Damned Human Race

Stephanie P. (United States of America)
49 words 3 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. anaconda
    a large boa of tropical South America
    In order to determine the difference
    between an anaconda and an earl (if any) I caused seven young calves to be turned into the
    anaconda’s cage.
  2. rabies
    an acute viral disease transmitted by animal bites
    Rabies is bad, but it is not so bad as this disease.
  3. laughing jackass
    Australian kingfisher having a loud cackling cry
    But so does the
    monkey, as Mr. Darwin pointed out; and so does the Australian bird that is called the laughing jackass.
  4. moral sense
    motivation deriving logically from ethical or moral principles that govern a person's thoughts and actions
    I find this Defect to be the Moral Sense.
  5. gouge out
    make gouges into a surface
    Man (when he is a North American Indian) gouges out
    his prisoners’ eyes; when he is King John, with a nephew to render untroublesome, he uses a red-hot
    iron; when he is a religious zealot dealing with heretics in the Middle Ages, he skins his captive alive
    and scatters salt on his back; in the first Richards time he shuts up a multitude of Jew families in a
    tower and sets fire to it; in Columbus’s time he captures a family of Spanish Jews and (but that is not
    printable; in our day in ...
  6. animal
    a living organism characterized by voluntary movement
    I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the lower animals (so-called), and contrasting them
    with the traits and dispositions of man.
  7. smirch
    smear so as to make dirty or stained
    And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far ancestor (some microscopic
    atom wandering at its pleasure between the mighty horizons of a drop of water perchance) insect by
    insect, animal by animal, reptile by reptile, down the long highway of smirch less innocence, till we
    have reached the bottom stage of development (namable as the Human Being).
  8. Man
    one of the British Isles in the Irish Sea
    For it obliges me to
    renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since
    it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new
    and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.
  9. experiment
    the act of conducting a controlled test or investigation
    That is to say, I have subjected every
    postulate that presented itself to the crucial test of actual experiment, and have adopted it or rejected it
    according to the result.
  10. constitutionally
    according to the constitution
    It is plain that he is constitutionally incapable of approaching that
    altitude; that he is constitutionally afflicted with a Defect which must make such approach forever
    impossible, for it is manifest that this defect is permanent in him, indestructible, ineradicable.
  11. bolster up
    support and strengthen
    In order to
    bolster up a tottering reputation the ant pretended to store up supplies, but I was not deceived.
  12. incurably
    in a manner impossible to cure
    In truth, man is incurably foolish.
  13. higher
    advanced in complexity or elaboration
    For it obliges me to
    renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since
    it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new
    and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.
  14. ineradicable
    not able to be destroyed or rooted out
    It is plain that he is constitutionally incapable of approaching that
    altitude; that he is constitutionally afflicted with a Defect which must make such approach forever
    impossible, for it is manifest that this defect is permanent in him, indestructible, ineradicable.
  15. looseness
    freedom from restraint
    Man, in his descent from the cat, has brought the
    cats looseness with him but has left the unconsciousness behind (the saving grace which excuses the
    cat).
  16. harem
    living quarters for wives in some Muslim households
    Roosters keep harems, but it is by consent of their concubines; therefore no wrong is done.
  17. cat
    feline mammal usually having thick soft fur
    Cats are loose in their morals, but not consciously so.
  18. miserly
    characterized by or indicative of lack of generosity
    These experiments convinced me that there is this difference between man and the higher
    animals: he is avaricious and miserly; they are not.
  19. atrocious
    shockingly brutal or cruel
    Men keep
    harems but it is by brute force, privileged by atrocious laws which the other sex were allowed no hand
    in making.
  20. loftiness
    impressiveness in scale or proportion
    One is obliged to concede that in true loftiness of character, Man cannot claim to approach even the
    meanest of the Higher Animals.
  21. Darwinian
    an advocate of Darwinism
    For it obliges me to
    renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since
    it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new
    and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.
  22. jackass
    a man who is a stupid incompetent fool
    But so does the
    monkey, as Mr. Darwin pointed out; and so does the Australian bird that is called the laughing jackass.
  23. indecency
    the quality of being morally offensive or shocking
    Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity (these are strictly confined to man); he invented them.
  24. humiliate
    cause to feel shame
    I find the result humiliating to me.
  25. atrocity
    an act of shocking cruelty
    Man is the only animal
    that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and
    goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind.
  26. gory
    covered with blood
    When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was
    but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh not a specimen
    left alive.
  27. enslave
    force into servitude
    And he is the only animal who enslaves.
  28. rabid
    marked by excessive enthusiasm for a cause or idea
    I was aware that many men who have accumulated more millions of money than they can ever use
    have shown a rabid hunger for more, and have not scrupled to cheat the ignorant and the helpless out
    of their poor servings in order to partially appease that appetite.
  29. exterminate
    kill on a large scale
    Man is the only animal
    that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and
    goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind.
  30. in cold blood
    in an insensitive, unemotional manner
    Man is the only animal
    that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and
    goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind.
  31. mutilation
    the act of severely damaging or ruining something
    No; or we should find out that the
    prior was subjected to unprintable mutilations.
  32. unreasoning
    not based on reason or evidence
    Indeed, my
    experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal.
  33. defect
    a failing or deficiency
    It is plain that he is constitutionally incapable of approaching that
    altitude; that he is constitutionally afflicted with a Defect which must make such approach forever
    impossible, for it is manifest that this defect is permanent in him, indestructible, ineradicable.
  34. uniformed
    dressed in a uniform
    He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the
    other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of
    other peoples countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his.
  35. moral
    concerned with principles of right and wrong
    Cats are loose in their morals, but not consciously so.
  36. primal
    having existed from the beginning
    What now, do we find the Primal Curse to have been?
  37. consciously
    with awareness
    Cats are loose in their morals, but not consciously so.
  38. questionable
    subject to doubtful speculation
    It seems questionable taste.
  39. affectionately
    in a warm, kind, and friendly way
    They lived together in
    peace; even affectionately.
  40. Middle Ages
    the period of history between classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance
    Man (when he is a North American Indian) gouges out
    his prisoners’ eyes; when he is King John, with a nephew to render untroublesome, he uses a red-hot
    iron; when he is a religious zealot dealing with heretics in the Middle Ages, he skins his captive alive
    and scatters salt on his back; in the first Richards time he shuts up a multitude of Jew families in a
    tower and sets fire to it; in Columbus’s time he captures a family of Spanish Jews and (but that is not
    printable; in our day in ...
  41. chaos
    formless state of matter before the creation of the cosmos
    When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was
    but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh not a specimen
    left alive.
  42. scruple
    an ethical or moral principle that inhibits action
    I was aware that many men who have accumulated more millions of money than they can ever use
    have shown a rabid hunger for more, and have not scrupled to cheat the ignorant and the helpless out
    of their poor servings in order to partially appease that appetite.
  43. conjecture
    believe especially on uncertain or tentative grounds
    In proceeding toward this unpleasant conclusion I have not guessed or speculated or conjectured, but
    have used what is commonly called the scientific method.
  44. patriot
    one who loves and defends his or her country
    Man is the only Patriot.
  45. Scotch
    whiskey distilled in Scotland
    Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I
    added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen.
  46. rabbit
    any of various burrowing animals of the family Leporidae having long ears and short tails; some domesticated and raised for pets or food
    In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit.
  47. innocence
    the state of being unsullied by sin or moral wrong
    And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far ancestor (some microscopic
    atom wandering at its pleasure between the mighty horizons of a drop of water perchance) insect by
    insect, animal by animal, reptile by reptile, down the long highway of smirch less innocence, till we
    have reached the bottom stage of development (namable as the Human Being).
  48. slaughter
    the killing of animals, as for food
    He is the only animal that for
    sordid wages will march out, as the Hessians did in our Revolution, and as the boyish Prince Napoleon
    did in the Zulu war, and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and
    with whom he has no quarrel.
  49. salvation
    rescuing or protecting someone or something from harm
    Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping.
Created on Fri Dec 17 11:44:08 EST 2010

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.