Honors English 10 SAT VOCABULARY
A Midsummer Night’s Dream extension activity
Part I: For each word, complete the following three tasks:
A. Use the context of the provided sentences to determine the word’s meaning for yourself.
B. Generate a list of the different forms of the word. For example, if it’s a verb, determine whether there’s a noun or adjective form.
C. Compose a sentence of your own about a text we have read or a concept you have learned in which you use apt context to show meaning.
1.
(a) “Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws on apace.”
(b) The members of the court will attend the nuptials of Theseus and Hippolyta.
2. (a) “But, O, methinks how slow / This old moon wanes!”
(b) Demetrius’s love for Helena has waned.
3. (a) “Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung / With feigning voice verses of feigning love . . .”
(b) First Demetrius loves Helena, and then he hates her. When he tells her that he loves her again, she thinks he is feigning.
4. (a) “. . . and she, sweet lady, dotes, / Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry, / Upon this spotted and inconstant men.”
(b) Helena dotes upon Demetrius; Demetrius dotes upon Hermia; Hermia dotes upon Lysander, who also dotes upon her.
5. (a) “But I beseech your Grace that I may know / The worst that may befall me in this case / If I refuse to wed Demetrius.”
(b) Hermia beseeches her father to let her marry Lysander.
6. (a) “What is Pyramus—a lover or a tyrant?”
(b) Hermia’s father acts like a tyrant when he forces her to choose between marrying Demetrius or going to a convent.
7. (a) “Our play is ‘The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.’”
(b) To Helena, it is lamentable that Demetrius does not love her.
8. (a) “For Oberon is passing fell and wrath / Because that she, as her attendant, hath / A lovely boy . . .”
(b) Oberon is full of wrath because Titania will not give him the Indian boy.
9. (a) “The more you beat me I will fawn on you.”
(b) Although Demetrius is unkind to Helena, she fawns on him and gives him compliments.
10. (a) “Content with Hermia? No, I do repent / The tedious minutes I with her have spent.”
(b) Once Lysander falls out of love with Hermia, he finds her tedious and he leaves her.
Part II: During your reading, identify words that are unfamiliar to you and that you would like to incorporate into you own vocabulary.
1. Write the sentence from the book with the word in it and indicate page or chapter number in a parenthetical citation.
2. Determine what you think the word means based on its use in this sentence. Indicate context clues (from the sentence or surrounding
sentences) that helped you to conjecture about meaning.
3. Record the definition of the word and at least one SAT-level synonym for the word. If multiple definitions exist, choose the definition(s) that is
apt for the context of the book’s sentence.
4. Compose a sentence of your own about a text we have read or a concept you have learned, using the new word in context that clearly shows
its meaning. You must show that you can use the word—DO NOT copy or rephrase sentences from internet sites.
Act 1
abjure
austerity
base
beguile
beseech
cunning
dote
entreat
feign
filch
lamentable
mirth
nuptial
perjured
tyrant
vexation
vile
visage
wane
withering
Act 2
amorous
clamorous
disdainful
dissemble
dissention
fawn
flout
knavish
progeny
repent
spurn
tarry
tedious
wanton
wrath
Act 3
bequeath
bower
chide
chink
contrived
derision
disparage
enamored
esteem
kindred
negligence
odious
preposterously
purge
rebuke
recompense
scorn
shrewishness
sojourn
spurn
Act 4
amiable
conjunction
discourse
enmity
fret
harbinger
loathe
paragon
peril
rail
recount
taunt
upbraid
woe
Act 5
amend
anguish
audacious
concord
discord
discretion
eloquence
palpable
prodigious
quell
reprehend
revel
seething
transfigure
valor
vile
wretchedness