Improving Your Vocabulary

The larger vocabulary you have, the easier it is to read, write, and speak well. Although you should be working to improve your vocabulary every time you read or hear a new word, you will focus this week on it for an assignment with the article, British Officer Knighted for Pandemic Fundraising” by Phil Davison.

Using Context Clues

When you come to a word that you do not know, the first step is to make an educated guess about its definition based on the rest of the words in the sentence or paragraph.

1. Finish reading the sentence with the unknown word.
2. Think about when you might have heard or read the word in the past.
3. Re-read the whole paragraph.
4. Look for context clues in the sentence and paragraph.
5. IDEAS – Kinds of context clues:
   1. Inference: the writer give details in the sentence from which the reader can infer the meaning.
      1. “His corps was sent to India, still a British colony at the time – a grueling, six-week sea voyage – where he was tasked with setting up and heading a training program for British and Indian army motorcycle units, first in Bombay (now Mumbai) and later, after a three-week road odyssey during the monsoon season, in Calcutta (now Kolkata).”  Putting the details in this sentence together, mainly about the length and locations of his voyages and training, the reader can infer that grueling means very difficult.
   2. Definition:
      1. Alexa felt enervated after the walk around her neighborhood; in fact, she felt so weakened and lacking energy that she went home and took a nap. Weakened and lacking energy provide a definition for enervated.
   3. Example: the writer provides an instance or example of the unknown word.
      1. “A motorcycle aficionado, he got his first bike when he was 12 – usually carrying his luck number, 23 – went on to compete in local road races against adults, winning several trophies on his British-built Scott Flying Squirrel model.” The examples in this sentence  of Moore’s success with motorcycles indicate that aficionado has something to do with a person who is fan of, good at, or enthusiastic about something.
   4. Antonym: the writer provides a word that means the opposite of the unknown word.
      1. Alex felt enervated after the walk around the neighborhood, which made him think he might be ill because those walks had always left him feeling invigorated. The word invigorated is an antonym for enervated; these two words have opposite meanings.
   5. Synonym: the writer provides a word that means the same as the unknown word.
      1. “In early April last year, few outside his friends and family had heard the name of Capt. Tom Moore, a former British army officer and WWII veteran approaching his 100th birthday. By the end of that month, the frail centenarian was described as . . .” The author provides 100th birthday as a synonym for centenarian.

Video: Using Context Clues to Figure Out New Words