Vocabulary 9
English III
Affinity
• kinship or likeness; natural
connections/abilities
• Sentence: Bill Gates has an affinity for working
with computers.
Agate
• marble style stone
Alleviation
• relief to pain or anguish
• Sentence: The UN World food program strives
to alleviate hunger for the neediest people in
the work fighting famine.
Allusion
• Allusion: reference to a famous work or person
or literature
Barks
• boats or other sailing vessels
Coveted
• a wrongful desire or wish to have someone
else’s object as your own
• Sentence: Rumpelstiltskin coveted the
kingdom of Far Far Away.
Demeanor
• Behavior
• I was extremely nervous for my first violin
lesson but Anne's calm demeanor immediately
put me at ease.
• There was something about his demeanor that
told me he was hiding something.
Dissever
• to divide into parts; cut up
• The mother carefully started to dissever the
meat for her 2 year old.
Equivocal
• ambiguous; indefinite
• Sentence: Equivocal position; the tests are
quite clear.
Inordinate
• exceeding the limits of reason
• Sentence: They shut the construction site
down due to the inordinate number of worker
injuries.
• Sentence: She took an inordinate number of
suitcases on her trip.
Insipid
• lacking in flavor; bland; boring
• Sentence: My mother-in-law’s rice is insipid. I
always have to add some salt on it.
Pertinacity
• stubbornness; persistence
• Sentence: The proprietor had pertinacity and
persistence and would relentlessly push his
product.
Sepulcher
• a burial vault or tomb
• Sentence: After he died, Josiah was buried at
the sepulcher by the sea.
Seraphs
• member of the higher order of angels
• Sentence: Seraphs are supposed to always
follow God’s commands and praise Him.
Vagary
• strange ideas
• Sentence: After Bob made a fool of himself,
Sam quickly got up on stage so he could cover
up the vagary.