Vocabulary ladder
A Tale of Two Cities
Book The First--Recalled to Life, III
1,639 words. Everyday vocabulary (band A) covers 63% of the text; the hard 5% is 62 entries — all of them below.
A 62.5% (325 types) B 8.1% (87 types) C 3.8% (57 entries) D 2.4% (33 entries) E 1.0% (16 entries) N 1.2% (13 entries)
Band B — common reading vocabulary
A sample of 24 of 87 — you will meet these often; they are explained only at the fullest help level.
- inheritance
- wandering
- eighteen ×5
- glimpses
- decoration
- bald
- discourse
- daylight
- constituted
- candle
- midst
- blunt
- stiff
- glanced
- arose ×2
- bundle
- sixty
- profound
- frost
- messenger ×3
- cheek ×2
- tendency
- bumped
- recalled ×2
Band C — recognition checklist
All 57 upper-intermediate words in this chapter. Tick the ones you know; the rest are explained at the fullest help level.
- leapfrog
- tradesman
- singly
- dimly
- innermost
- stubbornness
- darkly
- watchman
- wearer
- ghostly
- individuality
- slumber
- trot
- spiked
- spectre
- assort
- securely
- alienate
- bulky
- prematurely
- spade
- rattle
- wretched
- inquire
- horseback
- harp
- principally
- solemn
- roadside
- sleeper
- breadth
- contradictory
- defiance
- speculate
- tedious
- submerge
- distinctly
- impatient
- gracious
- lumber
- multitude
- mare
- sinister
- weary
- imagining
- harness
- mist
- neighbour
- consolidation
- compass
- contempt
- descend
- hedge
- nod
- wherein
- imaginary
- strap
Band D — advanced (33 entries)
- burial-places
- places where the dead are buried
- coach-lamp
- a lamp fixed to a coach
- coach-windows
- the windows of a coach
- five-and-forty
- explained by the text itself
- half-shut
- partly closed
- mail-coach
- the coach that carried letters and passengers
- strong-rooms
- rooms built strong for keeping valuables
- ale-houses
- houses where beer is sold
- raggedly
- in a torn and untidy way
- referable
- able to be traced to a cause
- awfulness
- power to fill with awe
- vainly
- in vain
- uneasiness
- uncomfortable worry
- fain
- gladly; willingly
- inscrutable
- impossible to read or fathom
- inexorable
- never to be turned aside
- chink
- a narrow crack; the ring of coins
- dozing ×2
- nineteen to the dozen: without stopping
- muffler ×2
- a warm scarf
- emaciated
- wasted thin
- encloses ×2
- to shut in
- wouldn ×2
- would — wouldn't: would not
- opiate
- a drug that dulls pain and brings sleep
- unfathomable
- too deep to fathom
- placid
- calm and even
- jolt · jolted ×2
- to shake with sudden jerks
- muffled
- wrapped so as to dull sound
- perplexed
- puzzling; hard to make out
- momentary
- lasting a moment
- plough · ploughed ×2
- to cut and turn ground as a farm blade does
- bewildered
- to confuse utterly
- gleaming
- a soft flash of light
- thrice
- three times
Band E — rare & archaic (16 entries)
- cocked-hat
- a hat with the brim turned up
- coppice-wood
- a wood of small cut trees
- feebly-burning
- burning weakly
- fellow-inscrutables
- others who are equally hard to read
- three-cornered
- with three corners
- unyoked
- with the harness taken off
- jaggedly
- with rough sharp edges
- ghastliness
- horror
- leathern ×2
- made of leather — old form
- cadaverous
- corpse-like
- spittoon
- a pot to spit into
- accost
- to go up and speak to
- evincing
- to show; give sign of
- admonish
- to warn; scold gently
- lamentation
- loud crying grief
- perpetuation
- the keeping of a thing going for ever
False friends — common words wearing old senses (3)
- counsel
- the lawyer who speaks in court — the old sense here
- fain
- gladly — the old sense here
- state
- ceremony; pomp — the old sense here
Names (5)
- banking-house
- a house of business that keeps and lends money
- tellson ×4
- the London bank at the heart of this story
- jerry ×3
- the first name of the odd job man at Tellson's
- Tellson's Bank
- the old London bank at the heart of this story
- Temple Bar
- the old gateway between the City of London and Westminster