Vocabulary Quiz: Understanding Difficult Words

Vocabulary Building

• Surname refers to a family name
• Encumbered means hindered or restricted
• Insignificant means trivial or not important
• Profoundly means absolutely or in an unqualified way

Human Movement and Travel

• Emigration refers to leaving one area to settle in another
• Deportees are people who are expelled from a country

Writing and Storytelling

• A treatise is a written discussion of a topic
• Anecdotes are short, humorous stories

Emotions and Feelings

• Melancholy refers to sadness or depression
• Constraint means restrictions or limitations

Health and Wellness

• Provisions refer to necessary supplies, such as food, for sustenance
• Hermetically sealed means sealed against the entry or escape of air
• Pestilential refers to something likely to cause an epidemic disease
• Convalescent means returning to health after an illness

Social and Behavioral Traits

• Notorious means known widely and unfavorably; infamous
• Devoid means completely lacking or empty
• Monocle refers to an eyeglass for one eye
• Lucidity refers to clear understanding

Conflict and Violence

• Blandishments refer to coaxing by flattery
• Convoy refers to a group of vehicles traveling together
• Frenzy refers to violent mental agitation or wild excitement
• Torment means to cause physical pain or mental anguish
• Thrash means to beat or hit

Time and Sequence

• Latter refers to the second of two

Noise and Disorder

• Raucous means boisterous and disorderly
• Sabotage refers to treacherous action to defeat a cause

Emotions and Reactions

• Lamentation refers to grief or mourning
• Void means emptiness
• Emaciated means made thin due to starvation
• Elapsed means passed

Physical and Mental State

• Feebled means lacking strength, weak
• Evacuation refers to withdrawing troops or civilians
• Relentlessly means steadily; persistently
• Deprive means to take something away from
• Bereaved means left alone by death

Emotional States

• Apathy means lack of emotion or feeling
• Livid means ashen; pallid
• Dregs refer to the least desirable portions
• Vitality refers to vigor; energy

Limitations and Boundaries

• Tether refers to the limit of one's resources or endurance
• Contagion refers to harmful influence
• Plaintive refers to expressing sorrow
• Recesses refer to remote, secret places