Period 7 Word of the Week - abasement

Period seven chose a potentially punny word of the week: abasement.  Abasement is not the lowest floor of your house, but rather the act or fact of abasing or being abased: humiliation or degradation. We created a fictional character to abase.


Mary Jane couldn't bear the feeling of abasement when her crush, Bob, laughed at her prom-posal because he thought she was kidding.

Period 1 Word of the Week - effulgent

This week, first period selected effulgent as our word of the week.  A brilliant choice!  Effulgent means radiant, splendorous, or brilliant.  The sentence we wrote to demonstrate our understanding of effulgent is:

The scene before our eyes was truly effulgent; the radiantly pregnant woman made snow angels in the newly-fallen snow, which sparkled in the morning sun.

Period 8 Word of the Week - soporific

This week, period 8 selected soporific as our word of the week, possibly due to Ms. B's teaching style.  Something soporific tends to induce drowsiness or sleep.  Our sentence:


Math class had a soporific effect on the students, who all fell asleep within one minute of the bell ringing.

Period 7 Word of the Week: lugubrious

This week, period 7 selected lugubrious as our word of the week.  Lugubrious means "looking or sounding sad and dismal."  Our sentence to demonstrate our understanding of the word was:


Jennifer was lugubrious when she saw her boyfriend kissing another girl on Valentine's Day.

Periods 1 & 8 Word of the Week: luxate

On Friday, February 13, periods 1 and 8 selected luxate as our word of the week. To luxate is to dislocate something or put it out of place, like dislocating your shoulder or your hip.  Here are the sentences we made to demonstrate our understanding of the word:

1. During the football game, Raspusia tackled Bob, luxating his shoulder.

2. Eric luxated his shoulder when trying to do a triple axel on the ice rink.

Period 1 Word of the Week: Opulence

This week, period 1 selected opulence as our word of the week.  Opulence is wealth, affluence, or material possessions.  The sentence we constructed to reflect our understanding of the word is:

Because of Oprah's vast opulence, she has no problem giving to others.

Periods 7 & 8 Word of the Week: desiderium

Periods 7 and 8 both voted for desiderium as this week's word of the week.  Desiderium is a noun meaning "an ardent longing, as for something lost." We constructed the following sentences to demonstrate our understanding of the word:

1. Abbie spent her money on a donut necklace, so now she is in a desiderium for what she so recklessly lost.

2. Even a decade after his death, Michael Jackson's children found themselves in a desiderium over the loss of their father.

All Classes' Word of the Week: flummox

Flummox is our very first word of the week for this semester!  The verb, to flummox, means to perplex or confuse.  Thus, to be flummoxed is to be perplexed or confused.  Here are the sentences our classes concocted to show our lack of confusion regarding the word flummox:

1. In math class, it felt like Mr. Duncan was intentionally trying to flummox his students.

2. Coco was flummoxed when she arrived at the Bat Mitzvah and she was supposed to be at her friend's Quince.

3. Setareh was flummoxed when she was jumped by Rango and Django.

All Classes' Word of the Week: Prevaricate

On December 12, all of our classes selected prevaricate to be the word of the week.  To prevaricate is to speak or act in an evasive way - to try to avoid telling the truth.  Our classes wrote a variety of sentences to exemplify our understanding of the word:


1. Elizabeth Proctor prevaricated when Judge Danforth asked her if John was faithful to her.
2. Lynden prevaricated when his mom asked him how he was doing in English class; he said he just got A's on three math assignments.
3. When challenged by his teammates to make a slam dunk, Matt prevaricated and hit a layup.

Period 7 Word of the Week: Impute

On December 5, period 7 selected the word impute as our word of the week.  The student who posted saw this word on the internet and thought that it relates well to The Crucible.  Impute means to "represent something as being done, caused, or possessed by someone; to attribute."  It is usually used to attribute bad or unpleasant things, but not always.


The sentence we devised to show our understanding of the word impute is:


Through investigation, the mass graves in Syria were imputed to ISIS.

Periods 1 & 4 Word of the Week: Entropy

On December 5, periods 1 and 4 selected entropy as our word of the week.  Many students are familiar with this word from science classes, but none had studied any alternate definitions.  When we looked it up, we discovered that entropy is a "lack of order or predictability; a gradual decline into disorder."


The sentences we constructed to show our understanding of the word are:


1) Teenagers' bedrooms decline from sparkling gems into entropy over the course of a week.
2) Timmy's bedroom was clean until his friends came over, and it degraded into entropy.

Period 1 Word of the Week: parochial

On November 21, first period selected parochial as our word of the week.  This word was found in our current class text, in The Crucible.  Parochial has two meanings:

1) of or relating to a church parish, or
2) having a limited or narrow scope.

The sentence we created to show our understanding of the word is:
The Nazis' discrimination against non-Germanic people revealed their parochial views.

Periods 4 & 7 Word of the Week: Akin

On November 14, period 4 chose akin as our word of the week, and on November 21, period 7 selected the same word!  Akin means similar to or alike.  The sentences we created to express our understanding of akin are:

1) Samsung was sued by Apple for creating a tablet that was akin to the iPad.
2) Dolphins are akin to whales because they are both mammals who live in the ocean.

All Classes Word of the Week: Absquatulate

On November 14, periods 1 and 7 selected absquatulate as our word of the week.  The following week, November 21, period 4 selected the same word!

To absquatulate is to run away, usually taking something or someone along.  Here are the sentences we devised to show our understanding of the word:

1) The stupid bank robbers failed to absquatulate with their loot; they got in the wrong car!
2) As the house burned down, I absquatulated with my cat and my baby - my two most precious possessions.
3) The robbers absquatulated with abundant amounts of money from the bank.

Word of the Week: Miasma

During Homecoming week, all three English classes selected miasma as our word of the week.  The student who posted the word miasma read it in a book.  When we looked it up, we discovered that a miasma is "a highly unpleasant or unhealthy smell or vapor."  The sentences our classes created to demonstrate our understanding of the word are:

1) No one could enter the locker room without crying because of the miasma created by a skunk nesting in a pile of sweaty shinguards.

2) There was a catastrophic miasma in the locker room after football practice; the coach and trainers passed out due to the smell of wet, stinky gear.

3) After the pep rally in the gym the rank breath of the underclassmen left a miasma.

Word of the Week: Winnow

This week's word, winnow, was found by a student in SAT prep materials.  The definition of winnow is to blow through, or, in farming terms, to blow a current of air through grain in order to remove the chaff.  This word is most commonly used figuratively, meaning to scan or sort through many items to find a desired item.  The sentences we wrote to demonstrate our understanding of winnow are:

1) The homeless man winnowed through the McDonald's dumpster to find something to eat.
2) Timmy winnowed through his messy backpack, trying to find a pencil for warmup.
3) At Lord & Taylor, Matt was winnowing through suits to find a wedding tux in his size.

Word of the Week: Promontory

This week, our classes only had one choice available for the word of the week: promontory.  A promontory is a point of high land that juts out into a large body of water.  Our sentences that demonstrate our understanding of the meaning of promontory are:


1. Juan dove off the promontory into the ocean, just for kicks.
2. The earthquake caused a dangerous landslide; boulders fell from the promontory into the ocean.
3. During the rainy season the promontory is very unsafe because landslides are likely.

Word of the Week: effervescent

This week, all of our English classes selected effervescent as our word of the week. 


Effervescent means:
1. giving off bubbles, fizzy
2. vivacious and enthusiastic


Here are some sentences the classes devised to show their understanding of effervescent:


1. Ms. B is a very effervescent person, even at 7:30 AM.
2. The fans at the Kanye concert were so effervescent that they got Kanye to play an encore.
3. Dre Money is effervescent every day, even on Monday morning when most people are sleepy.

Period 1 Word of the Week: esurient

This week, period 1 selected esurient as our word of the week.  Neither the students nor the teacher knew this word, so we looked it up and found that it means: "greedy or hungry."

The sentence we created to demonstrate our understanding of the word is, "Kanye West was very esurient; he stole all the attention when he stole the mic from Taylor Swift at the VMAs."

Periods 4 & 7 Word of the Week: motley

Both period 4 and period 7 voted for motley to be our word of the week.  Motley means "incongruously varied in appearance or character; disparate."  Many students were concerned that the definition contained some large and unfamiliar words, so our classes also discussed the definition of incongruously, making a connection to geometry class (congruent and incongruent shapes).

The sentences that we came up with to demonstrate our understanding of motley are:

Period 4: GHS's student demographic is motley; we have scholars of every background, culture, race, religion, and age.

Period 7: The many colors of the leaves make the forest look motley in the fall.