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When these words are spoken orally, they sound identical and, when they are written, they appear differently because they are spelled differently. The words "complement" and "compliment" are homophones that are pronounced the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings. Sentence: It would be a good idea to complement this meal with a nice desert.
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The word "indigenous" means native to a particular area like Australia and drawing on your prior knowledge of Australia, you may remember that kangaroos are native to Australia and your educated guess about the meaning of marsupial should be a classification of animals that includes kangaroos. Sentence: In addition to the flora and fauna in Australia, its indigenous creatures include some of the most interesting vertebrates including marsupials. What is the meaning of "indigenous" and "marsupials" in this sentence?.Here are a couple of more sentences with which you should be able to decipher and discover the meaning of some unknown words:
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The word "although" in this sentence is also an important clue because it suggests that the opposite of "some believe" is "more are dubious" meaning more are doubtful. This sentence states that "some believe in the existence of unidentified flyer objects and the existence of extraterrestrial life" but still more are doubtful about these things. This inference and educated guess can be arrived at by comprehending and understanding the context within which the word occurred. The meaning of this word is to be doubtful. When you examine the word "dubious" in the context of this sentence, you should be able to make some inferences and educated guesses about the meaning of the word "dubious". "Although some believe in the existence of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and the existence of extraterrestrial life, more are dubious about these things." These words, phrases, clauses and sentences can often give you some very important clues about the word and these clues may be just enough for you to make an educated guess about the true meaning of the word.įor example, examine this sentence and determine the meaning of "dubious": Simply defined, the context of an unknown word is the words, phrases, clauses and sentences surrounding the unknown word. Attempting to Decipher a Word's Meaning by Examining the Word in Context You will learn more about prefixes, suffixes and stems of words in the section immediately below this one. The root of the word is "state" the prefix for the word reinstatement is "re" and the suffix for the word "reinstatement" is "ment". The root of a word, also referred to as the base of a word and the stem of a word, is the main part of a word without any syllables before the root of the word, which is a prefix, or after the root of the word, which is a suffix.įor example, examine the word "reinstatement". Combining All Three of the Strategies Above Which Is the Best Way to Learn the Meaning of a Word.Attempting to Discover the Meaning of a Word by Examining the Surrounding Text for Antonyms and Synonyms, and Contronyms.Attempting to Decipher the Word's Meaning by Examining the Word in Context.Attempting to Know the Meaning of a Word by Examining Its Root, and Any Prefixes or Suffixes.Some of the strategies that you can and should use when this occurs include: Fortunately, there are a couple of things that you can do when you feel this way. At these times, you may feel completely baffled and without a clue. One such time is when you are asked to know the meaning of a word and you are not certain of its meaning. Learning Vocabulary With Clues and ContextĪlthough guessing the correct answer is not a good test taking strategy, there are times when an educated guess may be the only choice that you have.