1. A.P. Literature Vocabulary List
Week One

2. “Words, Words, Words” …to Know and Love
Week # 1 Literary Terms
1. Metaphor: noun
A: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.
-from Greek, metapherein to “transfer”, from meta- pherein to bear (as in bear or carry a burden) First Known Use: 15th century
Example: “Up a trackless slope climbs the master artist, and at the top, on a windy ridge, whom do you think he meets? The panting and happy reader, and there they spontaneously embrace and are linked forever if the book is to last forever.” V. Nabokov

3. “Words, Words, Words” …to Know and Love
Week # 1 Literary Terms
2: Simile: a noun
- a figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by like or as
_ from Latin, from similis “comparison”
First Known Use: 14th century
Example: “The car continued to come on slowly…. It was a big black battered hearse-like automobile.”
-Flannery O’Connor “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

4. “Words, Words, Words” …to Know and Love
Week # 1 Literary Terms
Note: When quoting textual evidence that contains a metaphor or simile, it is crucial to analyze the quote by explaining what is being compared with what and why. Be sure to comment on the effect the comparison creates.
“The car continued to come on slowly…. It was a big black battered hearse-like automobile.”
O’Connor compares the Misfit’s car to a hearse, which is associated with funerals and death. This creates an ominous atmosphere and suggests that the occupants of the car may pose a deadly threat to the family.

5. Words, Words, Words …to Know and Love
Week One Vocabulary
1. ephemeral (adj):
1. lasting a very short time; short-lived; transitory
2. lasting but one day
Greek ephḗmer , (ep- + hēmér: day)
First known use:
“The various combinations these minor authors are able to produce … may be quite amusing in a mild ephemeral way....” V. Nabokov

6. Words, Words, Words …to Know and Love
Week One Vocabulary
2. aloof:
1.adverb: at a distance, especially in feeling or interest; apart
2. adjective: reserved or reticent; indifferent; disinterested
First known use: Middle English loof or “luff” for "windward direction”. Originally a nautical order to keep the ship's bow to the wind to stay clear of shore; hence the figurative sense of "at a distance, apart”.
As readers, “we ought to remain a little aloof and take pleasure in this aloofness while at the same time we keenly enjoy … the inner weave of a given masterpiece.” V. Nabokov

7. Words, Words, Words …to Know and Love
Week One Vocabulary
3. temper:
noun: 1. a person's state of mind seen in terms of their being angry or calm.
2. the degree of hardness and elasticity in steel or other metal.
verb: improve the hardness and elasticity of steel or other metal)by reheating and then cooling it.
*2. serve as a neutralizing or counterbalancing force
Old English temprian ‘bring something into the required condition by mixing it with something else.’ The noun originally denoted the combination of the four bodily humors, believed in medieval times to be the basis of temperament, hence sense 1 of the noun (late Middle English).

8. Words, Words, Words …to Know and Love
Week One Vocabulary
3. temper:
Example: “The enthusiastic artist alone is apt to be too subjective in his attitude towards a book, and so a scientific coolness of judgment will temper the intuitive heat.” V. Nabokov

9. Words, Words, Words …to Know and Love
Week One Vocabulary
4. intuitive: (adj) known or perceived by intuition : directly apprehended
intuition: 1. quick and ready insight
2. immediate apprehension or cognition
3. the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference
First Known Use: circa from Latin intuēri to look at, contemplate

10. Words, Words, Words …to Know and Love
Week One Vocabulary
5. prodigious: (adj) a) obsolete : being an omen : portentous
b): resembling or befitting a prodigy: strange, unusual
2: exciting amazement or wonder
3: extraordinary in bulk, quantity, or degree : enormous
First Known Use: 15th Century: Middle English, from Latin prodigium omen, monster, from pro-, prod- + -igium (akin to aio “I say”)

11. Words, Words, Words …to Know and Love
“From the simple deception of propagation to the prodigiously sophisticated illusion of protective colors in butterflies or birds, there is in Nature a marvelous system of spells and wiles.”
–V. Nabokov

12. Words, Words, Words …to Know and Love
Week One Vocabulary
6. wiles: (noun)
1: a trick or stratagem intended to ensnare or deceive; also : a beguiling or playful trick
2: skill in outwitting
Middle English “wil”, perhaps of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse vēl deceit, artifice
First Known Use: 12th century

13. Words, Words, Words …to Know and Love
Week One Vocabulary
limpid: (adj)
1. a: marked by transparency:
b: clear and simple in style <limpid prose>
2. absolutely serene and untroubled
-from Latin limpidus, perhaps from lympha water
First Known Use: 1613
“There are masterpieces of dry, limpid, organized thought which provoke in us an artistic quiver quite as strongly as… any rich flow of Dickensian sensual imagery.” V. Nabokov

14. Words, Words, Words …to Know and Love
Week One Vocabulary
8. bask: (verb):
1. to lie or relax in a pleasant warmth or atmosphere
2. to take pleasure or derive enjoyment
First Known Use: 14th century
Middle English, probably from Old Norse bathask, reflexive of batha to bathe; akin to Old English bæth bath
“In order to bask in [the magic of art] a wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine.” V. Nabokov