Here are some words from Self-Reliance which could be on the 10 question vocabulary quiz on Monday. I have also included the sentences in which they appear in the text. No the definitions and how the words should be used in proper context.
importune
I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church.
ephemeral
A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he
impiety unrighteousness by virtue of lacking respect for a god
impiety
Here are the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man wisdom, and which cannot be denied without impiety and atheism.
prattle
Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.
rote
We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see, — painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke;
timorous
The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, desponding whimperers.
asinine
We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine expression.
skulk
Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists for him.
mendicant
Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic.
encumber
His note-books impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance-office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christi
deprecate
Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property.
capitulate
I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.
deign
Not possibly will the soul all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organ
mortify
There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease in answer to conversation
churlish
I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows.
expiate
I do not wish to expiate, but to live.
upbraid
Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, cousin, neighbour, town, cat, and dog; whether any of these can upbraid you.
