Unit 3: Vocabulary from Readings

This list covers Biography of Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, "Landmarks of Nelson Mandela’s Life," "Invictus," Playing the Enemy, and Nelson Mandela's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech.
12 words 59 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. acquit
    pronounce not guilty of criminal charges
    He went on trial for treason in 1956–1961 and was acquitted in 1961.
  2. dock
    an enclosure where the defendant sits during a trial
    His statement from the dock received considerable international publicity.
  3. transitory
    lasting a very short time
    At first, as a student, I wanted freedom only for myself, the transitory freedoms of being able to stay out at night, read what I pleased, and go where I chose.
  4. animate
    give new life or energy to
    It was this desire for the freedom of my people to live their lives with dignity and self-respect that animated my life, that transformed a frightened young man into a bold one, that drove a law-abiding attorney to become a criminal, that turned a family-loving husband into a man without a home, that forced a life-loving man to live like a monk.
  5. dispossessed
    physically or spiritually homeless or deprived of security
    1919 – His father is dispossessed on the orders of a white magistrate, losing most of his cattle, land and income.
  6. fell
    able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering
    In the fell clutch of circumstance
    I have not winced nor cried aloud.
  7. bludgeon
    strike with a club
    Under the bludgeonings of chance
    My head is bloody, but unbowed.
  8. wrath
    intense anger
    Beyond this place of wrath and tears
    Looms but the Horror of the shade
  9. reckon
    judge to be probable
    For what Mandela had reckoned, in that half instinctive, half calculating way of his, was that the World Cup might prove helpful in the great challenge of national unification that still lay ahead.
  10. overt
    open and observable; not secret or hidden
    Mandela never made his purpose overt in that first meeting with Pienaar, but he did edge closer to the main theme when he switched the conversation to his memories of the Barcelona Olympic Games, which he had attended in 1992 and recalled with great enthusiasm.
  11. anoint
    choose by or as if by divine intervention
    The gods at that moment were Mandela and Pienaar, the old man in green, crowned king of all South Africa, handing the cup to Pienaar, the young man in green, anointed that day as the spiritual head of born-again Afrikanerdom.
  12. commendation
    an official award given as formal public statement
    We do not believe that this Nobel Peace Prize is intended as a commendation for matters that have happened and passed.
Created on Wed Nov 10 17:07:14 EST 2021 (updated Fri Nov 19 09:15:12 EST 2021)

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