Name:



Name: __________________________

Vocabulary Unit #2 – College Prep

Definitions

1. accost – (v.) to approach and speak to first; to confront in a challenging or aggressive way.

2. avid – (adj.) desirous of something to the point of greed; intensely eager

3. devious – (adj.) straying or wandering from a straight or direct course; done or acting in a shifty or underhanded way

4. incendiary – (adj.) deliberately setting or causing fires; designed to start fires; tending to stir up strife or rebellion; (n.) one who deliberately sets fires, arsonist; one who causes strife

5. maelstrom – (n.) a whirlpool of great size and violence; a situation resembling a whirlpool in violence or destruction

6. myopic – (adj.) nearsighted; lacking a broad, realistic view of a situation; lacking foresight or discernment

7. overt – (adj.) open, not hidden, expressed or revealed in a way that is easily recognized

8. propriety – (n.) the state of being proper, appropriateness; (pl.) standards of what is proper or socially acceptable

9. suppliant – (adj.) asking humbly and earnestly; (n.) one who makes a request humbly and earnestly, a petitioner, suitor

10. undulate – (v.) to move in waves or with a wavelike motion; to have a wavelike appearance or form

Completing the Sentence

1. As an employee of the local polling service last summer, it was my job to _____accost________ people on the street and ask their opinions.

2. Many a rich southern planter saw all his or her financial resources swallowed up in the ____maelstrom_______ of the Civil War.

3. During the rainy season, the highway sank at so many points that its surface began to ________undulate___ like the track for a roller coaster.

4. My brother is such a(n) _______avid________ collector of toy soldiers that I sometimes think our house has been invaded by a pint-sized army.

5. On the return trip, we cut straight across the meadows rather than take the more _______devious____ path along the river.

6. In Grandmother’s day, standards of _____propriety ___ required that a young lady wear a hat and gloves when she went out in public.

7. The tons of _____incendiary______ material ignited and turned the waste disposal plant into a roaring inferno.

8. The ____suppliant______ begged the king to return the goat that the tax collector had taken away from his farm.

9. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a(n) _____overt_________ act of war.

10. His pale face, hunched shoulders, and _____myopic_______ stare showed that he had spent his life poring over old books and documents.

Synonyms

1. the vortex of public opinion maelstrom

2. ripple in the current undulate

3. behaved with her usual decorum propriety

4. confronted the thief at the door accost

5. took an indirect route devious

Antonyms

6. indentified the peacemaker incendiary

7. one of the most reluctant participants avid

8. known for farsighted thinking myopic

9. took secret action to avoid a crisis overt

Choosing the Right Word

1. His reckless words had an (incendiary, overt) effect on the already excited crowd.

2. He is the kind of person who is concerned not with real moral values but simply with appearances and (propriety, overt).

3. After years of failure to sell a single story, the young writer described himself bitterly as “a(n) (propriety, avid) collector of rejection slips.

4. She was buffeted about in a veritable (devious, maelstrom) of emotions, caused mainly by her own dissatisfaction with herself.

5. His methods were so complicated and his purposes so (avid, devious) that we were not sure if he was spying on the enemy or on us.

6. In an age when the United States has truly global responsibilities, we can ill afford leaders with (myopic, accosted) points of view.

7. As the defendant left the courtroom, he was (avid, accosted) by a group of reporters seeking his reaction to the verdict.

8. John Masefield’s poem “Sea Fever” has an (avid, undulating) rhythm that actually gives one the feeling of being on a rolling ship.

9. “His acts of defiance have been so (myopic, overt) and premeditated that I have no choice but to fire him,” she said sadly.

10. The infatuated schoolboy, in one of his more restrained expressions, described himself as “a (avid, suppliant) at the altar of love.”

Vocabulary in Context

The Wonder Around Us

Most people today have a far greater appreciation of the preciousness of the land and sea than the general public living just a half century ago. In the 1940s and 1950s, many held the myopic view that natural resources were limitless and impervious to pollution. The marine biologist Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was one of the first scientists to challenge these wildly held assumptions. She did so by writing a series of evocative books about the sea, culminating in the 1951 bestseller, The Sea Around Us. To the surprise of many, Carson found an avid audience for her unique blend of science and lyricism and became one of the pioneers of the growing ecological movement.

Through her imaginative prose, Carson made the brackish waters of the world’s oceans come alive for her readers. She helped them see that the ocean was not a deep, dark, empty abyss, but a living home to a fascinating array of plants and animals.

Carson also dramatized the intricate relationship between wind and water. The rotation of the earth, water temperature, and wind combine to produce the great ocean currents – giant global maelstroms that carry the sea’s waters in roughly circular patterns. The wind also whips up the ocean waters into waves that undulate across the sea’s surface. Carson explained that these waves vary from the smallest ripples to giant mountains of water, called tsunamis, that travel up to 600 miles per hour – with a sometimes startling celerity – and cause great damage when they came ashore. No matter what force of nature Carson evoked, she never failed to make her reader feel a part of the process she was describing, and to respect the earth and seas.

1. The meaning of myopic is

a. imaginative b. enlightened c. democratic d. shortsighted

2. Avid most nearly means

a. enthusiastic b. grateful c. critical d. varied

3. The meaning of maelstroms is

a. whirlpools b. explosions c. motors d. earthquakes

4. Undulate most nearly means

a. creep b. sing c. ripple d. reflect

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