Into the Wild Vocabulary:
English 11
On Mondays you will be assigned the words for
the week. We will start with 8 words and work our
way up from there. Each day in class we will
discuss two of the words and the meaning. You
should write down the meaning on your own paper
to memorize for the quiz on Friday.
These vocabulary words were found on the Share
Point Website by: Jan and Carey Cook, posted by
Lindsay Hunter
Example Vocabulary Log:
WORD:
DEFINITION:
EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
YOUR OWN
SENTENCE:
Week # 1: Vocabulary Words
Decomposed
Elite
Transcendent
Convoluted
Allure
Adversity
Congenial
Dissuade
Vocabulary
WORD # 1:
Decomposed
Verb
DEFINITION:
to separate into constituent parts or
elements or into simpler compounds
EX. SENT:
AN: “Four months later his decomposed
body was found…”
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Elite
DEFINITION:
the best of a class
EX. SENT.:
AN: “Where he’d excelled academically and
been an elite athlete.”
YOUR SENT.:
Noun
Vocabulary
WORD # 1:
Transcendent
Adjective
DEFINITION:
extending or lying beyond the limits of
ordinary experience
EX. SENT.:
AN: “Wandering across North America in
search of raw, transcendent experience.”
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Convoluted
DEFINITION:
a complication or intricacy of form, design,
or structure
EX. SENT:
AN: “I spent more than a year retracing
the convoluted path that led to his death in
the Alaska taiga”
YOUR SENT:
Adjective
Vocabulary:
WORD # 1:
Allure
Verb
DEFINITION:
to entice by charm or attraction
EX. SENT.:
AN: “The allure high-risk activities hold for
young men of a certain mind.”
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Adversity
DEFINITION:
a state, condition, or instance of serious or
continued difficulty
EX. SENT:
AN: “Peril, adversity, and Tolstoyan
renunciation were precisely what he was
seeking.”
YOUR SENT:
Noun
Vocabulary:
WORD # 1:
Congenial
DEFINITION:
having the same nature, disposition, or
tastes
CH1: “He was congenial and seemed well
educated” (5).
EX. SENT.:
Adjective
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Dissuade
DEFINITION:
To convince someone not to do something
EX. SENT:
CH1: “Gallien thought the hitchhiker’s
scheme was foolhardy and tried repeatedly
to dissuade him” (5).
YOUR SENT:
Verb
Week # 2 Vocabulary Words
Escarpment
Amalgam
Oxidized
Anomaly
Cursory
Posit
Vocabulary 9/17/07
WORD # 1:
Escarpment
Noun
DEFINITION:
A long cliff or steep slope
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 2 “Between the flinty crests of the two
outermost escarpments of the Outer
Range runs an east-west trough…”
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Amalgam
DEFINITION:
A mixture of different elements.
EX. SENT:
Ch. 2 “carpeted in a boggy amalgam of
muskeg, alder thickets, and veins of
scrawny spruce.
YOUR SENT:
Noun
Vocabulary 9/18/07
WORD # 1:
Oxidized
Verb
DEFINITION:
To combine with oxygen
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 2 “The green and white paint is badly
oxidized” (10).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Anomaly
DEFINITION:
Deviation from the common rule; different
EX. SENT:
Ch. 2 “A local secret that’s jealously
guarded by those moose hunters and
trappers who are aware of the anomaly”
(11).
YOUR SENT:
Noun
Vocabulary 9/19/07
WORD # 1:
Cursory
Adjective
DEFINITION:
Rapidly and superficially produced
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 2 “The troopers made a cursory
examination of the vehicle” (13).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Posit
DEFINITION:
To assume the existence of.
EX. SENT:
Ch. 2 “Starvation was posited as the most
probable cause of death” (14)
YOUR SENT:
Verb
Vocabulary Week # 3
Mawkish
Convivial
Severance
Egress
Flout
Intermittent
Austerity
Indolently
Vocabulary 9/22/08
WORD # 1:
Mawkish
DEFINITION:
Sickly Sentimental; an
unpleasant taste.
Ch. 3 “Mawkish paintings of
game birds taking flight” (16).
EX. SENT.:
Adjective
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Convivial
DEFINITION:
Fond of feasting, drinking, and
good company
Ch. 3 “The living arrangements
were loose and convivial” (18).
EX. SENT:
YOUR SENT:
Adjective
Vocabulary 9/23/08
WORD # 1:
Severance
DEFINITION:
To keep apart; separate
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 3 “To symbolize the complete
severance from his previous life” (23).
Noun
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Egress
DEFINITION:
Going or coming; an exit
EX. SENT:
Ch. 4 “There was nowhere to move
the car…the only route of egress was
now a foaming, full-blown river.”
YOUR SENT:
Noun
Vocabulary 9/26/07
WORD # 1:
Flout
Verb
DEFINITION:
To indulge in scornful behavior
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 4 “and thus considered it his moral
responsibility to flout the laws of the state.”
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Intermittent
DEFINITION:
Not continual; occasional
EX. SENT:
Ch. 4 “Savoring the intermittent company of
other vagabonds he met along the way.”
YOUR SENT:
Adjective
Vocabulary 9/27/07
WORD # 1:
Austerity
Noun
DEFINITION:
Stern and cold
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 4 “McCandless was stirred by the austerity
of this landscape.”
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Indolently
DEFINITION:
Little or no activity or movement
EX. SENT:
Ch. 4 “The lower Colorado bubbles indolently
from reservoir to reservoir.”
YOUR SENT:
Adjective
Vocab Week # 4
Oxymoron
Itinerant
Primordial
Anachronistic
Creosote
Unabated
Prodigious
Vagabond
Vocabulary 9/27/07
WORD # 1:
DEFINITION:
EX. SENT.:
Oxymoron
Noun
Something that is contradictory (pretty
ugly, alone together, same difference)
Ch. 4 “Bullhead city is a community in
the oxymoronic, late-twentieth-century
idiom” (39).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Itinerant
Adjective
DEFINITION: Traveling from place to place
EX. SENT:
Ch. 4 “The seasonal capital of a
teeming itinerant society” (43).
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary 10/2/07
WORD # 1:
Primordial
Adjective
DEFINITION:
First created or developed
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 4 “His glorification of the
primordial world” (44).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Anachronistic
DEFINITION:
Chronologically out of place
EX. SENT:
Ch. 5 “Penned in shaky,
anachronistic script” (47).
YOUR SENT:
Noun
Vocabulary 10/3/07
WORD # 1:
Creosote
Noun
DEFINITION:
A liquid made from tar
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 5 “Set up camp in a brake of creosote at
the edge of Anza-Borrego” (48).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Unabated
DEFINITION:
To become more intense
EX. SENT:
Ch. 5 “Series of major floods…began to rush
unabated into the Imperial Valley Canal” (49).
YOUR SENT:
Adjective
Vocabulary 10/4/07
WORD # 1:
Prodigious
Adjective
DEFINITION:
Exciting amazement or wonder
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 5 “Virtually all of the river’s prodigious
flow into the Salton sink” (49).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Vagabond
DEFINITION:
Moving from place to place without a home;
wanderer
EX. SENT:
Ch. 4 “Drifters and sundry vagabonds
congregate in this other-worldly setting” (43).
YOUR SENT:
Adjective
Week of October 15-19
Fulminate
Relent
Brash
Ascetic
Lament
Demise
Strident
Ephemeral
Vocabulary 10/16/07
WORD # 1:
Fulminate (verb)
DEFINITION:
To utter or send out with denunciation
(pronounce publicly)
Ch. 6 “He’d fulminate about his parents or
politicians” (52).
EX. SENT.:
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Relent (verb)
DEFINITION:
To go back, give up
EX. SENT:
Ch. 6 “McCandless relented. He struck his
camp…and then rode with the old man across
the mountains to the coast” (53).
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary 10/16/07
WORD # 1:
Brash (adjective)
DEFINITION:
Heedless of consequences
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 6 “Astoundingly, the 81 yr old
man took the brash 24 yr olds advide
to heart” (58).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Ascetic (adjective)
DEFINITION:
Practicing strict self-denial
EX. SENT:
Ch. 7 “the nobleman-turned-ascetic
denounces “the demands of the flesh”
(65)
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary 10/17/07
WORD # 1:
Lament (verb)
DEFINITION:
To express sorrow, mourning, or regret
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 7 “Once Alex made his mind up about
something, there was no changing it”
Westerberg laments (67).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Demise (verb)
DEFINITION:
To die, decease
EX. SENT:
Ch. 8 “Circumstances of his demise were
reported in the news media” (70).
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary 10/18/07
WORD # 1:
Strident (adjective)
DEFINITION:
Characterized by harsh, insistent sound
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 8 “The most strident criticism came in
the form of a dense, multi-page epistle”
(71).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Ephemeral (adjective)
DEFINITION:
Lasting a very short time
EX. SENT:
Ch. 9 “The ephemeral bloom of a sego lily
peeks from the toe of a ninety-foot stone
arch” (88)
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary Quiz
1. When you go back, or give up you _______.
2. Other than say that someone died, you can say it
led to their ________.
3. When something lasts a very short time it is
__________.
4. Chris would ______ when he presented publicly
his hatred for politicians.
5. Harsh criticism can be ________________.
6. After Chris was found dead, it caused many
people to _____________.
7. Practicing strict self-denial is to be _______.
8. When someone does not care about
consequences they are _____________.
Vocabulary Quiz Key
1. When you go back, or give up you Relent.
2. Other than say that someone died, you can say it
led to their demise.
3. When something lasts a very short time it is
ephemeral.
4. Chris would fulminate when he presented publicly
his hatred for politicians.
5. Harsh criticism can be strident.
6. After Chris was found dead, it caused many
people to lament.
7. Practicing strict self-denial is to be ascetic.
8. When someone does not care about
consequences they are brash.
Vocabulary Week of 10/29-11/2
Brazen
Eminent
Insolence
Droves
Flora
Fauna
Arcane
Mercurial
Vocabulary 10/29/07
WORD # 1:
Brazen (adjective)
DEFINITION:
Marked by boldness
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 9 “…he brazenly knocked on the door of
Edward Weston” (89).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Eminent (adjective)
DEFINITION:
Standing above others in some quality
EX. SENT:
Ch. 9 “Over the next two months the
eminent photographer encouraged the boy’s
uneven but promising efforts at painting”
(90).
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary 10/30/07
WORD # 1:
Insolence (noun)
DEFINITION:
Insultingly contemptuous in speech or
conduct
Ch. 9 “A moral upbringing and a reputation
for insolence” (95).
EX. SENT.:
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Droves (noun)
DEFINITION:
A large number
EX. SENT:
Ch. 9 “The papar risked their lives-and lost
them in untold droves” (97).
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary 10/31/07
WORD # 1:
Flora (noun)
DEFINITION:
A list of plants
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 10 “Many of the entries in the brief,
perplexing diary recovered with the body
were terse observations of flora and fauna”
(99).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Fauna (noun)
DEFINITION:
Animals characterized by region, time
period, or environment
EX. SENT:
Same as above
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary 11/1/07
WORD # 1:
Arcane (adjective)
DEFINITION:
Secret, mysterious
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 11 “Within the ranks of his arcane fieldan advanced technology called synthetic
aperture radar…” (104)
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Mercurial (adjective)
DEFINITION:
Rapid changing of moods
EX. SENT:
Ch. 11 “According to members of the
extended family, his moods can be dark and
mercurial” (105)
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary Quiz: 11/2/07
•
1.
Section # 1: Multiple Choice
Mercurial
a. a type of metal
b. They type of mercury found in rocks
c. Rapidly changing of moods
2.
Brazen
a. A bright sunset
b. Marked by boldness
c. Strong
Vocabulary Week of 11/26-11/30
Chastened
Convergence
Bereavement
Demarcate
Precipitous
Desideratum
Vocabulary 11/26/07
WORD # 1:
Chastened
DEFINITION:
To correct by punishment of suffering
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 11 “His son’s disappearance scared and
chastened him” (105)
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Convergence
DEFINITION:
The act of moving toward conformity
EX. SENT:
Ch. 11 “It is impossible to know what murky
convergence… parent-child dynamics, and
alignment of cosmos was responsible” (106)
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary 10/27/07
WORD # 1:
Bereavement
DEFINITION:
Suffering the death of a loved one
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 13 “Such bereavement, witnessed at
close range, makes even the most eloquent
apologia for high-risk activities ring fatuous
and hallow”
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Demarcate
DEFINITION:
To set apart
EX. SENT:
Ch. 14 “The Devils Thumb demarcates the
Alaska-British Columbia border” (136).
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary 10/28/07
WORD # 1:
Precipitous
DEFINITION:
Very steep
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 14 “Slopes rose precipitously from the
water’s edge, bearded in a gloom of
hemlock and cedar” (136).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Desideratum
DEFINITION:
Something desired as essential
EX. SENT:
Ch. 14 “Those mountains heralded the
approach of my desideratum” (137).
YOUR SENT:
Vocabulary 10/25/07
WORD # 1:
Labyrinthine
DEFINITION:
Resembling something perplex or intricate
EX. SENT.:
Ch. 14 “Vast and labyrinthine, the ice cap
rides the spine of the Boundary Ranges”
(137).
YOUR SENT.:
WORD # 2:
Phantasmagoric
DEFINITION:
Optical effects and illusions
EX. SENT:
YOUR SENT: