A few years ago, I taught the Chronicles of Narnia as part of a college course. I always feel odd teaching a class on books that people read for fun, books with a very high entertainment value. Isn’t that what people outside the academy assume we’re doing on campus: giving college credit for watching cartoons and reading comic books? So partly to salve my conscience, and partly to alert students to just how challenging this children’s literature by C. S. Lewis really is, I pulled out the hardest words in the book and made a vocabulary quiz. Some of the words are British, some are out of usage since mid-century, but some are just indicators that C. S. Lewis had a great vocabulary and expected young readers to enjoy it.
4 points each. Eyes on your own paper!
hummock: (p. 140)
A. a knoll
B. a lumpy bed
C. a mountain
D. a cut of meat
scullion: (p. 133)
A. marine parasite
B. menial kitchen help
C. elf bathroom
D. comes before mulder
indigence: (p. 3)
A. irresponsibility
B. poverty
C. autochthonism
D. aboriginality
carbuncle: (p. 6)
A. a robot cousin
B. a precious red stone
C.a painful localized bacterial infection of the skin and subcutaneous tissue, having several openings through which pus is discharged
D. both B and C
inexorable: (p. 43)
A. unsatisfying
B. too Tashy
C. indigestible
D. relentless
plash: (p. 10)
A. sound of water
B. overstuffed
C. comes before q lash
D. peasant’s hut
copse: (p. 20)
A. medieval law enforcers
B. dwarfy
C. thicket of small trees
D. handsaw
to sheer: (p. 28)
A. to swerve from course
B. to sever
C. to rend apart
D. to make transparent
pith: (p. 44)
A. any monkey
B. the essence of a thing
C. a detour
D. seeds
desist: (p. 119)
A. to cease
B. to resist but with a “d”
C. to remove
D. to broadcast
salutary: (p. 121)
A. graduated with honors
B. healthful
C. waving
D. prone to jumping
loquacious: (p. 121)
A. secretive
B. oozing
C. parsimonious
D. talkative
effected: (p. 121)
A. artificial
B. moved, influenced
C. brought about, caused
D. set down
circumspect:(p. 125)
A. prudent
B. edgy
C. unctuous
D. castrated
sapient: (p. 122)
A. talkative
B. infectious
C. human
D. having great discernment
apophthegm: (p. 126)
A. sinus infection
B. punctuation mark
C. maxim
D. bless you
estimable: (p. 126)
A. courageous
B. innumerable
C. admirable
D. secret
prognostic: (p. 130)
A. horn
B. lecture
C. portent
D. in favor of heretics
quail: (p. 134)
A. to pacify
B. to shrink back in fear
C. to stock together
D. to gobble
prim: (p. 138)
A. correct
B. to smooth over
C. to gloat
D. excessively decorous
cataract: (p. 142)
A. eye surgery
B. feline hurler
C. gravelly
D. waterfall
lintel: (p. 185)
A. leguminous plant with edible seeds
B. female student in rabbinical school
C. horizontal beam above a door
D. tie which has gone out of fashion
frowsty: (p. 186)
A. grumpy
B. dumpy
C. stale smelling
D. rambunctious
to funk: (p. 199)
A. to boogie or groove
B. to stink bad
C. to be depressed
D. to shrink in fright
gentilesse:
A. refinement and courtesy resulting from good breeding
B. snobbishness and aloofness like that of a Frenchman
C. the knowledge of which fork to use in eating one’s salad
D. that class of people who are not Jewish
Bonus words:
1. pajock
2. hastilude (p. 68)
