Unit 4: Selection Vocabulary 4

This list covers Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery, "Eleanor Roosevelt and Marian Anderson," and "My Father Is a Simple Man."
15 words 104 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. timid
    showing fear and lack of courage
    She had come a long way since her days as an obedient society matron, and, before then, a timid child who was “always afraid of something.”
  2. poise
    great coolness and composure under strain
    Photographs had not prepared them for her warmth and dignity and poise.
  3. vibrant
    vigorous and animated
    An unusually tall woman, she moved with the grace of an athlete, and when she walked into a room, the air seemed charged with her vibrancy.
  4. influential
    having or exercising power
    For thirty years from the time she entered the White House until her death in 1962, Eleanor Roosevelt was the most famous and at times the most influential woman in the world.
  5. self-importance
    an exaggerated opinion of your own importance
    And yet those who knew her best were most impressed by her simplicity, by her total lack of self-importance.
  6. contralto
    of or being the lowest female singing voice
    Eleanor Roosevelt first met African American contralto opera singer Marian Anderson in 1935 when the singer was invited to perform at the White House.
  7. venue
    the scene of any event or action
    These benefit concerts were so successful that each year larger and larger venues had to be found.
  8. enlightened
    having knowledge and spiritual insight
    Rather, Mrs. Roosevelt first led by enlightened example.
  9. resignation
    the act of giving up, as a claim or office or possession
    On February 26, 1939, Mrs. Roosevelt submitted her letter of resignation to the DAR president, declaring that the organization had “set an example which seems to me unfortunate” and that the DAR had “an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way” but had “failed to do so.”
  10. watershed
    an event marking an important historical change of course
    The DAR’s refusal to grant Marian Anderson the use of Constitution Hall, Eleanor Roosevelt’s resignation from the DAR in protest, and the resulting concert at the Lincoln Memorial combined into a watershed moment in civil rights history, bringing national attention to the country’s color barrier as no other event had previously done.
  11. pomegranate
    large globular fruit having many seeds with juicy red pulp
    We argue about the price of pomegranates.
  12. scholar
    a learned person
    I convince
    him it is the fruit of scholars.
  13. perpetual
    continuing forever or indefinitely
    He’s sure I’ll be healthy
    so long as I eat more oranges,
    and tells me the orange
    has seeds and so is perpetual
  14. pretense
    a false or unsupportable quality
    ...I can always
    remember that here was a man
    who was a worker and provider,
    who learned the simple facts
    in life and lived by them,
    who held no pretense.
  15. fanfare
    a short lively tune played on brass instruments
    And when he leaves without
    benefit of fanfare or applause
    I shall have learned what little
    there is about greatness.
Created on Thu Apr 22 16:37:16 EDT 2021 (updated Wed Apr 28 14:56:16 EDT 2021)

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