Contextual Meaning of Words
Context: How words and their meanings are connected to each other in a written work
Most words have more than one meaning. The meaning of a word is determined through its contextual use; the words in the
sentence that surround the word you are trying to define will give you contextual clues to help you define the word’s
meaning. A word is defined within the context of a sentence. You must also pay attention to whether the word is used as a
noun, adjective, or adverb.
Example: Initiative
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Last night I was so tired from football practice that I did not have the initiative to do my homework, so I just
collapsed on the sofa and watched TV instead.
The mayor had heard enough complaints about people drinking alcohol at the beach, so he worked to place an
initiative on the ballot to make it illegal to be in possession of open containers of alcohol in public.
Example: Gauge
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The driver looked at his gas gauge and realized that he needed to make a pit stop to fill up if he wanted to win the
race.
The store owner was not about to be the victim of a robbery, so he kept a 12-gauge shotgun within arm’s reach
under the counter near the cash register.
The candidate for governor did not know how the public felt about additional taxes to build more schools, so he
polled one thousand people to gauge the general attitude toward his proposition.
Example: Monstrous
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We went deep sea fishing and I didn’t catch a single fish all day, but Joe reeled in a monstrous yellow-fin tuna that
weighed forty-five pounds.
The crowd at the concert was monstrous; the stadium could only hold fifty thousand people, but there were twice
that number pushing against the gates to get in.
The student’s behavior was nothing less than monstrous; he yelled, threw his book at another student, and threatened
to hit the teacher.
Example: Pack
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I am going to Hawaii this weekend, so I won’t need to pack any warm clothes for the trip.
I would not go hiking in the forest alone because I had been told that a pack of wolves had been killing livestock in
the area.
My back started to hurt because I had to carry so many books to school in my pack.
Sarah had been working for twelve hours straight at the convention before her boss told her to pack it up and go
home.
Contextual meaning also gives the reader clues to the denotative (literal or specific) and connotative (interpreted or
emotional) meanings of words.
Example: Snake
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I was startled by a large black and yellow snake that was in the back yard sunning itself. My father told me that it
was harmless, and that I should just leave it alone.
The man was a snake in his business dealings with the elderly couple. They ended up signing a contract for five
thousand dollars for a new garage door when they could have purchased the same door for one thousand from
another dealer.
The road snaked around the edges of the mountain. When I looked down I felt that we would slip over the side of
the precipice at any moment.