Essential vocabulary for reading comprehension for ages 11-16.
These words are taken from poetry from Shakespeare to the present day. I use this list to teach meanings and concepts – to boost students’ comprehension. It is not intended as a spelling test, or as a list to use in stories / descriptive writing.
The list also includes words which I find students struggle with, based on my own teaching experience. I’m going to add to and edit this list as I use it myself (I’m a UK based private tutor of age 8-18).
How to use the list: click on five of the words to get definitions. Then write a short, ‘fifty word story’ using them. Get someone who knows how the words are used correctly to check and explain any issues with usage.
If you don’t have someone to help you, either:
[1] the dictionary search may show up a sentence which uses the word
[2] or use the search box below. Type in the word you want to learn after the word ‘telegraph’. Then you will find the word in context, used correctly, in an article in the Daily Telegraph. Genius!
abrupt
acute
adversity (adverse)
age (as in ‘the golden age’, ‘the seven ages of man’)
aggressive
alchemy
amorous
anaesthetic
aristocracy
armistice
ashes (as in, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’)
aspirations
assert, assertive
awe
betray, betrayal
beseech
bile
bitter
blunder
boundless
branded (marked)
brandish
buoyant
chaos
clamour
colossal
conscience
conscious
converge
conversion (religious)
countenance
coyness
daubed
decay
decline
deflated
democracy
demoted
desertion
devour
earnest
encircled
emulate
encompass
enthralled
enraptured
faith
fathom, fathoming
floundering
foreboding
founded (ill-founded)
fragrant
freight
futile
gallant
garment
gilded
grace (state of grace)
grimace
harmonious
haul
horizon
hull
husk
identity
inaction
inferno
intoxicated
luminous
impediment
impenetrable
imperious
impulse
incline
injustice (unjust)
involuntary
justice
languish, langour, languid
luxury
macabre
manacles
melancholy
migration
militant
minute (minuscule)
modest
motivate, motivation
multitude
mute, muted
oblique
oblivion
ominous
opaque
passion
patriotic
pedestal
pestilence
pitiful, pitiless, piteous
phosphorescence
portray
pretence
principal
profound
prosperity
psychological
quaint
rapacious
rapt
Reason (as a faculty)
scorn
scrutinise, scrutiny
searing
sentinel
sickle
sin
slaughter
sophisticated
soul
stampede
state (as in ‘state of being’, and ‘the state’)
stealthily
strewn
strife, strive
subdue
submerge
subsequent
subversive, subvert
suspense
tainted
tangible
tarnished
tempest, tempestuous
transgress, transgression
transitory
translucent
treacherous
triumph
tyrant, tyrannical, tyranny
undulate
unknowable
unswerving
utmost
vault (‘to leap’, and ‘tomb’)
vicious
visage
vivid
wielded
