ANSWER KEY

Notes

 More practice on phrasal nouns and adjectives can be found in Cambridge

Phrasal Verbs in Use, Oxford Word Skills: Phrasal Verbs & Idioms and practically any
book that deals with or contains lessons on phrasal verbs. Phrasal compounds are
limited and easy to teach, so it’s a good idea to collect them from phrasal verbs
dictionaries and create a ‘Resource’ bank.

(A)

1. contraindications
2. unpredictable
3. self-contradictory
4. non-addictive
5. bioindicators

(B)

1. cide/cidal
2. vore/vorous
3. ship
4. hood
5. tight

(C)

1. antipathetic
2. bypaths
3. unsympathetically
4. sociopathic/idiopathic/psychopathic
5. pathfinders
6. path-breaking
7. naturopathy
8. apathetic
9. pathway
10. warpath

(D)

1. before or ahead of time

2. together
3. (a)round
4. after or later
5. throw
6. go or come
7. name
8. time
9. carry or bring
10. writing

(E)

1. A, inaudible
2. B, autoimmunity
3. A, beneficiaries
4. C, predecessors

(F)

1. A
2. F
3. C
4. G
5. B
6. H
7. E
8. D

(G)

1. uncouth
2. indelibly
3. Inept
4. inflammatory
5. incorrigible
6. incandescent
7. innocuous
8. dismay
9. insidious
10. ungainly
11. inflammables
12. unkempt

Notes on Origins & Usage

 Uncouth originally meant ‘unknown’. For much of its history, most people would
not have used or understood its opposite, couth. This originally meant ‘known’ but was
later only used in Scottish English, for ‘kind’ or ‘comfortable’. Uncouth, though,
developed a fully independent life. It came to refer to unsophisticated language or style
in the late 17th century, and then to uncultured or ill-mannered people or behaviour. In
1896 the English essayist and critic Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) was the first to
use couth as a deliberate opposite of uncouth meaning ‘cultured, well-mannered’.
 Ungainly developed in a similar way. There is a word gainly, but it has never
been common and its original meaning, ‘suitable, fitting’, now occurs only in Scottish
dialect. Gainly came from the old word gain, which was used especially in the senses
‘kindly’ and ‘convenient’, and is of Scandinavian origin.
 The words inflammable and flammable both have the same meaning, ‘easily set
on fire’. This might seem surprising, given that the prefix in- normally has a negative
meaning (as in indirect and insufficient), and so it might be expected
that inflammable would mean the opposite of flammable, i.e. ‘not easily set on fire’. In
fact, inflammable is formed using a different Latin prefix in-, which has the meaning
‘into’ and here has the effect of intensifying the meaning of the word in English (also as
in incandescent). Flammable is a far commoner word than inflammable and carries
less risk of confusion.
 People have only combed their hair since around 1400; before that they would
have kembed it and their hair would have been kempt. These are forms of the old
word kemb, which was eventually replaced by the related word comb, an Old English
word which may have the underlying sense of ‘tooth’. The term has survived, though,
sometimes in the form kempt but especially in unkempt, which has come to mean
‘untidy or dishevelled’ rather than ‘uncombed’.

(H)

1. bespectacled
2. bioprospecting
3. disrespectful
4. introspective
5. multispectral
6. perspective
7. irrespective
8. retrospect
9. self-respecting
10. unsuspectedly

Teaching Tips

 You may also want to ask your students to answer the following question:
(6+) His book is an engaging and __________ exploration of the many facets, in
Britain and abroad, of the old amateur game. (PERSPECTIVE)
 Answer: perspicacious
 In early use perspective was a name for the science of optics: it comes from
medieval Latin perspectiva (ars) ‘science of optics’, from perspicere ‘look at closely’.
The notion of perspective in drawings dates from the end of the 16th century. The same
verb lies behind perspicacious (early 17th century) which comes from the Latin for
‘seeing clearly’.

(I)

1. unpasteurised
2. panic-mongering
3. Panic-stricken
4. supervolcano
5. biodiesel
6. photovoltaic

(J)

1. non-avian, aves
2. inauspiciously
3. disgruntlement
4. peroration
5. oracle
6. sightseers
7. antivivisection
8. viperous
9. televisually
10. televisable
11. televisionary
12. indestructibly
13. non-destructive
14. self-destructive/auto-destructive
15. pan-destruction
16. non-proliferation
17. counterproliferation/anti-proliferation

Notes on Origins

 The Latin word for ‘bird’, avis, is the root of a number of English words that
relate to birds such as aviary, aviation, etc. and their derivatives.
 An auspex was a person who observed the flight of birds for omens about what to
do in important matters. A related word, auspicium, meant ‘taking omens from birds’.
Like auspex, it came from avis ‘bird’ and specere ‘to look’, and is the source of auspice,
(in)auspicious, etc. and their derivatives.
 An auspex was also known as an augur (again, avis ‘bird’ is the root of this word,
together with garrire ‘to talk’), hence inaugural, inaugurate, etc.
 Teaching Tips

 Extension: words with vis, vid, view; words with see, sight

(K)

1. semi-darkness
2. micro-environments
3. umbriferous
4. innermost
5. even-handed
6. long-awaited
7. scot-free
8. far-fetched
9. autopilot
10. white-knuckled
11. far-flung
12. tank-farming
13. molten
14. matriarchal
15. spring-cleaning
16. hard-earned
17. half-truths/untruths/part-truths
18. fast-tracked
19. full-fledged
20. outstripping
21. biofeedback
22. watered-down
23. uprisings
24. walk-through
25. cooling-off
26. longed-for
27. long-drawn-out
28. unputdownable
29. bygone
30. throughput
31. clampdown
32. downtrodden
33. backtrack
34. downplaying
35. meltdown
36. bypassing
37. sell-by
38. offshoring
39. outsource
40. dressing-downs
 Teaching Tips

 Extension: compounds with far, long, most, by; compounds ending with

prepositions (e.g. unlooked-for, uncalled-for, unheard-of); derivatives and compounds
with awareness of fixed phrases and collocations