Category Archives: Glossary Write-up

Glossary Write Up

Genial
Temerity
Tumultuous
Espy
Perverse
Impertinence
Rebuked
Reverie
Gaiety
Deft
Sedition
Feeble
Commodity
Ravenous
Regalia

Writing up the glossary and finding words I don’t know every week really helped me better understand the short stories. I normally skim over the words I do not know and use context clues to figure out the overall meaning of the paragraph rather than the specific meaning of the sentence. This helps me to better understand the sentence, hence helping me understand the overall story a little bit better. The glossary of the entire class brings into context all the stories we have read and all the different themes we have seen.

Glossary Words

1) Perfunctory:

1. performed merely as a routine duty; hasty and superficial.

2. lacking interest, care, or enthusiasm; indifferent or apathetic

“Beloved by Toni Morrison”

 “Together they waged a perfunctory battle against the outrageous behavior of that place; against turned-over slop jars, smacks on the behind, and gusts of sour air.” (page 1)


2) Monotonously:

adjective

1. lacking in variety; tediously unvarying.

2. characterizing a sound continuing on one note.

3. having very little inflection; limited to a narrow pitch range.

The Shawl by Louise Erdrich

 She became a gray sky, stared monotonously at the walls, sometimes wept into her hands for hours at a time.


3) Lamenting:

verb

1. to feel or express sorrow or regret for.

2. to mourn for or over.

 The lamenting voices strummed so convincingly, so passionately, it was impossible to suspect them of being phantoms. (page 4 paragraph 2)


4) Bier:

noun

  1. 1. a table or platform on which a coffin or dead body is placed at a funeral

A Rose for Emily

“they held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men…” (Part 5 Paragraph 2)


5) Dray:

 1. a low, strong cart without fixed sides, for carrying heavy loads.

2. a sledge or sled.

3. any vehicle, as a truck, used to haul goods, especially one used to carry heavy loads.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

“He had already seen his brother wave goodbye from the back of a dray, fried chicken in his pocket, tears in his eyes. ” (pg 258)


6) Muslin:

1. A cotton fabric made in various degrees of fineness and often printed,woven, or embroidered in patterns, especially a cotton fabric of plain weave, used for sheets and for a variety of other purposes.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

“I set you down on the little table and figured if I got a piece of muslin the bugs and things wouldn’t get to you.”(Pg 109)


7) Quizzical:

1. odd, queer, or comical.

“I reached for the closest rag, and picked up this piece of blanket that my father always kept with him for some reason. And as I picked it up and wiped the blood off his face, I said to him, Your nose is crooked again. He looked at me, steady and quizzical, as though he had never had a drink in his life, and I wiped his face again with that frayed piece of blanket.”

The Shawl BY LOUISE ERDRICH


8) Spry:

1. full of energy, energetic, graceful

“now she is spry, executing, even extending the assignments Sethe leaves for them” (Beloved” by: Toni Morrison P. 142)


9) Impertinence:

noun

1.unmannerly intrusion or presumption; insolence.

2.impertinent quality or action.

3.something impertinent, as an act or statement.

4.an impertinent person.

5.irrelevance, inappropriateness, or absurdity.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere.”


10) Cupola:

noun

1. A rounded roof or part of a roof
2. A small structure that is built on top of a roof.

“A Roe for Emily”

“It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies…”


11) Spigot:

noun

1. A device that controls the flow of liquid from a large container.
2. An outdoor faucet.

“Beloved by Toni Morrison”

After the shed, I stopped. Now, in the morning, when I light the fire I mean to look out the window to see what the sun is doing to the day. Does it hit the pump handle first of the spigot?


12) Serenading:

noun

1. A love song that is sung or played outdoors at night for a woman.
2. A complimentary vocal of instrumental performance.
3. An instrumental composition in several movements, written for a small ensemble, and midway between the suite and the symphony in style.

“What You Pawn I Will Redeem”

“As Irene and I sat at the table and laughed and drank more whiskey, Honey Boy danced a slow circle around us and sang along with Willie. Are you serenading me? I asked him.”


13) Mirth:

Noun

  1. Amusement, especially as expressed in laughter.

“Thus far, the elder traveller had listened with due gravity, but now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently, that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy.”

“Young Goodman Brown”


14) Jutting:

verb

1. to extend beyond the main body or line.
“She was moody and sullen one moment, her lower lip jutting and her eyes flashing, filled with storms. The next, she would shake her hair over her face and blow it straight out in front of her to make her children scream with laughter.”
The Shawl by Louise Erdrich

15) Cistern

noun
1.a reservoir, tank, or container for storing or holding water orother liquid.
2.Anatomy. a reservoir or receptacle of some natural fluid of thebody.
“Once Stamp Paid brought you a coat, got the message to you, saved your life, of fixed the cistern he took the liberty of walking in your door as though if were his own”
Beloved by Toni Morrison

By doing these glossary assignments I believe that my vocabulary has increased significantly.  If you look up every word you come across that you don’t understand, you’re vocabulary will increase. It will probably increase much more quickly than if you just try to understand the meaning of the word from the context. You’re also much more likely to understand precisely what the writer meant to say.

Glossary words

  1. Tableau
  2. Boughs
  3. pious
  4. Drabness
  5. Leanto
  6. Bonnet
  7. perspiration
  8. Sopping
  9. Prodding
  10. Febrile
  11. monotonously 
  12. quizzical

This glossary assignment, was surprising because i did not expect to find so many words that i did not know. For this assignment i did slack off a bit by not explaining the meaning of the word in the context it is used in. I have not really used any of the words so far in normal usage but there may be a time i could uses these words. This assignment was a good one because it helps with the reading process, since it lets you help understand what is happening in the story instead of not know what is being said cause of a word. This assignment would help me greatly later on as i get to read more and i can be more aware of how important not knowing what a word means to the story.

“Words For a Better Understanding”

1: Spry

2: Indolent

3: Genial

4: Repression

5: Regalia

6: Teetering

7: Monotonously

8: Rivulets

9: Noisome

10: Bulbous

11: Marvel

12: Virulent

13: Acquiescene

14: Unshriven

15: Shawl

I eventually liked the idea of glossary posts. It made me stop look up words so that i can better understand what i was reading. Before this class i never wrote on books or short readings, i felt as if i was wasting someone else’s paper. Not anymore i realized highlighting or underlining made all the difference, because when your reflecting or trying to look for a specific passage it was easier to find. Many of my glossary posts if not all i will remember for years to come since i looked them up made up sentences and translated in ways i can not forget.

 

Glossary Write-Up

  1. Bier
  2. Firmament
  3. Fatuity
  4. Florid
  5. Idyllic
  6. Cinder
  7. Dray
  8. Muslin
  9. Aleut
  10. Capricious
  11. Sassafras
  12. Monotonously
  13. Pleating
  14. Austere
  15. Arbor

Reflection

I really liked the idea or looking up words as they are needed. This is a great way of learning new vocabulary. You get an example of how the word used, and rewriting them helps commit them to memory.  I’ve been doing this with my own reading, and learned many new words this way. I find myself using these words in everyday conversations. I also try and spend some time trying figure out what the word means from context.

 

.

15 Words

1. Jutting

2. Monotonously

3. Reins

4. Ravenous

5. Febrile

6. Larynx

7. Posse

8. Flaws

9. Wharf

10. Evangelists

11. Vexed

12. Cistern

13. Muslin

14. Impertinence

15. Dainty

 

Throughout all the readings we had in class some of these words I didn’t really know while reading. While looking them up, I then understood what it meant and made the sentence much more clearer. For example while reading “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, while reading the book it was already a pain trying to understand what was going, but with words I don’t know made it even worse. After looking some of the words, it helped me understand the book a little better. Sometimes I even come across these words while reading articles online. The glossary helped my range of vocabulary and made understanding many things much more easier. I can say that I can always do this while I’m reading anything. I can look up the word and find out whats the definition and make a list for later preferences. This will help me in other classes when I won’t understand a word, I would remember what I have learned in this class and use it to my advantage.

15 WORDS, 1 SEMESTER

1. Cupola
2. Tumultuously
3. Powwow
4. Riotus 
5. Querulous
6. Calceolaria
7. Impertinence
8. Rendezvous
9. Pilfer
10. Camphor
11. Spigot
12. Shawl
13. Serenading
14. Savage
15. Regalia

When reading, whether it is a newspaper, a book, manga, etc, I tend to come across words I don’t really know about. I think what does this and that mean? When or how should I use this word in real life? Later on however, I tend to ignore it and make my own definition based on context clues but I guess based on the SATs from the past 2 years, I shouldn’t have done that. Now that I’m in college, I should be using more complex words in my work. This now brings me up to this assignment. This glossary assignment did in fact help me improve my vocabulary. Not only that, I can improve it further just by looking back at the other classmate’s words. By doing this, I also did something that I haven’t done before and that is to stop reading and look up the definition online. By doing this, I’m now guaranteed to know what the word I’m looking at means. Not only am I implementing this strategy in this class, I’m also using this as I read other writings. For example, if I’m reading something online and I see a complicated word, I would stop reading and look it up online. It may seem like a hassle however it actually helps. To sum things up, this Glossary project helped me a lot when it came to vocabulary and it helped me improve my reading skills. The strategies I use will definitely be used in the future.

 

Glossary

  1. Asocial
  2. Persecution 
  3. Mirth
  4. Innumerable
  5. Catechism
  6. Firmament
  7. Lamentations
  8. Puritan
  9. Anathema
  10. Petticoat 
  11. Bustle
  12. Shawl
  13. Calligraphy 
  14. Teeming
  15. Noblesse Oblige 
  16. Sibilant

I found this exercise helpful because its a way to strengthen my vocabulary. The majority of these words i looked up, i didn’t know the meaning to them.  The ones i did, i looked up anyways to know the different meanings to that word.  I also posted them cause i hoped it would help me use these words more. I try hard on improving my vocabulary so i hope this exercise helped. Even after this course i’m going to continue this exercise.

Glossary Write-Up

1. Derision
2.Bedstead
3.Bemused
4.Testily
5.Chaste
6.Sulk
7.Spry
8.Kinsfolk
9.Episcopal
10.Inextricable
11.Snuffling
12.Behest
13.Revulsion
14.Perversity
15.Timorous
The words I have learned throughout this semester build my vocabulary and most of all provide a better understanding of the material being read. Defining words and replacing meaning is essential for breaking down any complex or hard to read passage. So I want to commend professor Rosen for that. Thank You.

Glossary – Anthology

 

Monotonously

Elfin

Shoat

Pilfer

Indolent

Kindlin

Breakneck

Noisome

Soughing

Verily

Eaves

Sibilant

Tubercular

Capricious

Furtive

I will be honest and say that I thought that this assignment would be really helpful in expanding my vocabulary, but most of the words that I found that I didn’t understand I don’t think that I would really get to apply on a day to day basis. I actually put a couple of words that I already knew the meaning to because I thought that maybe if I listed them, that it would encourage me to use them more often (Capricious and monotonously). I do agree that taking time to look up words that one doesn’t understand can help in making better sense of the text.

I also find the importance of having an extensive vocabulary and it’s something that I try to work on myself.

This type of exercise can definitely help with that. I subscribe to a.word.a day.com to help with that, it’s a great tool to use and the set up is such like the assignment we had to do on a weekly basis. It explains the word and puts it into a sentence so that way you can see in which context it was used.

Overall, I found this to be helpful and informative.