SKIP TO CONTENT

Unit 3: Selection Vocabulary 1

This list covers "Abuela Invents the Zero" and "Home."
10 words 112 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Full list of words from this list:

  1. compromise
    an accommodation in which both sides make concessions
    Needless to say, we come to a compromise very quickly.
  2. obligation
    the state of being bound to do or pay something
    It’s a holy day of obligation and everyone I ever met is there.
  3. purgatory
    a temporary state of the dead in Roman Catholic theology
    If I were a good Catholic, I’m sure I’d get some purgatory time taken off for my sacrifice.
  4. periscope
    an instrument providing a view of an obstructed field
    But the next time I look up, I see a black coat dragging around and around the church, stopping here and there so a little gray head can peek out like a periscope on a submarine.
  5. senile
    mentally or physically infirm with age
    I just know that on Monday my friends, and my enemies, in the barrio will have a lot of senile -grandmother jokes to tell in front of me.
  6. scruple
    hesitate on moral grounds
    Even very intelligent people did not scruple to wage war on a vice which they did not understand.
  7. inured
    made tough by habitual exposure
    The living organism has the power of rapidly adapting itself, growing accustomed and inured to any atmosphere whatever, otherwise man would be bound to feel at every moment what an irrational basis there often is underlying his rational activity, and how little of established truth and certainty there is even in work so responsible and so terrible in its effects as that of the teacher, of the lawyer, of the writer.
  8. discursive
    tending to cover a wide range of subjects
    And such light and discursive thoughts as visit the brain only when it is weary and resting began straying through Yevgeny Petrovitch’s head; there is no telling whence and why they come, they do not remain long in the mind, but seem to glide over its surface without sinking deeply into it.
  9. consumption
    a lung disease involving progressive wasting of the body
    Your chest is weak, you haven’t reached your full strength yet, and smoking leads to consumption and other illness in weak people. Uncle Ignat died of consumption, you know.
  10. plucky
    showing courage
    The cowardly and faint-hearted did actually give up smoking, any who were somewhat more plucky and intelligent, after the thrashing took to carrying tobacco in the legs of their boots, and smoking in the barn.
Created on Mon Apr 12 09:59:34 EDT 2021 (updated Wed Apr 14 10:51:29 EDT 2021)

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.