Week 1 of 36 · 10 words · ages 16–17

11th Grade spelling words, week 1: -ous endings

Many adjectives end in -ous, meaning full of or having. In these words the ending is always o-u-s, never -us alone, so say it slowly.
ubiquitous
Seeming to be everywhere at once.
meticulous
Extremely careful about every small detail.
nefarious
Wicked and criminal.
vicarious
Felt through imagining another person's experience.
fastidious
Very hard to please; fussy about cleanliness and detail.
tumultuous
Noisy, confused and disorderly.
precarious
Not secure; likely to fall or fail.
ludicrous
So absurd that it provokes laughter.
impetuous
Acting quickly without thinking.
iniquitous
Grossly unfair and wicked.

Ten minutes a day this week

Short and daily beats long and once. A word met on five separate days is remembered; a word met five times on Thursday night mostly is not.

  1. Monday

    Read the list together. Say each word, clap its syllables and find the pattern in it.

  2. Tuesday

    Look, say, cover, write, check — each word once from memory, then check the letters.

  3. Wednesday

    Use every word in a sentence, out loud or on paper, so each one means something.

  4. Thursday

    Practice test: a grown-up reads each word aloud. Circle the misses for tomorrow.

  5. Friday

    The test. One try per word, no letters given. The circled words go first.

Practise these 10 words, free

One tap puts this week’s list in SpellChirp. It reads each word aloud, checks the spelling, brings back the ones that went wrong, and can write them into a story your child stars in. No account needed to start, and no advertising.

Add week 1’s words