1-page Vocabulary Printables

The letter's keystone word: Adams turns the colonists' own grievance about being governed without consent back onto husbands. The excerpt carries the full political sense, and students will meet the word again in every discussion of the Revolution's limits.

A precise, non-obvious sense of a common word - relative quantities in a mixture, not shape or size. The powder-manuscript sentence makes that meaning inferable without giving it away.

Central to the letter's sharpest judgment. The sentence sets 'deprive' directly against 'liberty,' so the word carries the argument rather than decorating it.

Adams's most-quoted line, and the word does real work here: a tyrant is a disposition, not an office. A short excerpt with an unmistakable meaning.

Formal vocabulary students meet across subjects, and the excerpt's reversal - property she would gladly have seen burn a month ago - makes the sense vivid rather than abstract.

A body of laws, not a secret cipher: exactly the familiar-word/unfamiliar-sense trap worth quizzing, and the excerpt supplies the legal sense cleanly.

The turn from the 'harsh title of master' to the 'tender and endearing' one of friend is the letter's argument in miniature, and the contrast hands the reader the meaning.

The period sense - depraved, morally corrupt - which students will otherwise read as modern 'brutal.' Pairing with 'the lawless' anchors it.

Established social practice, not duties on imports. The 'vassals of your sex' clause shows precisely which customs she means, and it names the thing her whole appeal is against.

Not factories but sustained labor - the sense eighth-graders least expect. The plant/sow/till/reap sentence makes it inferable, and it brings the war-torn Boston stretch into the quiz set.

bound: A strong word in a strong sentence, but that sentence is already quizzed above; a second item on identical text would teach the reader the excerpt rather than the word.

merit: Good general vocabulary in a memorable Washington-and-Dunmore antithesis, but the Virginia judgment is already represented by a sharper word.

fugitives: Vivid and historically concrete - people returning to deserted homes - but it shares its line with the word promoted for this stretch, and two items there would narrow the set.

virtue: Carries the letter's moral register, but it is familiar enough to most eighth-graders that the excerpt would confirm the meaning rather than teach it.

detest: Clear and readily inferable from 'reverential awe ... whilst they detest,' though close enough to everyday 'hate' to be a modest gain.

reap: Rich figurative potential, but this excerpt keeps it literal, and the same sentence yields a stronger item.

fallen a prey to: A worthwhile idiom, and the irony of a house destroyed by its own party is sharp, but multi-word phrases quiz less cleanly than single lemmas.

occupied: Names a real beat of the letter - the Adamses' own house under a regimental doctor - but the word itself sits close to everyday use.

sense: 'Men of sense' is a genuine period collocation worth knowing, though it shares its sentence with a higher-placed word.

accustomed: Solid formal vocabulary, but it is the supporting verb in a sentence whose weight falls on 'deprive.'