Lesson 6: Feelings

These words all relate to feelings—or a lack thereof—and are built on the Greek root PATHOS, meaning “suffering” or “feeling.”

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• The story was filled with such pathos that it moved the entire audience to tears.
• A true friend shows empathy by understanding your feelings, not just feeling sorry for you.

🧠Memory Trick:

• His pathological antipathy for crowds led to complete apathy about social events, but he felt great empathy for the lonely character whose story was filled with pathos.

Stemming from the Greek root MISO or MISEIN, meaning “to hate,” these words describe a strong dislike for specific things.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• The book criticized the historical misogyny that prevented women from owning property.
• He claimed to be a firm believer in misogamy, arguing that marriage was an outdated institution.

🧠Memory Trick:

• The professor known for his misogyny wrote a book about his misogamy, explaining his hatred for both women and the institution of marriage.

The Greek prefix DYS signals that something is “diseased,” “difficult,” or “bad,” as seen in these two medical and learning-related terms.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• After drinking contaminated water on his trip, he suffered from a severe case of dysentery.
• She gets extra time on tests to accommodate her dyslexia, which makes reading and processing text more challenging.

🧠Memory Trick:

• The doctor explained that while dysentery is a physical illness from bad water, dyslexia is a faulty processing issue in the brain that makes reading difficult.

These words come from the Latin root CUPIO, meaning “to desire,” and they both describe a strong wanting for something.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• I try not to covet my sister’s new phone, but I can't help admiring it.
• The dragon's cupidity led it to hoard a mountain of gold it could never spend.

🧠Memory Trick:

• His overwhelming cupidity caused him to covet every valuable treasure he laid eyes on.

Derived from the Latin roots PLACEO (“to please”) and PLACO (“to soothe”), these words all involve states of calmness or the act of calming.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• The mediator's job was to placate the angry union members and find a compromise.
• After winning ten games in a row, the team became complacent and lost to a weaker opponent.
• Despite our apologies, my grandfather was implacable and refused to forgive us for scratching his car.

🧠Memory Trick:

• It was impossible to placate the implacable child, whose tantrum disturbed the otherwise placid afternoon and shook his parents out of their complacent belief that he was always an easy-going kid.