Compliance (n) – The act of conforming of yielding; Obedience
Synonyms: Agreement, Consent, Submission
Antonyms: Defiance, Refusal
You May Remember: The prefix COM- from unit 5 means “with” so someone compliant “folds with” the command, or more simply, doesn’t offer resistance.
SAMPLE SENTENCE: The restaurant was fined because it was not in compliance with the state’s health regulation laws.
Explicit (adj) – Fully explained or revealed
Synonyms: Clear-cut, Precise, Definitive
Antonyms: Implicit, Subtle, Ambiguous
Helpful Hints: Music sometimes comes with a warning of explicit lyrics – the song doesn’t hint at something sexual or violent or vulgar, but instead lays it out there for everyone to hear
You May Remember: The prefix EX- (from unit 5) means OUT OF, so when you see something explicit, it is like a present that has been taken out of the folds of the wrapping paper – it has been fully revealed.
SAMPLE SENTENCE: Knowing that his son was incredibly poor with directions, Dwayne wrote out explicit driving instructions, including little maps and approximate mileages.
Diagnosis (n) – A determining of the cause of a problem, most often used regarding medical problems
Synonyms: Interpretation
Helpful Hints: This word is used on almost every episode of every medical drama on television. “What’s the diagnosis?”
SAMPLE SENTENCE: The family was saddened by the doctor’s grim diagnosis, but they knew they could get through the next few months together.
Dialogue (n) – Conversation between two people
You May Remember: Although we had a prior “DI-” prefix meaning “TWO” (like in dissect) and in our next unit, we will see that LOGUE means “speak” it would make sense to think that a “DIA-LOGUE” is a two-person speech. In fact, the DIA- prefix here is the one meaning “Across” – The root of this word comes from the idea of “talking across” like people seated at a table, as a synonym for “conversation”
SAMPLE SENTENCE: Some novels rely almost entirely on dialogue, while in others, the characters rarely speak at all.
Heterodox (adj) – Not in accordance with established beliefs; Radical
Synonyms: Heretical
Antonyms: Compliant, Traditional, Orthodox
SAMPLE SENTENCE: While some were upset with the rabbi’s heterodox beliefs, others found it encouraging that he was so willing to go against tradition.
Paradox (n) – A self-contradictory statement that cannot be satisfactorily explained
Synonyms: Riddle, Puzzle, Enigma
Helpful Hints: “Everything that I say is a lie” is a famous paradox – if the statement is a lie, then the sentence is no longer accurate. If the statement is true, then the sentence is equally inaccurate.
SAMPLE SENTENCE: It wasn’t just a paradox when Bill said, “Wherever I am, I am never there.” His friends had noticed how distracted he had become recently.
Morbidity (n) – An unhealthy mental state; Unwholesomely gloomy
Synonyms: Angst, Gloominess, Dejection
Antonyms: Happiness, Joy, Animation
You May Remember: From unit 3, we learned that the -ITY suffix means “Quality of Being” – so morbidity is someone who seems like death.
SAMPLE SENTENCE: The kindergarten teacher was concerned at Claire’s unusually morbid drawings, which usually included monsters and injuries.
Moribund (adj) – In a dying state, Near death
Synonyms: Perishing, On Death’s Door
SAMPLE SENTENCE: After the battle, the army had to abandon the injured and moribund horses, and departed only with the ones that were healthy enough to walk.
Omnipotent (adj) – Having unlimited power
Synonyms: Godlike, Supreme
Antonyms: Ineffectual, Weak
Helpful Hints: A potent poison is a strong one, and a potent aroma is overpowering. So if you can remember those powerful contexts for “potent” then you should remember “omnipotent” more easily
SAMPLE SENTENCE: Several online games allow the player to act as an omnipotent god, controlling the lives of an entire population.
Omniscient (adj) – All-knowing
Synonyms: Wise
Antonyms: Stupid, Ignorant
You May Remember: In unit 5, we encountered SCI – which means “To Know”
SAMPLE SENTENCE: Lord of the Flies is written with an omniscient narrator who is able to see into every character’s thoughts.
Orthodox (adj) – Conforming to the approved form of any set of beliefs; Conventional
Synonyms: Standard, Conservative, Traditional
Antonyms: Untraditional
Helpful Hints: An Orthodox church is a religion that strictly follows all of the religious laws
You May Remember: With -DOX in this same unit, you can see that orthodox means “Correct Belief”
SAMPLE SENTENCE: Barry’s golf swing was truly bizarre, while his wife’s was far more orthodox and looked like it might have been modeled after the pros.
Orthography (n) – The art of spelling correctly
You May Remember: Unit 6 taught us that GRAPH means “to write”
SAMPLE SENTENCE: The rising tide of spell check and autocorrect have caused orthography to become weaker over recent years.
Pandemic (adj) – Universal or wide-spread, especially pertaining to disease
Synonyms: Extensive, Worldwide
Helpful Hints: The difference between an epidemic and a pandemic disease is that an epidemic is a disease that is more widespread in a region than is normal. If an epidemic spreads quickly and far enough, it becomes a pandemic.
SAMPLE SENTENCE: After the third terrorist attack in two weeks, the nation’s fear became pandemic, and nearly everyone was afraid of what might happen next.
Pandemonium (n) – A wild uproar or chaos
Synonyms: Brouhaha, Hubbub, Bedlam
Antonyms: Stillness, Serenity
Helpful Hints: You can see the word “demon” hidden in pandemonium, and that’s no mistake – the noise made by “all of the demons” would definitely be pandemonium
SAMPLE SENTENCE: When Claude finished his strange student council speech by firing bottle rockets toward the back of the auditorium, the audience erupted into pandemonium, with some students cheering like mad and others running for the doors.
Retroactive (adj) – In effect with respect to occurrences in the past; Inclusive of events or dates that have already passed
Helpful Hints: You hear “retroactive” used with laws that get passed – if the President signed a retroactive law that cut student loans in half, it wouldn’t just affect the upcoming graduating classes, it would affect people who graduated a long time ago who still had loans
SAMPLE SENTENCE: The President’s tax cuts were not retroactive; people could not receive refunds on taxes that they had paid in the previous year.
Retrospect (n) – Looking backward at past situations
Helpful Hints: You commonly hear this word used in the phraze “in retrospect,” meaning, “looking back on it…”. Also, our “Senior Retro” is short for “Senior Retrospective” – it is a video that looks back on your four years at BHS
You May Remember: Our previous unit showed us the root SPEC, meaning “seen” – so a retrospective is a “seeing back” as in “looking back in time”
SAMPLE SENTENCE: As the sturdy treehouse came tumbling down, the kids realized in retrospect that pulling the nails out of it was not a good idea.