TỪ VỰNG TOEIC unit 13

Unit 13
CORD CULP DICT GNI/GNO GRAPH ART FORT CIS Animal Words
Quiz 13-1 Quiz 13-2 Quiz 13-3 Quiz 13-4 Quiz 13-5 Review Quizzes 13
CORD, from the Latin word for “heart,” turns up in several common English
words. So does its Greek relative card-, which is familiar to us in words such
as cardiac, “relating to the heart.”


accord

(1) To grant. (2) To be in harmony; agree.

• What she told police under questioning didn't accord with the accounts of
the other witnesses.
A new federal law may accord with—or be in accordance with—the
guidelines that a company has already established. The rowdy behavior of the
hero Beowulf accords with Norse ideals of the early Middle Ages; but such
behavior wouldn't have been in accordance with the ideals of a later young
lord from the same general region, Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet. Accord is
also a noun, meaning “agreement.” Thus, we often hear of two countries
signing a peace accord; and we also frequently hear of two things or people
being “in accord with” each other.


concord
agreement.

(1) A state of agreement: harmony. (2) A formal

• In 1801 Napoleon signed a concord with the pope reestablishing the
Catholic Church in France.

The roots of concord suggest the meaning “hearts together.” At the very
outset of the American Revolution, the town of Concord, Massachusetts, was
the site of a famous battle—obviously not exactly in keeping with its name. It
shares that name with the capital of New Hampshire and a few other towns
and cities, and Concordia, the original Latin word for “concord,” is the name
of several Lutheran universities. Today concord is a rather formal term,
probably most often used to mean a specific agreement; thus, two countries
may sign a concord on matters that have led to trouble in the past.


cordial

Warm, friendly, gracious.

• After the meeting, the president extended a cordial invitation to everyone
for coffee at her own house.
Anything that is cordial comes from the heart. Cordial greetings to friends on
the street, or cordial relations between two countries, are warm without being
passionate. Cordial is also a noun, which originally meant any stimulating
medicine or drink that was thought to be good for the heart. Today a cordial
is a liqueur, a sweetened alcoholic drink with interesting flavoring. Cordials
such as crème de menthe, Drambuie, or Benedictine are alcoholic enough to
warm the spirits and the heart.


discordant

Being at odds, conflicting, not in harmony.

• The first discordant note at dinner was struck by my cousin, when he

claimed the president was only interested in taking away our guns.
Discord, a word more common in earlier centuries than today, means
basically “conflict,” so discordant often means “conflicting.” The opinions of
Supreme Court justices are frequently discordant; justices who disagree with
the Court's decision usually write a dissenting opinion. Discordant is often
used with a somewhat musical meaning, suggesting that a single wrong note
or harmony has been heard in the middle of a performance—even though
musical words such as chord actually come from a different Latin word,
meaning “cord” or “string” (a reference to the strings of ancient instruments
such as the lyre).


CULP comes from the Latin word for “guilt.” Its best-known appearance in
English is probably in culprit, meaning someone who is guilty of a crime.


culpable

Deserving to be condemned or blamed.

• The company was found guilty of culpable negligence in allowing the
chemical waste to leak into the groundwater.
Culpable normally means simply “guilty.” To a lawyer, “culpable
negligence” is carelessness so serious that it becomes a crime—for instance,
building a swimming pool in your suburban yard with no fence around it, so
that a neighbor's child could fall in and drown. But degrees of culpability are
important in the law; someone who intended to do harm always faces a more
serious challenge in court than someone who was merely careless.

exculpate

To clear from accusations of fault or guilt.

• The girls aren't proud of what they did that night, but they've been
exculpated by witnesses and won't be facing criminal charges.
Exculpate gets its meaning from the prefix ex-, which here means “out of” or
“away from.” A suspected murderer may be exculpated by the confession of
another person. And exculpatory evidence is the kind that defense lawyers
are always looking for.


inculpate
To accuse or incriminate; to show evidence of
someone's involvement in a fault or crime.
• It was his own father who finally inculpated him, though without intending
to.
Inculpate is the opposite of exculpate, just as inculpatory evidence is the
opposite of exculpatory evidence. By inculpating someone else, an accused
person may manage to exculpate himself. Through plea bargaining, the
prosecution can often encourage a defendant to inculpate his friends in return
for a lighter sentence.


mea culpa

An admission of personal fault or error.

• The principal said his mea culpa at the school board meeting, but not all the
parents were satisfied.

Mea culpa, Latin for “through my fault,” comes from the prayer in the
Catholic mass in which, back when Latin was still the language of the mass,
one would confess to having sinned “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima
culpa” (“through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous
fault”). When we say “Mea culpa” today, it means “I apologize” or “It was
my fault.” But mea culpa is also common as a noun. So, for instance, a book
may be a long mea culpa for the author's past treatment of women, or an oil
company may issue a mea culpa after a tanker runs aground.


Quiz 13-1
A. Choose the closest definition:
1. exculpate
a. convict b. prove innocent c. suspect d. prove absent
2. discordant
a. insulting b. relieved c. unlimited d. conflicting
3. culpable
a. disposable b. refundable c. guilty d. harmless
4. cordial
a. hateful b. friendly c. fiendish d. cool
5. inculpate
a. incorporate b. resist c. accuse d. offend
6. concord
a. generosity b. straightness c. agreement d. pleasure
7. mea culpa
a. rejection b. apology c. excuse d. forgiveness
8. accord
a. harmonize b. accept c. distress d. convince
Answers

B. Match the definition on the left to the correct word on the right:
1. accuse
a. accord
2. excuse
b. concord
3. goodwill c. mea culpa
4. heartfelt
d. discordant
5. grant
e. culpable
6. blamable f. cordial
7. disagreeing g. inculpate
8. confession h. exculpate
Answers


DICT comes from dicere, the Latin word meaning “to speak.” So a
dictionary is a treasury of words for speaking. And a contradiction (with its
prefix contra-, “against”) speaks against or denies something.


diction
(1) Choice of words, especially with regard to
correctness, clearness, or effectiveness. (2) Clarity of speech.
• Our CEO is determined to appear in some TV ads, but he first needs to
work on his diction with a vocal coach.
When your English teacher complains about some of the words you chose to
use in an essay, she's talking about your diction. She may also use the term
when commenting on the word choices made by a poet, and why a particular

word was the best one possible in a particular line. (Compare syntax.) But the
second meaning of diction is just as common, and your English teacher might
use that one on you as well, especially when she's asked you to read
something aloud and you mumble your way through it.


edict
(1) An official announcement that has the force of a law. (2)
An order or command.
• In 1989 an edict by the leader of Iran pronouncing a death sentence on a
British novelist stunned the world.
Edicts are few and far between in a democracy, since very few important
laws can be made by a president or prime minister acting alone. But when a
crisis arose in the Roman Republic, the senate would appoint a dictator, who
would have the power to rule by edict. The idea was that the dictator could
make decisions quickly, issuing his edicts faster than the senate could act.
When the crisis was over, the edicts were canceled and the dictator usually
retired from public life. Things are different today: dictators almost always
install themselves in power, and they never give it up.


jurisdiction
(1) The power or right to control or exercise
authority. (2) The territory where power may be exercised.
• Unluckily for the defendants, the case fell within the jurisdiction of the
federal court rather than the more tolerant state court.
Questions of jurisdiction are generally technical legal matters. The most
important ones include which court will hear a given case and which lawenforcement agency can get involved. But although they may seem like mere
technicalities, jurisdictional matters sometimes turn out to be all-important in
the final outcome. Jurisdiction may depend on where you are (for example, in

which state), on who you are (if you're a juvenile, for example, you may only
be tried in juvenile court), and on what the subject is (for example, cases
involving the estate left by someone who has died are dealt with in probate
court).


dictum

A formal and authoritative statement.

• It has long been a dictum of American foreign policy that the government
doesn't negotiate with kidnappers and terrorists.
The word dictum is frequently used in philosophy, but also in economics,
political science, and other fields. Almost any condensed piece of wisdom
—”The perfect is the enemy of the good,” “Buy low, sell high,” “All politics
is local,” etc.—can be called a dictum. In the law, judges may often add to a
written opinion an obiter dictum, or “statement made in passing”—a strong
statement that isn't directly relevant to the case being decided. If they're well
thought out and eloquent, obiter dicta (notice the plural form) may be
referred to by later judges and lawyers for years afterward.


GNI/GNO comes from a Greek and Latin verb meaning “to know,” and can
be found at the root of know itself. Among other words built from this root,
you may recognize (“know again”) some and be ignorant of (“not know”)
others. But only an ignoramus would know absolutely none of them.


cognitive
(1) Having to do with the process of knowing,

including awareness, judgment, and understanding. (2) Based on factual
knowledge that has been or can be gained by experience.
• A child isn't a computer; a third-grader's cognitive abilities are highly
dependent on his or her upbringing and happiness.
Cognitive skills and knowledge involve the ability to acquire factual
information, often the kind of knowledge that can easily be tested. So
cognition should be distinguished from social, emotional, and creative
development and ability. Cognitive science is a growing field of study that
deals with human perception, thinking, and learning.


agnostic
A person who believes that whether God exists is not
known and probably cannot be known.
• Both of them were always agnostics, but after they had children they started
attending church again.
The words agnostic and agnosticism were coined around 1870 by the great
English biologist T. H. Huxley, who had just spent a decade defending the
works of Charles Darwin against the attacks of the church. Scientists often
put a high value on evidence when arguing about religion, and many agnostic
thinkers believe that human minds simply aren't equipped to grasp the nature
of God. But agnostics differ from atheists, who actually claim that no God
exists and may even think they can prove it. You may have seen the similar
word gnostic, the name for followers of certain religious sects from around
the time of Christ that sought spiritual knowledge and rejected the material
world. An increasing interest in gnosticism today can be seen in the popular
novels of Philip Pullman, Dan Brown, and Neil Gaiman.


incognito

In disguise, or with one's identity concealed.

• Years after her reign as a top Hollywood star, she was discovered working
incognito as a bartender in Manhattan while living in cheap hotels.
In a famous myth, Zeus and Hermes visit a village incognito to test the
villagers. The seemingly poor travelers are turned away from every
household except that of Baucis and Philemon. This elderly couple, though
very poor themselves, provide the disguised gods with a feast. When the gods
finally reveal themselves, they reward the couple generously for their
hospitality, but destroy the rest of the village.


prognosis
(1) The chance of recovery from a given disease
or condition. (2) A forecast or prophecy.
• The prognosis for a patient with chicken pox is usually excellent; the
prognosis for someone with liver cancer is terrible.
With its prefix pro-, meaning “before,” prognosis means basically
“knowledge beforehand” of how a situation is likely to turn out. Prognosis
was originally a strictly medical term, but it soon broadened to include
predictions made by experts of all kinds. Thus, for example, economists are
constantly offering prognoses (notice the irregular plural form) about where
the economy is going, and climate scientists regularly prognosticate about
how quickly the earth's atmosphere is warming.


Quiz 13-2
A. Fill in each blank with the correct letter:
a. agnostic

b. dictum
c. cognitive
d. jurisdiction
e. diction
f. incognito
g. edict
h. prognosis
1. Psychology is not entirely a ___ science, since it deals with behavior as
well as the mind.
2. He often repeated Balzac's famous ___: “Behind every great fortune is a
great crime.”
3. Movie stars often go out in public ___, in faded sweatshirts, worn-out
pants, and sunglasses.
4. When their dictatorial grandfather issued an ___, everyone obeyed it.
5. She has strong opinions about lots of public issues, but she's an ___ about
foreign policy.
6. The ___ for the world's climate in the next century is uncertain.
7. He complains about his students' ___, saying they mumble so much that he
often can't understand them.
8. The judge refused to consider two elements in the case, saying that they
lay outside his ___.
Answers


B. Indicate whether the following pairs of words have the same or
different meanings:
1. agnostic / complex
same ___ / different ___
2. cognitive / digestive
same ___ / different ___

3. diction / wordiness
same ___ / different ___
4. dictum / declaration
same ___ / different ___
5. incognito / hospitable
same ___ / different ___
6. jurisdiction / authority
same ___ / different ___
7. prognosis / outlook
same ___ / different ___
8. edict / order
same ___ / different ___
Answers


GRAPH comes from the Greek verb graphein, “to write.” Thus, a biography
is a written account of someone's life (see BIO), a discography is a written
list of recordings on disc (records or CDs), and a filmography is a list of
motion pictures. But lots of uses of -graph and -graphy don't mean literally
“writing” (as in autograph or paragraph), but instead something more like
“recording,” as in photography, seismograph, or graph itself.