Week Ten Vocabulary - Spring

assimilate (v) to incorporate as one’s own

avid (adj) ardent; eager; enthusiastic

pretentious (adj) showy; ostentatious – a mere display or show

prevalent (adj) widespread; generally occurring; accepted

prodigious (adj) enormous

profane (adj) blasphemous; irreverent; vulgar

proficient (adj) highly skilled; expert

profligate (adj) utterly immoral; recklessly extravagant

superfluous (adj) excessive; surplus

vulnerable (adj) capable of being physically or emotionally hurt

*Page down for weekly homework exercise

Week Ten Vocabulary Exercise – Springassimilate avid pretentious prevalent prodigious

profane proficient profligate superfluous vulnerable

Write the word that best serves as a synonym:

immense______________________________ avaricious __________________________

accomplished __________________________ histrionic ___________________________

popular _______________________________ prodigal ____________________________

absorb ________________________________ weak ______________________________

impious _______________________________ expendable _________________________

Write the word that best serves as an antonym:

respectable _____________________________ reluctant ____________________________

respectable _____________________________ vitally important ______________________

reject _________________________________ minimal ____________________________

incapable ______________________________ modest _____________________________

rare __________________________________ indestructible ________________________

Complete the sentences from the word bank:

1. Henry David Thoreau would probably consider a stay at the Ritz to be _________________.

2. He did not believe in __________________ indulgence in luxury.

3. Thoreau would also frown upon the practice of _________________ing others’ beliefs for the

sake of “getting along.”

4. He taught that just because an attitude was _______________, it was not necessarily right.

5. Some people would consider his working in the garden on Sunday to be _______________.

6. He, however, would probably have called such activity a ________________ opportunity to

commune with nature.

7. Thoreau was highly __________________ at argument.

8. Some of his neighbors thought his _____________ defense of non-conformity was silly.

9. They might even have called it __________________.

10. I wonder if, deep down inside, Thoreau ever felt __________________.