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The Pardoner’s Tale, from The Canterbury Tales / The Wife of Bath’s Tale, from
The Canterbury Tales, page 136
Build Vocabulary: Analogies
Analogies help us understand how the meanings of words relate to each other. Typically,
an analogy exercise will take a pair of words and ask you to complete another pair of words
with the same relationship. For example, a very simple analogy might go like this:
dark : bright :: wet : ___
To read this analogy, substitute “is to” for the single colons and “as” for the double
colons: “Dark is to bright as wet is to ____.” The first two words are clearly antonyms. To
complete the analogy, you must find an antonym for wet—most likely dry.
There are many forms of analogies. Synonym pairs are similar to the antonym analogy
above. Another common type of analogy involves degree, or intensity of meaning:
Warm : hot :: silly : ___
Since hot is more intense than warm, you must find a word that means even sillier than
silly. Ridiculous or absurd would serve as answers here.
In each of the following exercises, fill in the blank with the word from the box that best
completes each analogy. On the line before each exercise, identify the relationship that
exists between the paired words. Write A for antonym, S for synonym, or D for degree.
abominably
prudent
contemptuous
purge
esteem
reprove
forlorn
temporal
implore
wary
_____
1. magnificently : nicely :: ________________________________ : poorly
_____
2. gaze : stare :: ________________________________ : admire
_____
3. ________________________________ : ask :: guffaw : chuckle
_____
4. conform : rebel :: praise : ________________________________
_____
5. lonely : ________________________________ :: cheerful : happy
_____
6. admiring : ________________________________ :: frigid : scalding
_____
7. ________________________________ : reckless :: knowledgeable : ignorant
_____
8. ________________________________ : finite :: eternal : infinite
_____
9. ________________________________ : incautious :: suffice : lack
_____ 10. clear :
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0019-0058_MTS_G12_U2_Lessons.indd 27
________________________________:: cloud : obscure
Meeting the Standards
BRITISH TRADITION, UNIT 2
27
5/29/09 3:32:19 PM