Scholastic Assessment Test Vocabulary: Ideas and Community

Leaflets at the mill gate ran wages, land, and schooling through one ideology, so a reader who understood the first page could finish every page after it. Which system of ideas lets a reader predict every leaflet's ending?

An ideology is a connected system of ideas about how society should be organized. One such system carried the leaflets' claims about wages, land, and schooling.

The harbor printer kept a service book that held the town's orthodoxy, and any prayer beyond it was pulled before the feast. Public worship used that book alone. Once prayers beyond the book are gone, what standing does the remaining faith have in town worship?

Orthodoxy is the body of belief a community accepts as correct. The harbor town kept public worship inside the faith its service book approved.

Lila brought heresy into the evening circle by insisting the approved teaching had gone wrong. The elders closed her prayer and went back to the pages she had set aside. Her rejection of that approved teaching brought the elders to which accusation?

Heresy is a belief religious authority treats as a rejection of approved teaching. The elders treated Lila's claim as that rejection and stopped her prayer.

By convention, guests at the meeting hall paused, spoke a name, and waited for a nod. No notice on the door listed the steps. Pausing, naming, and waiting obeyed which accepted rule of entry?

A convention is an accepted way of acting that a group treats as its usual rule. Guests followed that entry rule even though the door listed no steps.

Custom at the Mill Lane bakery set a braided loaf in the window each spring before any bread was sold. The braid had come from a parent's bench and returned with the season. Why does that bakery braid and display its first spring loaf?

A custom is a traditional practice a community repeats over time. The braided loaf is the bakery's spring practice, kept from an earlier bench.

Night boating was taboo. A child who pushed off after sunset was turned back before the oars were wet, and the landing posted no fine. Which shared prohibition turned the boat back when no fine was posted?

A taboo is an act a community treats as forbidden. Families forbade night boating by that shared prohibition, with no fine required on the landing.

Whenever the moon was new, the household washed the cups, lit one lamp, and spoke the same sentences before supper. Guests learned to wait for the ritual. How should that repeated sequence of cups, lamp, and sentences be classified?

A ritual is a ceremony done in a fixed sequence on a returning occasion. The household performed those same acts at every new moon.

After the library vote, a faction left in a bloc and unlocked a side room, while every name stayed on the association roll. The chair still expected them at the next full session. The side-room bloc stayed on the roll; what kept that bloc together inside the association?

A faction is a subgroup united by a shared aim inside a larger group. Those members kept their own meetings and remained part of the association.

On the third morning of the stoppage, a supervisor offered one miner a private shift. Solidarity held, and she would not cross a line the others were keeping. She refused that private shift on what ground of shared support?

Solidarity is unity among people who stand together for a common cause. She would not take a shift that abandoned the line the other miners held.

The clerk's cabinet kept kinship in its own drawer, with siblings, parents, and spouses filed together. Neighbors who shared no family tie were stored apart. On what family basis did siblings, parents, and spouses share a drawer?

Kinship is a family relationship by birth, marriage, or a comparable family bond. The clerk grouped the people who stood in that relationship.

Apprentices carried tools in the glass workshop, journeymen cut the panes, and only the master signed a finished window. The hierarchy showed in who could overrule whom. Because of which ranking could the master overrule the pane-cutters?

A hierarchy is an ordering of people by rank or authority. The workshop placed the master above journeymen and apprentices.

If the third harbor closed the channel, the other two towns had already promised boats, grain, and shelter to each other. Their alliance was written and signed. Into what formal union did those mutual promises place the two towns?

An alliance is a formal union in which groups agree to help one another. The towns bound themselves to share boats, grain, and shelter.

Half the choir carried its music to the schoolhouse and opened a second service there. The schism ended joint rehearsal, and the loft stopped posting one schedule. When the schoolhouse service began, joint worship had ended through what split?

A schism is a formal division of a group into separate camps. The choir's break left two worshiping groups and ended their shared rehearsal.

A sect gathered in the warehouse, singing hymns the town church did not use and baptizing only inside its own circle. Those evenings never appeared on the church calendar. Own hymns and a closed baptism organize that warehouse group around what?

A sect is a religious group organized around beliefs and practices of its own. The warehouse circle worshiped with a life separate from the town church.

A plan for a clinic in the next valley reached the council, and every question stayed on the councilors' own lanes. The parochial hearing ended with the clinic unfunded. The hearing never left those lanes because the outlook was confined to what locality?

Parochial describes an outlook limited to a small local community. The council weighed the clinic only through the concerns of its own lanes.

Amira kept festival clothes from four cities in one trunk and poured tea at each celebration as someone who belonged there. Her cosmopolitan year had no single home festival. In which respect is that round of festivals a life at home in many cultures?

Cosmopolitan describes a person or way of life at home among many cultures. Amira took part in each city's festival as someone with a place there.

Visitors from inland bowed on the wrong cue at the capital court, and clerks had to translate their place-names before the minutes could be written. The minister set the mismatch down as provincial. Where, relative to the capital, did those manners belong?

Provincial describes habits and outlooks rooted in a region away from the capital. The minister heard the visitors' cues and place-names as the ways of that inland region.

The stall permit moved from desk to desk, and each office asked for a stamp the previous desk had never mentioned. Merchants blamed the bureaucracy because no one clerk would own the refusal. If no single clerk will own the refusal, what keeps sending the stall permit from desk to desk?

A bureaucracy is administration carried out through ranked offices and fixed procedures. The permit advanced only by satisfying each office in that chain.

Grandparents blocked a new spelling of the baby's name and recited every relative who had carried the old form. Tradition, in their hands, settled the page. Grandparents could name every relative who had used the old spelling; what did that family history do to the choice of spelling?

A tradition is a practice or belief passed from one generation to the next. The older spelling stayed because the family had handed it down.

The rooftop supper stayed inside a clique that shared classes, rides, and secrets. The rest of the class heard about the food the next afternoon. Most classmates learned of the supper a day late because the list never left which exclusive circle?

A clique is a small exclusive circle that keeps company with its own members. The invitations never left that closed group of classmates.

Bells at nine brought the congregation into the stone building to stand, sing, and listen together. Late arrivals slipped into the same gathering. At those bells, which assembled body came to worship?

A congregation is a body of people gathered for religious worship. The people who entered with the bells formed that worshiping assembly.

Wool prices in the river ward moved only when the guild agreed, and loom training happened only under its watch. A weaver it had not taken in found no stall. Prices and training yielded only when which craft association agreed?

A guild is an association of people in one craft that sets the terms of their work. The wool workers' association fixed prices and trained apprentices.

The morning proclamation greeted the citizenry, then listed duties for every person born or sworn into the town. No household was dropped from the address. To whom was that proclamation addressed?

The citizenry is the citizens of a place, taken together as one body. The proclamation spoke to every citizen of the town.

Fellowship among the scholars showed up as a saved seat, a shared supper, and the same walk home after a decade in one library carrel. Nobody had to be asked. A saved seat and that walk home grew from years of shared study into what companionship?

Fellowship is companionship among people joined by a common pursuit. Years of study together became that companionship, visible in the saved seat and the walk home.

After the quarrel, ostracism left Tomas with empty chairs and conversations that ended when he stepped close. No notice was posted on the square. How did the neighborhood cut him off from tables and talk without posting a notice?

Ostracism is exclusion from a group's ordinary social life. Neighbors shut Tomas out of seats and conversation, and they did it without a written order.

A merchant paid the poet's rent and received a verse of praise at every public reading. Patronage kept the lamp burning and the praises coming. Support traded for public praise follows which pattern?

Patronage is support a sponsor gives, often in return for loyalty or praise. The merchant covered the rent and took public verses in exchange.

Nepotism filled the harbor posts from the director's family tree, while experienced applicants from other streets kept waiting. The hiring list and the family dinner matched name for name. Experienced applicants lost those posts to relatives through favoritism aimed at whom?

Nepotism is favoritism that gives jobs or advantages to relatives. The harbor posts went to the director's family ahead of other applicants.

The moment the other party's speakers reached the stage, a partisan collected his coat and left the hall. He had come for one side only. He walked out at the change of speakers because his loyalty was committed in which political direction?

A partisan is a committed supporter of one party or faction. He stayed for his own side and left when the other party's speakers began.

The petition moved from porches to kitchens to the square, a grassroots effort with no desk at party headquarters behind it. The organizers lived on the same streets as the signers. A petition that starts on porches and never enters a party office draws its strength from whom?

Grassroots describes an effort that grows from ordinary local people. Neighbors built this petition themselves, street by street.

Newcomers found every committee chaired by someone who had held the office for years, with the same surnames repeating on the letterhead. They had walked into the establishment. Long-standing surnames on that letterhead indicate power held by which lasting circle?

The establishment is the network of people and institutions that hold entrenched power. The committees were already occupied by that long-standing circle of leaders.

The judges argued the verdict for an hour, then walked to lunch still using the shared title of the court. Their dispute stayed collegial. Lunch after the argument shows a professional respect characteristic of what working bond?

Collegial describes mutual respect among people who share a profession or office. The judges could dispute a verdict and still treat one another as partners in the same court.

Lodge members addressed one another as brothers, paid the building's debts in common, and sat with any member who fell ill. The bond was fraternal from the first meeting. Debts, care in illness, and the title of brother bind these members by a tie comparable to what?

Fraternal describes a brotherly bond within a society. Lodge members shared debts and care as brothers in the same lodge.

The islands retired their separate councils for one charter, one treasury, and a rule that each island's good counted as the whole's. That arrangement was their commonwealth. One charter and one treasury organized the islands for what shared purpose?

A commonwealth is a political community organized for the common good of its members. The islands joined government and money so each island's good belonged to the whole.

Criers shouted the water ruling over market noise so the populace in the square would hear it. Stall keepers, sailors, and children turned together, and the council table was not the audience. Stall keepers, sailors, and children turned because the criers had addressed which broad public?

The populace is the general public of a place. The criers aimed the ruling at the ordinary people gathered in the square.

Ropes held the front benches for the elite, a short list of families, while everyone else stood in the aisle. Programs printed that list by name. The roped benches were kept for a privileged group holding what status?

An elite is a small group set apart by privileged status or power. Those families had the front benches while the rest of the crowd stood in the aisle.

A norm at the inner door took hats off heads. A visitor who stayed covered drew looks until the hat was in a hand, and the ushers rarely had to speak. Until the hat came off, those looks enforced an expectation that people would follow what standard?

A norm is a standard of behavior a group expects its members to follow. People in that hall were expected to remove their hats at the inner door.

New members closed the welcome by reading a creed aloud and signing their names beneath it. The sentences listed the beliefs membership required. Reading those sentences and signing beneath them commits newcomers to a statement of belief with what official standing?

A creed is a formal statement of shared belief. New members read and signed the beliefs that membership in the group required.

Teachers returned a donated box of books because the titles sat outside the canon posted on the wall. The wall list did not grow by a single volume. Donated books go back while the wall list stays; which official collection of texts does that list preserve?

A canon is the official body of accepted texts or rules. The school taught the books on that approved list and sent the others back.

Two families made a covenant at the mill: mutual help, a shared burial ground, and a copy stored above each hearth for their descendants. Years later both houses still treated the promise as binding. What solemn agreement did the families store above their hearths?

A covenant is a solemn agreement treated as binding across time. The families promised mutual help and a shared burial ground for their descendants.

The clerk's map drew the parish around the mill church, taking in the lanes, the footbridge, and the cottages that used that building. Homes past the ink line looked to another church. Whom does the ink line around the mill church gather into one church district?

A parish is the local district served by a church. The map gathered the lanes, the footbridge, and the cottages that belonged to the mill church.

The Oak Street school answered to a denomination with its own name, its own offices, and a teaching the chapel across town did not share. Enrollment forms left a blank for that name. The Oak Street school reports to offices and a teaching the chapel across town does not share; what branch of the faith is that?

A denomination is an organized branch of a faith with its own name and governance. The Oak Street school belonged to that named branch.

At the midnight service the laity filled the nave and passed the collection baskets from row to row. Ordained leaders alone stood at the altar rail. The people passing baskets in the nave belong to the community in what unordained capacity?

The laity are the ordinary, unordained members of a religious community. They filled the nave and moved the baskets while ordained leaders stood at the altar.

The clergy alone could speak the midnight blessing. A lay assistant who knew every word still had to wait in silence. Speaking that blessing required membership in which ordained leadership?

The clergy are people ordained for religious leadership. Only those ordained leaders were permitted to give the midnight blessing.

Families of one diaspora, living in five countries, sang the same lullaby and set weddings by one old calendar. Letters kept the dates aligned across oceans. Families who keep that lullaby and calendar across many countries remain a scattered people through what ongoing tie?

A diaspora is a people scattered away from a shared homeland who still keep a common identity. Those families remained one people through the old songs and the shared calendar.

Inside the larger city, one neighborhood kept its own market days, its own language on the shop signs, and a gate that closed at dusk. The enclave ran that market while the city ran the avenues around it. The avenues belong to the city, while this neighborhood keeps its own market, its own signs, and a gate; where does that neighborhood sit?

An enclave is a distinct community enclosed within a larger one. That neighborhood kept its own market and daily life inside the city.

Hegemony over the classrooms let one language association write the curriculum, and schools that preferred another list still had to adopt it. Parents could point to the required pages in every building. Schools that preferred another list still taught the association's curriculum; who had the power to require that?

Hegemony is dominance that lets one group set the terms for others. The language association's dominance decided what every school would teach.

Valley delegates brought draft court rules and asked to appoint their own judges, with appeals kept inside the valley. Autonomy was the whole of the request. If the valley appoints its judges and keeps appeals local, it gains what power over its own affairs?

Autonomy is self-rule, a community's power to govern its own affairs. The delegates wanted the valley to run its own courts.

The coastal state lined boats along the fishing boundary and told foreign crews that permission came only from its offices. Ministers rested the order on sovereignty over those waters. Foreign crews needed local permission because the coastal state claimed authority of what supremacy?

Sovereignty is supreme authority over a territory or a community. The coastal state claimed that authority over its waters and over fishing there.

The representative set aside letters from outside her map and read aloud only the ones from streets she had been elected to serve. She told the hall her constituency lived inside that boundary. Whom must she answer to when the outside letters are set aside?

A constituency is the body of voters an official represents. She treated the voters inside her district as the people her decisions had to serve.

The chair lifted the gavel, counted heads, and set the gavel down again. Without a quorum, the vote on the levee could not be taken. The levee vote waited until the meeting satisfied which attendance requirement?

A quorum is the minimum attendance that lets a meeting conduct official business. The levee vote waited until enough members were in the room.

Hours before the public rally, a caucus in a closed room debated two names and came out behind a single nominee. The main doors were still locked. Before the rally opened, party members chose their nominee in what meeting?

A caucus is a meeting of party members to choose a candidate or a position. They selected the nominee in private before the public rally began.

Before any speech, volunteers handed out a platform listing the party's stands on housing, harbors, and schools. Listeners could check each promise against the pages. Housing, harbors, and schools appeared together as positions collected in what full set?

A platform is the full set of positions a party presents to voters. Those pages gathered the party's stands on housing, harbors, and schools.

Neighbors argued the housing plank until late and never opened the harbor pages. That housing commitment sat as one item inside the larger program. The housing item, argued on its own, plays what role inside the larger program?

A plank is a single stated position within a larger political program. The housing stand was one item in that program, beside the untouched harbor pages.

After the count, the new council treated the result as a mandate for the corner-by-corner repairs it had promised. The winning side moved first. The winning side began the promised repairs as soon as the count ended; what standing did that result give those repairs?

A mandate is authority that voters give to carry out a course of action. The election authorized the council to pursue the repairs it had promised.

The bridge question never received a final yes from a committee. On Saturday, residents marked ballots in a referendum, and the tally itself decided the build. No committee gave the bridge its final yes; whose ballots settled the question on Saturday?

A referendum is a vote in which the public decides a question directly. The residents themselves determined whether the bridge would be built.

By noon the governor's edict, sealed and nailed to the courthouse door, had closed the lower road. Clerks began enforcing it within the hour. The lower road closed the same hour a sealed paper went up on the courthouse door; what had the governor put on that door?

An edict is an official order issued by an authority. The governor's sealed paper ordered the lower road closed, and the clerks carried the order out.

The judge set the canal penalty by opening a statute the legislature had passed and reading the penalty from its text. The spoken ruling added nothing to that text. What written law, enacted by the legislature, supplied the canal penalty?

A statute is a written law enacted by a legislature. The judge took the canal penalty from that enacted text.

The harbor chronicle followed a lineage of boat builders from the first keel to the cousins in the yard, parent beside child the whole way. The margins kept the chain unbroken. How does the chronicle connect the first boat builder to the cousins working today?

A lineage is a line of descent from an ancestor. The chronicle followed that family line from the first builder down to the living cousins.

Several households shared one ancestor story, one winter hall, and the northern pastures, moving the flocks as a single clan. They ate together when the weather turned. Shared pastures and a winter hall gather these related households into a family network claiming what common origin?

A clan is a group of related families that claim a common ancestry and a shared identity. Those households used the pastures and the hall as one family network.

Storytellers placed every valley family inside a tribe that shared leaders, season fires, and a name older than the villages. A single household was only a portion of that people. Leaders, season fires, and an ancient name place the valley families inside a larger people bound by what?

A tribe is a people made up of families that share culture, ancestry, and leadership. The storytellers counted the valley families as members of that larger people.

Guards at the inner court read birth records and turned away visitors whose birth placed them in a restricted caste. Letters praising their skill stayed unused in their hands. Skill stayed unread in the visitors' hands; which hereditary rank, fixed at birth, decided the inner court?

A caste is a hereditary social rank that fixes a group's standing and its limits. The inner court admitted families according to the rank of their birth.

The day after the final exam, former apprentices signed the workshop book on the same line as the people who had examined them and became their peers. Errand-running stopped that hour. Signatures on one line left the former apprentices in what relation to the others who had passed?

A peer is a person of equal standing with another. After the exam, the former apprentices stood as equals with the others who had passed.

Nia and the nurse on the next round shared a ward, compared notes, and answered to one head of service. Each introduced the other as a colleague. Sharing that ward, round, and head of service makes the nurse beside Nia a fellow worker in which sense?

A colleague is a fellow member of the same workplace or profession. The two nurses shared a ward, a round, and a head of service.

In a foreign harbor, a sailor saw a passport stamp matching his own and greeted the stranger as a compatriot before asking a name. The stamp alone was enough. Why could he claim a shared country before he knew the stranger's name?

A compatriot is a person from one's own country. The matching passport stamp showed the sailor a fellow national.

The committee closed the door before the briefing and handed no papers to the person waiting in the corridor. Members treated that visitor as an outsider. Briefing and papers stayed inside the closed room; what was the person in the corridor to that committee?

An outsider is a person who stands outside a group's membership. The committee kept the visitor out of the briefing and away from the papers.

She could describe the vote before the memo left the chair's office, because she had sat through it as an insider. Everyone else waited for the paper. Knowing the result before the memo moved shows she belonged to the committee with what inner access?

An insider is a person who belongs to a group and knows its inner business. She knew the vote early because she already sat on the committee.

Ren was put on a ship with a paper that forbade return, and the homeland's gates no longer opened to that name. Life in the new city was exile. Forbidden to pass those gates again, Ren lived away from home under what forced condition?

An exile is a person forced to live away from the homeland. Ren was sent out and barred from coming back.

A refugee reached the port with a bundle and asked for protection, having left a war that made staying home impossible. Officials opened a cot that same night. Flight from war toward a port's protection describes a person seeking safety in what situation?

A refugee is a person who flees danger and seeks safety in another place. The newcomer had left the war and asked the port for protection.

Clerks at the assembly door checked the rolls and waved each citizen onto the voting floor. Names missing from the rolls waited in the corridor. Whose names on those rolls were allowed through to vote?

A citizen is a recognized member of a state, with the standing that membership gives. Only people entered as citizens could vote in the assembly.

Under the queen, each subject paid the tax and answered the summons, and none of them had a seat when the council met. The gallery was as close as they came. Tax and summons, with no seat at the council, place a person under the queen in what political position?

A subject is a person who lives under the rule of a monarch. These people paid the queen's tax, answered her summons, and did not sit on the council.

The coronation oath gathered forests, ports, and towns under one crown, and the people repeated the realm's name after the speaker. Maps on the wall used the same title. Forests, ports, and towns under one crown belong to a domain ruled as what?

A realm is a kingdom, the domain under a ruler. The oath treated the forests, ports, and towns under the crown as that domain.

The mill church kept a book of each parishioner who lived inside the district and was expected at its feasts. A worshiper from the next district was entered in another book. The mill church's book lists who lives in the district and who is expected at its feasts; what membership does an entry in that book record?

A parishioner is a member of a parish. The book listed worshipers who belonged to the mill church's local district.

Each week a congregant carried bread to the front and then sat again among the people gathered for worship. The task rotated through the membership. After the bread reaches the front, the carrier sits down again among the worshipers; which member of that assembly has just finished the task?

A congregant is a member of a congregation. Carrying the bread was a task for someone who belonged to that worshiping assembly.

Speakers from one branch booked the hall and turned away a choir from another branch of the same faith. The letters defending the closed doors were sectarian from the first paragraph. Refusing the other choir shows loyalty pointed toward what religious subgroup?

Sectarian describes loyalty to one religious subgroup and to that subgroup's separate interests. The speakers kept the service for their own branch and shut the other choir out.

Leaders from several branches shared one table, merged their hymn lists, and sent an ecumenical invitation to a service every branch could enter. No branch kept a private hour. Several branches dropped their private hours for one table and one hymn list; what are the leaders trying to make of worship?

Ecumenical describes an effort to bring branches of a faith into shared worship. The leaders planned one service that each of those branches could join.

The public school kept a secular calendar of civic holidays, and morning gatherings included no prayer from any house of worship. Families who wanted worship were directed to their own houses. Civic holidays and gatherings without prayer give this school a public character shaped by what?

Secular describes an institution kept apart from religious authority. The school's year and its gatherings followed a civic calendar.

The grove was sacred, roped off from games and markets, and opened in silence when worship began. A posted rule sent ball games back to the road. Why do ropes keep games and markets out of the grove?

Sacred describes a place set apart for religious worship. The town reserved the grove for worship and kept games and markets beyond the ropes.

On weekdays the old chapel held vegetable stalls and a board of town notices, and the sexton treated that profane use as the building's ordinary life. Nobody knelt between the cabbages. Between those weekday stalls, the chapel serves ordinary community business for what reason?

Profane describes ordinary, everyday use outside worship. During the week the chapel held markets and town notices.

At the graveside the family carried out a rite in the minister's order: a handful of earth, the name spoken once, and a cup passed from hand to hand. No step on the list was skipped. Earth, the spoken name, and the cup form a graveside ceremony prescribed as what formal act?

A rite is a formal ceremonial act. The family performed that prescribed act at the grave, in the order the minister had set.

The choir followed a printed liturgy of prayers, responses, and the cue to stand, and it did not invent the afternoon. Late singers found their place on the page. Prayers and responses on that page follow a public worship order fixed by what arrangement?

A liturgy is the set form of public worship. The choir moved through the printed prayers and responses in that fixed order.

Shops locked at noon so people could reach the observance, and the streets filled at once. The council minutes recorded the closing as part of keeping the day. Locked doors at noon let the town keep the day through devotion to what required practice?

An observance is the keeping of a required custom or holy day. The town closed its shops at noon so people could keep that day.

The museum set the masks out as heritage, beside notes on festivals the community had received from earlier generations. School groups were told the masks belonged to their past. School groups are shown masks tied to festivals from earlier generations; what has the community received from that past?

Heritage is the cultural inheritance a community receives from earlier generations. The museum presented the masks as part of what the community had been given by its past.

Every row of the orchard was a legacy from the grandparents who had planted it, and the will passed those rows to the family still living. The lawyers read that sentence twice. What had the grandparents handed the living family by leaving the planted orchard?

A legacy is something handed down by people who came before. The grandparents left the planted orchard to the living family.

On winter nights the elders told folklore of a hollow tree and a kind ferryman, and nobody could produce a book that owned the tales. Children learned them by listening. No book owns the hollow-tree tales, yet the children know them by listening; where do those stories live from one winter to the next?

Folklore is the traditional stories and beliefs a people pass along informally. The elders' tales lived in memory and in retelling.

At the water festival the town repeated its myth of a giant whose fallen staff became the river. Children were expected to know that beginning by heart. The festival account of the river's beginning works as a traditional origin story filling what communal role?

A myth is a traditional story a community uses to tell origins or sacred events. The town explained how the river began through the story of the giant's staff.

Every winter tale sent a young person away from home and brought that person back with a gift for the village. Listeners recognized the archetype before the second page. Why can listeners recognize that hero before the story is halfway told?

An archetype is a recurring model of a character or pattern in a culture's stories. The winter tales keep returning to the hero who leaves and comes back with a gift.

Marchers at the head of the parade carried one emblem, and the crowd saluted it as the symbol of the whole league. Programs set the picture above the membership roll. The crowd salutes one emblem the way it would salute the membership itself; what is that emblem doing for the league?

A symbol is an object or image that stands for a group, an idea, or a larger meaning. The emblem stood for the whole league.

A motif of a bridge at night returned in work songs and in lullabies. Musicians held the image long enough for the room to notice. The night bridge returns across those songs as a recurring element serving what function in the music?

A motif is a recurring element in a community's songs, stories, or art. The night bridge appeared again and again in the community's songs.

The fair's favorite allegory followed a fox who bargained with a mill and woke to an empty granary. Listeners took the fox for their council and the mill for their warehouse. Listeners who take the fox for their own council are hearing a larger meaning carried by what narrative method?

An allegory is a story in which characters and events stand for a larger meaning. The fox and the mill stood for the town's own bargain.

The teacher told a parable of a neighbor who searched the road for a lost coin and then asked everyone to rejoice when it turned up. The lesson was meant to go home with the listeners. The found coin is meant to teach a moral lesson by means of what brief story?

A parable is a short story told to teach a moral lesson. The search for the coin carried a lesson for the people listening.

Painters lettered a maxim over the workshop door, short enough to read with a load in both hands: measure twice for the person who pays you. Apprentices recited it on the first morning. How is that rule of conduct worded so an apprentice with a load can still take it in?

A maxim is a short statement of a rule of conduct. The workshop placed that brief rule where every member would see it and follow it.

When the rain held off, farmers repeated a proverb about late clouds and patient seed, a saying their grandparents had already used. Nobody in the field claimed to have invented it. When the rain delays, farmers fall back on a traditional saying preserved as what?

A proverb is a traditional saying that states a piece of common wisdom. The farmers used an old saying for seasons when the rain came late.

Beneath the weather notes, the captain had copied an aphorism of one sentence and underlined it. New officers read that line before their first watch. The underlined line in the log stores a general truth in what concise form?

An aphorism is a brief, memorable statement of a general truth. The captain kept that single sentence as a truth the officers should remember.

The charter opened with a principle of equal voice, and clerks sent back later articles that collided with it. Every new proposal had to fit underneath. Later articles had to yield to the opening rule because that rule occupies what guiding position?

A principle is a fundamental rule that guides the decisions around it. The charter's rule of equal voice governed how the later articles were read.

Mentors gave every new nurse the same precept: wash, speak the patient's name, then begin. They repeated the order until it was habit. The mentors' order to wash, name the patient, and begin instructs conduct through what repeated rule?

A precept is a rule of conduct given as instruction. Mentors taught each new nurse to wash, say the patient's name, and then begin.

Two committees arrived with separate statements of belief and left with a synthesis, one document that braided both. The cover carried both names. Two belief-statements braided into one document have been combined into what single view?

A synthesis is a combining of separate ideas into one coherent view. The committees merged their statements into a single outlook.

City staff returned any proposal that missed the paradigm already used for streets, water, and housing. Drafters learned that model before they learned the parcel numbers. A plan for streets, water, or housing comes back if it misses the model staff already use; what does fitting that model decide?

A paradigm is a shared model that shapes how a group understands a problem and acts on it. New proposals for the city had to follow the accepted model.

Students who stayed at the monastery came to describe work, illness, and duty inside one worldview, the broad account their teachers already lived by. The account arrived slowly and then seemed obvious. Students came to place work, illness, and duty inside what overall account of the world?

A worldview is an overall way of understanding the world. The students took on the monastery's broad account of how life and duty fit together.

Visitors met the workshop's ethos in repairs that drew no mockery and in work nobody would hurry. A neighbor's mistake was fixed, and the standard stayed. How do those unmocked repairs and that unhurried work reveal the spirit the shop treats as its own?

An ethos is the characteristic spirit and values of a group. The workshop's spirit showed in careful work and in members repairing one another's mistakes.

Public boasting at the harvest supper met silence, then a quiet request that the speaker sit down. The offense ran against the community's mores. What binding moral customs made that boasting a reason to sit down?

Mores are the moral customs a community treats as binding. At the supper, public boasting broke those customs, and the speaker was asked to sit.

On the lane, younger people greeted elders first and stepped aside. A missed greeting brought a quiet example of the folkway, and the day went on. A quiet example after a missed greeting maintains an everyday habit concerned with what social behavior?

A folkway is an everyday custom of social behavior. People on the lane greeted elders first as an ordinary habit.

After the scandal, shopkeepers still sold to the family, yet conversations paused and invitations stopped. The stigma traveled with the surname. Paused talk and missing invitations fix public disgrace on that family name as what enduring mark?

A stigma is a mark of social disgrace attached to a person or a group. After the scandal, the family name carried that disgrace through the town.

The new market stayed dark until the council's sanction was recorded, and the lamps were lit that evening. The motion itself was the permission. The vote that let the lamps be lit granted formal permission of what official sort?

A sanction is formal approval given by an authority. The council's vote authorized the new market to open.

At the close of the council, the priests read the rejected teaching aloud, pronounced an anathema, and cleared every copy from the reading desk. Worship went on without those pages. Copies left the desk after a denunciation that rejected the teaching through what solemn pronouncement?

An anathema is a solemn denunciation that casts a teaching or a person out of a religious community. The priests condemned the teaching and removed it from worship.

Excommunication withdrew the sacraments from Mara and instructed the ushers that she no longer had a place in the assembly. The ruling specified her and no one else. Mara lost both the sacraments and her place in the assembly through an expulsion carried out with what official effect?

Excommunication is official expulsion from a church's membership and rites. After the ruling, Mara could not receive the sacraments or sit with the assembly.

Jules stayed outside the society until initiation night, when questions, a shared cup, and a new seat ended with a name written in the book. Only then did the door remain open. The night of questions, a shared cup, and a new seat accomplished what for Jules?

An initiation is a ceremony that admits a person into a group. Jules became a member through that night of questions, the cup, and the new seat.

The child carried water for the adults, received a new coat, and heard adult duties listed aloud for the first time. By dawn the rite of passage was complete, and adult work was expected. What ceremony had moved the child into adult duties by dawn?

A rite of passage is a ceremony that marks a person's move from one stage of life to the next. After that day the community counted the child among the adults and expected adult work.