10th Grade Spelling Words With Definition
Grade 10: With Definition - 1
The page presents 10th Grade spelling vocabulary (1) with definition. Some words have example sentences selected from classic literature. The vocabulary integrates some training tools to help study and review these words. E.g., online spelling practices and word meaning single choice quizzes are available for each word in Grade 10.
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The page presents 10th Grade spelling vocabulary (1) with definition. Some words have example sentences selected from classic literature. The vocabulary integrates some training tools to help study and review these words. E.g., online spelling practices and word meaning single choice quizzes are available for each word in Grade 10.
Get Vocabulary/Definition by list: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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| Grade 10: With Definition - 1 |
| abbreviate |      |
v. make shorter; reduce to shorter form intended to represent full form, as for word or phrase
But this intensity of his physical prostration did but so much the more abbreviate it.
It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation.
Father Kelly, the priest, had found the name of the Spanish maker on the sword and an abbreviation that stood for the city of Cordova.
| aberrant | |
n. abnormal; markedly different from an accepted norm
| abet | |
v. aid, usually in doing something wrong; encourage
Now I must caution you that if you abet him once, you abet him for good and all; if you step in between him and me, now, you must step in, Miss Trotwood, for ever.
David Copperfield By Charles Dickens
Context Highlight In CHAPTER 14. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME
Context Highlight In CHAPTER 14. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME
You may possibly have some idea, Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and in his complaints to you.
David Copperfield By Charles Dickens
Context Highlight In CHAPTER 14. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME
Context Highlight In CHAPTER 14. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME
And while she aided and abetted him all she could, away in the remotest corner of her ancient healthy womanhood she despised him with a savage contempt that knew no bounds.
| abhor | |
v. fill with horror and loathing; horrify; hate
The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers.
My life has been one incessant persecution from a husband whom I abhor.
My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal.
| abnormal | |
a. unusual; not typical; not normal
His advance seems almost abnormal.
There was nothing markedly abnormal in any of these conditions, which harmonised with my former experiences.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes By Arthur Conan Doyle
Context Highlight In IX. The Adventure of The Resident Patient
Context Highlight In IX. The Adventure of The Resident Patient
She was encouraged to believe that she had not been abnormal in viewing Gopher Prairie as unduly tedious and slatternly.
| abode | |
n. act of waiting; delay; stay or continuance in a place
And we have no other place of abode.
We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for.
David Copperfield By Charles Dickens
Context Highlight In CHAPTER 16. I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE
Context Highlight In CHAPTER 16. I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE
One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me, visited this abode.
| abolish | |
v. cancel; put an end to; destroy completely
Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be.
They were the same four pigs as had protested when Napoleon abolished the Sunday Meetings.
Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever.
| abrasion | |
n. the process of scraping or wearing away; scratch; friction
| abrasive | |
a. rubbing away; tending to grind down
| abrogate | |
a. abolish, do away with, or annul, especially by authority
| accede | |
v. agree; give consent, often at insistence of another; concede
I rather wished, than believed him to be sincere; but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to his proposal.
She acceded to the suggestion of bouillon, which was grateful and acceptable.
Disappointed in the expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to my request.
| accord | |
n. settlement or compromise of conflicting opinions; written agreement between two states
Mr. jorkins and old Tiffey shook their heads with one accord.
The maid, who had been listening at her door for a long while, came into her room of her own accord.
He further gave me leave to accompany the prisoner to London; but declined to accord that grace to my two friends.
| acquire | |
v. gain through experience or effort; gain possession of; locate with tracking system
There was no need for him to acquire a good head for whisky, he had been born with one.
The other pirates envied him this majestic vice, and secretly resolved to acquire it shortly.
I cannot allow him to acquire the habit of expecting to be recompensed for every trifling service he may render.
| adapt | |
v. make fit for; change to suit a new purpose
I had endeavoured to adapt Dora to myself, and found it impracticable.
The world is more or less a fixed thing and, externally, we have to adapt ourselves to it.
Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had willingly chosen.
| advocate | |
v. speak, plead, or argue in favour of; plead for; push for something
I advocate them: I am sworn to spread them.
Vida was an advocate of culture-buying and efficiency-systems.
Consistency, my dear Mr. Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things.
| affable | |
a. easily approachable; warmly friendly
She was always a very affable and free-spoken young lady, and very civil behaved.
When I overtook them and stopped to say a word, I found them affable and confiding.
The banker saw the carriage of the count enter the court yard, and advanced to meet him with a sad, though affable smile.
| affirm | |
v. offer someone emotional support or encouragement; confirm
I should not like to affirm upon oath that I have not.
I affirm he will meet fairly every honourable challenge.
For my own part, I may truly affirm, that I was less concerned than my nurse.
| afoot | |
a. currently in progress; traveling by foot
Something was afoot and she did not know about it.
If Suellen wanted to go visiting she could go afoot.
I was up betimes in the morning, but Holmes was afoot earlier still, for I saw him as I dressed, coming up the drive.
| agglomeration | |
n. collection; heap; act or process of gathering into a mass
| allegiance | |
n. loyalty to a nation, sovereign, or cause; fidelity to any person or thing; devotion
I cannot accept on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire.
I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
Context Highlight In CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in She...
Context Highlight In CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in She...
Any prisoner who will take the oath of allegiance and enlist for Indian service for two years will be released and sent West.
| allot | |
v. parcel out in parts or portions; distribute to each individual concerned; assign as a share or lot
How much time she might, in her own fancy, allot for its dominion, is another concern.
Tom rose, disconsolate, and stumbled into the cabin that had been allotted to him.
They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they entered by the kitchen door.
| aloof | |
a. apart; remote in manner; distant physically or emotionally; reserved and remote
He was courteous always, but aloof, remote.
So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.
When she was most ardently singing hymns or planning deviltry she yet seemed gently aloof and critical.
| aluminum | |
n. silvery ductile metallic element
In the darkness at the end of a corridor she had to feel the aluminum figures on the door-panels.
On the center table was a Sears-Roebuck mail-order catalogue, a silver frame with photographs of the Baptist Church and of an elderly clergyman, and an aluminum tray containing a rattlesnake's rattle and a broken spectacle-lens.
| amaze | |
v. astonish; surprise greatly; affect with wonder
And then it came into my head that I would amaze our friends behind by lighting it.
Mrs. Micawber was amazed, but very glad to see me.
I repeated the words, more to myself than her, being so amazed.
| ambiguity | |
n. state of being ambiguous; doubtfulness or uncertainty
Lily was in fact becoming more and more aware of a certain ambiguity in her situation.
Once again, Lily had withdrawn from an ambiguous situation in time to save her self-respect, but too late for public vindication.
Gerty had tried to veil her failure in tender ambiguities; but Carry, always the soul of candour, put the case squarely to her friend.
| amid | |
ad. in the middle of; among; surrounded by
It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril.
Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away, leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind.
Presently Ulysses and the swineherd came up to the house and stood by it, amid a sound of music, for Phemius was just beginning to sing to the suitors.
| amiss | |
a. out of proper order; not in perfect shape; faulty
Therefore it will not be amiss if I remind you of them.
But owing to the flutter she was in, everything went amiss.
This was her as now asked what it was that had gone so much amiss.
| ample | |
a. more than enough in size or scope or capacity; fairly large
Mrs. Jennings was a widow with an ample jointure.
If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I should still have gone.
I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent.
| anarchy | |
n. absence of governing body; state of disorder; political disorder and confusion
Aunt Bessie Smail sleuthed out this anarchy.
And yet, to Connie, it was a methodical anarchy.
Perhaps it would develop into a very radical anarchy.
| antagonize | |
v. provoke the hostility of; act in opposition to
All to be seen was shame for captivity and regret for the right to antagonize.
She had not much of anything to say to her father, for that matter; but he did not antagonize her.
The old irritation and antagonism which he roused in her was hot in her heart and she yearned to speak tart words.
| apocryphal | |
a. untrue; of questionable authorship or authenticity; erroneous; fictitious
| apparel | |
n. external clothing; vesture; garments; dress; small ornamental piece
Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel.
And never any gift of jewelry or wearing apparel, not even gloves or handkerchiefs.
However, to please her, I allowed Sophie to apparel her in one of her short, full muslin frocks.
| apparition | |
n. ghostly figure; sudden or unusual sight; appearance; state of being visible
The apparition was soon explained.
The apparition had outstripped me: it stood looking through the gate.
The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed head in Macbeth.
| appeal | |
n. attraction; charm; attract; fascinate; challenge
She was glad of this appeal for tenderness.
I never appeal to him, and never shall appeal to him.
I had been unhappy in trying it; I could not endure my own solitary wisdom; I could not reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my child-wife.
| appliance | |
n. durable goods for home or office use; device or instrument for household use
I could find no machinery, no appliances of any kind.
With the aid of these appliances we all had something warm to drink, including the Aged, who was soon awake again.
Then I stopped the machine, and saw about me again the old familiar laboratory, my tools, my appliances just as I had left them.
| apprehend | |
v. take into custody; arrest a criminal; grasp mentally; perceive
I apprehend that he is rather addicted to profane song.
I apprehend he will not have less than seven hundred a year.
But here it was with the utmost difficulty that I brought him to apprehend what I meant.
| apprehension | |
n. fearful or uneasy anticipation of the future; act of seizing or capturing; understanding
All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I was in an agony of apprehension.
On every point of general literature he displays unbounded knowledge and a quick and piercing apprehension.
Hester repelled the offered medicine, at the same time gazing with strongly marked apprehension into his face.
| arbitrary | |
a. randomly chosen; determined by chance or impulse, and not by reason or principle
If it is a purely arbitrary one, it may be impossible for us to solve it.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes By Arthur Conan Doyle
Context Highlight In III. THE ADVENTURE OF THE DANCING MEN
Context Highlight In III. THE ADVENTURE OF THE DANCING MEN
And should this happen, she had no legal rights, no legal redress, except those same drumhead courts of which Tony had spoken so bitterly, those military courts with their arbitrary powers.
And while their manners were thus the subject of sarcastic observation, the untaught Saxons unwittingly transgressed several of the arbitrary rules established for the regulation of society.
| arrange | |
v. put in proper order; dispose in the manner intended, or best suited for the purpose
There was another pause, and the physician began anew to examine and arrange the plants which he had gathered.
But I was bewildered, perplexed, and unable to arrange my ideas sufficiently to understand the full extent of his proposition.
Vronsky, who was, as it were, chief master of the ceremonies to him, was at great pains to arrange all the Russian amusements suggested by various persons to the prince.
| articulate | |
a. expressing oneself easily in clear and effective language
Some of the pigs themselves, however, were more articulate.
Levin, shaking with sobs and unable to articulate a word, went out of the room.
His voice was shrill, but very clear and articulate; and I could distinctly hear it when I stood up.
| ascertain | |
v. find out for certain; discover with certainty; make sure of
She felt a morbid desire to ascertain the point.
Looking out to ascertain for what, I saw, to My amazement, Peggotty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart.
I rose, and went into the garden, as soon as I could see, to ascertain if there were any footmarks under his window.
| aspiration | |
n. a hope or ambition of achieving something; the action or process of drawing breath
It was they who would carry out her aspiration.
She would make the dramatic association understand her aspiration.
With doubts, because the aspiration had been so laid waste in her youth.
| assail | |
v. assault; attack with or as if with violent blows
This resistance only infuriated Mr. Sikes the more; who, dropping on his knees, began to assail the animal most furiously.
A knight unhorsed might renew the fight on foot with any other on the opposite side in the same predicament; but mounted horsemen were in that case forbidden to assail him.
No wonder there had been some among the hunters who namelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured to assail it; but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of tornadoes.
| assay | |
v. analyze; evaluate; examine by trial or experiment; put to test
| asset | |
n. properties; advantage; useful or valuable quality
It was the last asset in their fortunes, the nucleus around which their life was to be rebuilt.
The state-owned railroad had once been an asset to the state but now it was a liability and its debts had piled up to the million mark.
She had been willing from the first to employ Lily in the show-room: as a displayer of hats, a fashionable beauty might be a valuable asset.
| assimilate | |
v. incorporate and absorb into mind; make similar; cause to resemble
They are in our homes; they are the associates of our children, and they form their minds faster than we can; for they are a race that children always will cling to and assimilate with.
Lily made a movement which showed her imperfect assimilation of this example.
Her mouth was dry as she assimilated this knowledge and she swallowed and looked into his eyes, trying to find some clue.
| astonish | |
v. surprise or impress someone greatly; shock
Nothing ever seemed to astonish her very much.
I have something to communicate that will astonish you not a little.
It would astonish one, unaccustomed to a slaveholding life, to see with what wonderful ease a slaveholder can find things, of which to make occasion to whip a slave.
| astounding | |
a. surprisingly impressive or notable; shocking
He had read with astounding breadth, and astounding lack of judgment.
She knitted an astounding purple scarf, which she hid under his supper plate.
Thomas Sawyer, this is the most astounding confession I have ever listened to.
| atheist | |
n. nonbeliever; one who denies the existence of god
Tom closed his eyes, and shuddered at the dark, atheistic words.
The atheistic taunts of his cruel master sunk his before dejected soul to the lowest ebb; and, though the hand of faith still held to the eternal rock, it was a numb, despairing grasp.
I'm the town badman, Mrs. Kennicott: town atheist, and I suppose I must be an anarchist, too.
| attempt | |
n. action of trying at something
Michaelis made a clumsy attempt to distract him.
But I was baffled in every attempt I made for this purpose.
His eyes glanced momentarily at me and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh.
| attribute | |
n. essential quality; reputation; honor
In truth, he was startled, if not shocked, to find this attribute in the physician.
The other was his wife, and he could only attribute her to the mysterious kindness of God.
Nothing is farther from my thoughts than to attribute any degree of artifice to Mr. jorkins.
| augment | |
v. make greater, as in size, extent, or quantity
The former Dantes proposed to augment, the latter to remedy.
She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition.
Mrs. Norris, whose attachment seemed to augment with the demerits of her niece, would have had her received at home and countenanced by them all.
| avail | |
v. turn to advantage of; be of service to; profit; promote
It would avail me nothing to extenuate it now.
That cannot be; but all that I can say will be of little avail.
But these cares of Clerval were made of no avail when I visited the professors.
| avert | |
v. prevent; turn or cause to turn off or away
But they discovered the danger in time, and made shift to avert it.
He might avert it all if he would but tell me what he had done with the three missing stones.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes By Arthur Conan Doyle
Context Highlight In XI. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET
Context Highlight In XI. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET
For his life he could not avert that excess of emotion: mingled anguish and humiliation overcame him completely.
| avid | |
a. greedy; eager for; marked by keen interest and enthusiasm
I believed her young, ardent, reckless, disillusioned, under sentence, feverish, avid of pleasure.
They had an avid curiosity about the South and Southern women, and Scarlett gave them their first opportunity to satisfy it.
She poured out a cup, and drank it with a frightful avidity, which seemed desirous of draining the last drop in the goblet.
| avocation | |
n. activity taken up in addition to one's regular work or profession, usually for enjoyment
The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless sculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits, every conceivable avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of them actually came into being.
The majority of the searchers had given up the quest and gone back to their daily avocations, saying that it was plain the children could never be found.
As they listened and looked--out into the garden--the trees tossing and the birds swirling seemed called out of their private lives, out of their separate avocations, and made to take part.
| awe | |
n. mixed emotion of reverence, respect, dread, and wonder; fear, as of something evil
The crowd, meanwhile, looked on with awe and wonder.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne
Context Highlight In XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER
Context Highlight In XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER
Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence.
It is a little document to do so much; and Traddles contemplates it, as it lies upon my desk, half in admiration, half in awe.
| azure | |
a. sky blue; light purplish blue
The peak of Monte Cristo reddened by the burning sun, was seen against the azure sky.
The Count of Monte Cristo By Alexandre Dumas
Context Highlight In Chapter 23. The Island of Monte Cristo.
Context Highlight In Chapter 23. The Island of Monte Cristo.
He found that he was in a grotto, went towards the opening, and through a kind of fanlight saw a blue sea and an azure sky.
They had found the door of the grotto opened, and gone forth; on the azure dome of heaven still glittered a few remaining stars.
| ballad | |
n. popular kind of narrative poem, adapted for recitation or singing
She passed into another ballad, this time a really doleful one.
All evening she sang Scotch ballads to Kennicott, and when she noticed that he was chewing an unlighted cigar she smiled maternally at his secret.
But there I always found her, the same bright housewife; often humming her Devonshire ballads when no strange foot was coming up the stairs, and blunting the sharp boy in his official closet with melody.
| ballot | |
n. printed or written ticket used in voting; act of voting; whole number of votes cast at an election
Let others burn with fury over the Yankee rule and losing the ballot.
The act said that in case of difference of opinion, there must be a ballot.
Certainly she could observe no progress in the direction of the recovery of the ballot.
| balmy | |
a. mild and pleasant; extremely foolish
A young man, very pale and worn, was lying upon a sofa near the open window, through which came the rich scent of the garden and the balmy summer air.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes By Arthur Conan Doyle
Context Highlight In XI. The Adventure of The Naval Treaty
Context Highlight In XI. The Adventure of The Naval Treaty
Now that the sun was setting in a welter of crimson behind the hills across the Flint River, the warmth of the April day was ebbing into a faint but balmy chill.
A balmy, soft warmth poured into the room, heavy with velvety smells, redolent of many blossoms, of newly fledged trees and of the moist, freshly turned red earth.
| ban | |