Unit 13, Vocabulary and Spelling 269Copyright © by Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
Vocabulary and
SpellingUnit 13: Vocabulary and Spelling
Lesson 86
Building Vocabulary: Learning from ContextContext cluesare words and sentences around an unfamiliar word that explain
its meaning. Three types of context clues are definition, example, and general
context. The definition, or meaning, of the unfamiliar word may be given in the
sentence. Clue words such as that is, in other words, or which meanstell you that
a definition is following. Sometimes examples are given to explain an unfamiliar
word. The clue words like, for example, including, or such asoften come before
an example. If there are no special clue words in the sentence, you can use the
general context. That is, you can use the details in the words or sentences around
the new word to determine its meaning.
Darla is a philatelist, which meansthat she collects stamps. (The clue words
which meanstell you that the word philatelist means “stamp collector.”)
Bovines, including domestic cattle and the American bison, are an important
source of food for many cultures. (The word including introduces examples of
bovines. From the examples you can guess that bovines are members of the
cattle family.)
Armand took the rough stones to a lapidary. She was going to cut, grind, and
polish the stones so that they could be set in silver bracelets. (The general
context tells you that a lapidary has something to do with making jewelry. A
lapidary is a person who works with gemstones.)Exercise 1 Write in the blank the meaning of the word in italics.
Arnold is good at ciphering, which is an old way of saying he is good at math.
using numbers as in math- Wolves are carnivores, which means they are meat eaters. animals that eat meat
- Fina owns several large implements such as a tractor, a combine, and a baler.
tools - Ms. Chien praised our deportment, or in other words, our behavior.
behavior, manner