Barron's 1100 Words You Need to Know » Week 24 - Day 2

Word List
  • taboo [tə bü´]
    urgent, necessary, compulsory
    → “The modern motion pictures have shown so much that once was considered taboo.” Harold H. Owen, Jr., The Motion Picture
  • imprudent [im prüd´ nt]
    unwise, not careful
    → “We are not so imprudent as to destroy the bees that work for us.” Robert Tanner, Principles of Agriculture
  • prohibition [prō´ ə bish´ ən]
    the act of forbidding certain behavior
    → “The U.S. public is slowly coming around to accepting the idea that a prohibition against the easy access to hand guns is inevitable.” Roger Rosenblatt, “Get Rid of the Damned Things,” TIME, 8/9/99
  • imperative [im per´ ə tiv]
    forbidden by custom or religious practice
    → “But unlike the others, Mrs. Hassan had yet another imperative: her son Huseyin has leukemia and needs blood.” Edmund L. Andrews, “I Cannot Die,” New York Times, 8/19/99
  • taint [tānt]
    contamination, undesirable substance that spoils something
    → “The defense argued that poor police procedures had tainted the evidence.” Newsday, 6/19/98

An outgrowth of the idea of a fetish* is the closely related practice of taboo. Whereas the gods or supernatural powers merely inhabit an object that is a fetish and lend it magic, they will punish the imprudent native who violates their prohibition of an act or use of an object or word that has become taboo. If a taboo has been broken, it becomes imperative for the offender to be punished. In many cases, however, the taint on the community may be removed after the priests have performed a special ceremony. Often, the violator of the taboo will be punished or die merely through his own fears of the terrible thing he has done.

Sample Sentences Has the context in which your new words appear given you clues to their meaning? Try now to use them in these sample sentences.

  1. Unsanitary conditions in the bottling factory caused hundreds of cases of soda to be __________ by dirt and foreign objects. The health department refused to allow the soda to be sold.
  2. Although a New Jersey high school principal placed a __________ on boys wearing their hair long, one student fought in the courts and won his case.
  3. It is considered __________ to give your computer code word to anyone not fully known to you.
  4. It is __________ for certain South Seas islanders to eat some foods before they marry.
  5. In the nuclear age it has become __________ for the nations of the world to learn to live in peace.

Definitions Now is your chance to test your knowledge of your new words by matching them with their definitions.

  1. a. contamination, undesirable substance that spoils something
  2. b. the act of forbidding certain behavior
  3. c. urgent, necessary, compulsory
  4. d. forbidden by custom or religious practice
  5. e. unwise, not careful
  1. imperative __________
  2. imprudent __________
  3. prohibition __________
  4. taboo __________
  5. taint (n.) __________

Answer Key
the first water—of the best quality, the greatest
Lebron James is obviously a basketball player of the first water who would be of enormous value to any team.

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