Chapter 9 Word List
ACQUISITIVE (uh KWIZ uh tiv) adj seeking or tending to acquire; greedy
- Children are naturally acquisitive; when they see something, they want it, and when they
want something, they take it. - The auctioneer tried to make the grandfather clock sound interesting and valuable, but no
one in the room was in an acquisitive mood, and the clock went unsold. - Johnny’s natural acquisitiveness made it impossible for him to leave the junkyard empty-
handed.
ANNEX (uh NEKS) v to add or attach
- Old McDonald increased the size of his farm by annexing an adjoining field.
A small connecting structure added to a building is often called an annex (AN eks).
- The annex of the elementary school had a small gymnasium.
CAPITALISM (KAP uh tuh liz um) n an economic system in which businesses are owned by
private citizens (not by the government) and in which the resulting products and services are
sold with relatively little government control
- The American economy is capitalist. If you want to start a company to sell signed
photographs of yourself, you can. You, not the government, would decide how much you
would charge for the pictures. Your success or failure would depend on how many people
decided to buy your pictures.
DOGMATIC (dawg MAT ik) adj arrogantly assertive of unproven ideas; stubbornly claiming
that something (often a system of beliefs) is beyond dispute
A dogma is a belief. A dogmatic person, however, is stubbornly convinced of his beliefs.
- Marty is dogmatic on the subject of the creation of the world; he sneers at anyone whose
views are not identical to his. - The philosophy professor became increasingly dogmatic as he grew older and became
more firmly convinced of his strange theories.
The opinions or ideas dogmatically asserted by a dogmatic person are known collectively as
dogma.
ELITE (i LEET) n the best or most select group
- Alison is a member of bowling’s elite; she bowls like a champion with both her right hand
and her left. - As captain of the football team, Bobby was part of the high school’s elite, and he never
let you forget it.
This word can also be an adjective: