Vocabulary ladder
War and Peace
Book One, VII
1,034 words. Everyday vocabulary (band A) covers 61% of the text; the hard 9% is 47 entries — all of them below.
A 61.4% (231 types) B 3.7% (33 types) C 2.5% (26 entries) D 2.3% (21 entries) E 1.1% (10 entries) N 5.5% (16 entries)
Band B — common reading vocabulary
A sample of 24 of 33 — you will meet these often; they are explained only at the fullest help level.
- sofa
- despair
- mon ×2
- forehead
- gesture
- glanced
- distress
- elegant
- pity
- arrange
- behave
- paused
- beg
- assure
- exhausted
- gently
- goodness
- lip ×2
- conviction
- patience
- stranger
- pregnancy
- shook
- rapidly
Band C — recognition checklist
All 26 upper-intermediate words in this chapter. Tick the ones you know; the rest are explained at the fullest help level.
- downy
- grimace
- politeness
- wag
- graciously
- desist
- timid
- whim
- shrug
- agitated
- plainly
- joyful
- politely
- restrain
- playful
- outsider
- blush
- evidently
- intercourse
- spectacle
- distort
- whisper
- gown
- delightful
- embarrassment
- invalid
Band D — advanced (21 entries)
- aide-de-camp ×2
- a general's personal officer — French
- ill-suited
- badly suited
- squirrel-like ×2
- quick and watchful as a squirrel
- good-by
- good-by
- dryly
- coldly and shortly
- drooping
- to hang down limply
- briskly
- with quick energy
- rustle
- a soft dry whispering sound
- deprecating
- to speak against; make little of
- hurriedly
- in a rush
- muttered ×2
- to speak low in the throat
- quivered
- to tremble finely
- argumentative
- fond of arguing
- frigid
- icy cold
- tearful
- full of tears
- exclaimed
- to cry out
- emphatically
- with insistent force
- naïve
- innocently simple
- shudder
- a shiver of horror
- gist
- the heart of the matter
- deprive
- to take away from
Band E — rare & archaic (10 entries)
- fussily
- with fussy bustle
- indecorous
- improper; unseemly to good manners
- querulous
- complaining; whining
- petulantly
- with childish crossness
- piteous
- calling for pity
- entreaty
- an earnest plea
- egotists ×2
- a self-centered person
- askance
- sideways, with doubt or fear
- courteously
- with polite grace
- feebly
- weakly
False friends — common words wearing old senses (0)
Names (10)
- apráksins
- a great Moscow family
- pávlovna
- a patronymic — daughter of Paul; Anna Pávlovna Schérer
- hippolyte
- Prince Vasíli's dull elder son
- dieu ×2
- God — French
- lise ×5
- the little princess, Prince Andrew's wife
- annette ×2
- a pet form of Anna
- andré
- Andrew — French form
- monsieur ×2
- sir; mister — French
- anna
- a woman's name — Anna Pávlovna Schérer and others
- Anna Pávlovna
- the Petersburg hostess