Vocabulary ladder
War and Peace
Book One, V
1,896 words. Everyday vocabulary (band A) covers 59% of the text; the hard 11% is 88 entries — all of them below.
A 58.6% (335 types) B 5.8% (89 types) C 4.3% (61 entries) D 1.6% (26 entries) E 2.0% (17 entries) N 7.4% (45 entries)
Band B — common reading vocabulary
A sample of 24 of 89 — you will meet these often; they are explained only at the fullest help level.
- madame ×2
- unpleasant
- narrator
- assassination
- endure
- exile
- carriage ×2
- interrupted
- proposition
- maid ×2
- distinguish
- forgiveness
- foolish
- compliment
- necessity
- polite
- terrified
- chi
- executing
- sighing
- sovereigns ×4
- dame
- hers
- robbery
Band C — recognition checklist
All 61 upper-intermediate words in this chapter. Tick the ones you know; the rest are explained at the fullest help level.
- footman
- royalist
- amiable
- childlike
- awkwardness
- solemnly
- stingy
- maison
- livery
- chime
- outburst
- anecdote
- aristocracy
- unfavorable
- emancipation
- shrug
- qui
- une
- hostess
- discredit
- intrigue
- rightful
- gloomy
- melancholy
- monsieur
- betray
- reinforcement
- provocative
- coronation
- gasp
- heed
- martyr
- statesman
- vigorous
- eagerly
- acquaint
- anarchy
- doubtful
- amused
- insignificant
- reap
- menace
- blush
- tolerant
- avail
- evidently
- sarcastic
- spectacle
- remark
- suppress
- betrayal
- theatrical
- preach
- beware
- gaze
- greatness
- hopeless
- rightly
- whisper
- deed
- prejudice
Band D — advanced (26 entries)
- half-smile
- a faint smile
- high-sounding
- grand-sounding but empty
- horror-struck
- struck with horror
- plague-stricken
- struck down by plague
- imposture
- a deceiving pose
- disdainfully
- with proud scorn
- antechambers
- a waiting room before a greater one
- untried
- never brought to trial
- gare
- explained by the text itself
- usurper ×2
- one who seizes a throne without right
- emigrant
- one who leaves his country
- azur
- explained by the text itself
- swindle
- a cheating trick
- touche
- explained by the text itself
- donne
- explained by the text itself
- duc ×4
- duke — French
- unintelligible
- impossible to make out
- muttered
- to speak low in the throat
- instantaneously
- in an instant
- orator
- a public speaker
- exasperated
- to anger greatly
- whirl
- to spin fast
- quelled
- put down; crushed
- exclaimed
- to cry out
- emphatically
- with insistent force
- tact
- fine sense of what fits the moment
Band E — rare & archaic (17 entries)
- bâton
- explained by the text itself
- engrêlé
- explained by the text itself
- tocchi
- explained by the text itself
- unamiable
- unfriendly; not kindly
- lorgnette
- eyeglasses held on a handle
- gueules ×2
- explained by the text itself
- guai
- explained by the text itself
- spluttered
- to choke and spit with laughter
- agreeably
- pleasantly
- ironical
- mocking by saying the opposite
- contemptuously
- with scorn
- epigram
- a short witty saying
- regicide ×3
- the killing of a king
- vicomte ×19
- a French noble rank below count
- interjected
- to throw in a remark
- sacrilegious
- insulting to what is holy
- dato
- explained by the text itself
False friends — common words wearing old senses (2)
- interest
- the spectacle that draws a crowd — the old sense here
- state
- ceremony; pomp — the old sense here
Names (25)
- buonapartists
- followers of Bonaparte
- pávlovna ×13
- a patronymic — daughter of Paul; Anna Pávlovna Schérer
- contrat
- from the Contrat Social, Rousseau's famous book
- buonaparte ×4
- Bonaparte — the scornful Italian spelling
- brumaire
- the month of Napoleon's seizing of power
- enghien
- the Bourbon duke Napoleon had shot
- arcola
- a battlefield of Napoleon's Italian campaign
- hippolyte ×8
- Prince Vasíli's dull elder son
- jacobin
- a French revolutionary radical
- bourbons ×2
- the old royal house of France
- lucca
- an Italian duchy
- condé ×2
- a princely French house
- dieu ×3
- God — French
- jaffa
- the plague town of Napoleon's Eastern campaign
- rousseau
- the French philosopher of nature and the Social Contract
- bonaparte ×2
- Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French
- dio
- @skip — Italian words the book translates in its own footnote
- genoa
- the Italian port city
- bourbon
- the old royal house of France
- napoleon ×6
- Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French
- milan
- the Italian city of Napoleon's crown
- anna ×13
- a woman's name — Anna Pávlovna Schérer and others
- alexander
- Alexander I, Tsar of Russia
- elizabeth
- the French king's sister, killed in the Revolution
- Anna Pávlovna
- the Petersburg hostess