Grade 9 College Vocabulary, Week 1

Definition: In rhetoric, proof from the speaker's character; the distinctive character, spirit or guiding beliefs of a person, people or community.

From the reading: "Proof from the speaker's character: the audience trusts the speaker because he shows good sense, good character and goodwill."

✝ link: "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches" (Proverbs 22:1).

Synonyms:

character, credibility, spirit

Antonyms:

(none exact) disrepute, untrustworthiness

Root:Greek ēthos, "custom, habit, character."

Definition: A natural power of the mind or body, such as reason, memory or sight; a special skill; the teaching staff of a school or college.

From the reading: "In his Rhetoric he defined the art as the faculty of observing"

Synonyms:

power, capacity, aptitude

Antonyms:

incapacity, inability, deficiency

Root:Latin facultas, "ability, power," from facilis, "easy to do" (facere, "to do, make").

Definition: coming before and preparing for the main event or action.

From the reading: "...for two thousand years, students at your age left the preliminary exercises and began the full study of rhetoric, the art of persuasion."

Synonyms:

introductory, preparatory, initial

Antonyms:

final, concluding, culminating

Root:Latin prae- (before) + limen (threshold): what comes before the doorway.

Definition: The skillful handling of a tool or object; the unfair, dishonest control of a person's mind or feelings for one's own ends.

From the reading: "Feeling without truth is manipulation, and a Christian writer refuses it."

✝ link: "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour" (Ephesians 4:25).

Synonyms:

exploitation, scheming, maneuvering

Antonyms:

candor, honesty, plain dealing

Root:Latin manipulus, "a handful," from manus, "hand": first working something with the hands, then working on people.

Definition: to draw someone on by offering pleasure, reward or flattery, often toward wrong.

Context (KJV): "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not" (Proverbs 1:10).

✝ link: Paul preached at Corinth "not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Corinthians 2:4).

Synonyms:

lure, tempt, coax

Antonyms:

repel, deter, discourage

Root:Old French enticier, "to stir up, provoke," probably from Latin in- + titio, "firebrand": to set aflame.

Definition: skill in deceiving or outwitting others; slyness.

Context (KJV): "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness" (1 Corinthians 3:19). Paul is quoting Job 5:13.

✝ link: "...by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive" (Ephesians 4:14).

Synonyms:

cunning, slyness, wiliness

Antonyms:

candor, guilelessness, straightforwardness

Root:Old English cræft, "strength, skill." Butcher and Lang call Odysseus crafty again and again: a skill that can serve honor or deceit.

Definition: to attack with abusive, insulting language.

From the reading: "Then Melantho began to revile Odysseus yet a second time"

✝ link: "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake" (Matthew 5:11).

Synonyms:

vilify, berate, denounce

Antonyms:

praise, extol, laud

Root:Old French reviler, "to treat as vile," from Latin vilis, "cheap, worthless."

Definition: a person who boasts loudly about himself.

From the reading: "Late in the day Eumaeus goes home, and Odysseus fights with the braggart beggar Irus." (From Butcher and Lang's introduction.)

✝ link: "Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth" (Proverbs 27:1).

Synonyms:

boaster, blowhard, swaggerer

Antonyms:

(none exact) modest person

Root:French bragard, from braguer, "to brag, show off."

Definition: arrogantly sure of oneself; proud and presumptuous beyond all bounds.

From the reading: "...lest the stranger should be disquieted by the noise and should have a loathing for the meal, being come among overweening men"

✝ link: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).

Synonyms:

arrogant, conceited, presumptuous

Antonyms:

humble, modest, diffident

Root:Old English ofer (over) + wēnan (to think, expect): thinking too highly of oneself.

Definition: A foolish, blinding folly that destroys good judgment; today, most often an intense but shallow and short-lived passion for someone or something.

From the reading: "A great villainy they wrought in their evil infatuation, wasting the wealth and holding in no regard the wife of a prince"

Synonyms:

folly, delusion; (sense 2) obsession, fixation

Antonyms:

good sense, prudence; (sense 2) indifference

Root:Latin infatuare, "to make a fool of," from fatuus, "foolish." Homer's Greek word, atē, means a god-sent blindness that leads to ruin.

Definition: widespread destruction; great disorder and confusion.

From the reading: "...so they devour and minish my house, and ere long will they make havoc likewise of myself."

Synonyms:

devastation, ruin, chaos

Antonyms:

order, peace, restoration

Root:Anglo-Norman crier havok, the shout that let soldiers begin to plunder.

Definition: not embarrassed or ashamed; bold and open, even when one ought to blush.

From the reading: "Thou reckless thing and unabashed, be sure thy great sin is not hidden from me" (Penelope to the faithless handmaid Melantho).

Synonyms:

shameless, brazen, unembarrassed

Antonyms:

abashed, ashamed, sheepish

Root:un- + abash, from Old French esbaïr, "to astonish, dismay."

Definition: lacking reverence for God or for sacred duties.

From the reading: "Guest of mine, it were an impious thing for me to slight a stranger, even if there came a meaner man than thou; for from Zeus are all strangers"

✝ link: "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares" (Hebrews 13:2).

Synonyms:

irreverent, ungodly, profane

Antonyms:

pious, devout, reverent

Root:Latin impius, from in- (not) + pius (dutiful, devout).

Definition: to win or regain the favor of one who is offended; to appease.

From the reading: "Quickly, my dear children, accomplish my desire, that first of all the gods I may propitiate Athene"

✝ link: The pagan brings a heifer to win a god's favor; the Gospel says God Himself provided the sacrifice: "And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2).

Synonyms:

appease, placate, conciliate

Antonyms:

provoke, offend, antagonize

Root:Latin propitiare, "to make favorable," from propitius, "gracious, favorable."

Definition: to be a sign of what is coming; to foretell. Usually in the phrases bode well and bode ill.

From the reading: "So for two nights and two days he was wandering in the swell of the sea, and much his heart boded of death."

Synonyms:

portend, presage, augur

Antonyms:

(none exact) belie

Root:Old English bodian, "to announce, proclaim," from boda, "messenger."

Definition: (v.) to give or spend too sparingly; to hold back; (n.) a limit, or a fixed period of work (a stint at sea).

From the reading: "...haste not to send him hence, and stint not these your gifts for one that stands in such sore need of them"

Synonyms:

(v.) skimp, scrimp, withhold

Antonyms:

(v.) lavish, squander, bestow freely

Root:Old English styntan, "to blunt, make dull": to cut short.

Definition: painful, wearying labor; hardship; (old) the labor of childbirth.

From the reading: "Rather myself would I have travail and much pain ere I came home and saw the day of my returning"

✝ link: "...this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith" (Ecclesiastes 1:13).

Synonyms:

toil, drudgery, hardship

Antonyms:

ease, rest, leisure

Root:Old French travailler, "to toil, suffer," from Late Latin tripalium, an instrument of torture with three stakes.

Definition: causing ruin or great loss; disastrously costly.

From the reading: "In the morning I would fain be gone to the town to go a begging, that I be not ruinous to thyself and thy fellows."

Synonyms:

disastrous, devastating, calamitous

Antonyms:

beneficial, profitable, harmless

Root:Latin ruina, "a falling down," from ruere, "to rush, fall."

Definition: harmful, destructive or poisonous.

From the reading: "...herbs in greatest plenty, many that are healing in the cup, and many baneful."

Synonyms:

pernicious, noxious, deadly

Antonyms:

wholesome, healing, benign

Root:Old English bana, "slayer, murderer."

Definition: unable to decay, spoil or be destroyed; enduring forever.

From the reading: "Here, take this veil imperishable and wind it about thy breast; so is there no fear that thou suffer aught or perish."

✝ link: "To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4).

Synonyms:

everlasting, indestructible, undying

Antonyms:

perishable, fleeting, transient

Root:Latin in- (not) + perire, "to pass away, perish."