9th Grade Spelling Words With Definition
Grade 9: With Definition - 1
The page presents 9th 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 9.
Get Vocabulary/Definition by list: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The page presents 9th 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 9.
Get Vocabulary/Definition by list: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
| Actions upon current list |
| All lists of current grdae |
| Grade 9: With Definition - 1 |
| abrupt |      |
a. broken off; very steep; having sudden transitions from one subject to another
Liza was as soft and enervated as Sappho was smart and abrupt.
To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke of the Aged and of Miss Skiffins.
I have been too abrupt in communicating the news; it has excited you beyond your strength.
| abstract | |
a. theoretical; not concrete; not applied or practical; difficult to understand
Yet the village sympathized with Clifford and Connie in the abstract.
Truthful we both were; he from pride and courage, I from a sort of abstract ideality.
A dull, animal-like rebellion against his fellows, war in the abstract, and fate grew within him.
| abundantly | |
ad. in great numbers; in a plentiful or sufficient degree; plentifully
All of the world was crying out for cotton, and the new land of the County, unworn and fertile, produced it abundantly.
Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is he.
A few dingy olives and stunted fig-trees struggled hard for existence, but their withered dusty foliage abundantly proved how unequal was the conflict.
| abuse | |
n. improper use or handling; misuse
On this Antinous began to abuse the swineherd.
I want to be kind, but I know I shall get angry if you abuse my Professor.
He looked on this spiritual exercise as a harmful and dangerous abuse of the fancy.
| adopt | |
v. accept; take on; raise; take into one's family
I adopt all customs, speak all languages.
As His disciple I adopt His pure, His merciful, His benignant doctrines.
He resolved to adopt the second, and began that day to carry out his resolve.
| adorn | |
v. enhance or decorate with or as if with ornaments
Then her desire had been to adorn herself with something, and the more adorned the better.
She might be fifty-five or sixty; but hers was one of those faces that time seems to touch only to brighten and adorn.
To adorn themselves with flowers, to dance, to sing in the sunlight: so much was left of the artistic spirit, and no more.
| adversary | |
n. opponent in contest; someone who offers opposition
But revenge kept me alive; I dared not die and leave my adversary in being.
The circumstance irritated instead of calming the general, and he rushed on his adversary.
Eugenie bowed, not as a submissive daughter, but as an adversary prepared for a discussion.
| affect | |
v. have an emotional or cognitive impact upon
This did not affect Sergey Ivanovitch in the slightest.
Levin felt so resolute and serene that no answer, he fancied, could affect him.
She was religious, had never doubted the truths of religion, but his external unbelief did not affect her in the least.
| affection | |
n. fondness; tender feeling toward another; fondness
My affection for my guest increases every day.
Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again.
She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death.
| agile | |
a. moving quickly and lightly; mentally quick
I obeyed: joy made me agile: I sprang up before him.
He had long, quivering fingers as agile and restless as the antennae of an insect.
He was a fine figure of a man, tall, lithe, and agile, with a springy step and a pleasant, open face.
| ailment | |
n. sickness; illness; affliction
No ailment was found, and he investigated again.
A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.
When the cow had the colic and the horse fell ill with a mysterious ailment which threatened to remove him permanently from them, Will sat up nights with them and saved them.
| alert | |
n. warning serves; alarm; condition of heightened watchfulness or preparation for action
Confused as Catherine was, her wits were alert at applying our conversation.
He remembered afterward how intensely wide awake and alert he had thought he was.
began the princess, and from her serious and alert face, Kitty guessed what it would be.
| ally | |
n. confederate; partner; collaborator
John Ferrier felt a different man now that he realized that he had a devoted ally.
The French had accounted for this unexpected defection on the part of their ally in various ways.
She looked at the other woman, who stood so sly, with her head dropped: yet somehow, in her femaleness, an ally.
| almond | |
n. deciduous tree, native to Asia and northern Africa and having alternate, simple leaves, pink flowers, and leathery fruits
| aloft | |
ad. in or into a high place; high or higher up
His spirit was gone for to sport aloft.
High aloft in the cross-trees was that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego.
Then he picked up a rock much larger than the first, swung it aloft and hurled it with prodigious force.
| alter | |
v. modify; cause to change; make different; convert
The towns remain unvaried, yet the individual faces alter like classes in college.
That there were no more mansions and horses and negroes and few books did not alter matters.
And once, alter such an operation, Scarlett found her in the linen closet vomiting quietly into a towel.
| anathema | |
n. solemn curse; someone or something regarded as a curse
| anguish | |
n. agonizing physical or mental pain; extreme suffering
My own agitation and anguish was extreme during the whole trial.
He was conveyed home, and the anguish that was visible in my countenance betrayed the secret to Elizabeth.
No one can conceive the anguish I suffered during the remainder of the night, which I spent, cold and wet, in the open air.
| anticipate | |
v. act in advance of; deal with ahead of time; predict
My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune.
Pleasure not known beforehand is half wasted; to anticipate it is to double it.
Return of the Native By Thomas Hardy
Context Highlight In BOOK 3: 5 Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues
Context Highlight In BOOK 3: 5 Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues
If you ask me for a day, count, I know what to anticipate; it will not be a house I shall see, but a palace.
| antiquated | |
a. too old to be fashionable, suitable, or useful; obsolete; aged
Scarlett, our Southern way of living is as antiquated as the feudal system of the Middle Ages.
And hanging the antique broad-brim on a bust of Plato, Jo read her letters.
The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than anything else in the New World.
| antique | |
n. any furniture old and valuable; out of fashion
And hanging the antique broad-brim on a bust of Plato, Jo read her letters.
It is seldom, indeed, an English face comes so near the antique models as did his.
The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than anything else in the New World.
| applaud | |
v. acclaim; express approval, especially by clapping the hands
I was the first to discover Duprez at Naples, and the first to applaud him.
She could recount shamelessly and with pride how she had skinned people out of their eyeteeth and he would applaud.
We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr. Wopsle; but they were too hopeless to be persisted in.
| appoint | |
v. assign a job or role to someone; designate; nominate
Write and appoint the evening after to-morrow, at seven, for the meeting.
But I told Traddles, and Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, that before I could think of leaving, they must appoint a day when they would come and dine with me.
At last he arrived in Rome, where the Pope had just died, and there was great doubt among the cardinals as to whom they should appoint as his successor.
| apprehensive | |
a. capable of apprehending; knowing; conscious; relating to the faculty of apprehension; sensible; feeling; perceptive
Grandmother was apprehensive at once.
The natives came, by degrees, to be less apprehensive of any danger from me.
I got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at least a great dog underneath.
| approximate | |
v. come close or be similar to something in quality, nature, or quantity; come near
Carol gazed with a polite approximation to interest at Mr. Dashaway, a tan person with a wide mouth.
One foot in the shortened stirrup and the other leg crooked about the pommel in an approximation of a side saddle, she set out across the fields toward Mimosa, steeling herself to find it burned.
| apt | |
a. likely; exactly suitable; appropriate; quick to learn or understand
I had been apt enough to learn, and willing enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together.
When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.
Neither have I forgotten how apt some travellers are to boast of extraordinary favours they have received.
| archetype | |
n. prototype; original model or type after which other similar things are patterned
| arena | |
n. playing field where sports events take place; large structure for open-air sports or entertainments
I might have been an unfortunate little bull in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched up by these moral goads.
It became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which most of the battles for the mastery of the colonies were contested.
But neither of the men paid much attention to these things, their eyes being concentrated upon the little flat stone, which to them was an arena vast and important as a battlefield.
| assault | |
n. a physical attack; onslaught
And still puffing at his pipe, Stubb cheered on his crew to the assault.
A white and colored man were implicated in the assault upon a white girl.
This was worse than before: the youth grew crimson, and clenched his fist, with every appearance of a meditated assault.
| assemble | |
v. put together; bring or call together into a group or whole
In Roeskilde, too, the members of the Danish Diet assemble.
They used to assemble in the parlour after supper on Saturday nights.
Four days later, in the late afternoon, Napoleon ordered all the animals to assemble in the yard.
| assist | |
v. give help or support to, especially as a subordinate
We must, in a measure, assist to turn them up.
I discovered also another means through which I was enabled to assist their labours.
I told him that my old nurse would be delighted to assist him, and that we would all three take the field together, but on one condition.
| associate | |
v. connect or join together; combine
| assuage | |
v. ease or lessen pain; satisfy or appease
I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it.
Her tongue was furred and her throat parched as if flames had scorched it and no amount of water could assuage her thirst.
Food, however, became scarce, and I often spent the whole day searching in vain for a few acorns to assuage the pangs of hunger.
| atrophy | |
n. wasting away; decrease in size; reduction in the functionality of an organ caused by disease
| attain | |
v. achieve or accomplish; gain
But Gerald could never attain elegance.
We have not yet grasped the results which the reason alone can attain to.
I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are yearning to attain it.
| attend | |
v. be present at; go to; take care of; tend
I had not the power to attend to it.
I went there, not to attend to what was going on, but to think about Dora.
He was to come away in an hour or two to attend me to Hammersmith, and I was to wait about for him.
| attentive | |
a. alert and watchful; considerate; thoughtful
There was a group assembled round the fire at the Three Jolly Bargemen, attentive to Mr. Wopsle as he read the newspaper aloud.
Mr. Dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint, and stood among the group, with a grave and attentive expression of face.
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
There was nothing particularly choice there, to be sure; but I took the will for the deed, and felt that they were very attentive.
| attire | |
n. clothes, especially fine or formal ones; dress
The old orchard wore its holiday attire.
A stable boy, spruce and smart in his holiday attire, met them with a broom in his hand, and followed them.
Altogether, Anna, on turning, after the departure of her guests, to the consideration of her attire, was very much annoyed.
| awkward | |
a. difficult to handle or manage
It was a very awkward moment; and the countenance of each shewed that it was so.
You will find me a very awkward narrator, Miss Dashwood; I hardly know where to begin.
The merest awkward country girl, without style, or elegance, and almost without beauty.
| babble | |
v. talk foolishly or idly; utter meaningless confusion of words or sounds
She was glad even to babble to Clifford.
Then there was an excited babble of negro voices in the darkness of the yard and high-pitched negro laughter.
The house seemed bursting with the crowd, and a ceaseless babble of talking and laughter and giggles and shrill feminine squeaks and screams rose and fell.
| baffle | |
v. frustrate as by confusing or perplexing; impede force or movement of
After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition.
The ivy was the baffling thing.
It was a face that changed all the time, baffling.
| baggage | |
n. trunks, bags, parcels, and suitcases in which one carries one's belongings while traveling; luggage
But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with them.
I hired two mules, with a guide, to show me the way, and carry my small baggage.
The maid took a handbag and the lap dog, the butler and a porter the other baggage.
| basin | |
n. bowl-shaped vessel, usually used for holding food or liquids
I must dip my hand again and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling gore.
She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head.
It stood on the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest-covered hills, towards the west.
| benefit | |
n. advantage; something that aids or promotes well-being ; welfare; gain
You come to give me the benefit of your sober judgement at a most opportune time.
You pretend to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer a benefit on him.
David Copperfield By Charles Dickens
Context Highlight In CHAPTER 22. SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE
Context Highlight In CHAPTER 22. SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE
A flash of eagerness suffused the face of Alexey Alexandrovitch as he rapidly wrote out a synopsis of these ideas for his own benefit.
| bestow | |
v. give as gift; present
Soft, seedy biscuits, also, I bestow upon Miss Shepherd; and oranges innumerable.
This, I thought, was the moment of decision, which was to rob me of or bestow happiness on me forever.
Every morning she went into the garden and prayed to God in heaven to bestow on her a son or a daughter.
| biennial | |
a. every two years; lasting or living for two years
| blemish | |
v. mark with deformity; injure or impair, as anything which is excellent; make defective, either the body or mind
There is not a blemish in mind or person at which the proudest of you all would sicken.
It was very pretty then, but to me it is much prettier now, for in this seeming blemishes I read a little history.
But once get used to these slight blemishes and nothing could be more complete, for good sense and good taste had presided over the furnishing, and the result was highly satisfactory.
| blockade | |
n. shutting up of a place by troops or ships; obstruction to passage
They were as isolated from the world of fashion as shipwrecked mariners, for few books of fashion came through the blockade.
Everyone knew now that the fate of the Confederacy rested as much upon the skill of the blockade boats in eluding the Yankee fleet as it did upon the soldiers at the front.
The Yankee blockade about the Confederate ports had tightened, and luxuries such as tea, coffee, silks, whalebone stays, colognes, fashion magazines and books were scarce and dear.
| blossom | |
n. reproductive organ of plants, especially one having showy or colorful parts
Her head, set off by her dainty white gown, suggested a rich, rare blossom.
More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.
It did not appear to me that he took much notice of it, but before he went he asked my mother to give him a bit of the blossom.
| bluff | |
n. pretense of strength; mislead or deceive
It was answered from under the bluff.
She was jarred out of her ecstasy as the bob-sled bumped up the steep road to the bluff where stood the cottages.
I fetched the shore a half a mile above the village, and then went scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water.
| blunder | |
n. serious mistake typically caused by ignorance or confusion
She had somehow made a blunder.
Perceiving myself in a blunder, I attempted to correct it.
The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused.
| blunt | |
a. having a dull edge or end; not sharp; lacking in feeling; insensitive
His black shoes were blunt and not well polished.
And though his questions were unpleasantly blunt, they seemed actuated by a friendly interest.
We both bowed, and then we laughed, for the prim introduction and the blunt addition were rather a comical contrast.
| bluster | |
v. blow in heavy gusts; speak in a loudly arrogant or bullying manner
From all the interwoven forest arose the smoke and bluster of the battle.
But the long serpents crawled slowly from hill to hill without bluster of smoke.
My business was to declare myself a scoundrel, and whether I did it with a bow or a bluster was of little importance.
| boggle | |
v. hesitate as if in fear or doubt; shy away or be overcome with fright or astonishment
| bonanza | |
n. boom; rich mine, vein, or pocket of ore; sudden opportunity to make money
| bonus | |
n. an extra dividend to the shareholders; money paid in addition to a stated compensation
| boycott | |
v. refrain from buying or using
| brawl | |
n. fight; noisy quarrel or fight; loud party
He was killed in a saloon brawl long before I was born.
A small-town bungalow, the wives of a village doctor and a village dry-goods merchant, a provincial teacher, a colloquial brawl over paying a servant a dollar more a week.
He was not only a professional peacemaker, but from practice a hater of all feuds and brawls.
| breach | |
n. breaking of contract or duty
In short, it ended in a total breach.
She hurled one in return, and the angry breach was complete.
That fool Princess Varvara, even she has left her, considering this a breach of propriety.
| breadth | |
n. measure or dimension from side to side; width; extent
Heathcliff measured the height and breadth of the speaker with an eye full of derision.
Miss Stepney, when her first fright had subsided, began to feel the superiority that greater breadth of mind confers.
He is taller by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court; which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders.
| brittle | |
a. easily broken; having little elasticity
She laughed and was frivolous and rather brittle.
The brittle blue line had withstood the blows and won.
The white brittle mask was back again and she picked up the reins.
| calculate | |
v. compute; determine; estimate
She would not calculate, she would not compare.
We calculate it will scarcely last till it is eighteen.
They calculate the year by the revolution of the sun and moon, but use no subdivisions into weeks.