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Unit 6: Selection Vocabulary 2

This list covers The Best We Could Do, "Worship the Spirit of Criticism," and "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings."
15 words 157 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. chasm
    a deep opening in the earth's surface
    But I fear that around them, I will always be a child...and they a symbol to me—two sides of a chasm, full of meaning and resentment.
  2. resentment
    a feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will
    But I fear that around them, I will always be a child...and they a symbol to me—two sides of a chasm, full of meaning and resentment.
  3. proximity
    the property of being close together
    ... proximity and closeness are not the same.
  4. origin
    a first part or stage of subsequent events
    I keep looking toward the past...tracing our journey in reverse...over the ocean through the war seeking an origin story that will set everything right.
  5. collaborator
    an associate in an activity or endeavor or sphere of common interest
    Keep your early enthusiasm, dear collaborators, but let it ever be regulated by rigorous examinations and tests.
  6. stimulant
    any stimulating information or event; acts to arouse action
    Worship the spirit of criticism. If reduced to itself, it is not an awakener of ideas or a stimulant to great things, but, without it, everything is fallible; it always has the last word.
  7. fallible
    likely to fail or make errors
    Worship the spirit of criticism. If reduced to itself, it is not an awakener of ideas or a stimulant to great things, but, without it, everything is fallible; it always has the last word.
  8. scourge
    something causing misery or death
    Two contrary laws seem to be wrestling with each other nowadays; the one, a law of blood and death, ever imagining new means of destruction and forcing nations to be constantly ready for the battlefield—the other, a law of peace, work and health, ever evolving new means of delivering man from the scourges which beset him.
  9. ambition
    a strong drive for success
    The one seeks violent conquests; the other, the relief of humanity. The latter places one human life above any victory; while the former would sacrifice hundreds and thousands of lives to the ambition of one.
  10. ultimately
    as the end result of a succession or process
    The law of which we are the instruments seeks, even in the midst of carnage, to cure the sanguinary ills of the law of war; the treatment inspired by our sanguinary methods may preserve thousands of soldiers. Which of those two laws will ultimately prevail, God alone knows.
  11. magnanimous
    noble and generous in spirit
    Then they felt magnanimous and decided to put the angel on a raft with fresh water and provisions for three days and leave him to his fate on the high seas.
  12. impertinence
    the trait of being rude and inclined to take liberties
    Alien to the impertinences of the world, he only lifted his antiquarian eyes and murmured something in his dialect when Father Gonzaga went into the chicken coop and said good morning to him in Latin.
  13. prudence
    knowing how to avoid embarrassment or distress
    His prudence fell on sterile hearts.
  14. repose
    freedom from activity
    Although many thought that his reaction had not been one of rage but of pain, from then on they were careful not to annoy him, because the majority understood that his passivity was not that of a hero taking his ease but that of a cataclysm in repose.
  15. delirious
    experiencing hallucinations
    Pelayo threw a blanket over him and extended him the charity of letting him sleep in the shed, and only then did they notice that he had a temperature at night, and was delirious with the tongue twisters of an old Norwegian.
Created on December 3, 2020 (updated December 4, 2020)

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