Vocabulary ladder
War and Peace
Book One, I
2,049 words. Everyday vocabulary (band A) covers 59% of the text; the hard 8% is 93 entries — all of them below.
A 59.0% (345 types) B 6.7% (108 types) C 4.1% (81 entries) D 0.9% (17 entries) E 1.1% (21 entries) N 5.8% (55 entries)
Band B — common reading vocabulary
A sample of 24 of 108 — you will meet these often; they are explained only at the fullest help level.
- admitting
- unpleasant
- sofa
- spoiled
- confess ×2
- murderer
- bald
- fireworks
- refined
- enthusiastic
- sincere
- fulfill
- irony
- maid · maids ×4
- baron ×5
- mankind
- sadness ×2
- villain
- midst
- gesture
- nicknamed
- gratitude
- bore
- motive ×2
Band C — recognition checklist
All 81 upper-intermediate words in this chapter. Tick the ones you know; the rest are explained at the fullest help level.
- footman
- womanly
- listless
- carelessness
- quickness
- intonation
- forsake
- politeness
- reproach
- stingy
- ruble
- downwards
- vocation
- armchair
- eloquent
- mingle
- signify
- discern
- virtuous
- paternity
- avenge
- charmed
- perpetrate
- bane
- frown
- meditate
- serene
- scented
- dissatisfied
- hydra
- illustrious
- wrinkle
- fro
- matchmaking
- embroidered
- indifference
- lofty
- continual
- unfairly
- ecstatic
- subdued
- nearer
- melancholy
- overflow
- thinker
- familiarity
- coarse
- betray
- stale
- indifferent
- invincible
- mania
- festivity
- enthusiast
- apprenticeship
- powerless
- evacuate
- eccentric
- gracious
- tease
- evidently
- criticize
- morally
- amazingly
- disappoint
- neutrality
- peculiar
- defect
- monarch
- adore
- unexpectedly
- presently
- devotion
- faded
- greet
- frighten
- await
- eyebrow
- splendid
- dispatch
- invalid
Band D — advanced (17 entries)
- aide-de-camp
- a general's personal officer — French
- wound-up
- wound like a clock
- well-known ×2
- explained by the text itself
- beaucoup
- explained by the text itself
- patroness
- a woman protector and sponsor
- propos
- explained by the text itself
- fete ×2
- a festival
- mournful
- full of mourning
- patronizing
- to sponsor; to treat as a lesser
- infamies
- public shame and disgrace
- befitting
- suiting; proper to
- virulent
- poisonously bitter
- breeches
- knee-length trousers
- prodigal
- recklessly wasteful; the wandering son
- tact
- fine sense of what fits the moment
- rebuke
- to scold sternly
- habitual
- usual by habit
Band E — rare & archaic (21 entries)
- attendez
- wait — French
- courtierlike
- smooth as a royal courtier
- scarlet-liveried
- in scarlet servant's uniform
- self-abnegation
- giving up all for others
- slave-slafe
- explained by the text itself
- estime
- explained by the text itself
- lavater
- a famous face-reading philosopher
- loftiness
- highness; grandeur
- grippe ×2
- influenza — French, then a new word
- impetuosity
- rushing eagerness
- pensively
- deep in quiet thought
- complacently
- with self-satisfaction
- wearisome
- tiring and dull
- amiably
- in a friendly way
- disconcerted
- thrown off balance; unsettled
- languidly
- without energy; limply
- émigrés
- a noble who fled the French Revolution
- impulsiveness
- acting on sudden feeling
- rejoinder
- a sharp answer back
- deigned
- to lower oneself to grant
- enraptured
- filled with delight
False friends — common words wearing old senses (2)
- peculiar
- its own; particular — the old sense here
- use
- habit; custom — the old sense here
Names (44)
- bolkónskaya
- a lady of the Bolkónski family
- bolkónski ×2
- the family name of Prince Andrew and Princess Mary
- buonapartes
- the Bonaparte kind
- fëdorovna ×2
- a patronymic — daughter of Fëdor
- haugwitz
- a Prussian minister
- kurágin
- the family name of Prince Vasíli and his children
- kutúzov
- Michael Kutúzov, the old one-eyed commander in chief
- montmorencys
- one of the oldest French noble houses
- mortemart
- the French royalist émigré vicomte
- márya ×2
- a Russian woman's name — Princess Mary and others
- novosíltsev ×2
- a reforming counselor of the Tsar
- pávlovna ×13
- a patronymic — daughter of Paul; Anna Pávlovna Schérer
- rohans
- one of the oldest French noble houses
- schérer ×3
- Anna Pávlovna Schérer, the Petersburg hostess
- vasíli ×4
- Prince Vasíli Kurágin, the smooth court intriguer
- wintzingerode
- a German general in Russian service
- hardenburg
- a Prussian minister
- morio
- the abbé with the plan for perpetual peace
- buonaparte ×2
- Bonaparte — the scornful Italian spelling
- meinen
- Lise Meinen, the little princess' maiden name
- hippolyte
- Prince Vasíli's dull elder son
- vicomte
- a French noble rank below count
- funke ×3
- a baron recommended to the Dowager Empress by her sister
- abbé
- a French priest or tutor — French
- anatole ×4
- Anatole Kurágin, Prince Vasíli's handsome, dissolute son
- lucca
- an Italian duchy
- lise ×2
- @skip — the text itself calls her young Bolkónski's wife in this line
- antichrist ×2
- the great enemy of Christ foretold in the Bible
- genoa
- the Italian port city
- annette ×2
- a pet form of Anna
- malta
- the island of the Knights
- anna ×13
- a woman's name — Anna Pávlovna Schérer and others
- alexander
- Alexander I, Tsar of Russia
- Anna Pávlovna
- the Petersburg hostess
- Anna Pávlovna Schérer
- Anna Pávlovna Schérer, the Petersburg hostess
- Lise Meinen
- @skip — the text introduces her in full here
- Márya Fëdorovna
- Márya Fëdorovna, the Dowager Empress
- beaucoup d'estime
- much esteem — French
- faithful slave
- polite flattery — a devoted servant, not a real slave
- maid of honor
- a court lady attending the Empress
- old maid
- a woman who never married
- old maids
- women who never married
- slave-slafe with an f
- he means 'slave', his polite flattery from earlier in the talk — now spelled wrongly on purpose, copying his village elder's bad spelling, as a joke
- À propos
- by the way — French