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Unit 3: Vocabulary from Readings 1

This list covers "Mrs. Flowers," Ishi in Two Worlds, and "Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time."
14 words 79 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. taut
    subjected to great tension; stretched tight
    She was thin without the taut look of wiry people, and her printed voile dresses and flowered hats were as right for her as denim overalls for a farmer.
  2. benign
    kind in disposition or manner
    When she chose to smile on me, I always wanted to thank her. The action was so graceful and inclusively benign.
  3. persistent
    never-ceasing
    As I left I would hear the beginning of an intimate conversation. Momma persistently using the wrong verb, or none at all.
  4. competent
    properly or sufficiently qualified, capable, or efficient
    Since everyone we knew (except Mrs. Flowers, of course) could sew competently, praise was rarely handed out for the commonly practiced craft.
  5. infuse
    fill, as with a certain quality
    “Your grandmother says you read a lot. Every chance you get. That’s good, but not good enough. Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning.”
  6. emaciate
    grow weak and thin or waste away physically
    The wild man was emaciated to starvation, his hair was burned off close to his head, he was naked except for a ragged scrap of ancient covered-wagon canvas which he wore around his shoulders like a poncho.
  7. unwonted
    out of the ordinary
    Until Sheriff Webber took the unwonted measure of keeping them out by force people filled the jail to gaze through the bars of his cell at the captive.
  8. groundless
    without a basis in reason or fact
    Or he may have felt that it was unkind to recall his suspicions which proved in the event groundless, for Ishi expected in those first days to be put to death.
  9. adjacent
    having a common boundary or edge
    The guess was based on field work with Indians all up and down California; they knew that Oroville was adjacent to country which formerly belonged to the Yana Indians; presumably the strange Indian would be a Yana.
  10. refuge
    a shelter from danger or hardship
    But increasingly, a wall separates each of us from the world outside, and from others who have taken refuge in their own private sanctuaries.
  11. implication
    a meaning that is not expressly stated but can be inferred
    It’s hard to comprehend the moral implications of a world in which Nike pays Michael Jordan millions to appear in its ads while workers at its foreign shoe factories toil away for pennies a day.
  12. degradation
    a change to a lower state
    Pete Knutson is one of my oldest friends. During 25 years as a commercial fisherman in Washington and Alaska, he has been forced to respond to the steady degradation of salmon spawning grounds.
  13. magnitude
    relative importance
    The magnitude of the issues at hand has led too many of us to conclude that social involvement isn’t worth the cost.
  14. proliferation
    a rapid increase in number
    Proliferation of information makes it even more likely that we’ll use the perfect standard to justify detachment rather than seek the knowledge we need to get involved.
Created on Mon Feb 22 10:32:57 EST 2021 (updated Thu Feb 25 14:21:27 EST 2021)

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