Word Definitions And Usage

The following list is some of the words from our Reading Program. Our clients - children and adults alike - are learning to read them [and many others] with only 30 - 60 hours of instruction [on average], but what do they mean? There is no program like Academic Associates. Sign up today! [A major reference source for this page was www.thefreedictionary.com]


ADE - is a sweetened drink of diluted fruit juice such as lemonade.


BANE - means "ruin, fatal injury, or death." It can also be an extreme aggravation or a deadly poison.

BILGE - is the rounded part of a ship's hull between the bottom and the sides or the lowest inner part of the ship's hull.

BOTT [also spelled BOT] - is the parasitic larva of a botfly.

BULL - is a male bovine, but it can also be an official document given by the Pope and sealed with a bull.


COG - one of the teeth on a wheel or gear.

CYST - An abnormal membranous sac in the body.


DOFF - to remove or discard. It can also be use as in tipping one's hat in greeting.

DUFF - can be a stiff flour pudding boiled or steamed in a cloth bag or decaying leaves on the ground in the forest.

DUN - a greyish brown colour or a debt-collector.



FETE - is a festival or feast, often held outside.

FEZ - a flat-topped, cone-shapped man's felt cap. Normally it is red in colour with a black tassel hanging from the top. It is worn mainly in the eastern Mediterranean. With a capital [Fez] it is a city in Morocco.

FOB - a small pocket in a man's waist coat for his watch or the chain that holds the watch to the pocket. In Old English, fob was to cheat or deceive someone.

FROND - the leaf of a fern.



HEMP - is a tall plant whose tough fibres can be made into rope or coarse cloth. It comes from the came word as "canvas" because canvas was originally made of hemp.

HOD - a tray with a long handle which can be placed across the shoulders to carry bricks or mortar.



JIB - is a sailing term for the triangular sail stretching from the foretopmast to the jib boom or bow [in smaller boats].

JUTE - can refer to two Asian plants or the fibbers from those plants used to make sacks and cords. It can also refer [with a capital] to a member of a Germanic people group who invaded Britain in 5th and 6th centuries AD.


KELP - brown and often large seaweed.


LOB - to throw [or hit] something in a high arc.

LOLL - to move or stand in a lazy or relaxed way.

LOP - to cut off parts or to trim something back.

LOX - can refer to smoked salmon or to liquid oxygen.


MACE - can be a ceremonial staff used as a symbol of authority by governmental bodies or it can be a spice made from part of the nutmeg.


NOB - a knob or small lump.



RILL - a small brook or, on the moon, a long, narrow, straight valley.

RUBE - a ignorant country person.



TAT - is to do tatting - which is special handmade lace.



VIXEN - a female fox.

VOX - a voice or sound.


X - Y - Z

YULE - is another name for Christmas or the Christmas season although it originally came from a pagan mid-winter festival.

ZONK - to stun or to intoxicate

Resource Materials
Collins Gage Canadian Intermediate Dictionary, Thomson Canada Ltd., 2006
The Free Dictionary

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