Wordly Wise Lesson 12

Distraught

Adjective. Deeply disturbed; very troubled. The children were distraught when their pet rabbit died.

Enlightened

Adjective. Free from ignorance or prejudice. This day care center takes an enlightened approach to early childhood education.

Sacred

Adjective. Holy; having to do with religion. The Western Wall in Jerusalem is sacred to the Jewish people.

Capricious

Adjective. Likely to change quickly for no obvious reason. Robert Frost wrote an amusing poem about the capricious New England weather.

Devout

Adjective. Sincere. I am a devout believer in the healing power of the mind.

Devout

Adjective. Very religious. Devout Muslims try to make at least one visit to the holy city of Mecca.

Sacred

Adjective. Worthy of being given the greatest honor or respect. The engaged couple asserted that they consider marriage vows to be sacred.

Abyss

Noun. A deep opening in the earth. We were afraid to look down as we crossed the abyss on a swaying rope bridge.

Attribute

Noun. A quality or feature associated with a person or thing. Wisdom is often considered an attribute of old age.

Compromise

Noun. A settlement reached by each side giving up something. The compromise required me to work late of Fridays so that I could have Saturdays off.

Incline

Noun. A sloping surface. The summer house lay at the top of a grassy incline.

Necessity

Noun. Anything that cannot be done without or that is greatly needed. Insect repellent is a necessity when camping.

Abyss

Noun. Anything too deep to measure. The Hubble space technology was built to probe the abyss of space.

Arbitration

Noun. The act of arbitrating. By agreeing to arbitration, management and workers hope to avoid a strike.

Intervention

Noun. The act or instance of intervening. The talk show host's timely intervention kept the discussion from becoming too heated.

Necessity

Noun. The condition of being needed. I don't see the necessity for taking separate cars.

Orbit

Noun. The path taken by an object around a heavenly body such as a star, planet, or moon. The moon's orbit around the earth takes just over 27 days.

Abode

Noun. The place where one lives; home. My summer abode was a small cabin that I shared with two other camp counselors.

Incline

Verb. To be likely to; to have a fondness for. I am inclined to talk too much.

Incline

Verb. To bend or bow (the head). I inclined by head so that the barber could trim the back of my neck.

Abduct

Verb. To carry away by force; to kidnap. Bandits stopped the jeep and abducted the driver.

Intervene

Verb. To enter in order to help or settle something. The playground supervisor intervened when the children couldn't agree about whose turn it was.

Compromise

Verb. To expose to the possibility of criticism or shame. The manager will not compromise the restaurant's reputation by tolerating poor service to diners.

Enlighten

Verb. To inform or instruct; to give knowledge or truth to. Since we didn't know the store's policy for returning merchandise; we asked customer service to enlighten us.

Orbit

Verb. To put into or be in orbit. In 1961, the Russian Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to orbit the earth.

Arbitrate

Verb. To settle a disagreement between two parties by having a third party make a decision after hearing both sides. The United Nations will arbitrate the border dispute between the two countries.

Compromise

Verb. To settle a disagreement by having each side give up something. We compromised by splitting the difference between the $2000 asking price of the car and the $1500 offer I made for it.

Incline

Verb. To slope or lean. Instead of being vertical, the post inclines slightly to the left.

Attribute

Verb. To think of as coming from or belonging to a particular person or thing. The painting was wrongly attributed to Mary Cassatt, America's foremost Impressionist artist.