Vocabulary

VOCABULARYA Sound of ThunderBy: Ray Bradbury

Create a chart and place the vocabulary words below in the category they belong in for you.

Know Well Think I Know Don’t Know

AnnihilateCorrelateExpendableInfinitesimallyMalfunctioning

ParadoxResilientStagnatingSubliminalUndulate

Now for a closer look…

•What are some different ways we could figure out what these words mean without looking them up?

Context Clues• Context Clues are hints that the author gives to help define a difficult or unusual word. The clue may appear within the same sentence as the word to which it refers, or the sentences immediately before and/or after.

• Because most of your vocabulary is gained through reading, it is important that you be able to recognize and take advantage of context clues.

There are four main types of context clues to look for.

•Synonyms•Antonyms•Explanations•Examples

Types of Context Clues: Synonym

•What’s a synonym?• a word with the same meaning, used in the sentence.

•Example:• My opponent's argument is fallacious, misleading, and just plain wrong.

Types of Context Clues: Antonym• What’s an antonym?

• A word or group of words that have the opposite meaning can reveal the meaning of the unknown term.

• Example:• Although some men are loquacious, others hardly talk at all.

Types of Context Clues: Explanation

•The unknown word is explained within the sentence or in a sentence immediately preceding.

•Example:• The patient is so somnolent that she requires medication to help her stay awake for more than a short time.

Types of Context Clues: Example• Specific examples are used to define the term.

• Example:• Celestial bodies, such as the sun, moon, and stars, are governed

by predictable laws.

Roots: What are they?• A root, as its name suggests, is a word or word part from which other words grow, usually through the addition of prefixes and suffixes.

Roots: Example• The root of the word vocabulary, for example, is voc, a Latin root meaning "word" or "name."

• This root also appears in the words advocacy, convocation, evocative, vocal, and vociferous.

Roots: How can they help?• Understanding the meanings of the common word roots can help us deduce the meanings of new words that we encounter.

• But be careful: root words can have more than one meaning and various shades of meaning.

• In addition, words that look similar may derive from different roots. So when you meet up with a new word, be sure to rely on a dictionary to check its definition.

annihilate• Context clues

• “…one particular mouse destroyed…” “With a stamp of your foot you annihilate first one, then a dozen…”

• Roots• Nihil: nothing (Latin)• Ate: to do (Latin)

correlate• Context clues

• “… I note the exact hour, minute, and second. I shoot a paint bomb. It leaves a red patch on his side. We can’t miss it. Then I correlate our arrival in the Past so that we meet the Monster not more than two minutes before he would have died anyway.”

• Roots• Cor: together with (Latin)• Late: to bear or carry (Latin)

expendable• Context Clues

• “And the caveman, please note, is not just any expendable man, no! He is an entire future nation.”

• Roots• Able: suitable skills to accomplish something (Latin)• Pend: to cause to hang down, weighing down (Latin)

infinitesimally• Context Clues

• “Crushing certain plants could add up infinitesimally. A little error here would multiply in sixty million years, all out of proportion.”

• Roots• Fin: end, last; limit, border, boundary (Latin)

malfunctioning• Context Clues

• “…you could hear the sighs and murmurs as the furthest chambers of it died, the organs malfunctioning, liquids running a final instant from pocket to sac to spleen, everything shutting off, closing up forever.”

• Roots• Funct: to perform or execute (Latin)• Mal: bad or badly (Latin)

paradox• Context Clues

• “That’d be a paradox,” said the latter. “Time doesn’t permit that sort of mess – a man meeting himself.”

• Roots• Dox: believe, that which is thought to be true (Greek)• Para: wrong, irregular, abnormal (Greek)

resilient• Context Clues

• “It came on great, oiled, resilient, striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the trees…”

• Roots• Re: again (Latin)• Sili: leap, jump, spring forward (Latin)• Ent: signifies action or being (Latin)

stagnating• Context Clues

• They gazed back at the ruined Monster, the stagnating mound, where already strange reptilian birds and golden insects were busy at the steaming armor.”

• Roots• Sta: to stay (Latin)• Ate: to do (Latin)

subliminal• Context Clues

• “…there was a thing to the air, a chemical taint so subtle, so slight, that only a faint cry of his subliminal senses warned him it was there.”

• Roots• Lim: point at which something begins or changes (Latin)• Sub: below or beneath

(Latin)

undulate• Context Clues

• “In the slime, tiny insects wriggled, so that the entire body seemed to twitch and undulate, even though the monster itself did not move.”

• Roots• Undu: flow, wave, billow (French)• Ate: to do (Latin)

Now try again: place the vocabulary words below in the category they belong in for you.

Know Well Think I Know Don’t Know

AnnihilateCorrelateExpendableInfinitesimallyMalfunctioning

ParadoxResilientStagnatingSubliminalUndulate

Did you have more in the…

•Know Well

•Think I Know

Match up words to Definitions• Below the level of consciousness• Not working or operating properly• To move in waves or in a smooth, wavelike motions.• To destroy completely• A statement or event that sounds impossible but seems to be

true• Not worth keeping; not essential• To figure out or create a relationship between two items or

events• Strong but flexible; able to withstand stress without injury• In amounts so small as to be barely measurable• Becoming foul or rotten from lack of movement

Are there any words still in the…

•I Don’t Know