8/7/2014 Bankers Adda: English - Vocabulary Builder

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English - Vocabulary Builder
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One of our readers, Piscine Molitor (Pi) provided us the following post for
"English - Vocabulary Builder". Hope you like the post!!
BENE
BENE is Latin for well. A benefit is a good result or effect. Something
beneficial produces good results or effects. The Latin root can be heard in other
languages as well: Good! or Fine! in Spanish is Bueno!; in French, it's
Bon!; and in Italian, just say Bene!
WORD FORMATION
1. Benediction: A prayer that asks for God's blessing, especially a prayer that
concludes a worship service.
Usage: The moment the bishop had finished his benediction, she squeezed
quickly out of her row and darted out the cathedral's side entrance.
2. Benefactor: Someone who helps another person or group, especially by
giving money.
Usage: An anonymous benefactor had given $15 million to establish an
ecological institute at the university.
3. Beneficiary: A person or organization that benefits or is expected to benefit
from something, especially one that receives money or property when someone
dies.
Usage: Living in a trailer in near-poverty, she received word in the mail that her
father had died, naming her as the sole beneficiary of his life-insurance policy.
4. Benevolence: Kindness, generosity.
Usage: In those financially desperate years, the young couple was saved only
by the benevolence of her elderly great-uncle.
AM
AM comes from the Latin amare, to love. The Roman god of love was known
by two different names, Cupid and Amor. Amiable means friendly or good-
natured, and amigo is Spanish for friend.
WORD FORMATION
1. Amicable: Friendly, peaceful.
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Usage: Their relations with their in-laws were generally amicable, despite some
bickering during the holidays.
2. Enamored: Charmed or fascinated; inflamed with love.
Usage: Rebecca quickly became enamored of the town's rustic surroundings, its
slow pace, and its eccentric characters.
3. Amorous: Having or showing strong feelings of attraction or love.
Usage: It turned out that the amorous Congressman had gotten his girlfriend a
good job and was paying for her apartment.
4. Paramour: A lover, often secret, not allowed by law or custom.
Usage: He had been coming to the house for two years before her brothers
realized that he was actually the paramour of their shy and withdrawn sister.
BELL
BELL comes from the Latin word meaning war. Bellona was the little-known
Roman goddess of war; her husband, Mars, was the god of war.
WORD FORMATION
1. Antebellum: Existing before a war, especially before the American Civil War
(186165).
Usage: When World War I was over, the French nobility found it impossible to
return to their extravagant antebellum way of life.
2. Bellicose: Warlike, aggressive, quarrelsome.
Usage: The more bellicose party always got elected whenever there was tension
along the border and the public believed that military action would lead to
security.
3. Belligerence: Aggressiveness, combativeness.
Usage: The belligerence in Turner's voice told them that the warning was a
serious threat.
4. Rebellion: Open defiance and opposition, sometimes armed, to a person or
thing in authority.
Usage: A student rebellion that afternoon in Room 13 resulted in the new
substitute teacher racing out of the building in tears.
PAC
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PAC is related to the Latin words for agree and peace. The Pacific Ocean
that is, the Peaceful Oceanwas named by Ferdinand Magellan because it
seemed so calm after he had sailed through the storms near Cape Horn.
(Magellan obviously had never witnessed a Pacific typhoon.)
WORD FORMATION
1. Pacify: (1) To soothe anger or agitation. (2) To subdue by armed action.
Usage: It took the police hours to pacify the angry demonstrators.
2. Pacifist: A person opposed to war or violence, especially someone who
refuses to bear arms or to fight, on moral or religious grounds.
Usage: Her grandfather had fought in the Marines in World War II, but in his
later years he had become almost a pacifist, opposing every war for one reason
or another.
3. Pact: An agreement between two or more people or groups; a treaty or formal
agreement between nations to deal with a problem or to resolve a dispute.
Usage: The girls made a pact never to reveal what had happened on that
terrifying night in the abandoned house.
4. Pace: Contrary to the opinion of.
Usage: She had only three husbands, pace some Hollywood historians who
claim she had as many as six.
CRIM
CRIM comes from the Latin words for fault or crime or accusation. It's
obvious where the root shows up most commonly in English. A crime is an act
forbidden by the government, which the government itself will punish you for,
and for which you may be branded a criminal. A crime is usually more serious
than a tort, a civil wrong for which the wronged person must himself sue if he
wants to get repaid in some way.
WORD FORMATION
1. Criminology: The study of crime, criminals, law enforcement, and punishment.
Usage: His growing interest in criminology led him to become a probation officer.
2. Decriminalize: To remove or reduce the criminal status of.
Usage: An angry debate over decriminalizing doctor-assisted suicide raged all
day in the statehouse.
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3. Incriminate: To show evidence of involvement in a crime or a fault.
Usage: The muddy tracks leading to and from the cookie jar were enough to
incriminate them.
4. Recrimination: (1) An accusation in answer to an accusation made against
oneself. (2) The making of such an accusation.
Usage: Their failure to find help led to endless and pointless recriminations over
responsibility for the accident.
PROB
PROB comes from the Latin words for prove or proof and honesty or
integrity. A probe, whether it's a little object for testing electrical circuits or a
spacecraft headed for Mars, is basically something that's looking for evidence or
proof. And probable originally described something that wasn't certain but might
be provable.
WORD FORMATION
1. Approbation: A formal or official act of approving; praise, usually given with
pleasure or enthusiasm.
Usage: The senate signaled its approbation of the new plan by voting for it
unanimously.
2. Probate: The process of proving in court that the will of someone who has
died is valid, and of administering the estate of a dead person.
Usage: When her father died, she thought she would be able to avoid probate,
but she wasn't that lucky.
3. Probity: Absolute honesty and uprightness.
Usage: Her unquestioned probity helped win her the respect of her fellow
judges.
4. Reprobate: A person of thoroughly bad character.
Usage: His wife finally left him, claiming he was a reprobate who would
disappear for weeks at a time, gambling and drinking away all his money.
GRAV
GRAV comes from the Latin word meaning heavy, weighty, serious. Gravity is,
of course, what makes things heavy, and without it there wouldn't be any life on
earth, since nothing would stay on earth at all. This doesn't stop us from yelling
in outrage when the familiar laws of gravity cause something to drop to the floor
and break.
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WORD FORMATION
1. Grave: (1) Requiring serious thought or concern. (2) Serious and formal in
appearance or manner.
Usage: We realized that the situation was grave and that the slightest incident
could spark all-out war.
2. Gravitas: Great or very dignified seriousness.
Usage: The head of the committee never failed to carry herself with the gravitas
she felt was appropriate to her office.
3. Gravitate: To move or be drawn toward something, especially by natural
tendency or as if by an invisible force.
Usage: On hot evenings, the town's social life gravitated toward the lakefront,
where you could stroll the long piers eating ice cream or dance at the old Casino.
4. Aggravate: (1) To make (an injury, problem, etc.) more serious or severe. (2)
To annoy or bother.
Usage: She went back to the soccer team before the knee was completely healed,
which naturally aggravated the injury.
LEV
LEV comes from the Latin adjective levis, meaning light, and the verb levare,
meaning to raise or lighten. So a lever is a bar used to lift something, by means
of leverage. And levitation is the magician's trick in which a body seems to rise
into the air by itself.
WORD FORMATION
1. Alleviate: To lighten, lessen, or relieve, especially physical or mental
suffering.
Usage: Cold compresses alleviated the pain of the physical injury, but only time
could alleviate the effect of the insult.
2. Elevation: (1) The height of a place. (2) The act or result of lifting or raising
someone or something.
Usage: Her doctor is concerned about the elevation of her blood pressure since
her last visit.
3. Cantilever: A long piece of wood, metal, etc., that sticks out from a wall to
support something above it.
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Usage: The house's deck, supported by cantilevers, jutted out dramatically over
the rocky slope, and looking over the edge made him dizzy.
4. Levity: Lack of appropriate seriousness.
Usage:The Puritan elders tried to ban levity of all sorts from the community's
meetings, but found it increasingly difficult to control the younger generation.