Word Power: Building Vocabulary Skills

The film, Cool Hand Luke, staring Paul Newman, is about a rebellious young man who refuses to conform to society's rules and is sentenced to serve a sentence in a penal institution.

Synonyms: discipline, punitive, correctional, punitive

bleak

Etymology: [bleak (Scandinavian), "pale, lacking in color"]

desolate; cheerless

They were forced to land on a bleak and dreary coast, where they saw not a sign of human habitation.

John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath is about the bleak and desperate conditions prevalent during the Great Depression.

Related Forms: bleakness

Synonyms: dreary, forbidding, harsh, sad, desolate

Antonyms: cheerful, warm, cozy

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. — Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

ac-a-dem-ic

Etymology: [See below for the origin of this word.]

(a) pertaining to a college or other institution of learning

People in the academic field have been debating for years the value of Latin as a high school subject.

Synonyms: erudite, scholastic

(b) theoretical rather than practical

When questioned by the FBI why he was reading about how to create a bomb, the man told them that his interest was merely academic.

Synonyms: theoretical, hypothetical

Related Forms: academy, academician (a member of a learned society)

THE STORY BEHIND THE WORD

On the outskirts of ancient Athens there was a grove sacred to the hero Akademus. In this park the philosopher Plato established his school or college around 385 B.C. Both the garden and the school were called Akademia after the name of the hero. The English words academy, academic, academician, and others of that learned family of words are derived from the name of Plato's school. Academy is now applied to institutions of higher learning, secondary schools, or any place where special subjects, arts, and skills are taught, so that we have military academies, riding academies, fencing academies, dancing academies, and even billiard academies. The meaning of the word has also been extended to include societies of learned men who have united to advance learning, literature, and the arts and sciences, such as the French Academy, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

tac-i-turn

Etymology: [tacitus (Latin), "silent"]

reluctant to speak or express oneself; customarily silent

Beth is often described as a taciturn woman, who expresses herself better in writing than in conversation.

Related Forms: taciturnly, taciturnity

Synonyms: reserved, reticent, laconic, uncommunicative

Antonyms: loquacious, garrulous, talkative, voluble, unreserved, communicative

com-pas-sion

Etymology: [cum (Latin prefix), "with" + patior, passus, "to suffer, feel"]

feeling of sympathy or sorrow stirred by another's suffering

David's compassion for the hurricane victims led him to donate blankets and money.

Related Forms: compassionate, compassionateness

Synonyms: mercy, pity, clemency, commiseration

Antonyms: cruelty, apathy, ruthlessness, insensitivity, callousness, indifference, inclemency, severity

Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation. — Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

ab-hor

Etymology: [ab (Latin), "from" + horrere, "to shudder"]

to detest; to regard with horror or loathing

Tom is a pacifist who abhors the idea war and killing.

Related Forms: abhorrent, abhorrence

Synonyms: hate, loathe, detest, abominate, execrate

Phrase: take an aversion to, shudder at, utterly detest

Antonyms: relish, fancy, cherish, revere

Phrase: take a fancy to, have affection for, be enamored of

NOTE: There is a distinct difference in meaning between loathe and loath. The verb loathe means "to dislike intensely"; the adjective loath (variant spelling, loth) means "reluctant, disinclined."

rib-ald

Etymology: [ribault (Old French), "a ruffian"]

indecent or offensive in language; profane; one who is ribald

The play is a ribald comedy about two middle-age suburban women who return to college and engage in age-inappropriate sex.

Related Forms: ribaldry, ribaldish

Synonyms: sordid, lewd, lascivious, obscene scurrilous, obscene, licentious, salacious

Antonyms: modest, pure, restrained, decent, refined, decorous

pre-clude

Etymology: [praecludere (Latin), "to shut off, shut out"; from prae, "before" + claudere, "to shut"]

to prevent or render ineffectual or impossible by taking necessary steps beforehand

The attorney asked the judge to preclude the jury from hearing the confession his client had made to the police.

Related Forms: preclusion, preclusive, preclusively

Synonyms: hinder, frustrate, thwart, foil

Antonyms: foster, abet, incite, cause

vac-il-late

Etymology: [vacillare, vacillatus (Latin), "move first one way and then another, as in staggering or reeling"]

to veer or swerve continually from one opinion or course to another

The Olympic Organising Committee vacillated several months over which country would host the 2008 Olympic Games.

Related Forms: vacillation, vacillatory, vacillatingly

Synonyms: waver, oscillate, falter, fluctuate

Antonyms: adhere, persist, stick