In this exercise each group of synonyms is followed by quotations from
authoritative writers in which the words are discriminatingly employed.
Find the meaning of each italicized word in these quotations, and
differentiate the word accurately from the others in that group.
Substitute for it other words from the group, and observe precisely how
the meaning is affected.
(So many of the quotations are from poetry that these will be printed as
verse rather than, as in the preceding exercises, in continuous lines like
prose.)
<Affront, insult, indignity.>
A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not _affront_ me,--and no other can.
An old _affront_ will stir the heart
Through years of rankling pain.
The way to procure _insults_ is to submit to them. A man meets
with no more respect than he exacts.
It is often better not to see an _insult_ than to avenge it.
Even a hare, the weakest of animals, may _insult_ a dead lion.
To a native of rank, arrest was not merely a restraint, but a foul
personal _indignity_.
<Dishonor, disgrace, ignominy, infamy, obloquy, opprobrium>.
His honor rooted in _dishonor_ stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.
It is hard to say which of the two we ought most to lament,--the unhappy
man who sinks under the sense of his _dishonor_, or him who survives
it.
Could he with reason murmur at his case
Himself sole author of his own _disgrace_?
Whatever _disgrace_ we may have deserved, it is almost always in our
power to re-establish our character.
When in _disgrace_ with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state.
Their generals have been received with honor after their defeat; yours
with _ignominy_ after conquest.
Wilful perpetuations of unworthy actions brand with most indelible
characters of _infamy_ the name and memory to posterity.
And when his long public life, so singularly chequered with good and evil,
with glory and _obloquy_, had at length closed forever, it was to
Daylesford that he retired to die.
Great _opprobrium_ has been thrown on her name.
<Fame, honor, renown, glory, distinction, reputation, repute, celebrity,
eminence, notoriety>.
Let _fame_, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register'd upon our brazen tombs.
Men have a solicitude about _fame_; and the greater share
they have of it, the more afraid they are of losing it.
_Fame_ is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
. . . . . . . .
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much _fame_ in heaven expect thy meed.
When faith is lost, when _honor_ dies,
The man is dead.
Act well your part; there all the _honor_ lies.
The Athenians erected a large statue of Aesop, and placed him, though a
slave, on a lasting pedestal, to show that the way to _honor_ lies
open indifferently to all.
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not _honor_ more.
That nation is worthless which does not joyfully stake everything on her
_honor_.
By heaven methinks it were an easy leap
To pluck bright _honor_ from the pale-fac'd moon.
That merit which gives greatness and _renown_ diffuses its influence
to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast.
Speak no more of his _renown_,
Lay your earthly fancies down,
And in the vast cathedral leave him,
God accept him, Christ receive him.
The young warrior did not fly; but met death as he went forward in his
strength. Happy are they who dies in youth, when their _renown_ is
heard!
The paths of _glory_ lead but to the grave.
_Glory_ long has made the sages smile; 'tis something, nothing,
words, illusion, wind.
Not once or twice in our rough island-story
The path of duty was the way to _glory_.
He was a charming fellow, clever, urbane, free-handed, with all that
fortunate quality in his appearance which is known as _distinction._
Never get a _reputation_ for a small perfection if you are trying for
_fame_ in a loftier area.
One may be better than his _reputation_ or his conduct, but never
better than his principles.
I see my _reputation_ is at stake
My _fame_ is shrewdly gor'd.
CASSIO. _Reputation, reputation, reputation!_ O! I have lost my
reputation. I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is
bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!
IAGO. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound.
You have a good _repute_ for gentleness and wisdom.
_Celebrity_ sells dearly what we think she gives.
Kings climb to _eminence_
Over men's graves.
_Notoriety_ is short-lived; _fame_ is lasting.
<Hatred, hate, animosity, ill-will, enmity, hostility, bitterness,
malice, malevolence, malignity, rancor, resentment, dudgeon, grudge,
spite>.
The _hatred_ we bear our enemies injures their happiness less than
our own.
_Hate_ is like fire; it makes even light rubbish deadly.
He generously forgot all feeling of _animosity_, and determined to go
in person to his succor.
That thereby he may gather
The ground of your _ill-will_, and so remove it.
No place is so propitious to the formation either of close friendships or
of deadly _enmities_ as an Indiaman.
There need be no _hostility_ between evolutionist and theologian.
Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,
His fits, his frenzy, and his _bitterness?_
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in _malice_.
Every obstacle which partisan _malevolence_ could create he has had
to encounter.
His flight is occasioned rather by the _malignity_ of his countrymen
than by the enmity of the Egyptians.
Where the soul sours, and gradual _rancor_ grows,
Imbitter'd more from peevish day to day.
Peace in their mouthes, and all _rancor_ and vengeance in their
hartes [hearts].
For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd;
Put _rancors_ in the vessel of my peace
Only for them.
Her _resentment_ against the king seems not to have abated.
Mrs. W. was in high _dudgeon_; her heels clattered on the red-tiled
floor, and she whisked about the house like a parched pea upon a
drum-head.
If I can catch him once upon the hip,
I will feed fat the ancient _grudge_ I bear him.
Men of this character pursue a _grudge_ unceasingly, and never forget
or forgive.
And since you ne'er provoked their _spite_,
Depend upon't their judgment's right.
<Marriage, matrimony, wedlock>. (With this group compare the
_matrimonial_ group in Exercise C, above.)
_Marriages_ are made in heaven.
Hasty _marriage_ seldom proveth well.
A man finds himself seven years older the day after his _marriage_.
Let me not to the _marriage_ of true minds
Admit impediments.
_Marriage_ is the best state for man in general; and every man is a
worse man in proportion as he is unfit for the married state.
_Matrimony_--the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented.
_Wedlock's_ a lane where there is no turning.
What is _wedlock_ forced, but a hell,
An age of discord and continual strife?
<Mercy, clemency, lenity, leniency, lenience, forbearance>.
Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That _mercy_ I to others show,
That _mercy_ show to me.
The quality of _mercy_ is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
* * * * *
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When _mercy_ seasons justice.
_Clemency_ is the surest proof of a true monarch.
_Lenity_ will operate with greater force, in some instances, than
vigor.
All the fellows tried to persuade the Master to greater _leniency_,
but in vain.
It will be necessary that this acceptance should be followed up by
measures of the utmost _lenience_.
There is however a limit at which _forbearance_ ceases to be a
virtue.
<Pity, sympathy, compassion, commiseration, condolence>.
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His _pity_ gave ere charity began.
For _pity_ melts the mind to love.
For _pitee_ renneth [runneth] soon in gentle herte [heart].
Our _sympathy_ is cold to the relation of distant misery.
Man may dismiss _compassion_ from his heart, but God will never.
It is unworthy a religious man to view an irreligious one either with
alarm or aversion; or with any other feeling than regret, and hope, and
brotherly _commiseration_.
Their congratulations and their _condolences_ are equally words of
course.
<Poverty, want, need, destitution, indigence, penury>.
Is there for honest _poverty_
That hings [hangs] his head, and a' that?
Not to be able to bear _poverty_ is a shameful thing, but not to know
how to chase it away by work is a more shameful thing yet.
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In _poverty_, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
Would that its tone could reach the Rich,
She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"
_Poverty_ is dishonorable, not in itself, but when it is a proof of
laziness, intemperance, luxury, and carelessness; whereas in a person that
is temperate, industrious, just and valiant, and who uses all his virtues
for the public good, it shows a great and lofty mind.
_Want_ is a bitter and hateful good,
Because its virtues are not understood;
Yet many things, impossible to thought,
Have been by _need_ to full perfection brought.
Hundreds would never have known _want_ if they had not first known
waste.
O! reason not the _need_; our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's.
The Christian inhabitants of Thessaly would be reduced to
_destitution_.
It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their
_indigence_ from the rest.
Chill _penury_ repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Chill _penury_ weighs down the heart itself; and though it sometimes
be endured with calmness, it is but the calmness of despair.
Where _penury_ is felt the thought is chain'd,
And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.
<Regret, compunction, remorse, contrition, penitence, repentance>.
_Regrets_ over the past should chasten the future.
He acknowledged his disloyalty to the king with expressions of great
_compunction_.
Through no disturbance of my soul,
Or strong _compunction_ in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy control.
God speaks to our hearts through the voice of _remorse_.
To err is human; but _contrition_ felt for the crime distinguishes
the virtuous from the wicked.
Christian _penitence_ is something more than a thought or an emotion
or a tear; it is action.
_Repentance_ must be something more than mere _remorse_ for
sins; it comprehends a change of nature befitting heaven.
<Stubborn, obstinate, pertinacious, intractable, refractory,
contumacious>.
For fools are _stubborn_ in their way,
As coins are harden'd by th' allay;
And _obstinacy's_ ne'er so stiff
As when 'tis in a wrong belief.
They may also laugh at their _pertinacious_ and incurable obstinacy.
He who is _intractable_, he whom nothing can persuade, may boast
himself invincible.
There is a law in each well-order'd nation
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and _refractory_.
He then dissolved Parliament, and sent its most _refractory_ members
to the Tower.
If he were _contumacious_, he might be excommunicated, or, in other
words, be deprived of all civil rights and imprisoned for life.