thoroughly over," which is also the reflective essayist's method.

Synonyms:

ponder, muse, mull over

Antonyms:

ignore, dismiss, disregard

Root:Latin ruminari, "to chew the cud," from rumen, "throat." A cow brings her food back up and chews it again, and a thinker does the same with an idea.

Definition: to treat as worthless; to despise or scorn.

From the reading: "Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them"

KJV: "Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God?" (Psalm 10:13).

Synonyms:

scorn, disdain, despise

Antonyms:

esteem, revere, honor

Root:Latin contemnere, from con- (thoroughly) + temnere (to despise).

Definition: to prove a person or an argument wrong, completely and convincingly.

From the reading: "Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider."

Synonyms:

refute, disprove, rebut

Antonyms:

confirm, verify, corroborate

Root:Latin confutare, "to check, silence," literally "to keep a boiling pot from spilling over."

Definition: To take something into the mind and understand it fully; to break down food in the body.

From the reading: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested"

KJV link: The prophet digests God's word: "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart" (Jeremiah 15:16).

Synonyms:

absorb, assimilate, comprehend

Antonyms:

skim, overlook, misunderstand

Root:Latin digerere, "to separate, arrange, dissolve," from dis- (apart) + gerere (to carry).

Definition: careful, steady and persistent effort.

From the reading: "...some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention." Addison's Mr. Spectator says the same of himself: "I applied myself with so much diligence to my studies"

KJV: "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23).

Synonyms:

assiduity, industry, perseverance

Antonyms:

sloth, negligence, idleness

Root:Latin diligentia, from diligere, "to value, love." Careful work is a way of caring.

Definition: the state of being alone, whether by choice or not.

From the reading: "Whatsoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god." Bacon answers that "a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love," an echo of 1 Corinthians 13:1.

KJV link: Christ chose solitude for prayer: he "departed into a solitary place, and there prayed" (Mark 1:35).

Synonyms:

seclusion, isolation, privacy

Antonyms:

company, society, companionship

Root:Latin solitudo, from solus, "alone."

Definition: To give a share of something; to make something known; to communicate it.

From the reading: "For there is no man, that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less."

KJV: "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none" (Luke 3:11).

Synonyms:

convey, communicate, bestow

Antonyms:

withhold, conceal, keep back

Root:Latin impartire, from in- (into) + pars, partis (part): to give someone a part.

Definition: Great happiness; a pleasing, well-chosen quality, especially in speech or writing ("felicity of phrase").

From the reading: "...the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job, than the felicities of Solomon."

Synonyms:

bliss, joy, contentment; (sense 2) aptness, grace

Antonyms:

misery, sorrow, affliction; (sense 2) awkwardness

Root:Latin felicitas, from felix, "fruitful, happy, lucky."

Definition: filled with something, often something troubling or tense.

From the reading: "...whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another"

KJV link: "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend" (Proverbs 27:17). The lesson notes that both great essay partnerships, Addison and Steele and Lamb and Coleridge, began as school friendships.

Synonyms:

laden, charged, filled

Antonyms:

empty, devoid, free of

Root:Middle Dutch vrachten, "to load a ship"; related to freight.

Definition: a made-up name that an author writes under; a pen name.

Context: Charles Lamb's pseudonym was Elia, and Addison wrote his papers as the quiet gentleman Mr. Spectator.

Synonyms:

pen name, nom de plume, alias

Antonyms:

real name, given name

Root:Greek pseudes (false) + onyma (name).

Definition: suited to ordinary, everyday conversation rather than formal writing.

Context: A familiar essay sounds as if the writer were talking across a table. Its voice may be colloquial, but it should never be careless or full of slang.

Synonyms:

conversational, informal, everyday

Antonyms:

formal, literary, stilted

Root:Latin colloquium, "conversation," from con- (together) + loqui (to speak).

Definition: playfully odd or fanciful; acting on sudden, unusual notions.

Context: Lamb's voice is whimsical. He stops mid-sentence for an aside in parentheses and loves old words like "twelvemonth." Addison's voice is even and dry.

Synonyms:

fanciful, quirky, playful

Antonyms:

serious, sober, predictable

Root:from whim, short for whim-wham, "a trifle, a fanciful object."

Definition: moving from one subject to another; rambling. In a familiar essay this can be a charm. In a report it is a fault.

Context: Lamb's paragraph is discursive: it drifts from bells to memory, to death, to his cheerful friends. Bacon's essays are tight and packed, almost a proverb in every sentence.

Synonyms:

rambling, digressive, meandering

Antonyms:

concise, terse, focused

Root:Latin discursus, "a running about," from dis- (apart) + currere (to run).