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Avocabo - Vocabulary Series

AVO1101
Words denoting Swiftness vs Slowness | Crossword
Words studied: celerity, check, dawdle, dilatory, dispatch, expedite, express, flit, gradual, headlong, impetuous, instantaneous, lag, languor, lumber, mercurial, nimble, plod, retard, spurt, torrent
5-page PDF Exercises: Reading: Adagio for Hare and Tortoise; Sorting Words (Speed vs Slowness); Finding Speed & Slow words in context; Discriminating Appropriate and Inappropriate word usages; Synonyms; Antonyms; Making Connections; Researching unfamiliar words; Crossword Puzzle
 

AVO1107
River and Wind Words
| Crossword
Words studied: aura, bellows, blustering, cascade, confluence, cyclone, deluge, eddy, effluent, freshet, inundate, maelstrom, tributary, vortex, meander, monsoon, squall, vane, ventilate, waft
6-page PDF Exercises: Reading: Winds - Extract from Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient; Sorting Words (Eolian vs Riverine words); Creative Writing; Exposition; Discriminating Appropriate and Inappropriate word usages; Synonyms; Fill-in-the-Blanks (Best word); Making Connections; Researching unfamiliar words; Crossword Puzzle
 

AVO1103
Words from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Words studied: amorphous, anaemic, arrogant, caravansary, counterfeit, elocution, florid, garrulous, grail, grotesque, incredulous, ingratiate, innuendo, meretricious, notoriety, obstinate, pasquinade, redolent, simmering, succulent, superficial, transitory
4-page PDF Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks; Synonyms; Antonyms; Making Connections; Booklinks
 

AVO1104  
Words denoting Heaviness vs Lightness
| Crossword
Words studied: alleviate, arduous, ballast, buoyancy, cumbersome, delicacy, diaphanous, ethereal, gossamer, gravity, heft, impenetrable, irrepressible, levity, levitate, massive, millstone, obese, portable, profound, unwieldy
4-page PDF Exercises: Reading: Lightness, from Italo Calvino's Six Memos for the Next Millennium; Sorting Words (Lightness vs Heaviness words); Light/Heavy words; Discriminating Appropriate/Inappropriate Usage; Synonyms; Antonyms; Spelling Alert; Making Connections; Researching unfamiliar words; Crossword Puzzle (link above)
 

AVO1105
Words denoting Pleasure and Pain

Words studied: abhorrent, affront, assail, caustic, dulcet, felicitous, gall, gratify, Glee, halcyon, harrowing, hedonism, invidious, onerous, palatable, provocation, regale, satiate, vex, voluptuous
4-page PDF Exercises: Reading: Pleasure/Pain Quotations; Sorting Words (Pain vs Pleasure words); Discriminating Appropriate and Inappropriate word usages; Synonyms; Antonyms; Making Connections; Whence pleasure is found (personal response); Researching unfamiliar words
 

AVO1106  
Words from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds | Crossword
Words studied: aperture, articulate, complacency, concussion, contagion, desist, fecundity, fusillade, galvanize, heliograph, incessant, ineffectual, integument, irresolute, lassitude, physiology, salvation, scrutiny, sentinel, transfix, vestiges
4-page PDF Exercises: Reading from the novel; Fill-in-the-Blanks (best word); Synonyms; Parts of Speech; Etymologies; Making Connections; Crossword Puzzle (link above)
 
 

AVO1110  
Timely Words | Crossword
Words studied: antecedent, auspicious, contingency, contretemps, defer, diurnal, ensue, fortuitous, imminent, incidental, interim, interminable, juncture, mishap, opportune, precursor, prospective, respite, serendipity, temporal, transitory
4-page PDF Exercises: Reading from the novel; Fill-in-the-Blanks (best word); Synonyms; Parts of Speech; Etymologies; Making Connections
 
 

AVO1122
Here's Looking at You, Kid: Words Connotiong Sight and Blindness

Words studied: apparent, Argus, Basilisk, dazzle, discern, espionage, glimpse, hoodwink, introspection, ken, leer, limpid, lorgnette, manifestation, myopia, obfuscate, ogle, ophthalmic, panoramic, perspicacity, reconnaissance, witness
4 -page PDF Exercises: Seeing clear: definitions; Fill-in-the-blanks; Making Connections; See Better, Lear: Various short answer
 
 

AVO1109
Words denoting Fighting vs Conciliation | Crossword
Words studied: allay, amnesty, armageddon, armistice, ballistics, bellicose, campaign, conciliatory, contend, compromise, crusade, Detente, internecine, martial, militant, pacify, placate, propitiate, rapprochement, retaliate, siege, tactics
4-page PDF Exercises: Reading: Abou Ben Adhem; Words and their definitions; Making Connections; War and Peace (sorting words); Synonyms; Fill-in-the-Blanks (best word); Related terms; Crossword puzzle
 
 
 

AVO1011
Words denoting Success vs Failure
Words Studied: abortive, ace, avail, botch, circumvent, débâcle, fiasco, flash in the pan, forfeit, founder, incompetence, ineffectual, nonstarter, outflank, prevail, rout, succumb, surmount, surpass, sweep, triumph, vanquish 4-page PDF  Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks; Sorting Words (Success vs Failure); Synonyms; Etymologies; Making Connections
 

AVO1113
Words from The Scarlet Pimpernel
| Crossword
Words studied: anathema, aristocrat, bohemian, cavalier, dastardly, enigmatic, factotum, guillotine, haggard, histrionic, indefatigable, ignominious, foppish, monarchy, nonchalance, obsequious, pimpernel, republican, rubicund, vagaries, witticism
3-page PDF  Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks; Synonyms; Making Connections; Antonyms; Crossword ( link above)

AVO1136
Words from Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel

Words studied: carp, cauterized, chatelaine,convalescence, countenance, effusive,fettle, finagled, ignominy, inertia,intrusive, laconically, mollify, plaintive,querulous, rancor, recrimination,relinquish, sanctimonious, tenacious,unregenerate, vindictive
3-page PDF  Exercises: Fill in the blanks (definitions); Synonyms; Etymologies; Making Connections

AVO1133
Words denoting Confusion vs Clarity

Words studied: abash, addle, ambiguous, baffle, befuddle, bemuse, confound, construe, decipherment, delineate, elucidate, exacerbation, exegesis, exemplify, explicit, lucidity, pellucid, perplex, perspicious, recondite, salience, tumult
4-page PDF  Exercises: Sorting Words (Confusion vs Clarity); Discriminating Appropriate Usage; Synonyms; Antonyms; Making Connections; Anagrams

AVO1146
Words Borrowed from German

Words studied: angst, autobahn, edelweiss, ersatz, gestalt, glockenspiel, hausfrau, hinterland, kaputt, katzenjammer, kindergarten, leitmotiv(f), ohm, poltergeist, pretzel, rucksack, streusel, verboten, wanderlust, weltanschauung, zeitgeis
3-page PDF Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks; Making Connections; Discriminating Appropriate Use; Synonyms; Anagrams; Famous Germans

AVO1163
English Words of Arabic Origin
Words studied: admiral, adobe, alchemy, alfalfa, assassin, azure, bedouin, caliber, cipher, fakir, jasmine, jinni, kaffir, mocha, mullah, popinjay, saffron, tabby, talisman, tariff, typhoon, Vega, zenith
4-page PDF Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks (Definitions); Making Connections; Etymologies; Parts of Speech; Synonyms; Discriminating Appropriate Usage; More Words of Arabic Origin 

AVO1108
Landscape Literacy
| Crossword puzzle
Words studied: arable, archipelago, bayou, cladera, ecumene, escarpment, estuary, fen, floodplain, isthmus, karst, mesa, pasture, peninsula, plateau, savanna, steppe, suburbia, taiga, tundra 6
-page PDF Exercises: Reading: Why Landscape Literacy?; Synonyms; Discriminating Appropriate/Inappropriate Usage; Fill-in-the-Blanks (best word); Research/Supplementary Word List; Reading with Exercises
 
 

AVO1127
Words from Arthur Miller's The Crucible
Words studied: affidavit, apparition, begrudge, covenant, crucible, defamation, effrontery, excommunicate, faction, gibbet, immaculate, inculcate, indictment, intimate, lechery, licentious, penitence, prodigious, providence, puritanical, theology
6-page PDF  Exercises: Reading, Fill-in-the-blanks; Synonyms; Antonyms; Etymologies; Parts of Speech; Making Connections; Crossword Puzzle

AVO1113  
Words Coined by Shakespeare | Puzzle (Fill-in-the-Blanks)
Words studied: abstemious, besmirch, dauntless, divest, domineering, dwindle, frugal, gnarled, hobnob, lacklustre, madcap, pander, perusal, promethean, rancorous, rumination, sanctimonious, tranquil, transcendence, unmitigated
4-page PDF  Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks; Discriminating Appropriate/Inappropriate Usage; Synonyms; Making Connections; Parts of speech; Crossword Puzzle

AVO1115
Words denoting Loudness vs Faintness
|
Crossword | Crossword Solution
Words studied: baffle, blatant, braggart, clamorous, clarion, din, fortissimo, fulminate, murmur, obstreperous, pandemonium, plangent, purling, reticent, quiescent, resonance, shrill, squelch, stealthy, stentorian, strident, subdue, susurration, tacit, vociferous
3-page PDF  Exercises: Sorting Words (Loudness vs Faintness); Synonyms; Antonyms; Discriminating Appropriate/Inappriopriate Usage; Making Connections; Crossword

AVO1138
Nine Letter Words

Words studied: affidavit, albatross, attenuate, beguiling, beleaguer, cacoethes, cannonade, convivial, dalliance, effulgent, egregious, fiduciary, gallivant, galvanize, heinously, heuristic, illicitly, kowtowing, maladroit, mendacity, nostalgic, objurgate, pecuniary, stevedore
3-page PDF Exercises: Reading: The Importance of the Number Nine; Discriminating Appropriate Use; Fill-in-the-Blanks; Synonyms; Antonyms; Making Connections; Anagrams
 

AVO1117 This Avocabo unit may printed and submitted manually, or it may be completed using the online form fields and submitted/marked automatically. If using the online submission feature, Spelling COUNTS! Upper/Lower case is not important.
Words from Jack Kerouac's On the Road
Words studied: amenable, dichotomy, disconsolate, imprecation, irrespective, jalopy, jargon, lout, palpitate, phosphorescence, reverie, rigmarole, sardonic, seraphically, spittoon, surrealism, taciturn, tenement, vista, welter
3-page PDF  Exercises: Fill-in-the-Blanks (by definitions); Synonyms; Etymologies; Making Connections

AVO1124
Great Words for 500, Alex!
Words studied: acumen, chicanery, circumlocution, diffident, equinox, fatuous, gamete, hemoglobin, incognito, jejune, kowtow, lexicon, nihilism, omnipotent, orthography, quasar, quotidian, tautology, totalitarian, xenophobe
5-page PDF  Exercises: Definitions; Fill-in-the-Blanks; Synonyms; Jeopardy (determining word from related terms); Double Jeopardy (word lore, etymologies, etc.); Making Connections; Final Jeopardy; Trivia; Crossword Puzzle

AVO1123
Words from Around the Globe

Words studied: ambrosia, basilica, bloke, buckaroo, congolese, creole, edelweiss, fandango, geisha, germanic, goulash, haggis, henna, hindustani, janissary, peregrinate, plenipotentiary, sirocco, tisane, zionism
3-page PDF  Exercises: Fill-in-the-Blanks; Making Connections; Name the Nation (etymologies)

AVO1118
Words from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
Words studied: beckon, billows, brazen, burden, defile, draughts, ford, forsaken, gully, heirloom, hollow, laden, plaits, precious, redoubled, scouring, spasm, stalk, stature, twilight, welled
4-page PDF  Exercises: Fill-in-the-Blanks (by definitions); Synonyms; Antonyms; Etymologies; Making Connections

AVO1135
Basic First Aid Terms

Words studied: abrasion, anaphylaxis, artery, contusion, crepitus, cyanosis, dermis, dislocation, epidermis, fibrillation, fracture, hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, ligament, metacarpals, metatarsals, sprain, strain, tendon, triage, vein
4-page PDF Exercises: Matching (definitions); Multiple Choice; Parts of Speech; Making Connections; Understanding 'triage'; Research
 
 

AVO1125
Words from Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities

Words studied: abyss, apocryphal, avow, barbarous, cadaverous, clemency, eccentric, flaxen, incorrigible, insensate, languidly, magnanimous, mercenary, oblivion, resurrection, sacristan, sagacity, tyranny, vehemence, vengeance, vivacious
4-page PDF  Exercises: Fill-in-the-Blanks; Synonyms; Antonyms; Eponyms; Making Connections

AVO1128
Words from The U.S. Led War on Iraq

Words studied: blockade, bombardment, bunker, camouflage, coalition, collateral damage, combatant, embedded journalists, espionage, fedayeen, friendly fire, geneva convention, guerilla, paramilitary, preemptive strike, propaganda, refugee, shock and awe, siege, sortie
4-page PDF  Exercises: Definitions, Fill-in-the-blanks; Euphemisms of War; Synonyms; Making Connections; Word scramble; Crossword Puzzle

AVO1126
Words from Robotics
Words studied: amplification, articulate, autonomous, collimating, compliant, differential, dielectric, gyroscope, magnetometer, modulation, oscillator, piezoelectric, permeability, programmable, protocol, proximity, reflectance, resonant, specification, telemetry, torque
4-page PDF  Exercises: Fill-in-the-Blanks; Synonyms; Antonyms, Making Connections; Reading

AVO1127
Words from L. Frank Baum's Wonderful World of Oz
Words studied: bodice, boisterous, brocade, counterpane, cyclone, daunt, doublet, ermine, frock, garret, gaunt, gingham, humbug, indignantly, mar, plait, reproachful, settee, solder, spire, sward
6-page PDF  Exercises: Fill-in-the-Blanks; Synonyms; Antonyms; Parts of Speech; Etymologies; Making Connections; Reading; Crossword Puzzle

AVO1134
Words from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Words studied: burgeoned, carapace, chronic, decanted, fulminate, hypnopaedia, incarnadine, kiva, malignant, manifested, moribund, palpitating, pneumatic, rapture, respectively, semblance, stupefied, unorthodoxy, viscose, viviparous, zealous
4-page PDF Exercises: Reading: Fill-in-the-Blanks; Synonyms; Antonyms; Making Connections
 

AVO1144
Words from Heinrich Harrer’s Seven Years in Tibet

Words studied: antediluvian, benevolent, bivouacked, cleft, debouched designations, deleterious, despondent, disheartened, emaciated, eminence, evocation, gesticulating, obeisance, petered, poleaxed, Ramshackle, rarefied, reverently, submissiveness, torrent
3-page PDF Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks; Synonyms; Antonyms; Making Connections
 

AVO1145
Words from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

Words studied: abhorrence, acquiesce, bestow, deign, derive, eminent, exuberance, felicity, frivolous, gallantry, lamentation, licentiousness, profligate, proxy, refute, repugnant, simpleton, tincture, villainous
4-page PDF Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks; Synonyms; Antonyms; Making Connections
 

AVO1147
‘A’ words

Words studied: abdicate, accede, adherent, affable, agrarian, alacrity, altruism, ambulatory, anomalous, antipathy, aphorism, arcane, artifice, aspersion, assonance, attenuate, austere, averse, axion, azure
3-page PDF Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks; Synonyms; Antonyms; Making Connections
 

AVO1148
Words Denoting Goodness vs. Badness

Words studied: abject, apostasy, benevolent, bona fide, candid, contemptible, derogatory, fidelity, fraud, inviolate, jilt, Judas kiss, laxity, nepotism, perfidy, probity, punctilious, rectitude, scrupulous, staunch, turpitude, veracious
3-page PDF Exercises: Sorting words; Fill-in-the-blanks; Discriminating Appropriate Use; Fill-in-the-Blanks; Etymologies; Making Connections

AVO1149
Words denoting Strength vs Weakness

Words studied: adamantine, brace, brawny, cripple, debility, delicate, feeble, flimsy, fortify, fragile, invincible, languish, puny, rickety, robust, stout, strapping, sturdy, totter, validate, worn
3-page PDF Exercises: Sorting words, Fill-in-the-blanks; Antonyms; Making Connections
 

AVO1150
Words from Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient

Words studied: antiphon, avuncular, basilica, besotted, brigand, burnoose, coagulate, corporeal, cyclamen, demarcate, keloid, loggia, medina, palanquin, panacea, partisan, plummet, promontory, tithe
4-page PDF Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks; Synonyms, Word Scarmble; Making Connections Deluxe
 

AVO1151
20 Great Words for the Real World

Words studied: abstemious, belie, moiety, obsequious, deleterious, enervate, evanescent, facetious, filibuster, hegemony, hubris, kinetic, pecuniary, precipitous, soliloquy, suffragist, usurp, vacuous, winnow, ziggurat 4-page PDF Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks; Identifying Appropriate Word Usage, Antonyms; Making Connections; Etymologies
 

AVO1164
Words from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
Words studied: canker, deleterious, despondency, dexterity, edifice, egotism, endeavour, extenuating, farthingale, gesticulation, irreverent, misanthropy, peremptory, physiognomy, potentate, propinquity, rankle, sojourn, transgress, transitory, unscrupulous, vehement
4-page PDF Exercises: Fill-in-the-blanks; Synonyms; Antonyms, Parts of Speech; Making Connections

Units Under Development...
AVO1129
Words Denoting Birth and Death
Words studied: cadaverous, congenital, gentry, immortal, innate, macabre, martyr, moribund, mortician, nascence, necrophobia, noblesse, nullipara, obituary, parity, parous, parturition, renascence, rigor mortis, samsara
 

AVO1130
Words Denoting Solidity vs Rarity
Words studied: cavernous, clot, coagulate, cohesion, compact, compress, concrete, congeal, constipate, delicate, dense, dilate, ether, flimsy, impermeable, precipitate, rarity, slight, spongy, tenuity, tenuous

AVO1131
Words from Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman
Words studied: addendum, amanuensis asylum, bedlam, circumstantial, egregious, emancipated, frolicked, haggard, heinous, lexical, lodestone, martinet, ordination, parsimonious, sanity, serendipity

AVO1132
Words from The World of Art
Words studied: chiaroscuro, collage, complementary, foreshortening, formalism, gradation, ground, highlights, impasto, intensify, Limner, model, motif, perspective, resist, seascape, slip, stippling, tesserae, vanishing point, wash , kitch

AVO1133
The Rhetoric of Politics
Words studied: appropriation, charismatic, cloture, conservative, constitution, convention, hearing, leak, liberal, lobby, logrolling, partisan, patronage, platform, portfolio, pundit, referendum, spin, statutes, whip

AVO1134
The Language of Economics
Words studied: assets, cartel, conglomerate, currency, depreciation, embargo, entrpreneur, equilibrium, externalities, franchise, inflation, infrastructure, liquidity, merger, monopoly, recession, speculation, subsidy, tariffs, trade-off

AVO1135
Words from Robertson Davies's The Cunning Man
Words studied: alveolitis, ameliorative, assemblages, cardiomyopathy, cirrhosis, contentious, coulisses, derision, drolleries, efficacious, emollient, hippocrates, ineptitude, infallibly, inveterate, monocle, pugnacious, rhetorician, sanctified, sinuosity, sovereignty

 


AVOCABO
is a dynamic vocabulary series for grade 11 or 12 classes. The weekly exercise sheets are available in convenient PDF files.

Choose from over 40 vocabulary units. Each unit highlights 20-22 vital words presented with a variety of challenging exercises.

Avocabo word lists are of four basic types:

1) DICHOTOMOUS WORDS
e.g. River vs Wind words, Words Denoting Love & Hate

2) WORDS FROM SPECIFIC BOOKS & AUTHORS
e.g. Words from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Words from Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel

3) WORDS FROM SPECIFIC DISCIPLINES AND CAREERS
e.g. Landscape Literacy, Words from Robotics
, Stock Market Words

4) WORDS DERIVED from other languages

Important Note: These files are in PDF format.  Download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader from Adobe's website.