Vocabulary ladder
The Time Machine
I. Introduction
1,695 words. Everyday vocabulary (band A) covers 61% of the text; the hard 7% is 63 entries — all of them below.
A 60.8% (309 types) B 7.6% (91 types) C 3.1% (46 entries) D 1.7% (26 entries) E 0.8% (12 entries) N 4.1% (25 entries)
Band B — common reading vocabulary
A sample of 24 of 91 — you will meet these often; they are explained only at the fullest help level.
- flushed
- cube ×3
- drift
- diagram
- erected
- interrupted
- extensively
- seventeen
- vague
- geometry ×4
- verify ×2
- foolish
- balloon · balloons ×3
- conclude
- historian
- inequalities
- velocity
- lilies
- philosophical
- tendency
- admired
- ancestors
- construct
- pause
Band C — recognition checklist
All 46 upper-intermediate words in this chapter. Tick the ones you know; the rest are explained at the fullest help level.
- humbug
- pensive
- immaterial
- inkling
- caress
- faintly
- intermittently
- incline
- anecdote
- germ
- misconception
- gracefully
- mathematician
- brighten
- vividly
- abstraction
- nil
- slipper
- preface
- accession
- extravagant
- brightly
- breadth
- accumulate
- anyhow
- lapse
- shuffle
- cradle
- overlook
- brow
- luxurious
- cigar
- unreal
- evidently
- mystic
- paradox
- universally
- accelerate
- knit
- trouser
- verification
- backward
- upward
- thickness
- occurrence
- remarkably
Band D — advanced (26 entries)
- after-dinner
- after dinner
- brain-weary
- tired in mind
- three-dimensional ×2
- having length, breadth, and thickness
- twenty-three
- twenty-three
- absent-minded
- with the mind elsewhere
- relight
- to light again
- indifferently
- without care or interest
- cheerfulness
- bright good spirits
- forefinger
- the first finger
- earnestness
- deep seriousness
- anachronisms
- a thing out of its proper time
- gravitation ×2
- the pull of gravity
- transitory
- passing quickly
- lazily
- without effort or hurry
- argumentative
- fond of arguing
- introspective
- looking into oneself
- murmured
- to speak in a low soft flow
- incandescent
- glowing white-hot
- radiance
- shining light
- exclaimed
- to cry out
- civilised
- living in an advanced settled way
- plough
- to cut and turn ground as a farm blade does
- instantaneous
- happening in an instant
- twinkled
- to shine with quick small lights
- barometer
- the instrument that measures air pressure
- assimilation
- taking in
Band E — rare & archaic (12 entries)
- sleight-of-hand
- quick trickery with the hands
- controvert
- to argue against
- conjuror
- a magician of tricks
- recondite
- deep and little known
- trammels
- held back; tied down
- communistic
- with all property held in common
- unalterable
- never to be changed
- spasmodic ×2
- in sudden jerks
- fecundity
- richness of production
- infirmity
- weakness
- definable
- able to be defined
- expounding ×2
- to set out at length
False friends — common words wearing old senses (3)
- interest
- the spectacle that draws a crowd — the old sense here
- passage
- a sea-journey — the old sense here
- state
- ceremony; pomp — the old sense here
Names (11)
- filby ×11
- Filby, the argumentative red-haired guest
- burslem
- a pottery town in the English Midlands
- newcomb
- Simon Newcomb, the American astronomer
- psychologist ×6
- the psychologist among the guests
- Battle of Hastings
- the battle of 1066 that began Norman England
- Little-go
- the first examination at Cambridge
- Medical Man
- the doctor among the guests
- Provincial Mayor
- the mayor from the provinces among the guests
- Simon Newcomb
- the American astronomer
- Time Traveller
- the unnamed host and inventor who tells the story
- Very Young Man
- the youngest guest