Vocabulary ladder
Frankenstein
Letter 1
1,203 words. Everyday vocabulary (band A) covers 55% of the text; the hard 5% is 52 entries — all of them below.
A 54.8% (287 types) B 9.7% (96 types) C 5.3% (59 entries) D 1.9% (23 entries) E 1.0% (11 entries) N 1.8% (18 entries)
Band B — common reading vocabulary
A sample of 24 of 96 — you will meet these often; they are explained only at the fullest help level.
- endured
- persuaded
- testify
- niche
- breeze ×2
- faded
- regulate
- mankind
- undoubtedly
- farewell
- fond
- voyage · voyages ×5
- ambition
- glow
- inherited
- gratitude
- sustain
- frost ×2
- cheeks
- forbidden
- skirting
- theirs
- curiosity
- delight ×2
Band C — recognition checklist
All 59 upper-intermediate words in this chapter. Tick the ones you know; the rest are explained at the fullest help level.
- peruse
- stagecoach
- motionless
- daydream
- undiscovered
- habitable
- adventurer
- agreeable
- requisite
- ardent
- diffuse
- ascertain
- navigator
- passionately
- affectionate
- conjecture
- surpass
- elevate
- imprint
- banish
- embark
- familiarity
- fortnight
- solitude
- acquit
- rejoice
- commencement
- injunction
- acquainted
- derive
- tread
- celestial
- favourable
- icy
- hardship
- induce
- affirmative
- admiration
- commence
- famine
- perpetual
- accustomed
- thirst
- depart
- brace
- undertaking
- voluntarily
- magnet
- phenomena
- precede
- vain
- vivid
- heavenly
- conquer
- vein
- render
- sailor
- neglect
- surround
Band D — advanced (23 entries)
- post-road
- the main road of the mail coaches
- under-mate
- an officer under the mate
- whale-fishing
- the hunting of whales
- inspirited
- filled with fresh spirit
- foretaste
- a taste of what is coming
- whaler
- a whale-hunting ship
- earnestness
- deep seriousness
- seafaring
- sailing the sea for a living
- forebodings
- a dark feeling of what is coming
- laborious
- needing hard toil
- eccentricities
- odd, peculiar behavior
- splendour
- grand beauty
- fluctuate
- to keep changing back and forth
- desolation
- ruined emptiness
- fervent
- burning with feeling
- sledges
- a sled drawn over snow
- dispelled
- driven away
- wondrous
- full of wonder; amazing
- fortitude
- courage under suffering
- hitherto
- up to now
- consecrated
- consecrated: made sacred
- agitation
- troubled excitement
- confer
- to grant; bestow
Band E — rare & archaic (11 entries)
- tranquillise
- to calm
- whale-fishers
- whalers
- inuring
- inuring: hardening by use
- inestimable
- beyond valuing
- enticement · enticements ×2
- enticements: lures
- ardour
- burning eagerness
- satiate
- satiated: fully glutted
- entreated
- to beg earnestly
- wafted
- carried lightly on the air
- effusions
- effusions: outpourings
- climes
- lands; regions
False friends — common words wearing old senses (1)
- passage
- a sea-journey — the old sense here
Names (2)
- saville
- Mrs Margaret Saville, Walton's sister in England, to whom he writes
- St. Petersburgh
- the Russian capital, where Walton's letters begin