猜词技巧
31. The underlined word swimmingly in Paragraph 1
is closest in meaning to ______.
B
A. early
B. sweetly
C. quickly D. smoothly
（2011广东高考试题原文）
Can dogs and cats live in perfect harmony in the same
home? People who are thinking about adopting a dog
as a friend for their cat are worried that they will fight.
A recent research has found a new recipe for success.
According to the study, if the cat is adopted before the
dog, and if they are introduced when still young (less
than 6 months for cats, a year for dogs), it is highly
probable that the two pets will get along swimmingly.
Two-thirds of the homes interviewed reported a
positive relationship between their cat and dog.
猜测词义是检验大家阅读能力的一种方式，
多年来，全国的英语高考试题都会涉及到。
大家想一想，我们在阅读中文材料，特别
是在阅读古典小说时，是不是常常碰到不认识
的字，但我们可以通过我们的生活经验、通过
上下文顺利地阅读下去？其实，英语也一样，
我们大可不必每见一个生词就去查词典，我们
可以通过掌握一些猜词技巧来提高阅读速度和
效率，从而达到理解句子或文章的目的。
下面，介绍一些猜词技巧，希望对同学们
有帮助。
一．根据生活常识猜测词义
例如
1.It was really cold that day. My hands were nearly numb.
What does the underlined word probably mean?
A. too cold to feel anything B. twice bigger than usual
C. as hard as a stone
D. as warm as a fire
A
根据生活经验，天气寒冷时，手肯定是“冻得麻木
2.的”。
The snake slithered through the grass.
The underlined word is closest in meaning to____.
C
A. run
B. walk
C. slide D. fly
根据有关蛇的生活习性的知识, 我们也可以推断出
slither词义为“滑行”而不是“跑”“走”。
二．根据上下文来猜测词义
我们所以可借助上下文语境对生词或短语进行推测。
我们来看看下段材料 :
1) Many plants and animals are going extinct. Mammoths,
which are related(有关联的) with Asia elephants, are now
extinct. There are no mammoths in the world today.
C
题1.A mammoth is a kind of ________.
A. plant B .bird C. animal D. tree
从下文which are related with Asia elephants
可知mammoth是一种动物。因此，答案为C
题2.The word extinct in the passage means _____.
C
A endangered B. dangerous C. not existing D. living
根据下文There are no mammoths in the world today
我们就容易推断出extinct的意思为灭绝了。
2) The lack of movement caused the muscles to
weaken. Sometimes the weakness was permanent.
So the player could never play the sport again.
Please guess the meaning of the word “permanent”
in the passage.
从后面的结果“ So the player could never play the
sport again（永远不能再运动）"中，可以推测
permanent 的意思为"永远的，永久的"。
3) Remember that People on line may not be who
they seem. Because you can't see or even hear the
person. It would be easy for someone to
misrepresent himself/herself. Thus someone who
says that "she is a 12-year-old girl." could really be
an old man.
The underlined word misrepresent probably means:
A. making a wrong judgement about
B. understanding somebody wrongly
C
C. giving a wrong description of
D. forming a wrong opinion about
三．通过定义或释义关系来推测词义
这种同义或释义关系常由is，or，that is，in other
words，be called或破折号等来表示。
例如：
1) But sometimes，no rain falls for a long，long time.
Then there is a dry period，or drought.
猜猜看：
drought 是什么意思？
or drought即对there is a dry period的解释。
从drought所在句子的上文我们得知很久不下雨，于是
便有一段干旱的时期，由此可见drought意思为“久
旱”，“旱灾”，drought 为a dry period的同义语。
2)Within days, food often spoils or become unsafe
to eat.
变坏，变质
3)Today young couples who are just starting their
households often spend lots of their money on
appliances ,for instance ,washing machines ,
refrigerators and color TVs.
电器， 从文中的举例washing-machines（洗衣机）,
refrigerators（冰箱）, color televisions（电视机）可
以猜出该词的意思.
4) Jack is now a florist, who keeps a shop for
selling flowers in our district.
拥有一家专门卖花的商店的人"，即"花店主"
四．根据转折或对比关系猜测词义
在一个句子或段落中，有对两个事物或现象进行对比
性的描述，我们可以根据生词或 难词的反义词猜测其词
义。表示对比关系的词汇和短语主要和短语主要是unlike，
not，but，however ，in contrast 和while. 例如：
1．Andrew is one of the most supercilious men I know.
His brother, in contrast, is quite modest.
The underlined word means______.
A
A. proud B. clever C. quick D. hard-working
与modest相对的当然是“傲慢”了
2．She is usually prompt for all her classes，but today she
arrives quite late.
A
猜猜看：prompt是什么意思？
A. on time B. late C. nervous D. excited
3)In the northern regions the winters are
generally cold and humid, and the
summers hot and dry .
潮湿的
4)He is so homely，not at all as
handsome as his brother.
平凡的；不好看的
五．通过构词法猜词
我们可以利用掌握的一些常用的词根、前缀、后缀
等语法知识猜测词义。
如前缀un-表反义词，如happy、unhappy，fair、unfair，
important、unimportant等；
后缀-ment 表名词，如develop、development，state、
statement，argue、argument等；
后缀-er、-or、-ist以及-ian等表同源名词；如calculate、
calculator；visit、visitor；law、lawyer；science、
scientist；art、artist；politics、politician；music 、
musician等。
例：A good supervisor can recognize immediately the
adept workers from the unskilled ones.
The underlined word probably means______.
B
A. good B. skilled C. bad
D. foolish
综上所述，利用各种已知信息推测、判
断词义是一项重要的阅读技巧。在实践中，
我们可以灵活运用，综合运用上面提到的几
种猜测技巧，排除生词的障碍，顺利理解文
章的思想内容，提高阅读速度。
高考试题侧重于考查通过上下文猜测词
义的能力。
实战演练：
2010重庆
One morning more than thirty years ago, I entered
the Track Kitchen, a restaurant where everyone from
the humblest(卑微的) to the most powerful came for
breakfast. I noticed an empty chair next to an elderly,
unshaven man, who looked somewhat disheveled.
He was wearing a worn-out hat and was alone. I
asked if I might join him. He agreed quietly and
I sat down to have my breakfast.
56. What does the underlined word “disheveled”
mean?
B
A. Unfriendly. B. Untidy. C. Gentle. D. Kind.
2008广东
"I would never have said to my mom, 'Hey, the new
Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?'"
says Ballmer.
"There was just a complete gap in taste."
Music was not the only gulf. From clothing and
hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier
generations of parents and children often appeared
to move in separate orbits.
41. The underlined word gulf in Para. 3 most
probably means _______.
C
A. interest B. distance C. difference
D. separation
Red is the most commonly given color of roses.
Red expresses love and passion. True red is the rose
for lovers. Fiery red roses signify passion, while
cardinal red symbolizes desire. Fully bloomed red
roses best convey the message “I still love you,”
while red rose buds are a way to express love for
the first time.
The underlined words "rose buds" in the last
A
paragraph probably refer to ______.
A. roses which are not bloomed yet
B. roses which have been bloomed already
C. roses which coveys love for the first time
D. roses which are very red
全国2008高考试题（难度：5 星）
原题62. The underlined word “fixture” in Paragraph 3
probably refers to something _________.
B
A. that people enjoy eating
B. that is always present
C. that is difficult to get
D. that people use as a gift
原文：
In nutrition (营养) it was all good news too. This
nice tasting pineapple contained four times more vitamin C
(维生素C) than the old green variety. Nutritionists said
that it was not only full of vitamins, but also good against
some diseases. People were understandably eager to be
able to buy this wonderful fruit. The new type of pineapple
was selling fast, and the Del Monte Gold pineapple rapidly
became a fixture in the shopping basket of the healthy eater.
2014陕西 51. The underlined word “authenticated” in
Paragraph 2 probably means __________.
C
A. named
B. treated
C. proved
D. described
相关材料:Her mother ran a boardinghouse in Galveston, a
seaside town near Houston, Texas. She was cleaning out the
attic (阁楼) one day when she came across an old dusty
manuscript(手稿). On its top page were the words, “By O.
Henry”. It was a nice story, and she sent it to her daughter at
SMU, who showed it to my father. My father had never read
the story before, but it sounded like O. Henry, and he knew
that O. Henry had once lived in Houston. So it was possible
that the famous author had gone to the beach and stayed in
the Gainestown boardinghouse, and had written the story
there and left the manuscript behind by accident. My father
visited an O. Henry expert at Columbia University in New
York, who authenticated the story as O. Henry’s.
2014全国
25. The underlined word “ undoing” probably refers
to the pigeons’ ____.
B
A. escape
B. ruin C. liberation D. evolution
相关段落：
Sadly the abundance of passenger pigeons may have
been their undoing. Where the birds were most
abundant, people believed there was an ever-lasting
supply and killed them by the thousands.
Commercial hunters attracted them to small
clearings with grain, waited until pigeons had settled
to feed, then threw large nets over them, taking
hundreds at a time. The birds were shipped to large
cities and sold in restaurants.
2014福建
58. The underlined word “intimidated” in the fourth
paragraph probably means “___________”.
C
A. astonished
B. struck
C. frightened
D. excited
By now paramedics（救援人员）had arrived, and
were attending the injured woman. As we walked
up to her, my son became intimidated by all the
blood and medical equipment. He said he was just
too scared to go up to her.
2014广东34. Which of the following statements is closest in
the meaning to the underlined sentence above?
C
A. Kindness and violence can change the world.
B. Kindness and violence can affect one’s behavior.
C. Kindness and violence can reproduce themselves.
D. Kindness and violence can shape one’s character.
相关段落： “Here’s the idea,” Anne says. “Anything you
think there should be more of, do it randomly.” Her fantasies
include painting the classrooms of shabby schools, leaving
hot meals on kitchen tables in the poor part of town, and
giving money secretly to a proud old lady. Anne says,
“Kindness can build on itself as much as violence can. ” The
acts of random kindness spread. If you were one of those
drivers who found your fare paid, who knows what you
might have been inspired to do for someone else later. Like
all great events, kindness begins slowly, with every single act.
Let it be yours!
2014北京69. The underlined word “destination” in
C
Paragraph 5 means _______
.
A. a platform that exhibts goods
B. a spot where travelers like to stay
C.a place where customers love to go
D. a target that a store expects to meet
相关段落：
Some years ago, the focus for brand name shopping was on
a few people with sales assistants’ disproving attitude and
don’t-touch-what-you-can’t-afford displays. Now the rise of
electronic commerce (e-commerce) has opened up famous
brands to a wider audience. But while e-shops can use sights
and sounds, only bricks-and-mortar stores (实体店) can
offer a full experience from the minute customers step
through the door to the moment they leave. Another brand
store seeks to be much more than a shop, but rather a
destination.