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Unit 5: Vocabulary from Readings 1

This list covers Song ("Why so pale and wan"), "To Althea, from Prison," "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars," "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," "To His Coy Mistress," "How soon hath Time," and "When I consider how my light is spent."
13 words 9 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. wan
    pale, as of a person's complexion
    Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
  2. prevail
    be larger in number, quantity, power, status or importance
    Will, when looking well can’t move her,
    Looking ill prevail?
  3. mute
    unable to speak
    Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
  4. fetter
    restrain with shackles
    When I lie tangled in her hair
    And fettered to her eye,
    The gods that wanton in the air
    Know no such liberty.
  5. steep
    let sit in a liquid to extract a flavor or to cleanse
    When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
    When healths and draughts go free,
    Fishes that tipple in the deep
    Know no such liberty.
  6. hermitage
    the abode of a recluse
    Stone walls do not a prison make,
    Nor iron bars a cage;
    Minds innocent and quiet take
    That for an hermitage.
  7. chaste
    morally pure
    Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,
    That from the nunnery
    Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
    To war and arms I fly.
  8. tarry
    stay longer than you should
    Then be not coy, but use your time,
    And, while ye may, go marry;
    For, having lost but once your prime,
    You may forever tarry.
  9. coy
    showing marked and often playful evasiveness or reluctance
    Had we but world enough, and time,
    This coyness, lady, were no crime.
  10. languish
    lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief
    Now let us sport us while we may,
    And now, like amorous birds of prey,
    Rather at once our time devour
    Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
  11. strife
    bitter conflict; heated or violent dissension
    Let us roll all our strength and all
    Our sweetness up into one ball,
    And tear our pleasures with rough strife
    Through the iron gates of life
  12. semblance
    the outward or apparent appearance or form of something
    Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
    That I to manhood am arriv’d so near;
    And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
    That some more timely-happy spirits endu’th.
  13. chide
    scold or reprimand severely or angrily
    And that one talent which is death to hide,
    Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
    To serve therewith my Maker, and present
    My true account, lest he returning chide;
    “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
Created on Tue Mar 09 09:49:19 EST 2021 (updated Tue Mar 16 14:10:04 EDT 2021)

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